phantasmagorical

it's getting colder and still the dye pot has some colour to offer, I leave it outdoors as the odor, pleasing as I may find it, is mildly offensive to the other household members; on a whim I cut up several different fabrics into squares and clamped them with coins of varying size and origin, the results are not dramatic, however I hope effective once I get stitching, although some results were disappointing: too little contrast; I've thrown another batch in for an over dye hoping for more contrast! my mood quickly improved as the Gang had decided to throw a little pre-halloween party with the new spider lights I bought for them the other day in town, they let me stay and watch: some enjoy 'Drumsticks' gorilla's racket and stay in the living room, nipping their Brasilian cocktails served in special beakers, whilst others have fled upstairs where they have the spiders, gaiety and pleasant conversation minus the noise

add on: later dye results, much more sun/moon going on here albeit in a crepuscular manner, the brightly coloured backgrounds are particularly uplifting, I'm going to experiment a bit with these new colour schemes; image is poor quality due to artificial lighting:

 I don't know if you noticed but in the images above there are two cut-outs from early paintings of lonely folks in rowboats, for the life of me I can't remember where this image originated, maybe the song 'row, row, row your boat gently down the stream,.....' a song my mum used to sing, teasing us ever so slightly 'cos we thought it was a sad song, despite the word 'merrily' it didn't feel right if life was 'but a dream.....'and in one of the latest pieces I've been working on a small sailing boat has materialized; as I am very much a land kind of person and hardly do any sailing or rowing it puzzles me why I feel the urge to include it in the imagery; as a nation we are surrounded by lots of water and I feel intense pleasure at the relative proximity of the sea and the rivers indeed very close by, but still I am intrigued, probably best not to have an answer 

 very latest project: combining two strips of dyed cloth, evoking planetary movements or x-rays, have started sewing them together with very small stitches, love doing that

bought 3 square glass/metal frames and 1 oblong one (was all they had left), they can open on top, perfect for small two-sided pieces; sometimes I stumble upon something like this and have to buy it, you know next time you go to the store it'll be out of stock