Sacrifices have to be made...

...when the Patchwork Goddess demands turquoise;

And from the back of the same wardrobe came a soft green cotton wrap around skirt that will do nicely for the backing.

The result of my excavations...

...in the turquoise mine was a very large zilch. No turquoise sleeping bag liner, no turquoise of any description large enough to go around the modest circumference of my Broken 9's, but poking out of the box below was a largish piece of tan cotton sheeting that might just fit the bill. I have pinned it up to consider the effect. Bossman's comment when asked for his opinion was that he felt that there was a war on. When asked to elucidate, he said that it was like sleeping in a bedroom with blackout curtains, and when was I going to finish it? I gave him the usual answer that a true artist couldn't be rushed, and that anyway my sewing machines have decided that they will only work in the mornings now that it is practically June...

A Fruit Crate of Bus Monkeys...

Paula asked what a fruit crate of bus monkeys looked like, and being in an obliging mood today, I took this photograph as I excavated my way to the box marked Green and Turquoise.

You can tell by their expressions that they were very glad to see the full light of day after being at the bottom of the pile for so long. Paula's second question asked what a Bus Monkey was, and that requires a little longer than the time taken to press a shutter, but I did say I was in an obliging mood....

Once upon a time, long, long ago back in the early days of Blogging, before pictures were allowed, I kept a private online journal as a mental exercise and to improve my computing skills. It was mainly a record of how we spent our days, and reading it inspired the sub-title that the Other Blog still has; the boring life of two wrinklies. When Blogger announced that we could add pictures to our posts, it just so happened that I had bought a very cheap digi camera from Lidl, and I indulged in the rather old-fashioned concept of "table top photography". Some of my family are very camera shy, and so the monkeys became stand ins and stuntmonkeys, and I had fun playing around in PS. In 2007, I deleted most of the old posts, but left a couple, including this one, as that conversation just about summed up my life at the time. The little brown Mon Chi Chi monkey had belonged to my elder daughter; I don't know where it came from, but I remember her having it in 1990 when she was in hospital, so it was probably a get well present from a friend. Whenever I saw another vinyl faced monkey languishing in a 50¢ box at a flea market or charity shop I would rescue it. So why Bus Monkeys? Bossman, (a pseudonym of course) is not a native English speaker, and some of his sayings come out slightly wonky. "You're as much fun as a barrel full of monkeys" became "as much fun as a busload of monkeys", and as I was 59 at the time, there was also a comment about my soon qualifying for a bus pass, and my reposte was that I hoped the bus would be full of monkeys so I got a bit of fun...and with the arrival of Broadband, the Blog went public with a new name; The Monkey Bus Pass, and I introduced Monkima and Bossman to the world. Not to mention Bracket, Clooney, Pointy Kitty, Ninfant Griller et al....

Broken 9 patch

If you have been visiting for a while, you might remember this post and the disappearing 9 patch blocks I had made with some scraps sent by Kate. I never did get as far as stitching them together. Since then, December 2007 would you believe, they have been sitting on my sewing table in a zip-lock bag, being pushed from one spot to another and back again. This morning the spirit moved me to make a wall hanging to fill the blank wall in the new lobby, and those 9 patch blocks seemed a good place to start, but they looked rather dull for the north facing space, so I decided to make a couple more blocks with some brighter colours. I could see some of the turquoise cotton I used to make Pointy Kitty in a scrap box under the table, along with the green and turquoise I used for Paula's Spudgies, and decided to use those to liven things up a bit. I added some charm squares sent by Pam and some bits sent by Paula, and here you can see the result, pinned up on my bedroom curtains. I am very lucky to have such kind cyber friends who send me goodies! I will have a rummage tomorrow for something to frame the outside. Somewhere there is a turquoise cotton sleeping bag liner left over from our boating days. I know I used some of it in a quilt, but I think there might be enough left for what I want. It will be in the cardboard box marked green and turquoise that I can see in the wardrobe from where I am sitting, but getting to the box involves moving more boxes, a fruit crate full of Bus Monkeys, a laundry basket full of assorted tat waiting to be sorted, not to mention....well we won't go into that...


I'm not going to show you any close-ups, either, because there is a very good reason I have called it a Broken 9 patch; The first set of squares were stitched on the Elna and today's were stitched on the Lervia. This noodle didn't take into account the fact that the foot on the Lervia is fractionally wider than the foot on the Elna, and as that is the way I measure my seams, there was a slight discrepancy where some of the corners met. Not enough to bother a Blind Man on a Flying Horse of course, but enough to make me hang my head.

Long time no post...

...can't settle to anything at the moment, but I played about with some watercolour backgrounds last night, and this afternoon stamped up a couple of cards.

I made a mess of the third one, so I cut around the leaf and slipped in a little piece of lilac card to cover up my messy bit, then stamped some more over the top. My scanner has chopped a slice off the edge of the cards; they are centred on their backgrounds in real life.

ATC Challenge

The subject on Art Pieces is Retro. This is a completely digital ATC and will be printed on photographic paper and mounted onto black card. All the images used are courtesy of Dover.