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Monday, June 21, 2010

a Very strange thing I made ages ago

... a Very odd title for a blog post too eh?

I was in the shower or somewhere, and my mind was wandering - trying to think of what I could post for V for ABC Wednesday ... when I remembered this ...

... several years ago (not sure how many - probably less than about 15, but definitely more than 10) I made this Very weird work of ?art




Yes ... it IS called "Violent Jam" ... it was some weird idea I came up with - weirdness is not just a recent thing with me - LOL

It is a jam jar, with a fabric cover and a ribbon, just like when one buys jars of jam at markets/etc ... but I figured a black cover and red ribbon suited the Variety of jam better than pretty floral or checked fabric or whatever one usually sees on jars of jam. As for the contents - .22 bullet "shells" (spent casings from .22 bullets) and broken glass (probably from some car windscreen) and ... doesn't show up very well in the photo but there is also a bit of cord tied into a hangman's noose ... I think I did that because I was going to include a bit of barbed wire but I didn't have any at the time. I do now - oddly enough I just picked up a few feet of it from a junk pile that used to be a fence where I was walking the dog last night! - maybe I should cut a couple of short bits and add them to the jar?
I guess posting a photo of a jam jar full of insane Violence is kind of apt for today ... seeing I heard on the news that we have lost another 3 Aussie soldiers in a war on the other side of the world ... why can't people all just get along with each other and leave each other be? (I guess if I knew an answer to that - I would be rich ... and/or famous ... and I would probably be too busy travelling the world to actually get around to blogging about letters of the alphabet ...

Also - while I was uploading photos (to include the one here, I first had to TAKE it ... lol) DD came in and showed me this Very interesting Video on you tube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=az1592YE8Nk
... I usually don't put links like that on my blog because they tend to Vanish and leave my blog full of dead links ... but Video does start with a V, and hardly anyone reads it anyway so why should I worry?
It is actualy Very good, and Very interesting ... a group of people performing "Flight of the Bumblebee" using only their Voices!

and while there ... I found a link to this Very good a capella Version of Bohemian Rhapsody - yes - also done with only their Voices - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-KXk-PZtV-Q&feature=related

You lot are probably glad I don't have my singing Voice on this blog ... if I ever sing within earshot of anyone else - I get told things like if I ever become a singer - make sure it is a sewing machine! (in other words - "don't give up your day job" )

anyway ... I really should be off being Very busy sewing or something ... and I probably should post this before the linky thing closes - seeing it is Very late ... Virtually almost time for the next letter (which I may or may not get time to post ... if not - feel free to count the several random W's in this post as my W one too - I know there are quite a few W words in here ... Which is probably not that Weird When one thinks about it ...)

btw ... I bet you are glad I didn't decide to post about Vermiculture or Veins (somewhere I have some nice gooey photos of things being disected in science classes - lots of Veins in those ... also some Viscera (guts and stuff), no doubt ... that is if I actually took photos of the fish when the did those ... )

V is also for Vegetables ... wonder what ones of those I can find in the fridge ... I have not had tea yet and I am getting Very hungry ;-)

Monday, June 14, 2010

Under construction ... or just Unfinished ... ?

Uh oh! ... my half written Q post, for ABC Wednesday, is still a draft (yes - it is Under construction but still Unfinished a few weeks later! LOL) I might have to change the title and post it as another letter (at the rate I am going lately, I might just get organised in time to post it for A when we get Up to there Again). Any ideas I had for R and S and T will just have to wait for next time ... except there was one idea that could have been an R or an S post that I Really Should post about a bit sooner ... seeing I was going to post about it for C but kind of didn't get there ... I will see (C?) if I can get organised for that when we get Up to there again ;-)

in fact my old website even Used to have a sign in it saying it was permanently Under construction (not that anything that was on Geocities was permanently anything - lol  ... although mine is archived on that wayback machine webite. (not that it is worth looking at or anything ;-)

U is also for Up too late and for Usual ... considering what the title of this blog is, I just had to mention that ... lol
(not that it is so Usual for me to be Up late these days ... I seem to need sleep ... sigh ... )

U is also for Unusual ... which a lot of my blog posts are ...

and ... U is also for UFO  ... and yes I am interested in flying saucers and the like, but - oddly enough - that is Usually NOT what I am talking about when I talk about UFOs  - U see, I am also into quilting (and crocheting and a few other textile art related things ;-) and quilters often talk about how many UFOs they have ... and they are not talking about collecting flying saucers - UFOs are Un Finished Objects - and I have been known to sign my e-mails (on the quilt related yahoogroups I am on) with my signature and this line under it: "... who has more UFOs than all the episodes of The X Files"  ... because I think I probably DO!

... which is why, back in November, I joined in the "UFO pledge" thingy they have for Canberra Quilters ... and I nominated FOUR UFOs that I would finish by November this year ... nothing has been done on them since! LOL  ... I also nominated THREE UFOs for a similar thing a group of us from one of the yahoogroups I am on ... at least one of them was the same quilt as one of the other 4 ... and at least one wasn't ... can't remember offhand exactly what 4 I nominated for the CQ one (I think I do have it written down, but I can't be bothered getting up and looking right this minute) ...  wich means I either have 5 or 6 quilts I promised to finish this year!!!  ... I WAS going to finish one or 2 of them for the Canberra Quilters exhibition (coming up at the start of August) ... but a couple have way too much stuff to do in the time I have to do it, and with the others I wasn't sure how long they would take to finish, or what I wanted to do to finish them ... so - me being me - I STARTED some more!!!  so now I have a quilted bag (half made) and 2 small art quilts (one partly done and one barely started - I should be out doing that now!) ... and a miniature quilt (partly done, but lots of fiddly hand work) ... all needing to be finished by the end of July - LOL

Yes I should get them done - provided I actually get out to my sewing room and DO the machine sewing that needs to be done on the 2 art quilts ... then most of the rest of what has to be done on them all is a pile of hand sewing, which I will be able to do in the evenings in front of the TV

Then ... once those more urgent quilts are done (have to do those - the entry forms are in - lol  ... the UFO pledge ones are ok if I don't do them all - I can "carry over" any I don't finish to the next year ... I just don't get my name put in the draw for the prize unless I finish a quilt) I still won't get to work on those other 5 or 6 UFOs ... because I will be busy trying to make/finish at least some of the dozens of ideas I have for stuff for the exhibition for the textile art group I am also in! (and I have some very Unusual ideas for that ... fabric and yarn plants, stuffed people, mushrooms, vines ... all sorts of weird stuff - LOL ... mine you I don't think I am the only person making some Unconventional things ... the theme is "Garden Tea Party" and I have a sneaking suspicion that at least some of it is going to look like things might look if we had been actually smoking that caterpillar's pipe!)

I really should be out sewing the quilt that I was going to do when I got home this afternoon ... Unfortunately I didn't get around to it - I went visiting last night (stayed the night at a friend's place) and ended up coming home with a plastic bag of strawberry plants, and a couple other odd things like agapanthus and stuff ... so this afternoon the dog and I spent an enjoyable few hours outside in the front yard weeding and tidying up ... and planting strawberry/etc plants ... and then he still wanted to go for a nice LONG walk at Sunset ...

but ... this post looks a bit bare without photos, and because I had to send in photos of most of the stuff I entered in the quilt show (yes I did have 3 other things finished, that are also going into the quilt show) I can put photos of a couple of those UFOs in here:

This is the one I WAS going to do this afternoon (and hopefully will be able to go and do at least some of in about 10 minutes time ;-)



yes ... I "drew" on the photo - lol  ... at the time (and also now ;-) this quilt was just a bit of fabric (sitting on top of some batting and backing fabric I will use for it) and my idea ... what I am meant to be out doing now is quilting those lines I have drawn an idea of in green ... then I will cut some holes in it ... then I can hand sew around the edges of the holes and add some more stitching and beads/etc by hand while watching a TV show or 5 ...

This is another one I started ... the idea came to me about 2 days before I handed in the entry forms!



None of it is sewn together ... I just cut out all the bits and laid them out on the table ... the photo is sideways - those are the toes of my fluffy slippers on the chair that I had to stand on to get high enough above the quilt to get it all in the photo - lol (and again - I drew in a few bits to make it look more like it is going to look ... hopefully it won't take to long to do all the machine sewing bits ... then joining it all together shouldn't be too hard ... famous last words? lol)

And ... also at the last minute - I remembered that there was a creative clothing challenge (could be clothing or an accessory - like a bag or hat or whatever) ... so I started this bag - the theme is "Go Green" ... so this is a green (and black) bag with little bags/purses/phone pouch/etc to GO with it)



I actually did some of the hand stitching on this one this morning at my friend's place ... it is looking good - if everything goes as quick and easy as that bit did, I might have some spare time between finishing this stuff and the quilt show delivery date, to make a start of more of the stuff for the textile art exhibition ... (yeah - like THAT will happen - the Usual thing with my quilt show entries is that I am still stitching at least one of them the day, or even hour, before I have to deliver the stuff!)

I don't have a photo of the miniature quilt I entered - that catagory didn't need me to submit a photo ... I might have to take photos of all this stuff once it is finished, and add it to that half done Q post that I didn't post (seeing the title of it at the moment is "Quilts" - LOL) and then post it ... maybe even not as an ABC Wednesday one - lol

eek ... my evening is running out and I still have that quilting to do ... I had better post this and go do at least some of it ... or things could get Ugly - lol