Tree of life

This little nine ball tree was the very first start of my
collaboration with Mieke and Veronik.
Lets say, this is the primal tree :-), it dates from
before the shop.
I remember M & V were always making plans for
their would-be shop; of course nobody was taken
them seriously, even for me, it was hard sometimes
to believe in their project.
But one day, the shop was a fact, at least ,
they got a loan.
So....


they went to see my work.
I have this sampler embroidery hanging on the wall.
It is a big cloth of joined together smal pieces of canvas.
Large parts of the sampler are needle lace tryouts
(i will show in another post), but i got bored
after a time and the lacing was not making progress
quickly enough; i just wanted to have that work
finished so i could hang it on the wall.
So...

... I filled up the empty parts with trees, most of

them were taken over from designs i had seen on

old samplers, sometimes i was adding some

corrections or fantasies.

Anyway, it was fun to do :-)

Ok, to cut a long story short, they both choose

for the nine ball tree; we decided to make a series

of pincushions for the shop.

That's that.

I went to see the chopped tree in the garden

this morning...

... isn't that a stunning colour match!

i mean, with the flaked off shed :-)

Lazy Sunday

Hi V, i just wanted to say that everything is ok
here. The plants are doing well and everything's
still looking fresh. K's peppers look exacly the same
as the day you've left. We've had two gigantic
downpours, so there was no need to water the
plants outside. Hope you feel reassured by seeing
these pics.





I was making some photos of the neighbours'
courtyard while Mieke had photoshoot with
your egg-cups for the 'Things we both
have' session. We feld a bit like trespassing your
property.:) I had a look in some art books , want
to have this one!!!!!!!!!
I took one Côte d'Or chocolate.

Mieke under the fig. She said: 'figs are the most

beautiful trees there are!', and i agreed.

But now that i'm writing this, i have to reconsider

this point of view, but figs are definitely in my top 10

i have to say hello to you from the bird, he's

missing you.:-) XXX

New projects.

I'm behind in my work, finished the winter-

house cushion this week :-) , still have a lot of

stuff to complete that a started last winter, but

I already focused my mind on another project ;

it will be about the great discoveries, mysterious

places and not yet discovered weird animals.

This three-master is taken over by some Aliens

and Hybrids, i copied this boat from an old drawing.

There will be a lot of vessels to see the next few weeks.

The new pin-cushion series will be the same theme.

I hope you will like naval scenery and sea battles

(in this case with Aliens from outer space)

i love it anyway:-)

The End

Night, day and night again.

Night.


Day.
This is my kitchen table, i often sit here to do
some sewing or needlework. I'm living on the
second floor but I have a nice outlook over the
neightbour's garden ; my window takes
up almost the entire wall. I better say 'i had', because
yesterday some people were trimming the garden.
They removed the only tree and many bushes.
Almost nothing's left.
I think i was a bit in a shock yesterday, couln't con-
centrate on my work anymore.
I bought this bunch of flowers for cheering me up.
Life goes on.
I think i'll sew me a nice curtain next week
and hope the birds keep coming.:)


And night again.:-)

Summerhouse, dreamhouse...

I'm still finishing off some cushions from the
wintercollection.:) They all need a thick lining,
otherwise they change into a sausage under
your bottom. It's a dull and messy job, and my
place is becoming far to smal to contain all my stuff.
I'm cramped for space and I feel like drowning
in my own mess sometimes. It's another world
than the one i'm showing on the blog!



Dreaming about my perfect and spacious
atelier when seeing all those frightening increasing
materials is the only way to calm down.
This is my fool's paradise:


There will be Six Huge Tables in my atelier.
One for every hobby :)


I can watch the birds singing in the crowns becau-
se my workplace will be on the first floor.


I also need some huge, Japanese style sliding
doors etc... etc... :)

The good old days, some very old summerpics.

Summer 1950.
I saw this photo in the newspaper the other day, and
i liked it so much that i could't throw it away just like that.
This image reminds me on the beautiful Tati movie 'Les vacances de
Mr. Hulot' and it also gives me the opportunity to reminisce
about the good old days.:)
I used to watch the Tour in the early and mid seventies, not
that a was that interested, but my dad and grandma were pretty
fanatic tour lovers. My grandma even darkened the room
to create a sort of home cinema, and we liked to hear her flood of
observations and curses.
My grandma was wild and we enjoyed her performance.
It was the time of Eddy Merckx.
But this snapshot is taken 20 years earlier. The pack is having a
refreching jump in the Gulf of Saint-Tropez,
very agaist the will of the tour-organizer. He was furious
and called it 'a carnivalesque activity' :)
My grandmother's younger brother, Jos Verhaert,
participated the Tour in 1950, and i have this
little fantasy that he's on this pic and have a plunge
with his teammates. But as i said, it's only a fantasy.






Summer 1964.
Waterplay in sink bathtub, this wasn't Saint-Tropez
but we loved it. We had also a sandbox and a
huge garden .
There was a stretch of woodland in front of the
house and behind our backyard.
From left to right: my sister, Maria-Christina, Angelina, Florentina.
Me, Renilde Emilia Clementina.
My brother, Johan, Martin, Rene.




My dad and my grandma.
I like the crocheted ensemble.


And what about my grand uncle,
he went head over heals back home, because
his wife was giving birth to a son.
Exit Tour
I was hiding two mice in this post.

About silkpainting.

Sorry for the delay, but i suddenly felt so sleepy
the other night that i had to quit abruptly.
O.k. here we go.



This is an example of a 'normal' silkpainting.
That means, after the silk was stretched on a
frame, i made the outlining with hot wax and
coloured it in with silkpaint.
That's the procedure.
But....


As soon as i had mastered the technique a bit,
the main priority for me was to find a way of
avoiding the white outlining because of the wax.
If you don't make this wax-contour, the paint
will keep flowing out till it's dry.
Of course there's a way of preparing the silk
and paint on it as you do on paper, but for
this design i wanted large fields of solid colour;
you never get that effect on prepared silk.
The described method here is not 'secret' or
'sophisticated' but a laborious way of silkpainting
invented by a maniac (me), who doesn't like white
outlining.


I'm taking this target to illustrate 'My Way' :)


first i marked out the white with two wax circles
and painted the brown centre and the background.
After the paint was dry i waxed the outside circle...


and i washed out the background colour.

Here you can see how i draw with the wax, because

it keeps flowing you may never stop, so i 'm making

little loops when following the contour of the circle,

it was not my intention to colour the background.

After i washed it out, i applied the red, waited again

till it got dry, than made another wax circle. If you

look closer, you can see that i made the loops in the

red area.

I applied the black over the red without washing

it out, but very economical ...

This is the effect after steaming when there's

too much paint on the fabric.

So that was it, if i was not clear enough, you

can always ask for more details.

These are my gadget for the wax contours.

i have also a mini deep fryer, somewhere ...

couldn't find it.

Have a closer look at my tjanting.

END

Sweet yellow and red story

My ultimate summer vacation feeling is
basically formed in my early childhood.



It depends on the quantity of cherries...



and sunshine. If possible Eternal Sunshine
Summer is also connected with my favourite
noises and sounds from my youth,
such as...



the sound of the very first fly, coming into the
kitchen, the quarreling sparrows all over the
place, the Tour de France on tv, the sawmill
nearby my grandparents place, the screaming
swallows in the sky, all these noises are recorded
in my brain forever.



But i'm telling this story in red and yellow, because
when i was a kid, i had some very rigid and
dogmatic ideas about colour. Such as: yellow
added with bleu turns into green, and if you
want again the bleu you have to add some
more yellow:). And also: red and yellow clash with
each other. Never!!!!!!!!!! use them together!



I remember one day there was 'klein ,klein,
kleuterke' on tele, a children's programme
hosted by Tante Terry and her squirrel 'Kraakje'
She managed to encourage the children
in the studio to combine vivid colours in their
drawings, such as r&y because they match so
perfectly together... Why grow to maturity if
an adult person could tell such nonsens in front
of the whole of Flanders!!!!!!!



Anyway, i'm less fundamental concerning
this matter nowadays, as you can see, i even have put
my cherries into a yellow dish:)
And the yellow and red are dangerously close
together on the pillow i'm working on.

And...



i feel sorry for all the other flies and
mosquitos that have come after the
very first one of depriving them from
there tiny places under the sun :( FIN.