Softies.

This cute fly was keeping me company while making
another smyrna cushion; she was very relaxed and
not at all pushy, actually I liked her.
When I was a kid, I had a similar fly in my collection,
although I remember her with a fully translucent abdomen;
could be my childlike imagination :-)
Anyway, I got help from an expert who suggested this fly was
likely the volucella pellucens, and yes, it was her!

By the way, I collected insects when I was a young girl
and I have to admit, the urge is still there to go and find
me an empty jar when I see a beauty like this,
lucky for her I was to busy with the cushion :-)

Happy weekend everybody!

Hexagons the Japanese way.

My mom once taught me how to make a hexagon
patchwork with those little cardboards inside;
but now I tried it the Japanese way, it is so much easier!

The instructions come from this book.

Good luck :-)

About the Essex.

I was looking for some information about the Essex,

the whaleship who was attacked and sunk by a

sperm whale in the Pacific Ocean in 1820.

Herman Melville based his novel 'Moby-Dick'

on this incident but the real story is even more

horrible, look here too.

The Essex was a normal whaling ship of the early

1800s; it was 26m long and had 3masts; it also

carried five smaller whaling boats.

The drawing on the top comes from the notebook

of Thomas Nickerson, the cabin boy of the Essex;

his account was found in the 1960s and is called:

The Loss of the Ship Essex Sunk by a Whale and

the Ordeal of the Crew in Open Boats.

The writing below the drawing says:

"Here lay our beautiful ship, a floating and dismal

wreck"

It's gonna be difficult for me to offer a nice story for

the Age of Discovery project; could be I'll make one

with an happy ending for both the whale and the ship :-)

The second photo is me on my 'deck'.

I could have said something like "There might be

a sea over there, behind those buildings" but I

didn't, it was my sister who came up with that idea.

I aged the photo here, found via Fine Little Day.

The beautiful Japanese watercolor of a whaler comes from here.

The press cutting is the Far West, that's not a whaler,

but I liked the photo.

Good Night and Sweet Dreams!

Henryk Stazewski.

Henryk Stazewski

Europalia 2001

Thank you!!!

I'm so glad for the many responses on my
Metropolis project, thanks a lot everybody!
I was making this series for a project I'm participating
in September; I will tell you more about it later.
My webshop is somewhat delayed now, I'm sorry for that.
Too much work with the project.

Giant mushroom in my backyard :-)

Metropolis, 3

Have a nice weekend everybody :-)

blue moon.

Fly spots turn brown on white and...




white on black.

That's an empirical conclusion :-)





I also made a Blue Moon mobile shooting last summer.

Sleep well.

Daan.

Visit from Daan&Nathaly last week; he was wearing

my winterboots although the temperature was

near 30°C :-)

I think my solar cushion needs some extra rows.

Have a nice weekend!

Metropolis, 2

Again a few years later :-)

People sometimes ask me if I could give them any

advice about the materials I use, well, I buy everything

what I can find for a giveaway price in thrift stores

and flea markets, and friends often give me their remnants;

this series is embroidered with DMC, that is pretty

expensive, but I also used ordinary knitting cotton,

the threads are composed off 12 fine fibres and

you can pull them off the same way as you do with DMC,

and that makes it much cheaper!

The painting is Brueghel's Tower of Babel.

next: more people coming.

sorry again for that moiré effect; please double click.

Metropolis.

I'm working on a new pincushion series:
'Metropolis, a growing city'

you can see the first pioneers in photo 1&2




and...




... 3&4 date from a few years later...





More people coming!
Goodnight :-)



ps.that moiré effect disappears when you enlarge the
photo after opening.