Holding Fast.

I'm afraid I'd have nothing more to show you here but more beaches, for there have been many more since last I wrote.
There has also been occasional rainy days, though there is a faint whisper of autumn in the morning now, and the apple tree in the garden is laden with red, ripening fruit, and we are beginning to tingle with that sense of urgency now, to cram in as much Summer as we can before the leaves begin to turn.
Yet again, Jay has been away for six weeks now, has missed this marvelous summer we have had, all the way across the other side of the world, in Australia. We have kept ourselves busy, true, but it's not the same without him.

Portrait Of My Sleeping Husband.
(I did this of Jay just before he left)

We are counting the days until we see him, and then there will be yet more cramming while we ignore the calendar that goes on counting down without us, to the return of School. That we will ignore, yes, until the last possible day, and take ourselves off again, over the mountains to visit some dear friends, and then on until we reach the other side of this island.

We will not think of that other S word until the bell rings and we really have to.

In the next day or so, I will have something new to share. And maybe some of those beaches.

The Wildness of Things.

I began this post a week or so back, a post about the arrival of autumn, of the sudden profusion of posts online about leaves and rain and weather of all sorts, of lighting fires and digging out ones winter woolies, and the pleasure of it all. But now, in the midst of Sandy, that part of what I wanted to say all seems so irrelevant. Of course we have not been affected by it here, but I am put in mind of the times we do experience the Wildness of Things, and how it shakes us to our bones, reduces us to the tiny things we are in the grander scale of bigger things, and just how vulnerable we truly are when nature rages and heaves itself up out of its bed, and towers over us so terrifyingly.
Here in this little temperate island of ours, storms on the scale of what the US is experiencing right now are extremely rare, but living practically on the beach, and with our house at sea level, it is something I think about on a regular basis during winter months, when we lie awake in bed, our little house rocked by howling winds as the sea booms and thunders outside the windows.

As I sat up stitching, into the small hours last night, I was thinking about my sister in Virginia, and all those people out there who are being affected by the storm.
Times like this, things have a way of slipping neatly into perspective, don't they?
At the moment Jay is away again, this time he is down under in Sydney, and as per usual there has been the usual litany of minor 'disasters'.
Car trouble, check, internet gone, check, people sick, check, cold snap and no fuel brought in, check.
But as I said, everything is in perspective, and my inner Pollyanna is well and healthy.
And so, in the midst of all this stress and mayhem I sit and stitch, and count my blessings as I do, forever grateful for this moderate, nonextreme country I have found myself in.

And here is what I have been working on while Holding The Fort (I do like that expression!)
Inspired by the looming winter months filled with nights I have just described, this little piece has, as usual, taken forever to finish.
I have this notion that if I ever actually take to making things on my machine then I'll get loads done, but that is not likely to happen any time soon, and anyway, is likely to be a complete fallacy. I hand make my small things because usually, my studio is my car, or my kitchen table, in between a myriad of other appointments and tasks throughout my day. They are made, literally a stitch at a time, and at times it feels like a meditation, at others like a muse, with ideas flowing through my head as I work, stories unfolding in a dreamlike manner, hints and voices and realisations, all tumble together into a tangled weave of something with potential.

So I stitch and sew in the dark hours, and I send heartfelt thoughts and wishes to all and any of you who have been affected by the weather these last few days.
May whatever help you need come your way on swiftly wings, and with it the return of things to As They Should Be.

Where I Think You Are When You Are Not Here.

This last week, I spent mostly in my car, zooming around the greening land, like a busy spider weaving a web in haste and without time.
Jay has flown again, to the Land of the Rising Sun, and as I have never been there, I cannot image him anywhere solid, but instead he floats, Somewhere Out There, like a sleeping balloon man whose ribbon I hold in my hand without thinking. You know when you are holding something you never want to put down, but you carry on with your day, and forget it is there, except for a vague awareness of how hot and clammy your hand has become, or how awkward or difficult things are with only one hand.
And so above me he follows me, floats, sleeping, throughout my day, and Up There, where I cannot see, he drifts through beautiful moss gardens that drip with water, where the breeze rustles the leaves over his head, tickles his sleeping beard, and stirs the bamboo, making them clack together, through bright lights of city nights, between gleaming glass towers that shower him in little bokeh balls of sunlight.

Though I know in reality he is not at all sleeping and dreaming, that in fact he is actually more likely running, just running, flat out through the night, leaping over obstacles, throwing aside impediments, barely pausing to rest, running to get home to us. And I like to think he too holds my ribbon, and somewhere above him, I am streaming out behind him, floating in a sunlit garden where children play and laugh, and we bake cakes and read to one another, pausing to tickle the cats, lie in the grass and watch the clouds roll around the sky, and thinking about what to make for dinner.

Safely Found And Homeward Bound, At Last.

And so, the latest episode in this little Redwork story is finally finished. Nothing like a looming deadline such as Christmas to give you a little push, is there? This was very slow in the making due to my limited free time to stitch, (with even reading still on the long finger). But it has been finished, at last.

My very patient Mum finally gets a piece! And now that Christmas Day is past I can share it with you.

And as always, the minute I finish one I am keen to start the next. Hopefully it will be slightly quicker in the making than this one was. But I do believe I say that every time...

I still have no real idea where this little story is going or how I will present it in the end, especially as I keep giving away these little stitcheries. But there is something here, I believe. And I have no doubt I will know what it is when I am finished.

Scenes From The Moth House.

We are away in the north-west again, so this is a short post to let you see something I've been up to over the last little while.

It's a little place of photos and words. Of little vignettes and quiet corners from a place in my head, a place I call The Moth House. Of significant, and also small, happenings there, the wanderings and musings and sad reveries of its occupants, The Lovers.

You can visit it here: The Moth House.

I hope you like it!

Some Small Quiet Things.

So, the last few days have been quiet, and this has allowed us to find a bit more time to sit around and occupy our hands with small things.

For me this has been an opportunity to catch up on some needlework which was abandoned back at the beginning of the summer! And although I tend to get these made in my car while waiting for the school bell to ring, a stitch here, a stitch there, I hadn't really got back into it yet so this was exactly what I needed.

It's a work in progress as you can see, and for those of you who are new here you can have a look here to see previous ones I've made. Not nearly as many as I'd like to of course, but it's slowly adding up.

There's something about lighting the fire that inspires me to just fall back into the couch and not budge for the evening, my thought's wandering as these miniature spectacles are conjured beneath my fingers, almost with a life of their own, and I merely their medium.

And each time I start a new one I wonder to what little world I shall be taken?

And as the little voices whisper, guiding my stitches in tiny increments, like footprints in my hazy childhood memory, as they tell their story, I wonder and marvel at the muse that is my children.

And I feel blessed.

For when I have an Alice moment, and I pause in my busy day, and I creep down onto bended knee to peer and listen at the tiny doors my children hold, I remember I am blessed. To have these little keyholes to a world that I can no longer truly live in, a means to steal a secret peep, to breathe it in and for the briefest moment really feel it again.

Where The North Wind Did Blow Me.

I spent this morning on the couch with a poorly babe watching Thomas the Tank Engine on loop, and finishing this little piece.

I'm still enchanted with a craft so small and tidy and portable that it gets made in my car and whilst snuggled up with my babies on the couch.

I will soon have to tell you the little story that is growing with these small pieces.

But for now I hope you like the latest installment.

Dancing Tonight

Here is something I was working on over Christmas and didn't want to post a picture of until I had actually given to the little man it was made for.
It's called Dancing Tonight, and it's for my little nephew Thomas, for his first Christmas. You can still see the Moomin influence like in the last piece I made.







I am deeply enjoying the process of working like this. I have a little tin I carry around with me that contains all I need. Scissors, thread and needle. And whatever little piece of blanket I am working on. I do a few stitches here and few stitches there. Sitting in my car waiting for the school bell to ring, or on the couch at the end of the day. Little by little they add up, to this. Eventually.

And my notebook is bursting with ideas for more...

Moomin-Stitches.

Well, I received a lovely email from Rima, so it arrived safe and sound before they took to the road.
So, here it is. My first attempt at Redwork. Not traditional I know. Red thread on a piece of softest wool blanket. I took my inspiration from Tove Jansson's Moomintroll. Somehow these little creatures just scuttled into my head and would not hear of leaving. Persistent I think was the word I used.

(Apologies for the dodgey quality of the photos. Cliona? Jeannie? We need to talk!)



I can safely say, I am a convert. At any given moment of non-activity I am rummaging in my enormous and bottomless bag for my little tin and away I go, needle creeping in and out, slowly making a new little world,



Last night Jay stopped and looked at me curled up on the red couch, stitching away on the next piece under the light of the lamp, a big blanket over my legs.
He said: I love the way you are sewing what is covering you!
Yes, there, at the end of the blanket, a big gaping square has been cut out!



And then I remembered. The five of us fighting over who got to sit on the couch with Mum, snuggled under whatever quilt she was working on. And the groan's and mutterings when we had to move it as she stitched her way around it...

Happy Birthday Milkmoon!

Well, I can hardly believe Milkmoon is a year old! Is that possible? I realise now I had no idea what on earth I was doing when I started, except that it was an outlet for my creative urges at a time in my life when my time is so limited. Photography is something that fits neatly into my busy life, and has the added bonus of recording these fleeting moments that are my children growing before my eyes.

I read so many amazing blogs by people, women, mothers like me, who somehow seem to find the time to be creative and to do all the other million things mothers do every day. Admittedly, most don't have four children, but even two or three is still full on, I remember. And some days I wonder how can I simplify my life to be home more, and some days I give up and just get on with the whirlwind of life. And some days I do actually get to sit down at my sewing machine and make something. And then I realise that I can, occasionally fit it in. And you know what? Occasionally is ok. Because suddenly one of my babies is five and in 'big school', and this time next year another of my babies will be getting the train to secondary school and starting a whole new phase of his life. And this truly is in a blink and I am sometimes shocked at how those years are spinning by so fast. And at the end of it all, all those ideas of things I want to make will still be there.

So, to celebrate a year of Milkmoon-ing, and to say thank you to you all for all the encouragement and kind words over these last twelve months, I am going to give something back to one of you. Something that I did manage to sit down and make.



One of these Mood Clouds, designed by my brother Chris and made by me, is up for grabs. Aren't they cute? Turn it to the Smiley side to greet you when you get home, or turn out the Grrr side for when it's your turn to walk the dog and it's raining! All you need to do to have your name in the hat is to leave a comment just saying hi, or telling me what you do with those precious stolen hours that are yours alone. We all have a dream. What's yours?

I'm Still Here!

Gosh. That is the longest I've gone without blogging here! I suppose the reason is two-fold. First I realised that I have nothing organised for next back-to-school Monday. Really. Nothing. I'm a bit of a last minute girl generally. But there is also an element of sticking my head in the sand. I mean, the summer has been a complete wash-out, and while I am for the first time ever actually looking forward to getting the children back to school, simply to get them out of my hair, I am also kind of resenting the fact that we had such a wet summer with very few beach days or picnics.

The other reason is, as I mentioned above, I've decided I really need to get myself back on the 'making' track as I have really and truly slid off over the last few months. So tonight I am reorganising my work space, and in the next week or two I hope to finally get some proper storage in place, as everything is in bags and boxes and therefore impossible to find.

I have a few projects about to commence too. One is a monthly gathering of friends for a night of stitchery, here in my place. This should be fun, and I hope to have some pictures to share with you.

Another project is an exhibition myself and my dear friend Liz Kavanagh are organising of Mother Art. A kind of a 'Where-Have-You-Been? exhibition of artist friends who are now also Mothers and may not have been making much artwork in the last few years. I am very excited about it and will be sharing it with you as it comes to life.

In short. I will be posting less frequently, but I will be posting. And I will still be visiting your blogs. And this is a temporary situation. So do still check in, as I hope to have lots of creative wonders to share.

And All The Rest Too.

Well, lovely Cliona has taken some great (that means proper!) photos of the Animal Parts which will be up on the Big Softee website very soon.



In the meantime, here they are posing for nice little group shot.

Mood Clouds

So, I'm finally finished. I love that feeling when you are on the right side of a deadline.

I did the last bit of hand finishing this morning, bagged them and delivered them to Chris. It was only when I got home did I realise I hadn't taken any pictures! So I'll have to wait for Chris to send some to me. Some of them are the same designs as last time, with a few new ones, including these little fluffy cloud-pillows which I did take a picture of. Each one has a sad and a happy face, one on each side, depending on your mood!



And what's all this for? Well, there's a great new shop opened in Temple Bar in Dublin, called Versus? which is in Smock Alley. For more information on the whole venture have a look over here.

It's having an official opening launch tomorrow evening, so if you're in the area...

The Busy Little Bee.

I mentioned recently that my makings have been scant on the ground here amidst the madness that is life-with-four-children-in-the-summer. All that is about to change as a busy period looms at my window, tapping there with insistent fingers, waiting with increasing impatience for me to knuckle down. So for the rest of this week I'll be fairly fleeting with my posting, but hopefully by this time next week I'll have some new Big Softees to show you, as well as some other designs Chris has come up with.

In the meantime, here are a couple of paintings from a while back that I found whilst rummaging for supplies today.



As soon as the Big Sofftee deadline is met, I have an exciting project coming up which I'll tell you more about soon. And I'll hopefully have some new paintings/collages to show you.

Aaand I have a Small Family that is long overdue urgent surgery and a trip to Buenos Aires. (I PROMISE Marta!)

And finally, a rake of summer clothes for Sweet William that are cut out and ready to sew, before he grows any more.

Oh Look At Us!

Chris pointed out to me the other day that we are on the Crammed Organisms homepage! Which also includes a link to our website which will be up and running soon.



In the meantime I'm working on the last two Animal Parts so will have them to show you in the next day or two before they are shipped off to the U.S.

Carnage!

I can't believe I did it. Four of the Big Softees are finished and on their way to Crammed Organisms as I write.

I just love Chris' designs. I love his sense of humour, and if you look closely (or click on the images) you'll see that these are in fact Animal Parts. Yes. Severed limbs, decapitated heads. All made in fleece or plush as I think it's known in the States. If you have the time to check out some of the other artists involved you'll see that these little dears will be right at home with them!

Crammed Organisms.

Hmmm.

I'm not going to say a word about the fact that Jay has had to go away yet again.....

Instead I will keep my spirits up with something cool and exciting that has happened. Chris got in touch a while back and asked if I'd be interested in collaborating again on some toys, this time for a fair in the U.S. I said yeah, sure, as you do, and promptly put it out of my head.

So. I was amazed and thrilled when he rang today and said we've been accepted!



Have a look at their site here.

Also, if you want to see what we've done in the past see here and here.

Hidden In The Garden.

Aren't parents great things? For lots of reasons. Here's one.

While poking around their garden on Sunday, during the egg hunt, I spotted not one but three pieces of ceramics I made a lifetime ago. They're a little old and a lot weather-worn, but still there! I couldn't believe it. I realise I had known one of them was there but I just didn't see it anymore. You know how it is.







But they are there!

As I said, aren't parents great things? I suppose that's what we do as parents. We keep all our children's achievements and their projects and all the things that add up to who they become, and we keep them safe, hidden away sometimes, when they have become history. But kept safe. To remind us. That we all achieve things that are lovely and loved. Even the things that become old and forgotton about by those that make them.

Our history is part of our environment, the threads of our fabric, even if we don't see it anymore.

Thanks Mum and Dad!

A Very Long Project.

So this is what I'm working on at the moment. I started it ages and ages ago and at some point it was put away and forgotten about. So I've dug it out and got back to work on it. It's going to be an 'Advent' calendar. (What's with the Christmas theme in my life right now? Very weird.)



Expect a finished piece photo. Sometime. I just can't promise it will be VERY soon.

Lovebirds.

These two lovebirds I made for Jude and Steve when they got married last summer. Then I took them back to 'finish them', and then got carried away. They are a lot more elaborate then previous ones I've made, but I think they're rather sweet.