Weekend & Mossycoat

Hello everyone. It's been an eventful few days for me...here are a couple of highlights!

Saturday - a day at Seaford beach. Here are my lovely boys braving the icy sea...

Followed by a family bbq...

...relaxing in what I laughingly call my garden. (No pics of me I'm afraid. I don't want to scare people).

Sunday was spent gardening, and today was just pretty stressful. Not much work got done, except I finally mounted a doll I have been working on...

The doll is all fabric; the face needlesculpted. It's a character from the story "Mossycoat", an English Folktale. The girl's mother makes her a coat from moss and gold thread, which lets her move around and to change to other forms by wishing. I used the idea of the mother making the coat as a theme for the mounting, and collaged some treasures from women's sewing boxes I have into an old drawer. I love sewing boxes and button boxes, and I've been lucky enough to have some of these passed on to me by friends recently. The next theme for our touring Inky Crows exhibition is "English Heroes and Villains" and I think I would like to develop the women's work box idea further for this - I think they have a quiet power and are quite magical. I love the way they are passed down, too. Especially if it's to me!

(By the way, I don't mean to be sexist and suggest that only women have sewing boxes. It's just I have never seen one belonging to a man!)

Now off to my dancing class...don't laugh - it's my only form of exercise other than housework or gardening!