I’ve always loved silver birch trees with their intriguing bark and silvery trunks. I’ve included them in tapestries, along with pines and other trees, but it was a mosaic image I found on Pinterest that stayed at the back of my mind for a year or more while I worked on other projects.
Now I have time to work on them, my Silver Birch Forest series is up to #8 completed and another one (or maybe more) planned.
You can see the evolution of my ideas and fibre artworks on my Current Projects page, Silver Birch Forest series.
While you’re there, check out the music by Amanda Udis-Kessler written especially for my hymn, “Faith of Metaphor and Mystery” which has a version for same-sex and mixed raced weddings.
You can download the score and recording (free) from Amanda’s Queer Sacred music website.
Kittredge Cherry, founder at Q Spirit is a lesbian Christian author who writes regularly about LGBTQ spirituality. She holds degrees in religion, journalism and art history. She was ordained by Metropolitan Community Churches and served as its national ecumenical officer, advocating for LGBTQ rights at the National Council of Churches and World Council of Churches.
Gave a bag of chokos and other greens to friend, who offered me recipes for them.
It’s okay, thanks.
We’ve had chokos in stir fry, in soup, roasted, steamed, in chutney, in lasagne… just don’t like them! This year, they weren’t ripe in time to use as a base for relish or jam.
Husband’s brother sent us 3 a few years ago; we ate one, planted the others, and now every year up they come, prolific as convolvulus, along the vege garden’s wind break, sheltering the passionfruit vine, through and over the huge hydrangeas and creeping up to tangle in the fig tree.
Last year when husband was trying to get rid of loads of them (even the food bank and the Sallies refused to take any more), I was with my daughter in Queensland, where a single choko cost $1 in the supermarket. I laughed and laughed.
We’re just so happy to give them away!
PS Don’t get in touch to ask for some. We think the season’s over—for this year.
Nanna says she knits, but also makes other things with yarn, fabric and lots of different kinds of stitching. She’s made a new shop for her knitting for kids like us, and her “bronzart” shop will be where she sells her “fabric art”.
So, you can find the kids’ clothes at her “little brother big brother“ online shop, but that’s too long for a shop name, so you can look for it as 2brothers.felt.co.nz
It’s got this picture–Nanna says it’s called a logo.
Nanna says she’s made a new picture for her bronzart shop, too; we like the crazy letters. Nanna says the way the letters look is called the “font”. She likes to teach us this stuff.
Nanna says, “Bye now. I’ve got to knit more things for my shop!”
If you’ve ever had that feeling of, “I wouldn’t wish depression on my worst enemy—but I wish my friend could experience it for just a day…”
As I ate breakfast in the sun this morning, I’ve been browsing through the March 2012 “Creative Fibre” magazine in which crafters from Canterbury write about the destruction of their equipment, social and business lives in the earthquakes of 2011, and their stories going forward.
I wondered what stories of recovery, inspiration and kindness will come from our collective experiences of COVID-19, a different kind of devastation, but one that’s brought many lives to an abrupt halt. For some, “isolation” has been little different from “retirement”; for others, the social and financial fabric of their lives is shredded and torn.
A good news story is the astonishing success of the “New Zealand Made Products” initiative on Facebook. In less than a week, it’s gained 250,105 members who’re sharing their NZ owned, designed and made products—and getting sales. You may be sure I’ve added my bronz.beads online shop to the listings!
Yesterday, as we move into Alert Level 3, it finally hit me: cabin fever! Most of the projects—I finished knitting those cardigans!—are complete, the garden’s tidier than ever before, I’ve run out of good beading wire and a necklace I made with florist’s wire broke and beads spilled everywhere… basically, I was out of sorts.
Not sure I can blame this on the lockdown, though; some readers will know I live with depression and despite the thank-god-for-antidepressants that keep me from despair and hopelessness, there are still ups and downs, as the black dog tries to throw its shadow over everything.
Finally I stopped procrastinating and got on with collating another book in my “Words of Spirit and Faith” series. It kept me absorbed—husband had to remind me I hadn’t moved from my chair for hours and should take a break—and brought a gratifying sense of accomplishment. And a Facebook discussion led to possible collaboration with someone in the United States—my lyrics and her music.
Because there’s sure to be someone reading this who struggles with anxiety and depression, or who cares for someone who does, I’m offering some excellent and simple resources. If you’ve ever had that feeling of, “I wouldn’t wish depression on my worst enemy—but I wish my friend could experience it for just a day”, share Matthew Johnstone’s “I had a black dog” and “Living with a black dog”—yes, amusing cartoon drawings and words about mental illness (links below).
And if you’ve ever thought someone should just pull their socks up and get on with it, please also read, view or listen to these resources. They could change your life or save a friend’s.
I trust you’re making this time of limitation a space for deciding how you’d like your life and community to be, and what sort of ‘new normal’ we can create together.
Part of my enjoyment in creating jewellery comes from finding names for each item. I’ve named my creations after cocktails, birds, seasons and places. Just now, I’m loving creating earrings using acrylic and glass flowers and leaves, in my new “floral” range.
Nanna says she’s knitting a new cardigan to sell on her website, because she’s made some sales lately and needs to restock her shop.
She showed us the jersey when we talked on Skype. It’s got orange and blue stripes but she says it’s not as ghastly as it sounds. We thought she said ghostly – Woo, woo!
Now we live in Queensland, Nanna says we’ll be too warm to need her to knit things for us. But Big Brother said it gets cold sometimes, and he’d like a jersey in cool colours.
Nanna said, “Is red cool?” Silly old Nanna!
Big Brother told her that cool colours are blue and green and purple, and red is a hot colour. Little Brother would probably like a red or orange jersey but Nanna says it will take a while because she’s quite busy just now. She said maybe by next winter…
Nanna says it’s been a while since she posted anything on this website. She says she’s been very busy with other things – like making jewellery (you can buy it, too) and tapestry and stitched canvas work – and helping us move to a city in Australia.
Earlier in the year, Nanna made a new scrumble shawl as well as several scarves. She says it’s a good time to let you know about them, because it’s winter in New Zealand where she lives. (Last year we lived in South Korea where it was sometimes very hot and sometimes freezing cold. Now we’re in a part of Australia where the Nanna says the temperature in winter is a lot like the New Zealand Summer. Nanna says she’s going to spend a lot of time with us in the middle of the year!)
So here are photos of the newest knitting – and a couple of older things, just to remind you they’re still in Nanna’s bronzart shop on the Felt website for you to buy:
I’m creating an artwork for the Creative Fibre 2019 Festival. It has to include “a pot of gold” and fit on an A4 sheet of paper.
I’ve created fabric art before but nothing thus elaborate. I’m using it to try some techniques I haven’t done before, including brick stitch and Dorset buttons.
It’s almost finished, and will fit in this frame I already own. Not sure if it will be accepted framed, as that takes it larger than A4.
Nanna says some colours are really tricky to photograph – especially if they’re blue hues.
Boo hoos!?!
Haha, Nanna says it’s enough to make you wanna cry, the way the camera turns pink things red or orange but not bright dark pink like the real wool she was knitting with.
She says the wool of the scarf she’s made for “Operation Brighten” (we told you about that last time) is a bright raspberry pink.
Last year when we were staying at Nanna’s house, before we moved to South Korea, there was a raspberry bush in the orchard; that’s what they call down the back where all the fruit trees are. Late one night, Granddad heard a noise at the back door. When he went to see what it was, there was Big Brother coming inside again… with red on his mouth.
”Nanna was asleep,” said Big Brother, “so I went in the garden and ate some raspberries!”
Nanna says she’s made a new picture for her bronzart shop, too; we like the crazy letters. Nanna says the way the letters look is called the “font”. She likes to teach us this stuff.
BronzCreative 
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