I’ve been trying to catch up on some outstanding projects. I had the idea for this one some time ago, but was finally lucky enough to score a piece of silk in the perfect midnight blue shade so I could actually make it.

The idea was to embroider my natal chart on a cushion cover. I used silver and gold thread (which had an annoying habit of fraying while you are using it, so the whole thing took longer than I thought). First I laid out the silk flat and traced round a large plate to get the circle, then ruled the lines. I used a silver gel pen to do that.

Then I drew in the signs and planet glyphs, and drew lines between to two maot aspects, the Sun-Neptune Square, and the Nodes-Jupiter-Uranus trine.

I used backstitch to embroider the circle, and running stitch in silver thread for the house divisions. I use gold thread for the glyphs, and red thread in running stitch for the square (challenging aspect!) and green for the trine – both silk embroidery floss.

The result has pleased me – I like it very much. I am looking for something to put in the centre to repesent the earth – something blue and green obviously. I’ll share it when I find it.

This actually isn’t too hard to do (apart from the gold and silver thread fraying) and if you want to try it you can get a chart made up for yourself at astro.

I am a great proponent of taking your own pictures for use in graphic artwork or blogging. It’s so easy to do with a digital camera and it solves copyright issues. I love my digital and take it everywhere.

A while back I was thinking about taking my camera out and getting some interesting shadows, textures and shapes. But no matter what I did my abstract images never seemed to inspire me. What was my problem, I wondered?

I have a four-year-old grand daughter called Adria, who loves to borrow my camera and take picures. She is careful with it, usually taking snaps of her parents and siblings that turn out quite well. But often she just takes snaps of anything that takes her fancy, and while some of it is hard to identify, the results have been amazing.

This ghostly image is one of her Aunties – already it has me thinking stories.

I now have a file called Adria’s Abstracts, where I dig around for story ideas and graphic art components. For example, this one would make a great background:

And this one suggests a space story – it looks like a wormhole:

So what is Adria doing right that I was doing wrong? I think I was just too conscious of `being artistic’ and trying too hard. Adria is utterly unselfconscious, and just snaps away for the love of it. So her abstract images have an uninhibited sense of joy about them, they are not studied in any way. I’ll be sharing our collaborations in future blogs.

About two years ago, I bought my daughter Kathy a Betty Boop Rose for her birthday. As she adored roses and loves Betty Boop, it was the perfect present.
We planted it in the back garden of the house we lived in then, and waited hopefully for her to bloom. Alas, she did not. She didn’t like her situation. We moved her to a better spot, but she sulked, refusing to grow or bloom.
Then came a period of emotional and domestic turmoil. We quite forget about Betty, but we remembered to take her with us in a large pot when we moved into temporary accomodation. We needed to move to the cooler air of the mountains for the sake of Kathy’s youngest child,who suffered badly from the oppressive heat and humidity of the lowlands, but there were seemingly interminable delays. Betty was placed in the backyard near the tap so we would remember to water her. She continued to resist all blandishments to bloom, but she did flaunt new foliage. Clearly she just hadn’t liked the old house at all. We were inclined to sympathise with her.
Finally we managed our somewhat chaotic move to a house on the Granite Belt, on the Queensland side of the New South Wales/Queensland border. We remembered Betty, shoving her in the back of my car just before we left. Poor girl, she took it well, but looked a bit lost at the side of the house in her pot until we sortied around the new back yard and discovered good rich soil in which to plant her.
I must confess that by now I had given up all hope. But we placed her in her new situation with a tomato plant, some parsley and a strawberry plant for company. Well, the heavens just opened up as soon as we moved in and it has rained pretty well continuously since. The drought that had forced us all onto very strict water rationing is over – the local dam is overflowing, but with all this rain, water usage hasn’t really changed much.
But how Betty loves it! She has started to grow at last, puts out new leaves, and lo and behold! The other morning we found her very first bloom.
It is as gorgeous as all the photos predicted, a deep and lovely pinky red toning to yellow. Kathy was enchanted – Betty’s first baby is being lovingly cared for and will be pressed to find a home among Kathy’s most precious keepsakes.
You see, this is more than just a rose – Betty’s baby is a symbol of hope, of light coming back into lives that were darkened by sorrow, loss and worry. Betty has survived all this upheaval – we kept her because no matter how unhappy she was, she refused to give in, she kept fighting to survive.
And that’s the story of our beautiful rose.

I have recently taken up sewing again and have been making these little bags for my granddaughters. This one I made out of a shiny scrap of material from my work basket. I call it the Jester Bag for want of a better name – but it really does remind me of jester colours and capers.
One of my granddaughters has taken up juggling, so I made her a set of juggling balls from the pattern at the Internet Juggling Base and a shoulder bag to carry them in. I embroidered the words Juggler’s Guild on the bag and she loved it as she is very into things Medieval.

Seek beauty wherever you are – nature will show you the way the human spirit struggles to rise above its circumstances – a flower growing in a crack in the concrete, a clump of moss claiming a a stone step – here in Australia the jacaranda trees are in full bloom.
I spotted this beauty at Caboolture railway station and loved the way its intense violet flowers looked against the wedgewood blue sky.
At the end of its flowering season the jacaranda drops its flowers and forms a beautifulpurple pool under each tree. `As above, so below’ – beauty can be found at any stage of life.

I have just taken part in Artella’s Sprites of Spring art exchange, and once again have been thrilled with the experience of exchanging art across the world. My recipient is in the USA, and posting things cross the ocean isn’t as easy or as fun as it used to be, so I have no idea if she received my packages or not, or if they got to her unharmed – but that doesn’t make the experience any less meaningful.
For my own part, I got a delightful sprite in Novia Scotia, who sent me two beautiful handmade books. One is my latest art journal, but the other will probably be a text journal. Just to have connected with someone so creative and open hearted across the globe is a joy.
My first taste of art exchange was through Artella’s Christmas exchange last year. These exchanges are so worthwhile – not only do you connect with other artists through your own art, but it puts beautiful things into your own hands – and the knowledge that art does not have to be created to sell. The joy of just giving away your art is hard to express – after all, we are concerned with making a living and paying the bills, and in this context, time is precious. But it’s just because time is precious, that it is so soul satisfying to give it away.
These art exchanges have a deeper meaning – as I said, it is harder now to send parcels across the globe, and worrying because you don’t know if they will survive going through customs – my daughter bought a rare large size My Little Pony on Ebay and it arrived with one ear broken off from a customs’ search of its interior.
But we must persist – we must continue to show that we are not bowed by world terrorism, and share our creativity.

My son Chris took these great pics of the new fountain at Brisbane Chinatown. We miss the old fountain with its tinkling waterfall but at least it was replaced, and the carp as well – the lamented cherry trees have not.

Tomorrow is the start of Chinese New Year, and next week we will be going up to Brisbane’s Chinatown to join in the fun.

Last year we watched the Dragon Dance at Chinatown Street Mall. This year I’ll be taking my movie camera. There have been some changes at the mall so I am not sure if the Dragon Dance will be held again – but here’s hoping.

But I will be on the lookout for papers and objects I can use in art. Every year I make something to celebrate Chinese New Year – last year it was an altered book. These are a couple of pages from that project, above.
Cherry blossoms or not, a trip to Chinatown is still a pleasure, browsing through the Asian supermarkets, the bookshop and the many bazaar-like variety shops in the area. We’ll have a delicious lunch at our favourite restaurant, and take home the makings of a new dish to try, and lots of `hell money’ to throw around.

Last year the cherry trees were in blossom – this year the City Council vandals have ripped up the trees and installed a road to access a new multi story car park. So – no cherry blossoms.

My kids made friends with a tiny green tree frog a couple of nights ago. Here are the phone snaps.

Earlier this year I joined Artella’s Sprites of Spring exchange and I received two beautiful hand made books from my Canadian sprite. One of them has become my new art journal. I love the cover, such gorgeous colours.

These two pages feature quotes from Anousheh Ansari’s wonderful space blog.

And these pages are a drawing I tore out of an old National Geographic story on Mexico and my poem called Jagged.

I have a stack of felt tip pens, metallic pens and pencils, glitter pens and water colour pencils that I use just for my art journals. It’s so much fun just to play with these simple materials and a white page. This particular journal is pleasing because it is hand made, and beautifully so. What talented people join in these Artella swaps! I just hope my spritee was as pleased with her gifts as this one was.