Monday, 17 October 2016
Wednesday, 12 October 2016
Tuesday, 11 October 2016
Making Your Own Cross Stitch Charts
By Jane Greenoff & Sue Hawkins
‘Oh that’s no good for me, I can’t draw’, I can hear you all cry! In fact, you don’t need to be able to draw to make your own charts. With the cunning use of tracing paper, you will be surprised how easy it is. Always begin with something small. As an example, I am going to show you how I made the chart a pansy design. If you have access to a computer design program, see below.
To Start
To start, you need a very simple outline drawing. I drew mine freehand, but you could very easily trace any flower from a picture in a gardening book or even from a photograph of your own garden. Choose a simple flower with large petals and no fiddly bits. Lay tracing paper over the picture and trace the outer edges of the petals and leaves. At this stage you may want to alter the size of your drawing.
If so, take it to a photocopier for enlarging or reducing. The size of the finished embroidery will also be altered by the size of the squared paper that you use and by the count of the fabric that you work on, but you need a drawing large enough to get plenty of squares in each petal in order to add enough colours and therefore detail.
Trace the outer edges of the petals and leaves to create a simple outline.
Next
Next, use ordinary coloured crayons to add colour to the traced outline. Lay the tracing back over the original picture and shade in the different areas of colour. Do not worry too much about matching the colours, as you can take the original picture with you when you go to buy your threads.
Lay the tracing back over the original picture and shade in the areas of colour using crayons
Now transfer your black outline on to squared paper (10 squares to the inch [2.5cm] is the best size), again by tracing. I use an artist’s light box for tracing, but you could tape the outline on to a window and lay the squared paper over it - the outline will show through clearly to be pencilled onto the squared paper. (A computer screen also makes a good light source for tracing, especially at night!) As you trace the outline onto the squared paper, faintly pencil in lines to show where colour changes occur.
Now square off the design; make a new outline, using the squares closest to the original line. Do this in pencil first and then ink in the lines with a fine felt-tipped pen when you are satisfied with the result. Trace the outline onto squared paper then square off the design.
Trace the outline onto squared paper then square off the design.
To put the colours in, use the crayons again or create your own black-and-white symbols. Experiment to see which you prefer.
If you use symbols, choose heavier ones for the darker colours and lighter ones for the paler colours, so that your chart will be easier to follow. When buying threads, choose colours from the same families to achieve good shading effects. (To help you, manufacturers group their shades in these families on the racks.)
Put the colours in, using the crayons again, or by creating black-and-white symbols.
Monday, 10 October 2016
Monday Visualisation - Anticipation
The color green is the color of balance,
harmony and growth
harmony and growth
This is the color of balance and harmony. From a color psychology perspective, it is the great balancer of the heart and the emotions, creating equilibrium between the head and the heart.
From a meaning of colors perspective, green is also the color of growth, the color of spring, of renewal and rebirth. It renews and restores depleted energy. It is the sanctuary away from the stresses of modern living, restoring us back to a sense of well being. This is why there is so much of this relaxing color on the earth, and why we need to keep it that way.
Green is an emotionally positive color, giving us the ability to love and nurture ourselves and others unconditionally. A natural peacemaker, it must avoid the tendency to become a martyr.
It loves to observe, and therefore relates to the counselor, the good listener, the social worker. It loves to contribute to society. It is the charity worker, the good parent and the helpful neighbor.
Being a combination of yellow and blue, green encompasses the mental clarity and optimism of yellow with the emotional calm and insight of blue, inspiring hope and a generosity of spirit not available from other colors.
This is a color that has a strong sense of right or wrong, inviting good judgment. It sees both sides of the equation, weighs them up, and then usually takes the moral stand in making appropriate decisions. On the negative side, it can be judgmental and over-cautious.
Green promotes a love of nature, and a love of family, friends, pets and the home. It is the color of the garden lover, the home lover and the good host.
It is generous and loves to share, but it also looks for recognition. It is friendly and can keep confidences.
This color relates to stability and endurance, giving us persistence and the strength to cope with adversity.
Green is the color of prosperity and abundance, of finance and material wealth. It relates to the business world, to real estate and property. Prosperity gives a feeling of safety to green.
Green Represents:
Harmony and balance: Green is the great balancer of our mental, emotional and physical energies which is why there is so much green on our planet. Green is the heart centre of the body.
Growth: As in nature, green leaves are an indication the plant is still growing.
Hope: Green is the anticipation of things to come.
Effects of Green:
Rejuvenating: The color green revitalizes us when we are physically, mentally or emotionally exhausted.
Nurturing: Because of its link with the heart, green urges us to nurture others. Green is also nurturing to us - another reason why it is the most predominant colour on earth.
via
Sunday, 9 October 2016
"Divorce"-Oct. 9:: HOW 'DIVORCE' COSTUME DESIGNER PUT TOGETHER SARAH JESSICA PARKER'S WARDROBE
"We make decisions together, it is very collaborative," says Arjun Bhasin of working with the actress for the new HBO comedy.
Sarah Jessica Parker's long-awaited return to the small screen has kept entertainment and fashion fans alike on their toes. But don't expect to see Carrie Bradshaw 2.0. in HBO's Divorce. Parker's new dark comedy gives a realistic look at the life of a mother of two, Frances (Parker), dealing with a failing marriage, career challenges and complicated friendships.
Arjun Bhasin (whose work has included Life of Pi, The Reluctant Fundamentalist and Begin Again) was tasked with creating the perfect wardrobe for the show's characters. "We tried to set up these women as three categorically different types of people and to show how their lives are different through the use of clothing," explained Bhasin. Below, the NYU alum talks about working with SJP, the inspiration behind the character's looks and the difference between creating costumes for film and TV.
Pret-a-Reporter: Did you have an inspiration from TV or film that you referenced when you started pulling things together for Frances?
Arjun Bhasin: We wanted the show to be nostalgic and to have a sense of the past, so we looked at a lot of films and photography to get inspiration. And what excited myself, Sarah Jessica and the other production members were the films from the late '70s. There was a sense of a working woman mentality in the '70s which I thought made sense for Frances. Sarah Jessica loved a film called An Unmarried Woman from the late '70s, which I had seen before and think is incredible because the costumes were designed by one of my favorite costume designers, Albert Wolsky. So we looked at those kinds of films and I brought in images from Kramer vs, Kramer, which was a divorce film from the '70s and a lot of Woody Allen — some Annie Hall images. We wanted to create sort of a dusty palette and we wanted to create a cinematic feel that has an old-world charm. I wanted there to be that sense that all of these people, but especially Frances, had a history, almost like they belong to a different time and era.
VINTAGE VIBE: Sarah Jessica Parker as Frances in Divorce. (Photo: Craig Blankenhorn/HBO)
Where do you source clothes from?
I go everywhere. I’m the craziest shopper because I sort of refused to go to any of the department stores for this, because I felt like those things felt very new and shiny and young. I go to vintage fairs and do a lot of work on ebay and Etsy. They have this amazing thing called Manhattan Vintage that happens a couple of times year that I am obsessed with and I go to flea markets like Brooklyn Flea. Even when we build costumes, we try to reference old clothes and make them and then distress them to look old, so they feel like they have been lived in and feel like they have a life of their own. Then I will pull things together and we will try them on and see which pieces feel like they actually belong to the character.
How involved is Sarah Jessica Parker in her character's wardrobe choices?
Since it is season one and we are really trying to find the character, she is super open to suggestions and will try on a hundred different things — she loves to play dress up. She tries on things and we say "Oh this doesn’t feel right for Frances" or "This doesn’t look amazing, but is there a reason she would want to look like this?" or "Why is she so underdressed?" And we make those decisions together, so it is really very collaborative.
What is the thought process behind the character's jewelry?
She doesn’t wear a ton of different jewelry pieces. We decided early on that she would have a couple of things and that was it. And that was a big decision from the beginning. We just didn’t want her to feel like the kind of person who was looking in the mirror every morning and making herself attractive for somebody else. I felt like she is the kind of person who puts on a bracelet, like an Aztec or Navajo turquoise, and sort of forgets about it. So we just left a bracelet on a wrist throughout a lot of the season. In a way we wanted to show that she wasn’t obsessed with the way she was dressing and that she had other stuff on her mind. I feel like that blue turquoise color is very Frances. She wears a turquoise dress in the pilot, and then the bracelet and a necklace. We kept recurring themes like that.
MINIMAL JEWELS: Sarah Jessica Parker as Frances in Divorce. (Photo: Craig Blankenhorn/HBO)
She also wears a coat pretty frequently.
I feel like there is a certain reality in New York City in the winter about a woman’s coat, which I think people tend to forget on film. But it is big deal, the coat. Your coat is symbol of who you are, but it is also about functionality and comfort and about the everyday drollness of getting up and going to work. And we wanted there to be a continuity to that coat, to see it again and again to make it that statement of, "It’s another day of her waking up, she’s putting on her coat and getting out the door." It’s not a chance for her to be someone else, you are just the person that you are. So we wanted those kind of ideas to keep going in the story. And the opaque tights she wears, which almost feels a little old fashioned but it's very her. I feel like it seems awkward when you see bare-legged girls in the winter in New York because it looks kind of forced and fake and we didn’t want that sense for her. She is very pragmatic and practical.
What is the biggest difference between creating a wardrobe for TV compared to film?
In film you get a script and you know what the end of the story is. You can create an arc in an interesting way to show the beginning, the middle and the end. But in TV you are kind of responding to every scene in the moment and you don’t really get to plan those kind of arcs. You have to be really honest in TV to the moment in which something is taking place. You can’t really foresee what the character is going to go through. So you have to approach it like, she wakes up in the morning and she feels a certain way and I am going to dress her for that feeling.
Diane (played by Molly Shannon) seems to be the really stylish character.
Diane has a lot of time on her hands and and we wanted to make it very clear that she has more money than Frances. She has money, she has time and like a lot of woman who have that kind of life, they put a lot of energy into shopping and dressing up and we wanted that kind of visual noise for her. It feels like she is constantly buying things and constantly changing and constantly wanting to draw attention to herself in a way that Frances doesn’t. Her clothes are a little more modern and we did do some designer shopping for her, but again there is a lot of older pieces. We pulled out some vintage Chanel and some vintage Hermes for her. And Molly is just amazing to watch because she is so wonderful.
THE CAST: Frances (Sarah Jessica Parker), left, Dallas (Talia Balsam) and Diane (Molly Shannon) on Divorce. (Photo: Craig Blankenhorn/HBO)
What's your favorite clothing item from the show so far?
Some of Sarah Jessica’s dresses, when I found them they were like size 16 and 20, but I loved the fabric and made it work. We cut them down and deconstructed the whole thing and that was just so phenomenal. And there is an umbrella dress that came from ebay and when she put it on, it was just amazing!
Can you think of something that both Frances and Carrie Bradshaw would wear?
No. There really isn’t something. I think they are so different as characters I can’t imagine that they would have a similar wardrobe piece unless it was some kind of beautiful classic piece like a simple pump. I think they are very different people and I hope people see that when the watch the show.
Divorce premieres Oct. 9 at 10 p.m. on HBO.
Thursday, 6 October 2016
Monday, 3 October 2016
A Kitchen of Clouds
As the fireman said:
Don’t book a room over the fifth floor
in any hotel in New York.
They have ladders that will reach further
but no one will climb them.
As the New York Times said:
The elevator always seeks out
the floor of the fire
and automatically opens
and won’t shut.
These are the warnings
that you must forget
if you’re climbing out of yourself.
If you’re going to smash into the sky.
Many times I’ve gone past
the fifth floor,
cranking upward,
but only once
have I gone all the way up.
Sixtieth floor:
small plants and swans bending
into their grave.
Floor two hundred:
mountains with the patience of a cat,
silence wearing its sneakers.
Floor five hundred:
messages and letters centuries old,
birds to drink,
a kitchen of clouds.
Floor six thousand:
the stars, skeletons on fire,
their arms singing.
And a key,
a very large key,
that opens something —
some useful door —
somewhere —
up there.
Riding the Elevator Into the Sky,
- Anne Sexton (1975)
- Anne Sexton (1975)
Monday Visualisation-Prayer for Autumn
As we are entering the new season
I pray for new beginnings,
for peace and creativity,
for warmth and stillness,
for open roads in the forest,
for magic to hatch
and
for life to begin to grow inside me.
Blessed be.
Amen
xoxo
Saturday, 1 October 2016
Flavigny-sur-Ozerain: The village of "Chocolat"
The medieval village of Flavigny is situated on a rocky spur, surrounded by three streams: the Ozerain, the Recluse and the Verpant.
The first written mention of the village of Flavigny was in the Latin form of its name, Flaviniacum, which appears in the cartulary (or charter) of the Benedictine abbey founded on the site by a certain Widerard in 719. In the mid-9th century, in response to the increasing frequency of Viking raids, the relics of Saint Reine (or Santa Regina) were removed from the nearby town of Alise to Flavigny in the hopes that they could be better protected in a more fortified setting. The relics remain in Flavigny to this day, although they travel back to Alise every fall for the celebration of the saint's feast day in early September.
The town was prosperous during the Middle Ages, catering to large numbers of pilgrims, both those who came to visit the relics of Saint Reine and those on their way to Santiago de Compostela. By the 10th century, the abbey had grown into a town, with a parish church dedicated to St. Genest in addition to the abbey church (dedicated to St Peter). During the 12th and 13th centuries, extensive fortifications were raised around the town; large portions of these walls still surround the village to this day, including the Porte du Val.
In 1632 the Ursuline convent of Flavigny was founded, and in the early 18th century a new residence for the Abbot of Flavigny was constructed. Local tradition holds that it suffered damage at the hands of revolutionaries.
In the 21st century, Flavigny has fewer than 400 year-round residents, although this number increases in the summer due to the substantial number of foreigners (Swiss, American, Australian, German) who have summer homes in the village. The abbey now houses the factory which manufactures Les Anis de Flavigny, small aniseed-flavored pastilles distributed worldwide. Various artists and artisans make their homes in the village, and it has become a popular tourist destination.
In Flavigny sur Ozerain in Burgundy was filmed Chocolat (2000)
Did you enjoy CHOCOLAT?
I Love it!
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