a Finished healing book, ready to fly..

 Here is my little sister's healing book all ready to fly to England to it's new home. I just need to wrap it in something , and maybe make a video of it to see the pages opening.
Everything in this book has a story. Some things have even been around the world such as the tiny red aeroplane which was on a pair of little boy corduroys which my nephew had [my sister's little boy], which came from America, then they came to Gabriel in London, and now they are here in this little book going back to my sister!

and many stories like that, ok, another one! : The cover of the book is from a t-shirt that Gabriel's granny bought him in South Africa, at the Rosebank Rooftop Market in Jozi !

And without further ado, here we are:

Hand stitched healing and encouragement books

I've started making hand made little books out of fabric and stitching, recycled fabric mostly. My original idea was to make books for sewing essentials, like a kind of little travel sewing kit. Little Scissors, needles, pins, some thread and maybe some buttons or other odds and ends.
So I made one little one for me, as a test.
Then, I made one for a dear friend, which had more pages and was a bit bigger. I dont have photo's of it, but I tried to personalise it with bits and pieces of fabric and imagery that I thought might speak to her.
I enjoyed making those very much.
Next I started making a book for my sister, and I started including text and little written messages. I imagined that she could keep it in her handback or in her draw.  I imagine that it might be comforting and that the love that goes into the stitches might somehow reach her when she holds it.
I also have various other 'pages' as works in progress for other little experiment books.

As I have been making them, I have been listening to podcasts and thinking to myself how I could perhaps turn these into 'healing books'. I could make them customised for someone, or just out of my own ideas around healing and growth.
So I could put in quotes from inspiring women. I would make them mostly for women I think.
I think that there is a great need for women to gather and form tribes and circles, supportive and healing and encouraging. returning to more ancient traditions.

It is an interesting concept because since Corona, where we have really been lucky to have online connections with people, its as if there is now less of a fear of technology and it has been more broadly welcomed than perhaps it was.

Of course there will always be the extremes, and zero technology and too much technology, but perhaps its about combining and using the good of both.
After all I can't make a healing hand made book with a computer as that would defeat the purpose, but I can take pictures of it and share the images and perhaps inspire or at least communicate something about healing art, that way.

I love the idea of beautiful hand made imperfect things to keep and hold. If anyone feels like me, then perhaps they would like this idea of holding a healing book that has been infused with love from the making of them.
I could put in quotes and maybe a little replenishable notepad and pen/pencil, maybe some little insence sticks, or even some herbs. 
My idea is to make something small and precious to keep in your bag or draw, to remind us that we are all part of a bigger circle of creative strong resourceful women.

So this is my idea. It needs a lot of work and I need to find ways of making these using, partly, my sewing machine as doing them completely by hand is not sustainable. Also,  I should make some with Italian in them..!


I'm quite enjoying these podcasts:   Jen Carrington in England, which I found today.
And since last week, I have been devouring the podcasts of Kristena West

So I was thinking of starting an ETSY shop, but from what I have researched so far, the fees are pretty astronomical, but there are other options - shopify, instagram, and some others.

So I am making and researching.

Important things to do soon:

1.    Learn how to use my sewing machine and practice something.

2.    I need another table in my studio, to lay things out and prepare things  [Leroy Merlin]
3.    Start my Kaffe Fassett Seed Packet Quilt.

4.    Prepare templates : books + quilt
5.    Carry on with Heroine's Journey Game - Barb Kobe

6.    Photograph work - try... experiment..

Aesthetic value and wondering and home

I have been wondering, again, why my environment, the aesthetic, and my ownership of 'my' space remains so intrinsic to my sense of ok-ness or well being in the world. It always has been. I felt this earnestly as a child. I felt almost as if I had no valid sense of self, without a reflection back at me, from my own space, something which spoke of me.  I always desired more control and autonomy over this space.

When I look back through my life, it strkes me, that so many decisions I made revolved around, or were strongly influenced by how these choices would impact 'my space' for the better or not. Sacrifice and risk have always, to some extent, been weighed up against this.

It seems to bring up so many questions for me, around materialism, relationship, security/insecurity, fear, introversion, being an HSP, or simply the fact that I am primarily visual, with kinisthetic a close second,  making me very sensitive to my environment and the felt experience of it.
Perhaps that is my answer right there, and yet, it doesn't address the associated feelings of shame / appology I often hold because of this. I question how I can put so much importance by this.

And so, I remain curious, with a little ever present set of binoculars, looking for information to appease this tension.

Recently I heard someone say [or I read, I dont remember] that a core value they hold is the 'value of beauty'. This interested me greatly. He/She did not speak of the stereo typed, comodity of beauty that one would associate with a beauty pagent or expensive labels on clothes and objects, but the experience of beauty as something rich and meaningful. The process of receiving beauty, in it's myriad of forms.

I thought about this, in the context of a 'value'. If I think of the values of fairness, or justice, or honesty, it seems possible to define these values, and to put boundaries around them, which are often fairly universal. But when it comes to beauty it seems, yet again, frought with complexity. What is beautiful to one person is entirely subjective. We could, for example say that Goya's 'Saturn devouring his son' or Picasso's 'The Guernica' are beautiful in their horror.

And so I started searching this concept of beauty as a value, and came across an entire philosophical field which looks at 'The Aesthetic Experience' and 'The Components of the Aesthetic Experience'
It delves into the aesthetic experience at both the perceptual and the narrative level, and then the appraisal OF the narrative etc.
For now, I will just anchor these ideas and threads with these diagrams of the process of the aesthetic experience,  which are pretty fascinating:

[these images are both from here]

And finally, recently, i found myself hand stitching sort of prayer flags and tree decorations for outside Maurizio's house in the countryside. My idea was to make walking through the garden an experience that reflected a little of myself, back at me.  I guess perhaps it was a combination of making my mark, finally, somewhere here, but also just the pleaasure of experimenting and applying this concept of the value of beauty to somewhere outside in nature, with very different boundaries to an indoor space. And also, to a space that is not my own.
Let us see what happens!!

I have more to say about 'home'. I always do. Next time I will. and also about hand made fiber books.