Plastic bags, patterns and a small gavotte to finish.

At the start of the year I chose 'pattern' for my word of 2010 and I began taking photos of the interesting surface patterns around me. The main aim was to take and upload 365 of them to my 'Chasing Patterns' set on Flickr but I'm afraid I've stalled somewhere around 122 ....

This isn't due to running out of patterns to photograph, that would indeed be a dark day, but rather I've run out of free time and brain space to keep up!

However, the things occupying that spare corner of my brain now are the very things I referred to in my original post back in January. There I mentioned that 'pattern' also meant wanting to create and stick to a way of working which could help me achieve the things I wanted this year ... building on my freelance work, running online workshops, opening an online shop etc etc ... and I'm happy to say that those patterns are still decorating my life, day to day.

I'm managing to make new items for The Carousel Zebra [my etsy shop] - not at the rate I'd like to ... I'd need staff for that! - but I am updating the shop at least once a month so I'm pretty pleased with myself for that.

Did you hear my inner over-achiever trying to force her way out there with a begrudging 'pretty pleased'? I did! So ... quickly, before that happens ... I'll try to distract her with something pretty ....

My latest shop update happily combines both versions of the 'pattern' theme:

• they're evidence of my working pattern as I managed to upload these to etsy during a break in my day job - yay me!
• plus, the brooches themselves have a layer of pattern interest from the printed plastic bags they began life as:

Furthermore, while making these four I developed a technique which, while extremely low-tech [it involved, amongst other things, some tweezers, a lolly-stick and a plastic place-mat] it really did streamline the process for me.

Another thing I've missed about not updating my 365 Patterns, is the biut where I would blog about them with an appropriately themed musical interlude ... so today I'm bringing it back ...

While I was making these final two brooches:

... which meant staring at that black and white pattern for quite a while, all I could think about was the Ascot Gavotte scene from My Fair Lady ... bear with me ....

I [foolishly] said to James "You know that scene, where they're all dressed in black + white at the races and they're all singing about it being exciting but they don't lok excited?"

Needless to say he didn't know that scene and was mildly bemused that I'd thought it at all possible that he might ...

Anyways ... my point was, that all the way through making them:

.. the words "What a thrilling, absolutely chilling running of the Ascot opening race" would simply not leave my head!

And now you can have the same:

Enjoy the show [and those amazing costumes] and you know, if you ever need a brooch-shaped stocking-filler ...

Thanks for reading me today.

Julie :-)