OK – christmas shopping officially began today with the purchase of truly, limited edition room freshener “Aires Navidades”, the can decorated with christmas tree, bows, glitter, twinkling lights, cute snowbaby and gift wrapped objects – all in the tradiitonal green red gold white northern hemisphere christmas colour scheme. The small print promises to aromatize our surroundings with touches of apple and cinnamon. Product of Argentina, with heavy infuence from north america, I’m thinking.

Fabuloso is a product of a north american company producing household cleaning stuff here, and year round comes in several lovely colours, pink, blue, lavender. This lovely fresh green we swooped on for christmas when we noticed it on the shelves today. The label says this is Fabulosa Navidad, edicion limitada. I have always meant to ask my friend “Toothpaste maker in Montevideo” what is the rationale behind all these glorious colours – will we buy more? I think I just answered my own question!
PS – I could hardly believe it when DH walked in yesterday with another of each, saying “limited edition – they’ll all be gone soon” – the fabuloso is pretty nicely freshly scented as usual, but the room freshener is a sickly mixture of faux pine overlaid with rather cloying sickly scents (pie spices, cinnamon plus very rose-based pot pourri,) which I find so off- putting in so many north american shops and malls, particularly card and gift shops, at this time of the year. At the rate I plan to have it used in our house, it will take several year’s worth of festive seasonal spraying to use up the two cans…

PPS – April 5th update – At the time I posted the above PS, and the rate at which we use bathrooom deodoriser, were all set to be burdened with spicy cloying seasonal airs in the ‘social bathroom’ here for several years to come. Now to my surprise, (and I meant to put this in a month or so ago -) the can we left there while on holiday for a month in february, with the house in care of a non-english speaking woman who therefore won’t read this about herself – is totally empty !!! How one person can use a whole can of that stuff in one month I … well it blew me away. Figuratively speaking no pun intended. …but I was glad to see one can gone, truly all used up. Just today I read of the annual Darwin Awards 2006 where one of the top ten this year included the death by asphyxiation of a very large man who apparently produced prodigious amounts of intestinal gas, and in his small airtight bedroom was gassed ( in his own gases) as he slept. Any of you planning on visiting our social bathroom be assured that although the room is small, when the light is on so is the extractor fan…..

On one of the email lists of art quilters to which I subscribe, a current topic is various ways one can/might get a print from a spiders’ web, to use in/on an art quilt.

Having a real thing about spiders – yes I know, it’s called arachnophobia and I have it in spades – I can’t imagine anything more creepy than handling an actual web in any way at all to get a ‘print’ directly from it.

For me there are two options – either trace a really beautiful photograph of a web or many webs – make your own photographic study even – or study one/several and draw one freehand. Then, if you want this on fabric there are plenty of ways to get the essence down on fabric. Sparkle can be added with very fine beads, or metallic thread… and so on. To make my point I announced to the list I’d immediately go and do a few experiments, would give myself no more than threee hours, and despite the results, good bad or indifferent, would post pics and comments up on my blog. Well, it’s been an hour and a quarter or so as I write this, the results are up, below, and I think I have made my point to my satisfaction. And that point is, in the ongoing search to overcome technical challenges, add a Gee Whizz factor, many art quilters often skip over a more obvious, easier method through which to express themselves….IMHO, anyway.

On cream nylon organza, photgraphed against plain white paper

A this web was drawn freehand with very fine black permanent marker pen.

B this web, on the rhs, was drawn freehand with a silver gel tip pen. The right hand portion was gone over a second time, but even the darker version is very washed out.

Both versions provide a very ephemeral look…. 

On dark green plain fabric, the silver gel tip pen comes up well.
Drawn freehand, mostly single dots, but the section uppermost, ie between 12 and 1-30, has been gone over with some dots being re-dabbed. 

Silver gel tip pen on leather – white would also do it. A combination of dots and short dashes here .

Working from a tracing of a particularly beautiful photograph and therefore taking more time, but using nothing more sophisticated than tracing paper and the gel tip pen, I think the effects could be incredible and well worth the extra effort.