What Would jmaccknit?’s Neighborhood

Isn't that wild?!
Who the hell has a pet turkey?

My aunt had a female one, too, but they're smaller.
She also had TONS of other birds at her ranch house including peacocks, chickens, macaws, parrots, guineafowls, etc.



I hope you all have a good Thanksgiving.
I'm spending this holiday with Ben J.'s family in D.C., where they have two lovely Boston Terriers. =)

(While in the area, we'll also be visiting the Baltimore Aquarium and the textile museum in D.C.)



Eat up!

The silhouettes are very interesting, and the colors are great. It's all inspiring.

My only complaint is that the clothing looks too European---if that makes sense.
I can't explain it.

I just landed in Tokyo, I'm staying 27 floors up in the city scape...... I have no time, I've had no sleep, I left my phone on the plane ......... but this is my view tonight, and somehow nothing else matters.........
I'll try and get some pictures, but I'm literally just passing through, I leave for Hong Kong in 2 days and then on to China. Its beautiful, it's quieter than I imagined I can't belive I'm here.

I almost wasn't going to take a self portrait today because I was so wrapped up in what I was working on.
But when I found myself getting v. stressed out by my project, I realized I needed a break.

This was the perfect distraction.

I love sitting out in the hallway of my studio because I like to look out at the birds and the water and such.
For at least five minutes or so.

I'm afraid I fell apart....... mum died one year ago on November the 9th, and I just couldn't keep up with the blog. Luckily I have written about the more emotional stories behind the photos first, and as the shoots progressed I began to find things easier - confidence wise, although the amount of work was still really exhausting.  So i'm catching up... mainly with the behind the scenes photos as they are the most important memories for me.
One of the most magical shoots of the whole series was when we went into the woods with Katie and she performed for us using her aerial hoop - she is a circus performer as well as many other things, and so this was just a dream come true for me. I made her entire outfit, and Elbie spent hours making a huge complicated plait that became the focus for her hair design. We started the day with Katie completely white, and as the day progressed we painted her eyes with black paint, added feather moth wings to her eyes, and finally I painted her white outfit with black paint to match the moth wings and metamorphosize her character into a darker creature. This character was an idea I have had of almost two years now, and has been in my head ever since I saw Massive Attack's video 'butterfly caught'. Katies naturally white eyelashes, and pale blue eyes made this whole look become so mysterious and unconventional, that for me it was really special to finally see it come to life and look so beautifully surreal.
Here are some pictures of Katie practicing and setting up the hoop :) -

The other behind the scenes pictures which I have been promising to show on flickr were for picture 12.... the girl with 4 legs :) I can't even describe how funny it was taking this photo, I'm amazed any of the shots were in focus as I was laughing so much. It was the end of a long cold days shooting, it was the worst weather I have ever taken pictures in - dull, drizzle, rain, cold.... miserable.... and typically  it happened on a day when I had managed to get us into a very special location (which I will write about later). At first I had felt really disheartened about the weather, but actually, as with all the different weather we experienced during the project, it seemed to be just right for the character we had planned.
The main reason behind 4 legs - was simply that I wanted to throw in some really strange characters to balance out the more 'fashiony' / pretty characters - basically to remind people that this is still 'Wonderland' and nothing is as it seems :)
So... we dressed Katie and Jessica in matching outfits, and as Katie is extremely flexible, she ended up bending over the books whilst Jess sat on top of her! I couldn't believe it when the girls where in position, it just looked so real!! Everyone was squealing with laughter, and Jess was just fantastic, she starting ripping pages out the book and rolling her eyes in the back of her head... it was truly like standing in front of monster !! so here you go, as promised.... the funnies ........ :) !




Finally.....

Here are the first pictures of one of our hardest props - the hydrnagea wig. This character (the hydrangea fairy) was probably one of the most difficult characters to create, and came from a conversation down the pub between me and Elbie! It was taken really early on in the project and probably before we really started to get a grip on what we were doing. All we knew was that we wanted to create a fairy - a sort of flower fairy, with an enormous wig made of fresh flowers. I drew a few sketches and we agreed we wanted something on a huge scale, and in an unconventional shape. Once we had agreed on the rough design we were then faced with how on earth we could make such a thing....... and thats were ebay came in ! First of all we bought an old horse riding hat from ebay for £11, then Elbie bought 8 meters of chicken wire, and reel of garden wire and we made the rest up using old rubbish from my garage !
The main issue though was how on earth we were going to afford so many expensive flowers. i wrote to 3 florists, and to a neighbor who had a large hydrangea bush in their garden .... no one helped :(
Finally, after looking for fake flowers, contemplating stealing them from peoples gardens and then being wracked with gulit, out of desperation I placed an advert in 'freecycle' begging for hydrangeas. We half wrote the advert as a joke, but then a few days later to my amazement I got an email from a wonderful lady called Heidi George offering to let us come and cut down her entire hydrangea bush ! So I found myself turning up at a complete strangers house, and walked away with 4 enormous sacks of fresh flowers in the most incredible soft colours !! So here are the pictures, me and Elbie didn't have a clue what we were doing, and made things up as we went along. At one point the frame wasnt strong enough so we ended up stuffing half an old cushion and a paint roller inside for added structure !!!!!  But we were thrilled with the results. I'll write more about this character and show further pictures of the set we made after i have edited the other full length shot.... the wig smelt amazing!!!!!

So that's it............. im sorry this entry isn't my usual style of writing and is all a bit rough... but i've been so upset over mum, and so tired that its the best I can do for now :) !

Oh and on a final note.......... something very exciting is happening regarding Wonderland.... It looks like we are going to be published. I'll write more when I know for sure what is going on... gulp :) !!!

That's my new knitting machine, my new source of inspiration and frustration.

I don't mean to be a hater, but hand knitting is for schmucks.
No, that's not true. I was just hand knitting last night. And I often hand knit.
(But when I'm away from my machine, I long for it.)

Seriously, though...
The satisfaction and ideas come pouring out on a machine.