Shrine to Ilmarinen

Black Sacrament, oil on canvas WIP by llewellyn on Instagram

rachelrobertsnz_

Sky Ladder by Cai Guo-Qiang. The Sky Ladder was unveiled in 2016 over Quanzhou, China. It burned for 2 minutes and 30 seconds. It was the artist’s fourth and final attempt, as previous attempts had met only varying degrees of success. The artist says he had dreamt of a fire ladder 21 years prior and was very excited to see it come to life.

Midwestern Summer Fun

Like, momento mori but also momento vivere

Imagine some advanced race out there at the edge of time, with powers that put the gods to shame, putting in a last ditch effort to locate and cluster together enough dying stars to restart a stellar nursery. Probably not even for themselves, as their own star would probably also need to be added to reach the threshold. Some of those stars would probably be burned up just to be able to fuel the technology that wrangles the stars and lost planets. How can they be sure their efforts will bear fruit? Why wouldn’t they try if they know the alternative is certain absolute darkness? All so that some species at the 1 quadrillion year mark can look up and be greeted by a sight not seen since the infancy of the universe; a sky full of stars.

A young girl lying on a statue of a blacksmith, Bismarck National Monument, Berlin, 1961 - by Floris M. Neusüss (1937 - 2020), German

There’s a tangled ball of imagery there. I’ve no idea if any of it was intentional, or if it was just a quick eye for a stunning piece of imagery, but this photo definitely does do things for me.

he is a smith and a master of all crafts, and he delights in works of skill, however small, as much as in the mighty building of old

Antique Saturn Ceiling Light by PacificHub

I finished the last constellation tonight. All 40 of them are now done! Went through and double checked and every stitch is in place for them and all the beads are in place. Which just leaves the milky way part to do.

Looks pretty cool and keeps the readability of the other stitches. Very happy with it. Just a thousand or so to do. As they are in a grid roughly every centimetre apart.

Update on the constellation quilt. I have gotten the last Milky Way stitch done now. Which means the quilting part of this project is done. My next step will be to baste the edges down, remove the pattern, trim the quilt square, and lastly attach the binding.

With that done I could finally start removing the pattern. Which is taking both less time and more time that I thought it would. As it rips really easily so that goes fast, but the tiny corners and removing it under the beads is slow. You can now see the difference in the glow effect with it against the dark front of the quilt instead of the pattern.

Those that are interested, here is the pattern I used by Haptic Lab. I made the large northern hemisphere version, and plan to make the matching southern hemisphere one next year. I also got your back for the less crafty people. Haptic Lab sells finished quilts in this pattern, both as a large quilt and a small one.

Meteors and Milky Way Over Stonehenge

'Northern Lights, Juneau, Alaska'. Sydney Laurence. c. 1920s.

A young girl lying on a statue of a blacksmith, Bismarck National Monument, Berlin, 1961 - by Floris M. Neusüss (1937 - 2020), German