Circus Horse

 

Whenever we have had themes before it has taken more than a year for mine to come up so when I chose 'circus' and it was the first be to be drawn (by Barbara) I was shocked. I had to wait for the SAHRR to finish before I had time to start and that gave me time for a million ideas. 

But, in the end, I decided to go with a true story. 

My childhood home was on the bank of a river and on the other side of the river were water meadows. Mostly, in the summer, they were grazed by beautiful black and white cows and sometimes, in the winter, they flooded and we had to walk round the road way to get to school. 

But once a year the circus came.

The circus people unlocked the big metal gate at the timber yard entrance and drove in with their trucks and trailers and caravans and tents and for a glorious week the world was giddy rush of colour and music. My Dad let them hook up their generators to our electric and they gave us free tickets to the greatest show in Church Meadows.

It began with the elephants coming for their morning bath in the river and ended with us children lying in bed, listening for the strange roars and wondering if the lions would get out of their caged trailers and eat us in our sleep!

Funnily enough, I have clearer memories of circus 'village' that sprung up out of nowhere and vanished like magic than the actual shows we watched inside the big top and my quilt is based on something that happened outside the tent.

One day, our elderly neighbours came back from the town with their shopping and said, we would never guess what they had just seen in the field. And of course we tried to guess- lions, monkeys, clowns, tight rope walkers, trapeze artists...But no.

"We saw them painting their horse!" 

"What colour?"

"It was a white horse and they were painting black spots on it! It made us chuckle".

I have taken a little license in the blue spots and I doubt the person painting was dressed as a clown...

I will post more about the making of this quilt on Rainbow Hare but I'll wait until tomorrow or Saturday because tomorrow I am (by complete coincidence) going to the circus with my little granddaughters and, perhaps I'll include some photos.

In the meantime, I'm really looking forward to seeing how everyone else has interpreted this theme :)

A Costume for a Performer

 As I was pondering what to do for this theme, I remembered an article I had read long ago, about making costumes for Cirque de Soleil.  The budget was not large, so the costumer made striking effects from unusual materials, including shower curtains!

I decided to make a simple tutu from the linens and laces I painted last year, with a purple batik for the background.  

A costume for a circus performer.

To add some sparkle, I used metallic thread with some decorative stitches, on both the background and on the petals of the skirt.

Some of the metallic thread.

I may add more embellishment, thread sketching, and beading in the future. I enjoyed using those painted linens, and playing with fancy thread!

(I can't get Blogger to let me schedule this post so the date will be the date I wrote it, not the proper reveal day of May 1.  :( )