I spy, with my little eye, something beginning with J...

Sometime towards the end of last year I bought these three papier mache letters in a Hobbycraft store, intending to customise them as presents for the three friends, Vickie, Joan and Lynda, who work with me in a textile group of our own making. We are meant to push each other to try out new things but I lost all track of time before Christmas so this idea fell by the wayside. Then in January I set a challenge for Vickie, Joan and myself to take an initial and turn it into a personal record of the person whose name began with it. As Lynda lives quite a distance away we don't see her as often as we'd like so I thought I'd stand in for the letter L.

Well, I got the J for Joan and I went blank. I had no ideas. My brain hurt from thinking about it too much! Then I picked up a map in a second hand bookshop that was closing down. For 20p I had a map of South Wales. It covered the village and area in Brecon where Joan used to live and the Pembrokeshire village of Manorbier where she is now. I had one of those lightbulb moments and decided to merge the two areas of the map and collage them on to the front of the letter.

This is what I came up with. Having painted the whole letter I then placed the maps on and merged them together. All the relevant areas that are important to Joan are on this map so I was away. What next? Well, Joan is a great natural dyer and a fabulous knitter, so I found some little spools I bought yonks ago and wound some naturally dyed threads around them. They are dyed with indigo, madder and weld. How to represent knitting provided a challenge but I made a little pair of needles from some cocktail sticks and stuck some beads on the end. I then cast on with the indigo thread and knitted a small amount. My husband thought I had lost the plot as I sat there kntting with cocktail sticks! I told another friend about it the other day and she described it as 'micro knitting' - exactly!! It was fiddly in the extreme - but necessary for what I wanted to achieve.

Next I had to think of other things that sum Joan up. Well, for a kick-off she is ALWAYS on the phone and I had a little telephone from a dolls-house supplier that I've also had for more years than I care to remember. I knew it would come in handy one day! She has just bought a laptop and is trying to become more computer savvy so I found a mini laptop via another dolls house shop and I was in business. Finally I added some handmade felt in the shape of the boat. Not because Joan sails but because she is a feltmaker and lives by the sea - hence the shell as well.

I have only placed the things on the letter at present and I'm going to superglue it all into place later in the week. I have no worries that she will see this. She can just about switch on the laptop and send an occasional e mail. Blogging is a mystery to her so this will never spoil her surprise. Overall I am very pleased with how it has come together but I can't say the same for my monoprinting this week. All my plans went astray as I was sidetracked into completing this whilst also finishing my map book (more of that again). I was also sidetracked (it's easily done...)by playing around with bleach and Quink ink on paper. Then today I made some printing plates instead of sticking to my original plan. Thanks for all the comments asking if I'll show my monoprints. I promise that if I ever get around to doing some I will post the pictures no matter what - but don't hold your breath.....