Embellisher Textile Challenge

Dale at the Thread Studio is having an Embellisher Textile Challenge which will be touring with her this year to places where they will be attending Craft shows in Australia and Alexandra Palace in England.
The theme of the challenge is "Connections" and the entries were not to be bigger than 20cm x 20cm and had to be made on the embellisher.
I have sent in two entries --the first one is called "Rainbow Connections" mainly because of the colours that I have used.
The base is made from "Colour Streams" Silk Fibers from Robin Alexander called Marrakesh (which I have had for a very long time)that I embellished onto felt.
I added 3 slips that I had left over from my Cyber Fyber wall hanging and I connected them with a cord that I had made on my sewing machine and 3 buttons.
I then used running stitch in the same colour silk threads and also some perle cottons to add texture.






The second entry I have called "Broken Threads re-Connected".
The base is wool tops which I lightly embellished onto some flannelette and then added a piece of my own hand dyed scrim which was embellished to the base.
I then placed some fibers over this and embellished them in.
Next I cut the piece into different width strips and rejoined them onto another piece of flannelette-- sometimes I turned the strips upside down.
I wanted the joins to be slightly noticable in keeping with the theme.
Next I used 3 different coloured perle cottons-(green -mauve and raspberry pink) to re-connect the broken thread lines.
I edged the piece in buttonhole stitch but it wasn't until after I had sent the pieces to Dale that I realised that I hadn't taken a photo of the finished piece with the borders done.
So you will just have to imagine the lovely even blanket stitches in green perle cotton around the edge :-}
I quite enjoyed doing these pieces -it made me think about the theme and how I would go about interpreting it.





These pieces will be on tour for 12 months and then they will be returned to me.

Blogaversary prize

At the beginning of January was my 2nd anniversary of when I started blogging and I had a giveaway which was won by Jacqueline.
I haven't heard from Jacqueline yet that the prize has arrived but I thought that I would post a photo of it in case everyone thought that I didn't have a prize after all.
And I am sorry if I have spoilt the surprise for her as well.
I hope you like it Jacqueline.

Postcards

Yesterday I received my first Calendar Girls postcard for 2009 from Sharon.
January's calendar page was selected by Debbi and it is from a Shane Pickett calendar.
If you would like to see all the other cards and the original picture go to our Calendar Girls blog here.
Sharon has put a different slant on her postcard and I love everything about it.
Thank you Sharon I love it.




I also received a postcard from Doreen K who lives in the US.
Doreen kindly sent me a postcard to cheer me up after my toe operation and it worked.
Thank you Doreen you are a wonderful friend.

On a good note my toe finally looks like it belongs on my foot and not in a freak show.

Thanks to everyone who has sent me messages I do appreciate all the comments and they helped to cheer me up.

Now back to creating :-)

Meeting old friends and new

Today I went to the Botanical Gardens in Canberra to meet up again with Sharon B and Annie W for coffee and also to meet for the first time fellow Aussie blogger Judy B.
What a great afternoon of non stop chatter-show and tell and lovely coffee.
Both Sharon and Annie brought along there band samplers and all that I can say is Wow.
You have to see both of these with your own eyes to appreciate the amount of work that has gone into them.
If you want to take a peak at both of them look at Sharon's here and Annies here but with Annies you will need to work your way back through previous posts to get the full story.
Sharon also had her Diamond blocks with her and they were well worth taking a look at also.
Judy is a well known patchworker from Bordertown in South Australia and she had come along with some of her smaller works of art to show us.
It was such a pleasure to spend quality time with fellow bloggers again.


From left to right are Judy-Doreen-Annie and Sharon with Judy's show and tell on the table.
I had to leave after 2 hours as I had to go back to the doctors to have my toe checked again.

Ratty Tatty Papers

This week was the start of the Ratty Tatty Papers online class by Dale at the Thread Studio.
As usual Dale has set us off on a wonderful journey of learning new stuff--this time with serviettes.
I use serviettes a lot in my art and this is something to add to the list.
The serviette was given to me earlier this month by an internet friend Heather in Queensland and I thought I would use it in my first sample.
There are three layers in this piece-the base is a quarter section of the serviette then a gridded layer was added and lastly the top slip pieces were added.

Here is a photo of the gridded section after it had been washed.

Now onto the other part of this lesson.

This looks like it will be an interesting workshop.

Ouch

If it looks like a sore toe and it feels like a sore toe then it must be a sore toe.

I will be out of action for a few days as I have had a small operation on my big toe :-(

Lynda asked for a photo of me in bed with my leg elevated but this is all she is going to get--a photo of my toe.

OK I am back off to bed.

Calendar Girls 2009

This year for the Calendar Girls challenge we have all submitted a page from a calendar of our choice and each month one of the pages will be used as the inspiration.
The page for January came from Debbi's calendar which is by Australian Aboriginal artist Shane Pickett.
This was a wonderful picture to interpret on the embellisher and I am pleased with how it has turned out.
I used a dark brown felt as the base and layered wool and silk fibers onto it but I worked from the reverse side to achieve the subtleness that I was after.
The two rows of stitching are worked in running stitch by hand.
If you would like to see some of the other interpretations go to the Calendar Girls blog here




Here is the original picture that Debbi posted.

What a great choice Debbi.

And the winner is

I have been waiting for Ebony to wake up to draw the winner of my giveaway but she refuses to even stir so I have asked Stephen to do the honours and the name he chose was Jacqueline.
Congratulations Jacqueline-- I know your address and I will contact you later today regarding your prize.
Thanks to all the people who commented I really appreciate it.

CYBER FYBER almost here

The internet is abuzz with CYBER FYBER fever -the wonderful exhibition created by Susan Lenz in Columbia - South Carolina - USA.
Susan has spent nearly 12 months organising this exhibition and all the other things that are associated with it-ATC and Postcard swaps-exhibitors-sponsors-Opening night-publicity- demonstrations etc.
It is an incredible feat for Susan (and Steve) to pull together and they have done it with such professionalism that it can only be a roaring success.
Ebony and I have been lucky enough to be invited to enter an exhibit and I have enclosed several photos that I have taken from the CYBER FYBER site to show you how they look hanging in the exhibition.
( click on the photos and they will enlarge for easier viewing)
If you click here you will be able to see the demonstration time table for Saturday's Fiber day.

Ebony's quilt hanging in the exhibition is the one second from the right in the corner----hanging near the three pieces by Lynda of Purple Missus.






Here is mine which is the third from the right---the top one.
How exciting is this to be exhibiting in this wonderful exhibition

Wow this is exciting.

Two Years Old

I nearly forgot that it is two years ago today when I started my blog.

Where has the time gone to--I know I have been busy and I know that I have made some amazing friends since I started blogging.

I have learned so many new skills due to having a blog----

I have joined some wonderful groups-------------

Done some amazing online workshops-------------

Received some wonderful gifts---------

So it is my turn to give back a little.

I have decided to have a little or maybe big(I am not sure yet) giveaway to celebrate this milestone--not sure what it will be but it will be worthwhile.

If you leave a comment here by Thursday (Australian time) I will get Ebony to draw out the winners name.

And to think it all started because I joined Sharon Boggan's TAST online challenge
Thank you Sharon.

My Tower Book

Back in October Lynda of Purple Missus fame bought me for my birthday a copy of Maggie Grey's new book Textile Translations.

Part of owning this wonderful book is that there are free classes to go with it.

I haven't been able to start on the lessons until this week because of prior committments but now that they are all done I can get on with them.

The first lessons were to make a tower book and this is now finished.

The tower is a triangle and this is the side view with the front opening showing the pages.

Next is how it looks front on with the ties undone.

The back view-------------

And how it looks all tied up.

Now I have to catch up some more.

My Cyber Fyber Piece

Now that Susan has posted the photos of the entries in the Cyber Fyber exhibition I can show you mine.

I know that I could have shown you before but I wanted to wait for Susan to do it first.
If you would like to see all the entries that are in the exhibition and why the people were chosen you can go here .

Most of the stuff in this piece has either been given to me by cyber friends or is recycled or left over bits from previous works.
I can't remember the exact size but it is around 30cm x 40cm (12" x 16") and is mainly hand stitched except for the border which was attached by machine.
I am very happy with the way this turned out and I hope you enjoy looking at it.

ATC's from Claudia

Yesterday we received these two ATC's from Claudia who is Jo's daughter.

These are Claudia's drawings of her "crazy angels" which her mother transfered onto fabric and then stitched onto the ATC.

How clever is that---and now we have a piece of her creative drawing.

Ebony chose the one on the left which made me happy because I really wanted the one on the right but I always give her first choice so it worked out well.

Thank you for the swap Claudia.

I can't show you the cards that we sent to Claudia because somehow they were deleted from the folder that I had them in----Mr Nobody has been at it again.

Do you have a Mr. Nobody in your house ?---when things go missing "nobody" know what happened to them.

OK I have cheated I went to Jo's blog and copied the pictures that she had put on her blog.

Ebony's is the one on the right.