A little Holiday break

This will be my last post for a while because we are off on an exciting venture.

Very early in the morning we are heading off to Perth (on the opposite side of this big country of ours for the non Aussies who may be reading this) for a ten day holiday.

I can't ever remember going away for longer than a week for a holiday and I am getting excited at the thought of the whole thing.

And why am I going to Perth you may well ask?

Well it just happens that Maggie Grey is out in Oz at present and will be giving workshops in Perth while she is here and I will be lucky enough to be attending one of these next Tuesday VBG.

The fact that I am flying from one side of the country to the other didn't deter me because I will also get to see Dale at The Thread Studio (my credit card is twitching at the thought).

I have been an admirer of Maggie Grey's work for a long time and to have this opportunity to attend a workshop with her in person --well I just couldn't miss it could I.

And I will also get to meet some of my Aussie blogging friends in the flesh-in person-to touch.

Linda S whom I have been friends with for many years now and Joanne B (Aussie Jo) will both be at the same workshop.

When we discovered that we had booked into the workshop we decided to book for the same day so that we could finally meet -how cool is that.

So while I am away--be good--and I will tell you all about it when I get back.

Only one more sleep---------------

Crazy Quilt block swap

Recently Maureen and I had a swap with our Crazy Quilt blocks.
We eached pieced a block and then sent it to the other person who the did the embroidery and embellishing.
This is the block that Maureen pieced and I stitched on.




This is the block that I pieced and Maureen finished --the real colours are a wee bit darker than this photo shows.

Maureen also included for me a postcard that she had made as a memento of her trip to Japan.

Thank you Maureen for the swap I really like what you have done for me.

My Country Postcards

This month on the Fabric Postcards for Stitchers Group our theme was My Country.
My swap partner was Rosemarie who lives in the UK and is a new member in our group.
I love her card and I think it is truly British with the double decker bus and a Londan cab.
You can't see it in the photo but she has sequins on the headlights and they really shine.
I am not sure if Rosemarie has a blog or not.


My postcard to her is made in a similar fashion.
I had a piece of fabric that had all these different Aussie icons on it so I cut some of them out-- mainly the ones that most people would recognise anyway and then ironed them onto vliesofix and then onto some calico.
I zig-zag stitched around each section in black thread and then machine stitched around the outline icon on each one.
I found the word Australia on another piece of fabric and added that to it as well.
The postcard reminds me of the tourist postcards that are in all the popular tourist places around Oz -which to my horror are usually made in Asia somewhere.

Can't wait for next month to see what eventuates.

Calendar Girls Postcard from Neki

I have just realised that I haven't shown the postcard for this month from Neki.
When you look into the card you can see many layers of different fabrics and beads.
If you look here you can see the photo that we were working from this month.



Thank you Neki for a beautiful postcard.

More Backgrounds

Here are the last four backgrounds that I have done at present.
The top one was done with Distress Inkpads and Starburst sprays-------------




This one is done with Starburst sprays--------------

This one is also Distress Inkpads and then spritzed with water -------------------

Colourwash sprays -Starburst sprays and stamped with Distress Inkpad.

I will do more when I have time.

Painted backgrounds

I have been painting pages in a Visual Diary to experiment with some inks and some starburst sprays so that I will have a record of what they look like when I want to use them again.
I am rather happy with the results that I have achieved so far.

one----

two---

three---

four---

five---

More tomorrow.

Bubbles

I'm forever blowing bubbles------------



Pretty bubbles in the air--------------------





They fly so high----------------------



Nearly reach the sky----------------

Then like my dreams they -----fall down-----

Bummer-------------------------

ATC's

Recently I did an ATC swap with Julie who lives in WA--- Australia.
Julie does the most amazing mixed media ATC's with so much detail--I love just looking at them to see what else I can find.
----------------------------------------------
In comparison I feel as though I have shortchanged her in what I sent to her.
At our Paper Arts group we have been experimenting with different techniques for backgrounds and I have shown you some of them in the past.
These two ATC's of mine were made using two of the techniques that we have done.
On the left we were making a batik background using wax and inks and on the right is the technique using paper serviettes--I still have over 200 different patterned serviettes to use.

I hope Julie likes them.

Holey Moley Club samples

I have signed up for Dale's online Holey Moley workshop which started last week.
As usual Dale has put together another good workshop but the good thing about this one is that it will run over 12 months.
The lessons come in every 2 months and there are 6 of them which gives us plenty of time to do our samples.
Plus Dale has been giving us little extras now and then to keep us on our toes.
We are making holes or mayby I should say circles in my case -because with the first one I didn't make the holes inside the circles.
The first sample is made using the Flowerstitch foot.
I love this foot as it is so creative once you master it.
By using the different patterned stitches on your machine you can create amazing flowers.
I even managed to make a star and if you click on the picture you can see it better--it was made using the scallop stitch that I have stitched out on the left hand side of the sample.




The next samples were made by wrapping the thread around some different sized knitting needles several times and then buttonhole stitch was worked over the wraps.
The biggest sized one was made by using the cardboard tube from a toilet roll.

In this sample the apricot one is made on a 20mm knitting needle (which is huge) and I have worked the second ring through the first one.

With the green one I worked halfway around the wraps on the toilet roll tube and then I wrapped the thread around my finger several times--and worked on these threads doing the buttonhole stitch- then I re-connected to the main wraps and continued around the toilet roll tube until I had finished.

I am now thinking up different ways to explore this technique.

Oh and I meant to say that in the very first part of the lessons we were using paper-tyvek and lutradur but I haven't done mine yet--naughty me.
I can't wait to see how this all ends up.

Fibre Fever Pages.

This is the finished woven picture from a few posts ago.
This month I had to make a page for Maureen and her theme is trees.
I wanted to make something different so I made the background that I had shown earlier.
The trees are made using small chopped up pieces of different colours of green fabrics-stitched between 2 sheets of solvy-then washed to reveal the tree tops-which I then stitched to the background after I had added the trunks.
I did some free machine embroidered grasses to add a bit more texture.



Below is the page I received from Ritva--which has a beautiful hand stitched butterfly and lots of beads and the large butterfly is printed on the fabric with more stitching added.
I love it Ritva.

July Calendar Girls Postcard

Here is my postcard for the July Calendar Girls Group.
I should have had it finished earlier than this but I kept adding more bits to it trying to get a certain effect.
I started with a base of very fine white mohair fibre to which I added streaks of some fine silver fibre that looks like steel wool which I picked up from the recycle table at the Embroiderers Guild.
This gave a darker shadow over the Mohair.
I ran this under the embellisher to blend the two fibres together.
Then I added strands of white knitting wool and then a layer of pale blue organza and ran it through the embellisher again.
Next I tore off the rolled hems from a pale blue silk scarfe and embellished these on top and some fine fibres of the mohair just to keep it all held together
Then I hand stitched some silver thread down but this didn't show up very well so I finally hand stitched some bugle beads on top and now I think it's finished.
This will be off to Jenny in Wales tomorrow--I do hope she likes it.
.





Below is the calendar page that we are using for this months inspirstion which is Pippa's choice.

If you would like to see what the other girls have done follow the link here

I'm on the road again-------

The creative road I mean-----
Finally I can show you something that I have done or should I say I am doing.
Another of my friends owns a patchwork fabric shop and she was saving me these tiny strips of fabric that she had left when trimming up the fat quarters----rather than open the fabric out and cut along the fold to get the 2 fat quarters she would leave the fabric folded and put the ruler along the fold and run the rotary cutter along and trim off the folded piece.
Me being who I am asked her could I have some as I was sure that I could do something with them.
I had thought of knitting them together and some other stupid ideas but I came up with this weaving idea.
The frames were made by my husband from some concrete re-enforcment and he painted them purple and put some plastic tubing on the ends and I was away.
I wrapped thread up and down over the bars to give me the warp threads and then I selected colours to represent sky -hills-grass and flowers and wove them in between the warp threads.
I ended up with a scene similar to the one I have here--
Then I would I put iron on interfacing on the back to keep it all together and then put a backing and border around it and add a bit of machine stitching to finish it off ending up with a little quilt.




This is what the frame looked like with the warp threads.

I will show you what it looks like when I have finished.

They are here

Todays post revealed the 2 books that I have been eagerly awaiting.
Lynda and Carol's Stitching the Textured Surface and Maggies Greys Stitches,Straps and Layers.
As usual Maggies book is great but I am truly amazed at what Lynda and Carol have achieved in their first book.
The quality of the samples in the book and the photos are outstanding and they are both to be congratulated on a top effort.
Now if anything is going to get my creativeness back this book sure is the answer.

On another note I would like to thank everyone for their comments and e-mails regarding my sleep problems.

I am pleased to say that I am improving in leaps and bounds.

Last night I slept for 9 hours except for a small break when the smoke alarm outside our bedroom door started beeping intermittently because the battery was going flat.

I climbed out of bed- got the step ladder and removed the offender and then went back to bed again and back to sleep.

Oh joyous sleep.

No Photos just words

Being creative in not part of my life at present--I have not been in my sewing/craft room for three weeks except to get things for the two Sashiko pieces that I have done while sitting watching TV in the evenings.
I have been having problems with my sleep patterns---creating at nights when I should be sleeping--sleeping in the daytime when I should be creating.
Because my brain was over active when I finally went to bed after midnight it wouldn't slow down long enough for me to stay asleep.
Then by early afternoon I was falling asleep for several hours.
So I have had to sort it out -hence I have stayed out of the sewing room -and it is working-I am sleeping better at night-but I can't settle down to do the creating during the day.
I have always created at night-sometimes into the wee small hours all I have to do now is to get my creative juices flowing during the day.
I am trying believe me-but it is so strange.
Hang in there something will eventuate.