Leafygal

Wheelie fast!

Well I am not known for my sporting prowess but I have done several walks with the dog up and down the steep hill that we live on. (sorry - on which we live!)

The reason is that the UCI World Championship Cycling races are being held in our hometown of Geelong and it is difficult to avoid them as most of the centre of town is blockaded while the racers are whizzing around.

 Pepper and I decided to take some photos of the race, just because we could and we took the 3rd and 2nd last laps. Then we came home to watch the finish on the Telly. Imagine how excited we were when the Winner was Michael Matthews - an Aussie!

I think this is him on the 3rd last lap - he was reasonably close to the front at that stage, but there was a bunch of aussies there with him and I can't be sure which is which as he  just put his head down as he got to me.

Here are some more.

Love the motorbike cameraman. 

I like to call this one "Bums on Seats!"  

Well that about wraps it up for my sporting career. I don't think there are any more entries in this blog with the tag Sports and I wonder when there will be another!!!

LIttle Boxes...not ticky tacky I hope!

Here are the altered tins I did for my mmartfriends group swap.

We were supposed to use Altoids tins which are cute rectangular tins with hinged tops sold in the USA with mints inside. I know I have one somewhere in my stash but couldn't find it for the swap. They don't seem to sell them here any more, and I didn't like the mints either!!

One person in our swap said she hates them and had to give away all the mints  - she can't even stand the smell! Such dedication to art!!!

I resorted to round tins sold here with what I know as boiled lollies in them - flavours that we were forced to eat were "Lemon Drops" and "Pear and Blackcurrant drops" - just for the record.

My tins started with a lovely paper with Ginkgo leaves printed on it. I added some contrasting red paper around the edges and gold tissue inside the lid.

The medallion on top is a round cut from a polystyrene meat tray with impasto medium stamped to texture it. Painted with gold acrylic paint and them scattered with paper punched Ginkgo leaves. (I love my little leaf punch!)

To finish the top was some greeny gold fibre from one of my mother's stashes.

Inside were the little treasures - I collected charms, transfer stickers, Aussie postage stamps, coloured brads, fibres, painted music sheet, swing tags - some blank and others that I had aged with paint and spotted. I included a scatter of Ginkgo leaves that I punched out.

Feedback from the 2 recipients, one in Portland Oregon and the the other in St Paul, Minnesota. One loved the postage stamps and the other loved Ginkgo trees so a win-win there.

Dissolving into gorgeousness

Finally scanned the items that I managed to get done at the wonderful workshop that I did at the Emb Guild in Melbourne a few weeks ago. Jan Beany and Jean Littlejohn (Double Trouble) were the very creative lecturers.

These pieces are still awaiting final finishes.

First up is the lace net. We laid down a grid of threads onto a background of sticky dissolvable then laid a few more threads, mine in a slalom fashion across the other squares. Covered with Giulietta, a very see through plastic film, and machined all around the grid to hold it all together.

Then added embroidery using threads, beads, ties and pailettes (the lime green shiny ones)

At this stage we were too impatient to wait any longer so dissolved the "cloth"and film away and were left with fabbo nets of lacy stuff. I plan to do some more beading on this and will then mount it on a background - possibly black but I will audition a few colours to see how they look.  (Could it be Purple? Surely not)

Next is the embellisher machine special - a mini landscapey piece.  We used the machine to fuse layers of chiffon in a variety of colours. Some were cut and turned and re fused to make even more combinations.  

Some pink muslin was poked through from the back giving just a hint of tiny points if colour on the lower half of the cloth. The whole thing was a very fast and very seductive process, Jo and I are seriously in danger of purchasing machines while they are on special for Mothers' day.

This piece now needs some hand embroidery to complete the design. I'm thinking that it looks like a murky skyed sunset.

Next up is a piece that looks a bit revolting at this stage. I'm hoping that the needle felting embellishment process will give it a fabulous new look, but I'm not really holding my breath. We'll all have to wait and see.

It is done on a dissolvable fabric doubled for strength and stitched in an embroidery hoop.

A design shape was outlined and then woolly fibres used to stitch. You have to cross over stitches so that the fabric will become a piece of cloth in its own right once the fabric is dissolved away.

Stand by for what it looks like once I've attacked it with the needles. I'll have to do this by hand as I ran out of time at the workshop.

Seeing Red

I've finished my ATC's for the mmartfriends swap. I decided that I really ought to do something NOT blue or purple or turquoise for a change. So...RED

Painted the background with acrylics and stamped a background stamp.

The little pics have been in my swag for a while - they are from a copyright free book of old advertising designs. I decided to glam them up with some gold tissue and was going to swoosh a colour over the pics but decided that I liked the black and white contrast to the red.

I went to the Australian Quilt Convention exhibition on Friday and now my bank account is red as well!!

I'll show you the yummy stuff at a later date!

Scrummy Squares

Boy have I been arty lately!

Here is the next installment of the Mixed Mania book study.

This time they are 1.5inch squares - actually a few of mine are 4cm squares. They are bigger than inchies and smaller than twinchies.

I seem to have to be very neat with mine.  The goat ones are done on a background of my own painting but the 2 others are ready made papers.

Very simple if you want to try it - I do strips of the basic paper and then cut out the squares. Decorate the edges, find pictures that say something to you and go searching for appropriate words in glossy magazines.

I've tried to keep the words in sets as well, although not always possible.

The cocktails, the shoes and the goats are cut from wrapping paper. Saving paper has its rewards at last.

Wacky Wild Women

Here's the wacky woman I made in the workshop that I ran for the Creative Fibres group.

We are each taking it in turns to do a workshop and they have been fun so far. Each one is so different.

My wacky woman has some hand felting onto black felt, then the Artgirlz charms, face hands and legs, were sewn on. I embroidered some french knots and lazy daisy parts onto her dress and added a strip of foil from the neck of a champagne bottle that I had tried machine sewing across. (waste not want not I always say!!)

No one is complete without a bit of bling so I gave her a beaded necklace.

Her hair got a bit out of hand - using one of my favourite yarns and then some bugle and seed beads.

When we all wore our brooches to the Emb Guild meeting on the Monday after the workshop there was so much interest that I've been asked to run a workshop for the whole group!

Crazy papers

Killed 2 birds with one stone here. In our mixed media group we are doing a book study and we got to the Crazy papers chapter. Basically very simple with watercolour or acrylic paint wash and then some simple shapes added to become background papers.

I had signed on to do a paper swap with another group so ......

The theme for the swap was spring ( I know it's Autumn here but you have to roll with the group if it's in the USA) I used blue and green colours - not a big departure for me and added some decoration down the sides as these pages are destined to become journal pages for writing or further decorating.

Green leaf like design is from an Indian wood block I bought recently, as is the pinky bird.

Eggy shapes and lilacky flowers are just paint and watercolour pastels with a touch of pen work to finish.

After I took this scan I added some spritzes of coppery mist to add a bit more dimension to the main part of the pages.

Pending

Here are the gorgeous pendants I received in the swap. One is a coffee stained Mahjong tile. Another is paper cutouts and the next one is possibly embossed leather. The small red one is Fimo with embedded beads and the last is a heart made of beads (the bottom one is actually a blue see through stone but looks open here)

Aren't they lovely?

Paper gals

Here's another mmartfriends activity. We are working our way through another book. This time Mixed Mania

I don't remember playing with paper dolls as a child and I think I know why.

I didn't get all excited by this task and just completed one outfit for each doll? I'm not cut out to be a dressmaker - Project Runway will just have to manage without me!  PS..... and I didn't even have to draw the dolls - they were given in the book. (I did have to colour them in though! - I liked that part!)

Hearts and Flowers

I had fun using up some of my paper fabric to make heart pendants for a swap on Mixed media art friends yahoo group.

Here are the results! Fronts and Backs.

I added some flower stamps and couldn't resist the tiny hearts drawn on with gel pens. Threading the beads was a challenge but by the 3rd or so I had it figured out. I guess that is why we do these things - learning experiences!

Tag Team

I've finished my tags. We made them in our Creative Fibres Group out of swing tags from clothing.

Gesso to surface them then an Impasto layer.

We imprinted this layer with all sorts of objects. Mine were done with a plastic fly swat (the cobwebby shaped ones) and a small potato masher with circular holes (this gave lovely scaley patterns)

I also did a couple using a palette knife in swirls.

We used acrylic paints in lots of layers allowing some of each layer to shine through. Finishes I then used were Lumiere powders and paints, twinkling H2O's and Shiva paint sticks.

My stash of fibres yielded a great selection to add to the tags and it was fun matching up the colour combinations to the tags.

Not sure what they are to be used for, I may use a couple on my creative fibres sample book (if it ever gets off the ground - I have cut out the black felt pages so I guess that is a start!)

Front Pager again

Just discovered that my Voodoo Love Doll  made the homepage of our mixed media art group

It's great to have this recognition.

Now I really must show you my Good Fortune Birds that flew off to the swap some time back now.  (I'll scan a better image later)
I'm also in the pendant swap so must think about what I'll produce for that.

You might also like to see the cushion that my sister made for me for Xmas. It is just beautiful and I'm very impressed with it.

Eat drink and be merry

Have done some fine eating lately (so what's new?)

The Ladies lunched at the newly named Loam in the middle of the Bellarine Peninsular out back of Drysdale/Portarlington. Sat on the deck and had the "rustic menu" which was very delicious and ranged through poussin with baked apple to trout or snapper whole. I had the smoked pork chop with creamy coleslaw. Desserts were served in glasses - pannacotta with cherry-plum and honeycomb was fabbo and caramel, shortcake and lavender also went down well.

We dined in Melbourne for sister's birthday at the Mecca Bah and enjoyed tasty middle eastern flavours. Overlooking the water at docklands in summer is a great place to be.

Last Sunday completed our feasting with a great meal at Oakdene at Ocean Grove. Have a look at the menu! I had a very tender and tasty steak and the duck entree included smoked duck prosciutto which was served in a glass of smoke! An extravagance but a luscious one.

Fabric?...Paper?...

I'm doing another swap with my mmartfriends online group. We have been doing a project following a book titled Stitch Alchemy which is all about fabric paper. Lots of different ways to add colour and to embellish it.

The beauty of this medium is that it is strong because the backing is calico and it is a good surface to paint on or stamp or to use any other paper based medium. You can cut and sew it like fabric as well.

I found that it is a good idea to do it in batches so you can get out the PVA glue, thin down a large quantity, tear up some tissue paper (I used old paper patterns and paper napkins for some of mine) and spread out a large plastic drop sheet...this is a messy part.

Once it is dry I painted with acrylic paints and used lumieres and metallic mists to add sparkle.

I have finished 2 sheets with embellishments of Gel pens, stamping and, best of all, dimensional paint (I love metallics here too - especially the copper colour)

I've drawn my bird shape for the swap, it can be seen drawn around on the pink sheet and I'm about to cut the shapes out...fingers crossed that they look OK

Samples here show A. Basic tissued cloth, B. Painted backgrounds and C.  Embellished sheets

 

The Yellow sheet at the bottom started out as the RH one at the top. Amazing what a bit of paint can do.

I'm going to have fun now making 3 strings of Good Fortune Birds and a Voodoo Love Doll.

I'm excited because my partner in the Love Doll swap is the author of the book, who is a member of our group. Mine will have to be pretty special to send to her!!  I'm dying to see what she sends to me.

I'm a star *

Christmas this year was a very busy one for me and my family. Our shop was fortunately flat out before the big day and my family worked hard over the break to get our family home in Ocean Grove ready for letting out for the holidays.

Christmas day itself was the usual double family event with this year having my dear husband's big birthday (OK - 60) to celebrate as well.

Yesterday I travelled through a 43C heatwave to visit my embroidered Xmas star at the Johnstone Collection.

This is a Victorian terraced house in East Melbourne which houses a collection of fine and decorative arts.

My star as I mentioned in an earlier post is part of the Xmas decorations this year. It is near the front of the big Xmas tree in the Green Drawing room. I was pleased to see that it looked just as good as the other 99 stars. (The photo here is of the room as it is normally - without decorations!)

All the rooms were filled with the most amazing items made by arty crafty people from Geelong. Some were small and exquisite like the tiny tree hung with hand made lace ornaments. Others were huge like the large tree made of slumped glass panels and decorated with swags of beads, crystal and glass drops to reflect the design of the chandelier in the room. This dining room also contained slumped glass platters with elephants impressed in them as well as painted canvas place mats with copies of some of the faces from the miniatures hung on the wall.

The Study or  oriental room had gorgeous textiles including dragons inspired by a Chinese vase, butterflies from another vase, and an elephant doorstop taken from a wall sconce.

Our room had embroidered slippers, hand knitted argyle socks, a pair of gorgeous sea angels with machine embroidered gold wings and painted and embroidered clothes. There was a smaller tree with canvas sail covered with tiny stars in green and burgundy, felted fruit in a bowl and wonderful strawberries made by the junior guild members.  Knitted camels and smaller embroidered ones continued this year's theme of Mr Johnstone's voyages and "We three Kings of Orient Are" on their travels

There were items representing  presents being wrapped for Mr Johnstone's friends and others that he had unwrapped for himself.  A silk embroidered waistcoat had Dorset buttons made by one of the girls in our group. A gold handbag embroidered with Japanese Irises and a compact to match were also a superb gift.

There were so many other pieces, it took 2 hours to visit the rooms and we could have stayed lots longer. Sadly no photos were allowed so I can't show you any of the splendour, but hopefully there will be some professionally taken ones later.

If you are anywhere near Melbourne (Australia) you should try and see this wonderful display before it finishes in February.

Frenzied cards

Here are four APC's I made for the quarterly Trading Frenzy on my 4X6 group. They are mostly Glue book type things with backgrounds of existing post cards (ie Altered Post cards) or painted backgrounds.

I add pictures/words either cutout or stamped. This is quite a quick way of working as I didn't want to spend too much time doing these.
 

 

Seeing stars

I've just finished my first real "proper" hand embroidery project (as a grown up.

I did face washers, a tablemat, a cloth doll, some smocking and a black and red handbag as a child/teenager-  those are what I remember anyway)

These Xmas stars are for the Geelong Embroiderer's Guild to use to decorate one of the drawing roooms at the Johnston Collection in East Melbourne. The whole house will have decorations made by a variety of Geelong sewing/craft groups.  My star will be on the big Xmas tree, amongst many others, hopefully it will be up to scratch - I've seen some of the others and they are exquisite work. Mine are very much beginner pieces but I guess they will look OK on the tree.

We were given the star shapes with different designs already drawn by the group who are responsible for our decorations. The thread and beads were also part of the overall scheme.

I wasn't crazy about this star design, some of the stars are lighter gold or white backgrounds and I thought the designs had more possibilities, but now I've done mine I've grown to like them a lot more.

I hope my mother is impressed, I have the feeling that she somehow knows about my late life conversion to embroidery!

Postcards to go

They did get finished. A little more machine embroidery, some hand stitching to add a little "je ne sais quoi" and then a tad more of the machining. Normally I would do the hand work last but I did it while we were away and didn't have the machine with me.

Although I seemed to have packed enough stuff for several weeks away,  embroidery, knitting, 3 books, 4 magazines,and not to mention the 5 wine bottles or the Partridge in the Pear Tree, I still didn't think of the sewing machine.  Having just read Yarn Harlot's  latest column where she contemplates taking her spinning wheel on her bike (not, I hope, to spin while riding) perhaps I should have added it to the mix!

The cards have been posted complete with stamps and a comment from the lady at the Post Office showing her to be knowledgeable about Artists Post Cards, but never having seen fabric ones before.
I sent this Pic to my APC group and was honoured to have it placed on the Home page.

Wanderings

Enjoyed a few days off with my sister/s. Both were there for the first night then 2 more nights with Lou.
We stayed in beautiful Blairgowrie, at the pointy end of  the Mornington Peninsula between Rye and Sorrento.
It is a quiet spot nestled into tea trees with winding little roads and a tranquil atmosphere.
Houses vary from old weekenders, more modern ones (70's) and the more recent and upmarket steel glass and stone 2 stories'.

The local supermarket proved to be a little gem with a wonderful range of upmarkety snacky bits. We succumbed easily to a large chunk of Tarago Shadows of Blue cheese - a current addiction, and a few other delights including Phillippa's wonderful parmesan cheese biscuits.

Lunch on the Monday was at Max's at Red Hill Estate vineyard, a 30 minute drive through rolling countryside and forests. Food was delicious and we discovered the most flavourful Pinot Gris by the glass. Needless to say some had to be purchased along with a marmaladey Noble Rot and a succulent muscat.
After a quick gallery hop in Sorrento dinner needed only a raid on our antipasti and a few bottles.

Next morning we hit the bay beach for a very short walk and then farewelled sister no 2. We spent a very pleasant hour in the lovely cafe sampling the coffee and getting almost through the cryptic crossword.
Sorrento shops beckoned and we "did the town" finding a lovely bookshop with textile art scarves and jewellry as a bonus. Some clothes were added to our finds and lunch in a local cafe. Many homewares stores were checked out, all rather imitating each other in style and products - a sort of coastal shabby chic for the most part.

Wednesday was dine out for brunch day, and we once again spent an hour or two over the cryptics accompanied by a generous breakfast of eggs local bacon mushrooms sourdough toast and someone also had Hollandaise sauce just to gild the lily!
Rest of the day we meandered up the coast as far as Dromana stopping at every possible yarn, art supply, book and textile arts shop.
Evening of antipasto and knitting -or embroidery.

Thursday was pack and clean up time and then to Mornington to 2 Galleries. Manyung was where we lunched overlooking the sculpture courtyard and found delightfully quirky wire wrapped scuptures of dogs and women by Annie Glass
Home by 4.30. What a shame to have to wrench the brain back into everyday life mode again after such a relaxing time.

Fabric postcards

Here's the sheet of quilted fabric I made as the base for some postcards.
They are for a swap in my Mixed Media arts friends group.
I used a hand dyed fabric as the base and added some stamps.
I machine embroidered over the stamps outlining some bits and just skipping over others.
I added small snippets of printed fabric and applied them by sewing roughly around the leafy design
Now I have to cut them out and do the edges.
I might add some more machining in different colours to give it a bit of a zing

Busy Fingers

I have been doing some creative work. Really I have!!!
Just haven't got around to either photograph or scan it or to blog about it. Now a whole heap will be revealed at once.

First the Emb Guild Creative Fibres group.

We do a different technique each month.

Solvy work. Using a dissolvable "cloth" you free machine embroider and then dissolve away the background in water leaving only the threads. They are slightly stiffened so hold a lovely shape.
I plan some earings with the little leaves and the larger rectangle will adorn a page in the fibre book we are each making to show off our work. 

Shiva Paint stick rubbings.
These are an oil paint in a stick. We rubbed them over various textures and I will be using these on a book page.

The next one was Paper Clay and paper tissue. Impressions were made in the clay or layers of tissue gently brushed into a shape like a stamp or a shell. When dry they are painted. I like the bluey flower one and think that this might go on the front cover of the book.

A beautiful girl

Sad and teary. My lovely friend Spice (my sister's beautiful weimaraner dog) is no longer with us.
She picked up a really rare bacterial infection, flesh eating type and couldn't survive without extensive surgery and months of rehabilitation that would have been so unhappy for her to have to endure.

She was only 5 1/2 years old, just 6 months older than my cute little Pepper.
I have such lovely memories of her, as a soft and cuddly puppy with beautiful eyes, enormous feet and angular legs (and nippy little teeth!)

When she met my Pepper for the first time she lay down on the floor so her nose was about the same height as Pepper's and seemed to know that a little baby puppy had to be treated gently.
Pepper soon learnt that if she stood on her back legs she could hook her paw around Spice's nose and pretend to be just as big as her.

Pepper always got so excited when we got to Spice's house and she ran up the steps ready for them to greet each other. She will miss that.
She will also miss our occasional beach walks together, even though Spice was inclined to run rings around Pepper and remind her of who was really the boss.

Spice made sure that Pepper never really got too close to Spice's "mum", my sister, putting herself between them and seeming to say "this is My mum , not yours, no pats from her for you!"

We loved that they were Pepper and Spice, cousins together. We'll miss you Spicey.

Baby Spice and Little Nick about 5  1/2 years ago

Getting out the Bleach...

No- I'm not going blonde (although sometimes I think my brain is..)
I spent some time last weekend at the Creative Fibres group stamping bleach onto velvet. Technically known as discharge dying as you are actually removing the dye. The results are unpredictable as different dyes have different colour components.

We discovered that not all velvets are equal and some didn't work at all.

The best fabric turned out to be Jo's old velour "Tracky Daks" which were well washed and this probably helped. I am now regretting having given my mothers old velours to the Op shop.

I used a lovely little apple cut in half as one of my stamps and it worked out really well.
I also carved champagne corks into shapes for other stamps. Glad to find a use for this object that somehow seems to breed in our household!!
Now I need to start embroidering and embellishing the fabrics - that should be really fun.

Nostalgia

Met up with some very old friends (in both senses) for lunch the other day.

Recently I  found some old letters that I had written to my mother. She kept everything that her children wrote to her - cards, letters, programmes for "Concerts" performed when we were about 10 years old etc.etc.etc.

Some of the letters were from when I was first a student in Melbourne and living in a Teacher's College Hostel called Frank Tate House in Dandenong Rd in Armadale. One described a day out at the Botanical Gardens.
I read this letter to my buddies over Lunch and was sent some photos recording that day long ago.
I decided that as it was such a long time ago they wouldn't mind me showing them to the world. Rather cute weren't we?

I'm not showing the photos taken this week as we are mostly larger, more wrinkly and less leggy than we once were.  Three of us in this photo were at the lunch, the 4th took the photo.

Here's one of her as well, just so she doesn't feel left out!  We were obviously being somewhat irreverent to poor old Frank Tate!!

I wonder what happened to that dress of mine? It was a favourite - hot pink raw silk.
Unfortunately it might just fit half of me these days!

Swapping out

The ATC 's are finally finished and I had a small swap on Saturday at the Fibre Arts group meeting.
 I applied some net and machine couched some shiny gold thread (looks black in these pics)  I then couched on some knitting yarns using a rough herringbone stitch by hand.
At this point I cut the shapes out into ATC size (2.5 x 3.5 inches)
Once they are cut you can see what each needs to complete the designs. I decided to do some hand embroidering in a bright Orange as a complimentary colour to the blue-violets I had already used.
French knots I love doing and a couple of star bursts made just the difference. I even got fancy with a feather stitch and french knot flower.
I like them and I think the swapees liked them too.
I got 2 lovely cards in exchange - both very different from each other and from mine. Ain't variety great!!
 

The long and winding road....

Spent some of Saturday at the Emb. Guild Creative Fibres group.
I did my first free motion stitching after reading the instruction book on my "new"(18months ago) sewing machine.
Here they are.  

They are going to be ATC's (artist's trading cards) so when I've added more fibres and some hand embroidery wthey will be cut into small cards and the edges finished. Then they can be swapped in the group.

Stay tuned.....

Extra Charming

Here's what I mailed off to the States yesterday to my mmartfriends group.

The first lot are for the category "Beads".  I know lots of the group will have made their own beads but I was hard pressed just to get them threaded in time!

I disassembled an old earring from an Op Shop to get the pale blue beads. The larger top ones are polished recycled glass

My second ones are at least made by my own hand. The category is fabric. They are just under 1 inch square
I used a square of metal mesh and buttonhole stitched a square of felt to it.
I then added shaped sequins and jump rings and "Hey Presto!" a Charm.  The sequins are a bit too shiny to show properly but they look fine in real life.
 

Amazing Bra-artworks

I found these most astonishing artworks through one of the mixed media art groups.
I have seen "decorated" bras before but none of this calibre.
It just shows how fertile the imagination can be.
It still amazes me how every person given the same challenge can develop something so unique.
Here's a small selection (with permission from the blog owner)
 

The titles are: (see if you can guess which is which!)

Look at them Melons.
The Bra from Hell.
Classy and Brassy with a touch of Mink.

Fifi and Mimi. Monkey Business!
One pink Feather.
Allie's Dream

(I think I share her dream somehow!)

I do read, by the way!

For those of you who know me this is a very funny statement
I'm the person who reads the cereal packet if nothing else is available (I can't remember there being nothing other than a packet however)
I also read at 3 am if I just got home, so that I can get my brain into sleep mode.
I panic if I am not within 50 yards of a readable book and go to great lengths to get to the library if I may run out of book before I get to sleep.
Here is a reader's quiz just so you can measure up too. I'm not sure what a literate good citizen is but it must be OK if I'm one!!!

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Literate Good Citizen   You read to inform or entertain yourself, but you're not nerdy about it. You've read most major classics (in school) and you have a favorite genre or two.
Dedicated Reader
Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm
Book Snob
Fad Reader
Non-Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

Thready as she goes

I survived my first meeting of the Creative Fibres group of the Embroiderer's Guild - Geelong Group (just to give it a proper title to start with - to be known henceforth as "The Creatives" or "The Fibres" or ???)

Our first demonstration was how to make silk paper - I am restraining myself from running out to buy some silk fibres to start straight away. I must use fabrics that I already own and embellish to make them more gorgeous.  (Oh all right I've heard this somewhere before!!! Stop laughing!)

Our first homework is to make ATC's. Now you know I've made these before  but in paper not fabric.
It's exciting! Ideas are coming... where's that plastic sheet?

Recycling envelopes

For some time now I have been saving security envelopes. You know - the kind that are printed inside so you can't read through the envelope and get someone's innermost secrets or bank account details.
Well Tony finally found out what I wanted them for.
Our mmartfriends group is having another Fat Book swap, this time on Techniques.

I decided to do a Serendipity Squares background using the envelopes.
First tear them into chunky pieces. Then glue them down onto a sheet of paper or card and make sure you cover all the paper.
Get out your rubber stamps and stamp all over the pages to help integrate all the various bits of paper into a whole. Then comes the fun bit.
I used embossing powder - gold metalic to emboss a few more stamped images on the backgrounds.
I enhanced the whole thing with a bit of scribble using watercolour pencils.
Cut out the squares to size.

In this case to show the technique we are doing 4x4 inch pages.
To use the squares you actually cut them much smaller, into "inchies" 1x1 inch or to use as the background to an ATC 2.5x3.5 inches.

These are some of the 22 that I had to make. The gold is a little dull in the scan. It is actually shiny bright.
Here is a single square a smaller piece that I had left over and an inchie .
As you can see each inchie is a mini art piece in itself. Imagine each of the squares divided into 16 and each one is an inchie  Aren't inchies cute!!

Isn't that the best way to use up old envelopes?

Dancing in the dark

It's funny how life can throw things at you which force you stop and smell the roses.

We've been suffering extreme temperatures for the past few days, over 40c and up to 45c. The whole state is sweltering and there have been widespread power outages as a consequence.
Last night was our turn.
Power went off about 6.30pm. I was in the den with the portable air conditioner on and Pepper the dog and Charlie the cockatiel also enjoying the cooler room.

Dinner was about to be served and because we knew that we were about to have these days of heat I had done some food prep several days ago. We had cold spinach and ricotta pie with a tossed salad.
Usually we eat in the den, but the sea breeze had fortunately arrived and we could open the doors to the deck and although the sun was still hot and determinedly shining in we ate at the dining room table, at the shaded end.

When we finished I went out onto the deck and sat at the little table and read while the sun "sank slowly in the West"! Pepper lay in her "flat- pack- dog" pose, on her side with legs outstretched and enjoyed the breeze and the sound of the next door puppy chewing his squeaky toy.The skyline gradually rosied over and glowed faintly green as the dusk crept on.
It was now too dark to read so I just sat and called Tony to join me

A black flapping shape passed over and then some more. The bats were flying over from the Botanic gardens to the river valley below us and across to Queens Park. I remembered the bats that used to fly past our balcony in Sydney when we lived in Elizabeth Bay. There were hundreds of them and they traveled in small groups. Our bats last night were not so numerous and passed singly or at the most in pairs.
The moon was now clear in the sky, a very slim crescent shape with Venus glowing beside it. The hillside opposite us was for once in darkness. The only lights were cars crossing the bridge and weaving their way up the hill.

I finally moved back inside to find and light some candles. A romantic glow made our room look special and I was about to boil water on the stove for a cup of tea when the electric buzz of the fridge and the radio and beeps from microwave and TV rudely interrupted. I almost wished them away again.

[photo not mine but gives some flavour of the scene]

Papers and cards

There has been some creative activity lately, just not appearing here, so to update -
I joined in an Artist's Postcard "Frenzy" on one of my groups. You make several (or many) cards and then on the designated Frenzy day post them on the group site. You then check out everyone else's lovely work and if you like something you ask to swap. They then look at what you have put up and choose what they'd like in return.

It is possible to reject a swap if there's nothing of the swappee's stuff you like, but I think the protocol is to be delighted that they like yours and choose something anyway.
I have had no trouble choosing things I like so far and have had some gorgeous cards coming in the mail.
Here's what I sent this time.     

I have also done a paper backgrounds swap with the Collage Unleashed group.
This one is a first swap with this group although I've belonged to it for ages.
It relates to the book by Traci Bautista called "Collage Unleashed" which I have.We had to make 24 pages for backgrounds using techniques from her book.

I spread myself out on the dining room table and painted backgrounds then smooshed paint around using an old credit card to scrape it across the page. I then did various spatterings and other dry brushed embellishments. I hope I haven't made them to hard to work over, as they are intended to end up as journal pages.

I can't wait to get the set back and see what other people have done - it is always a bit scary doing one of these swaps for the first time when you haven't a clue  what might be the end result.  

Pics show front and back of each set that I did. I did them in larger sheets and then cut them to the finished 8x10 inches size. Bright aren't they!!!

Post Christmas - Post New Year - 2009 is well under way!

Here we are well into the New Year and me not having posted anything yet.
Can I plead being busy?
Christmas was fun but a lot of work with Tony's family here for lunch and then an adjournment to my family home in Ocean Grove to do it all over again for dinner. Thoroughly enjoyed by all.

My brother did what I think we all should have done after lunch!!

We spent a few days at OG, but not holidaying. We are still in the throes of clearing out the house and this time tackled the 3rd bedroom. One chest of drawers contained my mother's "upstairs" studio. I scored a lot of my mother's art supplies so once I get myself sorted at this end I should be able to do some sort of arty stuff. We still haven't done her "downstairs" studio(a whole room)  and I hate to think where all that stuff will go as quite a lot will be for keeping.

The frenzy of clearing was to accomodate my nephew and a couple of his friends who are going to live in the house for a while, especially over the summer. I went back last week to bring back the family history collection, which is now stacked in my bedroom awaiting distribution and more bookshelves.

New Year we were back at the house where we wined and dined with a couple of friends and even managed to dance to some "oldies but goodies" from the sixties! We later managed to convince the neighbours that the noise was the nephew and friends up on the top lawn!!  Watched the fireworks over the Bluff and could also see them going off down the coast at Torquay.

Eating and drinking hasn't abated with my resolution to entertain more friends this year. So far one couple overnight including a trip to Kilgour Estate Winery for lunch on a perfect (not too hot) summer's day overlooking the ever sparkling waters of the bay.

Two couples minus one partner for dinner last Monday. I did a "proper" dinner party for a change. Anti-pasto platters included baby witlof leaves stuffed with a cream cheese mix and topped with Smoked salmon. I also stuffed the biggest mushroom I've ever seen with a herby ricotta mix and baked it. We also had the smallest zucchini, just fresh and crunchy with mayo.

Main course was baked lamb with baked garlic peppers, asparagus, eggplant salad and baked Kipfler potatoes.

Dessert had to include the gorgeous sour cherries that my last week's guests brought from the Dandenongs. I made a  clafoutis, which turned out well even though the ratio of cherries to batter was a bit high. (The picture is not of my effort as I didn't think to take photos!)

As usual we have started the year with plenty of good cheer, good friends and good food.

Threads "n" things

Well I did it. I joined the Embroiderer's Guild!
Went to my first meeting on Monday and will get started in earnest in Feb when they start up again.

I plan to go to their Fibre Arts Guidance days and will think about doing the Intermediate Certificate starting with Surface stitches which gives a bit of an overview of the basics, including Design and finishing of items.
Here is my first work - A couple of little Xmas presents for my Osteopath who keeps me moving and who loves hand made things.
Felt,  beads and threads.  I added a gold hanging thread from the top of each one. I love the graduated thread, it is such fun.

 My mother must be pleased if she is looking down right now - she was one of the founding members of the Guild in Geelong. She is probably also very surprised!

crazy for colour

I'm knocked out. I found a new way to  waste profitably use my time on the net.
Colour for fun
Colour craziness
Colour me rainbowed
Go to
COLOURlovers (they even spell it right!!!)
I even managed to invent two new colours!

Bluege

and

Storm

And a colour Palette called Stormy Petrel

Do you think I'm excited??

More Eating (Who? Me?)

Well - another mixed bag of "Stuff" (and what looks like a surfeit of eating)

Thursday saw me playing ladies at the Geelong College Speech Day at Costa Hall (in my capacity as Morongo Old Collegians' President). Verified the awarding of the Morongo Medals and the Morongo Award and hobnobbed with the VIP's afterwards - nice nibblies!

Saturday partied in my Underwear (well alright went to an Underwear Party) at The Bellarine Queen's house. Notable foodwise for the scrummy chocolate brownie bites and the cute mini cupcakes decorated with bras, panties and bikinis.( Sorry Fellas no photos.)  New bras will hopefully give me a lift!! (by the way I am having an Underwear  party myself on Wed 7th jan in the evening - let me know if you want the details.)

Saturday night had a belated Birthday Bash at The Purple Duck in Wallington. Food very enjoyable - Salt and Pepper Squid, Lamb rack with roasted garlic,  Berry and almond crumble

 Sunday morning celebrated another year with the BREAST group at Finnigan's Place for our annual Xmas breakfast. We sadly missed Lyn this time- she never missed our outings. We are entering a team in Relay for Life again in memory of Lyn
She would have approved of our starting the day with a "special" fruit juice (OK you just know I meant a Cocktail - Raspberry Cosmopolitans. see pic above) Cheered us up no end. Foodwise - Asparagus eggs and bacon and great coffee.

Monday to the big city for lunch with Marianne and John. Their garden (in Research) is one of my favourite places and is very much as I would like my own garden to be. They are on a very large block of course but the vegie patch and the orchard complement the more formal sections of the garden and the natives, rock walls and natural design of the fish pond outside the dining room windows. Lovely time as usual, more great food and wine  and dragged ourselves  reluctantly from the table at 5.30 to get me back to Geelong ( for Dinner!)

Dinner with the Morongo Old Collegians' Committee for our December meeting traditionally held over a meal. This time at the newly refurbished Telegraph Hotel. Food was very good and good value. I had an uncrumbed chicken schnitzel served in a shallow bowl over smashed crispy potatoes and with bok choy and a green peppercorn and white wine sauce.  Dessert was very generous Creme Brulee, properly made with flecks of vanilla seed and a side serving of blueberry compote and cream.

Certain members of the party noted that their Fathers would have been appalled that we were at The Telegraph - one of the rougher pubs in years gone by, even though it was owned by Parents of a Morongo girl!  Sometimes things do change for the better.

You're Jesting

Just in case you were wondering, I have finished some knitting projects recently.

The Jester Booties have been felted (more properly fulled as they are knitted items not fleece)
I think they need another go in the hot water to shrink them a bit more. They looked bedraggled when wet but spruced themselves up once dry again. The pattern is actually titled Old World Booties

The Dog Coat has been done for a while now. It has been waiting for photos

First I couldn't get my usual model to wear it because she had 2 episodes of torn dew claws and I wasn't game to try to pull anything over her feet. Now she has modelled the coat but won't sit still for a photo.

I resort to a static job. The coat has gone to the shop and hopefully someone will buy it for Xmas.

It was fun to knit. I used a pattern for Latvian Mittens and just applied it to the plain vanilla dog coat shape.

The Years roll by

I've just passed another birthday milestone. Having a birthday where your age aligns with the year number has one major drawback, especially if your birthday is towards the end of the year. I tend to think of myself as the age I will be that year for most of the time during the year.

Let's clarify that a little bit - I can no longer remain coy about this so admit to now being 58 years old (or 58teen as I have seen on another web site!)  Because the year is ending in 8, I think of myself as 58 whenever I wonder how old I am whatever time of year it is.
Just before my birthday I had to remind myself that I was really only 57. Somehow that didn't sound nearly as old.
New Year's resolution. I am only 58teen!

We did have a lovely day out with lunch once again at one of our favourite spots The Ol' Duke in Portarlington.
The weather wasn't quite warm enough to sit on the deck but we had a great view from just inside.

No photos of food, but I had Walnut crumbed brains with the most deliciously freshly made Waldorf salad. Main was slow roasted lamb shoulder with a spicy masala sauce, melting warm eggplant salad and a little Chinese spoon of creamy yogurt and garlic tzatziki style embellishment.

Tony had the calamari salad followed by crisp skin Kingfish on an Asian salad with a red curry sauce.
We both greeded out with desserts - Chocolate fondant pudding for Tony and a blueberry Sauternes jelly with vanilla mousse and almond biscotti for me. A NZ Sauvignon Blanc and a Pettavel Late picked Riesling accompanied this lovely meal.

We had promised Pepper a walk so we waddled along the foreshore and threw the ball for her. We needed the walk more than she did after the food.

The rest of the afternoon, late by the time we got home, was spent reading a magazine and snoozing - me,  or just outright snoozing - Tony and Pepper!

Zentangles

I've discovered that the many hours I spent in lectures or meetings perfecting my idiosyncratic doodles were not wasted.

There is a newish art form called Zentangles which is a combination of the meditative state of Zen and the Tangles that evolve from allowing your pen to make repetitive marks on the paper.

Who knew that what I started doing 40 years ago would surface as a valid art form today.

The 4x6 group (Artist's Post Cards) that I belong to is doing a Zentangles swap and I churned out 3 to send off. Here they are!!

I stepped outside my boundaries a little here by adding to the original format:

 -  different marks such as hearts squares, dots and fern frondy thingies

 -  other weights of line using chisel pointed markers

1.  -  colour

I hope my "doodles" are enjoyed

(Shame I wasn't smart enough to commercialize the idea and make squillions of dollars selling "How to" kits)
 

Little Fishies

I forgot I had promised a photo of the finished Mixed Media friends swap pieces. Here they are. I was quite pleased with them and once I had spread them out like this thought they would have made a great wall hanging. That will have to be my next task! 

Here are just a few of the detailed ones

(I also forgot to mention that this photo appeared on the home page of the group - pretty special eh!)

The ragbag

Ragbag posts are what happen when you haven't posted anything for ages and you have lots of different things to blog about.

Activities Include:
    A busy weekend starting with a family dinner at the house in Ocean Grove to celebrate what would have been my father's 90th Birthday. We opened his hoarded single malt whisky and enjoyed it for him. (24th Oct)
    On the Saturday morning the Morongo Old Collegians' AGM and luncheon (as president I had to attend) although it meant missing out on:-
    Back to Ocean Grove celebrations to mark 50 years since the Proclamation of the Township. I remember pushing my decorated pram in the parade next to my brother's decorated tricycle. Apparently we both won prizes for some art works as well, according to contemporary accounts in the local paper.
    I did get to the dinner that evening held in the OG Bowling Club where I had spent so many lunchtimes with my father in recent years. The Dinner was delicious against all expectations and we had a good time. Having my brother on board helped us to come second in the history of OG Trivia quiz. (Who else would know the absolutely exact location of the OG railway station?) There were at least 4 other members of my Primary school class there and we were just able to recognize each other!
    Sunday morning spent going through all the family photos,  newspaper clippings and other treasures with my cousin Ann who is the Menzies family historian. We found things that neither we nor she had seen before so it was quite productive.

 Our day off Tuesday was spent taking Tony's mum out for lunch for her birthday. She has recently moved from her unit in the retirement village into a  serviced apartment in the same location. It seems a very pleasant place to be and she still has access to the old Casey family home as the community centre at Edrington Park.

Caught up with friends on the Monday evening as they have been down for the "long" weekend of Cup Day.

Melbourne Cup Day saw us lunching with friends in Melbourne. Pepper came too and enjoyed her day with 2 pugs, Millie the black one and Oki  the other one and Gemma, their "cousin",  a silky terrier Jack Russell cross. They all behaved in exemplory fashion although Pepper seems to get bored with other dogs after a while. She ended up snoozing on the mat in the doorway and watching proceedings from there.

A photo at last - Ann's grandson Freddie finally got his jacket and it still fits him - and isn't he gorgeous in it!!!

Sewing bees (in bonnets)

More on sewing
I did help my sister to get her Japanese fabric "rough" log cabin cushion started, cos she couldn't work out how to add the pieces together. I took my sewing machine to her place on Sunday and we  held a sewing bee. I did my skinny book pages .
 I could feel my mother looking down from Sewing Heaven and being amazed at 2 of her daughters sewing voluntarily and enjoying it.!

I also went to the Embroiderer's  Guild exhibition on Saturday where I put my name down for info on the Fibre Arts group that they may run next year.  I also saw embroidery done on a piece of handkerchief linen that my mother had given to a lady years ago and she had saved it for a special piece of work. It was a shadow embroidered agapanthus and my mother would have loved it.

This piece was part of the Botanical art challenge.  This year the Guild invited members of the Geelong Bot Artists  group to bring along paintings to be used as inspiration for embroidered pieces.
All the work was displayed, both the paintings and the embroidery they inspired.  Some had done very literal interpretations, others used them as starting points for flights of fancy. It was a really great display and in itself very inspirational.

The Skinny on Fabric Arts

I've been contemplating being creative in the sewing field for some time now (make that years!!)
Having a new sewing machine was supposed to be the impetus to drag out all the fabric I have stashed away "for patchwork" over the years.
It took a challenge from my favourite web group to do a Skinny Book to get me started.
The deal is this:

• Sign up for the Skinny Book swap- theme this time is fabric
• Find out how many others signed up (18 this time)
• Make 18 pages 7x4 inches (we are mainly in the States), that's why it's tall and "skinny"
• Send them off by the due date
• Wait impatiently while the swap hostess sorts them into 18 piles
• Wait some more while the mail gets here from USA
• Open parcel with much excitement to see what all the other 17 people have done
• Wish that I didn't get back my least favourite of my own pieces
• Sigh philosophically and enjoy putting them together either into a book, a mini quilt or...?

I'm going to wait to see them before I decide. Meanwhile here is a rundown of my process.

1. Paint canvas sheets, backs with lime and purple spots and fronts with a slightly squared design
2. cut out all the motifs from a piece of batik look- alike fabric that I happened to have on hand
3. Sew the motifs on using my new machine and graduating colours thread.
4. Embellish with fun yarns
5. Sew/ glue fun bits like sequins and beads to give that touch of glitz to the project

Picture here shows 

One front with the pieces sewn and yarn embellished.

One front with pieces ready to sew (on Right)

Spotty Backing fabric at the bottom.

I'll post pics of the finished objects when done.

Cats on Dogs

I've finished a couple of "cats" fans dog jumpers.

Here are 2 "models" wearing them. One is a whole lot cuter than the other I think, but I may be biased!!!

The Geelong Cats are one game away from being Premiers in the AFL again. Gooooo Caaaaats!!!

Knitting weather

It's certainly Winter here. All the better for knitting. That extra layer of wool over the knees is a bonus.

I have actually finished a few items lately.  Hampered by illness, (my own then Tony's) I finally sewed the buttons on to the Moss stitch Baby Jacket. This is destined for my Cousin's first grandchild named Frederick, I think after my Grandfather (his Great Great Grandfather - my how old that makes me feel!!)
I also finished my Feather and Fan scarf, using very fine handspun and hand dyed wool purchased at the Fibre Forum at Geelong Grammar about 2 years ago.  I hasten to add that I already knitted one last year which I used about twice then lost!.
This photo shows it unblocked, which I may get round to doing some time in the next years!

I am over half way (ie 1 sock finished) with knitting Tony's socks, also using hand dyed wool from the Fibre Forum. I promised them to him  as a bribe to stop any recriminations over the yarn I bought!

Working or Goofing Off

I just found out that yesterday was Take Your Dog to Work Day. I must say that that is the norm around here rather than the exception.
Pepper either lies at my feet while I work in my study or she comes with me to the shop where she sits on the corner of the desk and beguiles people into patting her.
Occasionally she has a little trip outside at the shop where she tells the Tilly, the resident cat from next door, how cats are supposed to be frightened of dogs. Unfortunately Tilly doesn't know this and Pepper has to suffer the "scary -cat -stalking -and -jumping -out" experience.

This Picture of Pepper was taken a couple of weeks ago just before her latest "Big Haircut" - One Woolly Woofer eh? (but soooo cute)

On the goofing off front another blogger who I read now and then sent this "game" which you can play if you are a member of flikr

THE GAME

1. teddy protests, 2. The Snail, 3. through the forest and into the woods, 4. Little Girl in Turquoise Sea, 5. The Last Superstar, 6. Daquiri - Ladies Only, 7. Last day in Paris, 8. coffee and chocolate mousse cake, 9. "The Oval" by Tadao Ando, 10. Relax, 11. Holiday needed, 12. Leafy Scourge

Created with fd's Flickr Toys.

The concept:

a. Type your answer to each of the questions below into Flickr Search.
b. Using only the first page, pick an image.
c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker).

The Questions:

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favorite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favorite color?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favorite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favorite dessert?
9. What you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One Word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name. 

Mellow Monday

We mellowed out on Monday with a little drive to Portarlington. Lunched by the water on yummy bits  from the bakery.
We drove across the peninsular to Ocean Grove and thence to Barwon Heads where we showed friend from Sydney, Elisabeth, the view from the Bluff. We journeyed along the cliff tops past 13th beach to where the Hooded Plovers hang out on the beach. Unfortunately some cretinous people had recently walked their dogs along the beach in the direction of the bird sites, despite huge notices asking for dogs not to be taken there. I don't know if this is why, but we didn't see any of the small birds.
I did take some great photos though, including what I insist are the plover tracks in the sand and the full moon in a silvery sky.

Saturday, a busy day

Managed to fit in lots of fun stuff to my Saturday this week.
First my monthly trip to the Farmer's Market. My friend Irene and I have vowed to single handedly (well double really) keep the market going and to that end we spend an inordinate amount of cold hard cash at many of the stalls.
This time I bought Artichokes, Cavolo nero (black Kale) Coffee beans, Fruit bread, Gorgeous Pink Proteas, Misty Morn blue cheese from the Apostle Whey Cheese company (near Apollo Bay),  Music on CD of the Andean band who were playing there, Onion Focaccia, Portugese custard tart (1 only for Tony!) and Tomato Passata.
I could have bought lots more but a girl's shopping bag is only soooo big and her purse soooo little.

Next stop Eastern Beach for World Wide Knitting in Public Day (also the Yarn Harlot's 40th Birthday - how she managed to have these coincide I'll never know!)
 A great group sampled the menu, knitted, chatted and enjoyed the soft blues of the bay, the sky and the You Yangs
I even wore my Collinette Tagliatelli cardigan as it was such a cold day and I felt that WWKIP day required a special effort.

The day was not yet over however. We proceeded to Melbourne, got there in time to view the Kimono exhibition at the Immigration Museum.
Then on to at the Crown Casino for dinner at Guiseppe Arnaldo & Sons (GAS) and on to the Ballet.

The Australian Ballet presented an evening devoted to Jerome Robbins and the four pieces were each very different from the other. Music by Shostakovitch, Bach, Debussy and Chopin showed just how much variation there could be in one evening. The Cage was a study in the conflict of good and evil set in an insect community.
A Suite of Dances produced a pairing of dancer and cellist, along with gorgeously rich music by Bach.
Afternoon of a Faun captured the narcissistic movements of a young Faun and a passing girl, both dancers totally engrossed on their own performances as viewed in the imaginary mirror across the front of the stage. We were lucky to see Carlos Acosta the visiting artist who made the perfect self aware Faun inspecting the world from his own point of view.
The Concert is a comic ballet which explores the way an audience's minds wander during the performance. Lots of laughs but the dancers made some difficult pieces look easy.

What a full day - there should be more of them !!!!

Pink Pigs and Watermelons

I do sometimes finish knitted items. This one has been languishing in the UFO (unfinished objects for the non knitters out there) pile for nearly a year. All that it required was for me to sew the "pips" on to it.
This proved to be one of those monumental tasks that are so difficult because I had to:
A) Have the item out in plain sight
B) Have a darning needle in my hand at the time
C) Have the right colour wool handy
As you can imagine most of these only coincide during a blue moon, so one night recently I went and found the hat, got out my sewing kit, found the wool and BINGO!!
This watermelon hat is destined for one of my sister's de-grandchildren. Hope it still fits her.

 The photo doesn't do it justice as the colour is up the creek. The fetching model is the cute pink pig that was my first gift to my eldest nephew when he was born. This photo ties events together as I took it on the night of Ryan's (and the pigs) 18th Birthday.(May11th) Congratulations to them both and to my sister and her spouse for surviving the first 18 years!