ATC/Postcard swap complete

Just a quick post of the swaps we recently sent, now they have been received in Canberra and North Devon.

For Ebony from Claudia (Doreen emailed this scan for me, thanks Doreen)

Ebony made this gorgeous ATC for Claudia:

And for Val;

Val sent the most beautiful postcard and ATC for me and an ATC for Claudia shown here.

The theme for the swap was spring, and I had a piece of fabric on which I had originally painted four roses (for a spring swap last year with Susan!)

This is the one I worked on for Val as it fitted the postcard size best. It has some pink fibres and some leaf shapes from the scrap bits of painted fabric covered with chiffon scarf and FME’d. It is finished with hand stitching and beading.

I still have the other two roses and am trying to decide whether to cut into ATC size for the Creative fibre arts group swap, or keep them whole and finish as quilties. These two have fragments of silk paper added, then FME over a chiffon scarf (I have a great collection of these scarves from the Op shop).

Progress on the casalguido:

 

I think the casalguido stitch is ideal for the tree, great texture. The thread for the stem stitch over the top is cotton a broder, between a pearl 8 and 12 in thickness. Hopefully I’ll finish this off today and add some needlewoven leaves. 

My sampler is a bit haphazard, unlike Sharon’s fantastic examples!!

I’m hoping to try out some of the needlewoven stitches from Effie’s book (which I have borrowed from the library, but like so much I’ve ordered it from Boomerang Books) in the space next to the tree.

Cheers

Off to stitch!

Slow and Steady

…..wins the race.

I love the idea of slow cloth, takes the pressure off completely and makes the whole process so much more enjoyable (as long as it doesn’t degenerate into procrastination). It’s all in the mindset, I find. If you look at the process of mulling over the possibilities in a positive way it becomes a constructive thing to do. Of course there is still an important place for the frenetic when inspiration comes pouring out, because work that is totally spontaneous can have fantastic results.

Most of my current projects are of the ’slow’ variety.

I am still working on my ’sea angels’ and finding many possibilities opening up as ideas are sparked from viewing lots of creative blogs.

I am also still working on my ‘killed catalogues’, a new idea for which was sparked off by Heather’s fantastic chessmen.

Here are a couple of great ATC’s we have swapped.

On the left is Gillian’s first try at ATC’s, very interesting textures, and on the right the amazingly talented Ebony’s sent to Claudia.

Claudia’s return ATC to Ebony, which should have arrived by now (which I can’t find a photo of, whoops) was part of this random felting she did at our March textile group. Claudia used her ATC window to choose the sections she wanted to cut out. She chose some colours of machine embroidery rayon and had fun FME’ing the circles and outlines. I always make sure Claudia puts on the safety glasses for this stage in case she breaks a needle. She also chose one to finish and send off to Val (forgot to scan that one too!!)

Here are a few more of Claudia’s in production.

I have been also slowly continuing with the Stitch Explorer for April and May. April was Casalguido embroidery and May was needleweaving. These two are complementary styles of stitching so I decided to combine them for this sampler.

The first stage, casalguido or padded raised stem band stitch, shows stranded cotton laid down, couched with sewing thread and then satin stitched with more stranded cotton. The perpendicular stitches are then placed in the second photo and I will try some cotton a broder to cover this with the final layer, stem stitch.

The base is four sided stitch using two strands of DMC. I will be doing some needlewoven autumn leaves in a hand dyed variegated pearl  bought from Sharon to finish off.

I found Effie Mitrofanis’ book a wonderful guide to this stitch, with clear directions and some inspiring contemporary embroidery.

I have also ordered Effie’s needleweaving book from the library as well, so I’m sure that will also contain some more great ideas and instructions.

Time to get off the computer and finish the housework, so I can sit and stitch!!

Cheers

Time Flies

It has been a long time, over a month, since I’ve blogged here. The only reason I have time today is that I’ve had an eye infection all week and can’t go to work. I have kept up with our textile group blog so you can read about our last meeting (May) here.

It has been a busy month with work and social events as well as all the sport our four children need to be run around to. The AFL footy season is very busy for us with two playing footy,  two training sessions each a week and two playing netball. Add to this swimming, basketball and tennis and it doesn’t leave much time for anything else.

We have been busy the last two weeks with preparation for a close friend’s wedding. A friend was staying with us from up north which meant spending some time spring cleaning. The ceremony blew everyone away with the music and singing (most of the bride’s family are working in music) and the strings trio at the after drinks were wonderful. I made a new outfit for the wedding, a high waisted skirt with tulle at the hem and a tissue taffeta top.Looks much more shapely on!! The skirt fits quite tightly and must have looked okay as daughter no 1 asked me to make her one in a shorter version.

My daughter and her cousin glammed up

I had a foray to the op shops before the wedding, looking for suit coats for the two boys. I managed to pick up one for $10 for son no. 1.

Of course, while there, I had a browse and found a wonderful satin bag minus a strap (added a chain picked up from spotlight for $1) and a sportsgirl clutch with a broken strap (added a bit of chain) for $2 and $1. Also managed to pick up lots of zips and other bits for a couple of dollars. The cream separating zip went into the wedding top. i’m hoping to knit the cardi at some stage.

 

 

Finally got Claudia to sit down and do some stitching when she had a day off school yesterday and she finished off a few ATC’s for swaps.

Val, you’ll be happy to know yours will be in the post today. Also Ebony’s. I’ll post photos next time so we don’t spoil the surprise!

Cheers.

Show and Tell

I have quite a bit to show and tell as I haven’t blogged for a couple of weeks.

Firstly we received some amazing swaps from Val in the mail. Val sent the heart ATC for Claudia, which of course she absolutely loved. The postcard and ATC were for a swap we arranged on the theme of ‘Spring’. The postcard’s colours are just glorious, and she has used Beryl Tayler’s fabric paper techniques. My favourite, however is the ATC entitled mossy bark which has the most beautifully layered effect. Thank you so much Val, the returns will be winging their way over shortly.

Our last creative arts meeting in March was inspiring once again with all the beautiful pieces on display. Unfortunately I forgot the camera, but there are a few bits and pieces on the group blog.

Some of the group, with others from the guild, attended a Machine embroidery workshop with Fibre artist extraordinaire, Jan Preston on a very warm Saturday. The title of the workshop, ‘Free stitch with Nature’, was very apt. We had to take along some snippets from the garden, which we enclosed in solvy and free motion embroidered over. Jan had some beautiful skeleton leaves she had found in the Otways which she generously allowed us to use. It was a great, fun workshop and such a pleasure to spend the whole day stitching without interruption.

These are some leaves I stitched over and also a rose hip:

This next one was a dried agapantha flower head that I stomped flat and stitched and some bamboo wool that I stitched over as well:

I finally finished the triangular book I started weeks ago for Maggie Grey’s on-line workshops for her book, Textile translations.

The outside has stars torn from paper casting over a corrugated meat tray and some heated tyvek motifs. The colour is mostly from radiant rains and moonshadow mists sprayed over. The inside has some marbled paper pages stamped with ‘reach for the stars, feet on the ground’.

Our final challenge is to convert ‘killed’ catalogues into art. Maggie has the details on her blog if anyone wants to join in. Here is my catalogue (actually oldest daughter’s Cosmopolitan magazine), newly unearthed from the mulch under the rose bushes. Some people have had trouble with husbands and dogs trying to steal their catalogues away; my husband was quite happy to keep the mulch topped up over it and the rose thorns kept the dog away!!  I have sprayed it with vinegar to disinfect and will start playing once it is dry (might have to brush a bit more dirt off).

Cheers

 

Progress on WIP

Firstly some beautiful post received, from Britt in Perth

Claudia was mega excited when she opened the envelope and saw all the cute extras Britt had included. Britt offered a huge range of ATC’s on her blog for swap, each featuring her beautiful, fine tatting lace.

Also received were these amazing ATC embroideries from Anne in France and Emmy in Netherlands. I do not have the patience for such fine embroidery so I’m in awe of both of these super talented ladies. If you want to get a surprise for the return ATC’s don’t look any further girls!

 

It is a great feeling to actually finish something. I have had a number of projects on the go at the same time which sometimes makes it difficult to feel you are progressing. Having a long weekend this weekend and staying home instead of gadding about has made a huge difference. I have managed to finish or make obvious progress on a number of fronts. The biggest task was finishing off the ethics application for my research project. Emailing that away on Sunday was a huge lift off the shoulders. It meant that on Monday I could relax and enjoy some arting with Claudia. Firstly here are the ATC’s we finished for our swaps.

Claudia decided she would like to draw some pictures to stitch on to hers, so they have been scanned and printed onto ready to print cotton sheet. For the base fabric she layered some silk fibres under the green chiffon fabric (left over from my Mum’s cardi) and FME. I gave her my sample from a machine embroidery workshop and she chose to do a star pattern. The hearts are the ones Britt sent to Claudia.

My ATC’s were made as a strip of seven and are based on one of my favourite paintings by Grace Cossington Smith called Landscape at Pentecost . I used some techniques from Angie Hughes new book Stitch, Cloth, Paper and Paint. Bits of curtain fabric, scrunched tissue paper, silk threads and muslin were adhered to pelmet vilene with vlieofix. Then all the bits were secured with FME zigzag with white polyester cotton thread. The details were added with some cable stitch using no. 8 perle cotton in the bobbin. A coat of gesso was added all over and left to dry overnight. This morning I painted over using koh-i-noor watercolours mixed with white pearl lumiere. A tiny bit of handstitching finished them off.

Claudia also wanted to paint so she painted some cotton sheeting with nice, bright stripes to use as the backing for her ATC’s. The Stitch Explorer stitch for February is the Trellis Stitch, a great stitch for 3D effects. I have tried out a couple of motifs on my sampler based on the links Sharon gave us. The circular motif is in perle 8 and includes a few beads threaded on by hand. The diamond is stitched on a base of reverse chain stitch and I worked each side separately decreasing to form a triangle shape on each.

This weekend progress has also been made on trying out a few techniques for the ’sea angels’. While painting fabric I tried out a few different colours and paints on some dupion silk and will use this as a sampler to try out stitches for the sea angels gowns. It scanned really badly so I won’t bother loading that picture.

This week is the new stitches and craft show at Melbourne Showgrounds. As I have to go up to uni on Thursday I might try to pop in for a few hours and check it out. If you’re free check out the web-site, it looks like a mega show with something for everyone.

Cheers

50th Post

My very first post on this blog was on 21st January 2008. My target was to blog once a week. As it is now 15th February I didn’t quite make that target for the first year, however I have found it a great experience and have met some truly wonderful and inspirational bloggers on-line.

This year will be a very busy one with the research project and thesis looming that will require first priority. However it is necessary to achieve this and move onto the next stage of my career as a teacher, now my children are becoming independent and the eldest is moving onto university (and perhaps out of home).

Another milestone this week was the inaugural meeting of the new Geelong Creative Fibre Arts Group for which I have set up a blog for informing our members of our activities and highlighting our achievements. I would like to thank and acknowledge Margaret’s Serentex blog for the inspiration and example for this new blog.

This group has stemmed from a core group of creative textile artists of the Geelong Embroiderer’s Guild who saw a need for a sharing and supportive group in Geelong. At our first meeting Claudia and I did a demonstration of wet and dry silk paper making and we introduced our first project: to make and swap ATC’s with the group. Many members brought some lovely pieces to show and after meeting all the ladies, I’m sure it will be a fantastic, inspiring and sharing group

Cheers

Jimmy Rocks Torquay

I had a fantastic time last night singing and dancing along to Jimmy Barnes. Jimmy  and his band, which included his two daughters on back up vocals and his son on drums, were singing at the Torquay pub beer garden and we were squashed in like sardines. I went along with some girlfriends and one of my D1’s friends and it was great to see all the older Cold Chisel fans had brought their kids (18-20 year olds as you have to be over 18 to get into the pub) along and they were rockin’ too.

I have managed to catch up on a few outstanding p/cards and ATC’s. These will be sent off tomorrow with New Year greetings.

And here is a close up of one

Although they started with the same base, each one is slightly different. I decided to try out a few different colours and threads for the finishing edges. To add an Australian flavour I FME’d gum leaves onto organza to attach and collected some seed pods and she-oak seed capsules on my morning walk.

While my SIL was visiting from US she bought some sock wool and was knitting socks for the return back to the snow and freezing weather. Claudia was fascinated with the sock wool and how the stripes appeared so of course she ended up with a pair as well.

To thank my generous SIL I made her a bracelet with some freshwater pearls and a beautiful stone someone had given me.

I had a lovely email today from Kim in the US who had seen my comment on Susan Lenz’s Cyberfyber site. Kim is visiting Australia and New Zealand in January and asked for some tips on places to see in Melbourne or Sydney. I put together an email with lots of links to places of interest in Melbourne, so if anyone else would like it just let me know. Also there is voting for the reader’s choice Postcard and ATC awards on CyberFyber so if you have time drop over, have a browse and leave some comments. There are some truly wonderful pieces of art on display, very inspiring.

Cheers, till next time.

The end is nigh

Today is the last day of the year and traditionally a time for looking back at what has been achieved (or not! although I prefer to look to the positives) and also to look forward to a new year with hope and optimism. It has been a very busy year, but that’s nothing unusual! I have enjoyed and found time for all the creative, inspirational fun that textile art brings and had an absolutely wonderful time with all the on and off line, extraordinarily friendly and talented textilers/embroiderers I have met.

So here is an ode to the year that was:

Year’s End

 So….time ticks on

The year is spent

In

Times of sadness and pain and death

Times of joy and love and birth

Sharing with friends and family…

In person

Online

By post

To and fro

Strength and support

Creating from the soul

Healing from the heart

Linking

Across time and space

Okay, that’s enough sentimentality. 

Here are a couple more items finished:

Claudia’s xmas ATC’s; Claudia drew the pictures of her ‘crazy’ angels and they were printed onto cotton, then made into the cards.

And a close up:

The triangular ones were made to fit into her little gift pouches:

Thanks to xmas I now have a tidy stitching nook (as compared to a before photo not too long ago) 

Photo uploader is being quite temperamental tonight so I will finish with a few happy shots of xmas day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And a last one of all the crew, some look like they’ve had a VERY VERY BIG day.Cheers

The House is Springed

We have been very busy spring cleaning ready for our xmas visitors, it’s a great incentive to clean out all the mess that seems to accumulate in a house of six over the year.

We received some beautiful ATC’s from Anne in France today. They are just amazing and Clauda has added them to her album. We are working on our return ATC’s but they might not arrive before xmas, so they might have to be New Year’s greetings.

I found a great tutorial at Gina’s blog (via Sharon’s Pin Tangle) for the little triangle gift bags. I drafted a pattern on A4 scrap paper using the protractor. This made the triangle 210mm (Gina suggested 9 ” [225mm]so mine is a tiny bit smaller).

I then followed Gina’s instructions to cut out two different fabrics and sew right sides together with a gap to turn. I then folded down the corners 40mm and sewed a casing for the cord.

The edges were brought together and slip stitched to form the pouch.

Finally I threaded a double cord through to pull closed. This pouch was used for the bracelet gift from the previous post.

I will try the next one with a 50mm fold over to give a bigger opening. Gina warned me these are addictive!!

Claudia loves these and is currently working on some triangle shaped ATC’s to fit into the pouches. The funny coincidence is that Gina first bought one of these while visiting Brisbane and took it apart to work out how to make it.

Cheers

Time to play

My last day at uni for this year was a graduate research conference last Saturday (hurrah, more time to play). By chance there also happened to be a bounenki market at the Nicholas Building in the city. I bought these luscious fabrics from Kimono House. The mauve is for Claudia, who said “But it’s christmas not easter!”

The conference was excellent with some very interesting and creative presenters (and great food). All the presenters were PhD students giving final or interim presentations of their research. Phillipa Robinson looked at Musical culture. Her fascinating powerpoint showed all the places in the world she had visited for her research and she illustrated the musical cultures of the world with a thread art metaphor. Another enthralling speaker was Fatemah vafaeinejad, an artist who peppered her presentation with persian philosophy on the creative/life process such as:

*’do to know’ instead of ‘know how to do’

*in the creative process nothing is fully resolved

*accept and welcome the unknown, search for the hidden layers.

I also popped in to the Skepsi on Swanston Gallery to have a look at this exhibition on my way to the train station. Absolutely beautiful, and some interesting ceramics too.

 

A few days ago, Claudia received these two wonderful ATC’s from Doreen and Ebony. They are just sensational and Ebony’s displays the most wonderful design skill, caught from her creative grandmother.

Thank you Ebony and Doreen.

Our xmas break up for Embroiderer’s Guild was Monday and was a great get together. I met Gillian, who I had discovered on the stitchin fingers network and we’re all excited about the start up next year of our Creative Fibre Art Group (aren’t we Pauleen!!! I’ve just noticed what we could shorten that to!!!) The core group who have been meeting all year will get together in January to plan for our first meeting in February.

Last night I attended the xmas meeting of the Bellarine Mac Users Group (BMUG), a friendly sharing group dedicated to mac computers. I was lucky enough to win the door prize, a Japanese wrap gown (just out of the washing machine).

Just as good was the wrapping the gown came in.

Thankyou so much to Jurgen who donated the prizes.

Now I’m off to play: Xmas cards and postcards incorporating this

a copyright free Silent Night printed onto a printable fabric sheet (100% cotton) and sprayed with moonshadow mist and radiant shimmering mist.

I’m also planning on starting Maggie Grey’s lesson one from her Textile Translations book (I am a little behind but hope to catch up over the holidays) inspired by this book I borrowed from the library. 

Cheers