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.

Sculpted Books

Not a great deal to show on the textile front as many projects are still progressing.

We had a Johnston Collection meeting at the Guild this morning and the pieces being worked on are just amazing. There are some truly talented embroiderers. However the pieces cannot be shown because they will be exhibited later in the year. The sea angels are progressing with the bases begun (just waiting for the final paint coat and being stitched together) and some hand stitchery on a practice piece of dupion silk.

Today I called in to the Geelong Art Gallery to see a fantastic exhibition of sculpted books by Nicholas Jones from Melbourne. Nicholas doesn’t seem to have an active website at the moment but this link will take you to a great interview and photos. The exhibition, called “the garden of forking paths” (the title of short stories from the 1940’s) uses books recycled from various sources and sculpted in a variety of ways. Nicholas kindly gave me permission to show some of his works here.

 

These photos do not really do them justice as they are taken through glass cabinets with my phone, but show some of the amazing range of Nicholas’ pieces, well worth a visit if you are able to get there before the exhibition finishes on Sunday.

The girls and I are off to Melbourne for a couple of days, it’s becoming an annual girl’s trip, to see the penguins at the aquarium and visit some other sites and of course, shopping.

The latest update is on the Creative Fibre Group blog for the April meeting and details for the Next meeting on May 9th.

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

 

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