Birthday Giveaway

Sewjourn is having a birthday giveaway, be quick it ends at 5pm tonight.

I have just downloaded my September copy of WOW, great inspiration there and well worth the miserly subscription. I am about to incorporate Julie Smith’s wonderful article on making a mermaid’s purse (or cuff actually) into my sea angels. I have just about finished all the machine stitching and will spend the next two weeks with the hand stitching.

Here is another taster.

 The first is the twin needle stitching on the neck of one dupion silk gown:This is the other gown painted with a mixture of acrylic, opulence ink and dyn na flow then sprinkled with salt:

I painted some pearl cotton with the leftovers but they are a bit stiff, even after being in the dryer. They might be okay in a twisted cord or couched on. This is in the wet stage, it actually dried much lighter and will be toned down with overlays.

The last photo is another of the wing pieces. On the corners I have stitched using the Maggie’s technique from the Perth workshop. I’m hoping these will look like fragments of fishing net once dissolved.

Sorry about the flash off the glass cooktop.

Cheers

Wings take flight

Linda over on her textile blog was talking about trying machine stitched flowers on soluble with wire edges so they can be manipulated into shapes. The scan below shows part of the angel wing for the Sea Angels (it was too big to fit in the scanner).

I drew the outline in fineliner, stitched the diamond grid twice over with straight stitch, then went over in a small zigzag stitch. Then the dissecting lines were stitched twice over with straight stitch. I had a nice easily bendable wire (probably jewellery wire) and zigzagged that around the edges, then went over again with a close satin stitch. I used up as much of the romeo as I could stitching the little bubble fragments. I dissolved it in a sink of warm water, rinsed in cold water, patted dryish with paper towels and laid flat on baking paper to dry.

Cheers

Quilts galore

I was going to call this post ‘just a quickie’ as it’s late and I’m tired after a couple of big days in Melbourne, but thought better of it.

Thursday we took the school on an excursion (two hours driving each way) to the Ceres Environmental Education Centre in Brunswick. This is an area in the inner suburbs which is teaching sustainability by example. There is a fantastic cafe with yummy food, mostly grown on site and many environmentally friendly systems operating, showcasing recycling, solar power, water conservation etc. We all had a wonderful, if tiring day.

Friday I had to pop up to Melbourne once again to uni, so I took the opportunity to drop into the Australasian Quilt Convention at the Royal Exhibition Buildings. Unfortunately this building is too cavernous to air condition so it was nice to stop every now and then in front of  a fan as it was a very warm day. Dale’s Embellisher Challenge was on display with some really lovely and interesting pieces. I booked in for an Embellisher workshop to have a try at the Babylock. We made the scarf below which was great fun.

There were also some lovely textured quilts in amongst the more traditional styles. I took a few close up photos of the texture and stitching and also enjoyed seeing Dijanne Cevaal’s beautiful art ‘in the flesh’.

 

 

And finally some purchases: some rubbing plates for shiva sticks, beautiful hand dyed silk thread and silk carrier rods from Dale (Dale had some great pieces and little books made from the carrier rods that she showed in her little talk/demo); some cotton lace which will be used to add texture; inkjet printable fabric; some lovely NZ batiks (from Tulis textiles); and I also bought a bias strip maker, a beading foot for my sewing machine, a pendant threadcutter to use on the plane and a little bunny Japanese button for Claudia.

Time for bed

Cheers

Angels and stuff

A progress report on what’s been happening. I have been working/out/socialising so much there hasn’t been much time to ‘art’.

I have signed on for a six week challenge at the local gym. We have bootcamp sessions Monday and Friday at 6am, keep a food diary, are expected to do weights sessions another three times a week and some form of exercise on the other two days!!! To fit this in around work, four children, uni and arting is quite a feat (but I’m working on it). I have managed to do some of this but I’m not at peak capacity yet. It’s a matter of utilising every spare 40 minutes and squeezing it all together. Thus I’ve done a weight session on the way home from work, after dropping children off, prior to picking up etc. Also needing to fit housework and cooking in there somewhere. Luckily the eldest daughter is very good at grabbing a load of washing and hanging it out (thanks Carlz).

Last weekend eldest daughter and I  toodled off to Melbourne with SIL and niece to see the stage show ‘Wicked’, a sensationally beautiful show and a fantasical story. We went to a great Japanese restaurant in Fed Square for tea and then to the Regent Theatre. We all enjoyed it immensely, though I was glad I hadn’t taken Claudia; it was a bit too scary and ‘old’ for an eight year old.

Now to arty progress. This is a mock up of the body for the ’sea angels’ (corn flake packets come in very handy for this sort of thing) standing on my wooden cheese board, which is the size I planned for the wooden base. 

I have cut the triangular pieces from pelmet vilene and have been looking for a source of ‘builder’s scrim’ sometimes called cotton tape by the plastering fraternity. Most plasterers today use fibreglass (ezy tape) which is self adhesive. I assume the cotton tape is used mainly for renovating older homes. I have decided not to use quink ink as it is a little dark, so I’m using a technique from Angie Hughes’ new book, Stitch, Cloth, Paper, Paint, which I borrowed from the library. The clearly displayed process uses tissue paper and scrim PVA’d to the vilene followed by machine stitching, gesso, paint and hand stitching.

Now a couple of photos of some op shop finds. Nikki is about to release a new laptop bag/satchel pattern (for which I have been waiting). Nikki’s bag patterns are sensational, both in style and the detailed notes which amount to a workshop on how to make each bag. At the op shop I picked up two bags, one brand new, for $2.00 each. I will cut them up for the buckles, rings, bag feet, and zippers with gorgeous zipper pulls. The webbing strap with fittings will make a perfect strap for my laptop bag. I also picked up the two macro suede pieces for footstools or cushions and the ribbed fabric for placemats (matches some I already have) for $1 each. The larger book is for Maggie’s workshops and the smaller is an interesting historical look at textiles (c1968): weaving, tapestry, spinning, batik, printing, lace making, embroidery etc. I have been following Helen Cowan’s blog on the history of English embroidery so this will be a good adjunct.

I’m off to prepare for a day in Melbourne. I have to go to uni first and then to the Australasian Quilt Convention. I’m looking forward to a few workshops to try out a variety of sewing and embellisher machines.

Cheers

Embroiderer’s Guild Exhibition

Just a quick post as it’s been a busy weekend. Thursday morning all the items were dropped off to the hall for the exhibition. Friday morning the exhibition was officially opened by the Governor of Victoria’s wife, Mrs de Krester (Actually I think she might be Dr) who admitted to having a drawer full of UFO’s. She is the patron of the Embroiderer’s Guild of Victoria. Friday night Claudia and I went to Junior Embroidery group, then Probus club held a lovely function at the exhibition to raise funds for charity, with a guest speaker from the Geelong Botanical Gardens. A special feature of the exhibition was a botanical display, where embroiderer’s guild members interpreted botanical illustrations from the gardens.

Claudia and I were supposed to be ‘on duty’ Saturday afternoon, but I found out at the last minute that I had a full day at Melbourne Uni. We will go in this afternoon. Claudia is very excited as Pauleen told her she could be a white gloves person and show the items to people.

These are the items I entered, I ran out of time for my final piece so that will have to wait for the next bi-ennial exhibition!

The box is a piece our textile group decided to do Based on Janet Edmonds book, so there was a great variety in our display (must remember to take some photos this afternoon). Mine is called ‘I am Woman’. The base fabric is a sandwich of hand painted cotton, pelmet vilene and kunin felt. The silhouettes are bayeux stitch, the windows are daphne paper (quite appropriate to the subject I felt) and the hands dangling are a sandwich of organza and glitter fabric with words from the sheer heaven stitched on. This was great fun to make. One of our members, Beryl,  loved them so much she made three. I think this will be Claudia’s summer holiday project as she wants one.

Mostly machine stitching, the sky is inspired by Van Gough’s ‘Starry nights’. This one is called ‘Endangered’

And I finally dyed some hand spun wool to finish off ‘Lilliana’. She was almost finished during an on-line Joggles class with Barbara Schoenoff. 

Claudia finished her pincushion:

and had great fun making some of Annette Emms‘ fairy shoes:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These were made using her sunprint fabric, some angelina, machined cord, hand dyed silk thread, beads and sequins.

Cheers

Post from far North Queensland

Many retirees in the south of Australia go North for the wintertime. This week we received a little of Port Douglas in the post with the beautiful ATC and postcard from Pauline, our textile group leader. Claudia’s is the ATC with lots of bouganvillea petals which Pauline has collected. Pauline also wrote a lovely letter to Claudia on calico. My postcard includes tiny pieces of driftwood. It also has a great quote on the back. What a very clever lady.

I am now extremely frustrated. Every time I try to browse the photos to add to the blog the application crashes.

This will now be a very short blog as I hate blogs without photos.

I began boot camp last week, went to the fitness test and then came down with a dreadful cold. I have just gone to another session this morning (6-7am) and it was fun, lots of boxing, but I’m not so good at the push-ups!

I have many WIPs hanging around looking at me sadly so this weekend will be dedicated to making some progress. At least in winter you have an excuse to stay inside and sew. Next week, on Friday and Saturday, I’m booked in to a Machine embroidery workshop with Mandy Ginsberg, courtesy of the Embroiderer’s Guild, should be fun. I especially like to go and stitch without interruptions!!!

Now I’m off to find a macforum where someone might be able to fix this photo loading problem. I have tried several internet providers and it happens with all so it must be a problem with the laptop programming.

Cheers Jo