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!

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.

What a wonderful parcel!

Just a quick post to show the gorgeous ATC and postcard Claudia received in the mail today from Susan Lenz.

 

Claudia was so excited, when I asked her what she liked best about the postcard, she said “all of it”. The postcard has the most beautiful soft embellished texture with some gorgeous ‘jewels’ and the ATC is Claudia’s favourite colour with some lovely girl’s bling. Thankyou so much Susan for your wonderful encouragement of Claudia (and all the lovely things you said on your blog too!).

Cheers

Jo

Trying again and again

I have deleted cookies and a download that may be causing problems, so I will try again……………..

One week later (Thursday), my hard drive has died again, only one month old, and it will take 3 weeks to get the replacement. GRRRRRRRRRRR

I have gone out (Monday) and bought a new imac desktop (base model). I have a 4000 word assignment due in three weeks and my eldest is in the final weeks of her final year of school. We cannot do without a competent computer. Is it sad that we are now so dependent on this electronic gadget????

I am so excited, I can finally add photos again. The ATC and Postcard were sent to Claudia and I from Pauline as I started to say in another post. She has included a little of Port Douglas in the gifts. These are pictures of the back of the postcard and a lovely note she wrote to Claudia on calico.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Okay, I’m struggling with the picture placement here, never mind it’s 11pm, one more photo and then I must go to bed, I have to be up at 5.30am for bootcamp, luckily I’m not working tomorrow. This photo is Claudia’s latest effort from Junior Embroidery Group. We have our Embroiderer’s Guild exhibition in October, so she will be taking her stitching to September’s meeting to include in the exhibition. I can’t wait to see her face when she goes to see the displays!

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

Postal Excitement

Claudia was extremely excited to receive more ATC’s in the post yesterday, from Doreen and Ebony in Canberra. This truly is a great way to encourage young textile artists of the future. Thankyou Doreen and Ebony, Claudia absolutely loves them.

Claudia is keeping all her trades in a small photo album (pink being the favourite colour of the moment).

Susan has received her ‘garden’ postcard so I can post it here.

After painting the base fabric I fused some silk paper and purple op shop scarf

then FME’d over the top. I then hand beaded, couched some bumpy fibres and added the little butterfly charm.
I have finished the journal cover (1am Friday morning) but forgot to photograph before handing in my assessment Friday morning. I’ll have to wait until it comes back marked. I was a little disappointed in the fitting of the cover. I didn’t allow for shrinkage from the FME and had to trim the journal to fit (luckily it was just cardboard and plastic and easily cut). I also made a small tassel and machined cord to dangle from the spine.

I also began knitting a scarf (it’s getting colder here now although August is our coldest month). All the local retirees are packing up and heading north to the warmer states, we have a quite a few years to go before we can do that. (WordPress has obviously decided I have my quota of photos on this post and refuses to load anymore).
Next Thursday we have our textile group get together and are supposed to show our progress on the boxes we are making. Hmmm, I have a cardboard template so that is the task for tonight – make some progress. We are also going to dabble in fabric and paper bead making so that will be fun.
Cheers

Playing Around

Having spent most of the day on uni work I decided I was justified in giving myself a treat. I spent a very relaxing, enjoyable couple of hours stitching Susan’s postcard to send off. I won’t post a picture this week as it will spoil the surprise. Thanks for swapping with me Susan.
Claudia has been continuing her ATC’s. She has made one for her cousin who has just jetted off to The US to work at Camp America. At this stage she is getting acclimatised at her Uncle’s house north of Detroit. The second ATC was for a swap with Annica in Sweden. Claudia spotted the ATC’s Annica had for swap while I was reading her blog.

Claudia has just asked me if she can have her own blog to post her stuff on! I have told her she can when she is a little older. She is off to her first monthly Young Embroiderer’s class at the Embroidery Guild on Friday, so we’ll see if she enjoys that.

Over the last couple of weeks I have been doing a little ‘arting’, I just haven’t had time to blog. I was reading on a blog about somebody’s fun with painting an old stained cloth so I decided to also try some. I dug out an old cotton sheet that has been used as a tablecloth for trestle tables on large family gatherings. I started with wetting the cotton then ironing until just damp. I used a mixture of permaset, lumiere, and koh-i-nor colours and a wide brush with lots of water. I painted wide bands of colour and then splotches of colour on top. I then scrunched them up and left in a tub to dry.

The resultant fabric, the splotches on the autumn tonings are a little obvious but this fabric is destined to be used as a background for a pentagonal box so it will be layered upon. (I will use the silk paper I showed last post.) The pastel shades are not quite as pale as they appear.

The last play around was with the xpandaprint. I sewed a grid onto water soluble paper and then began stencilling with the xpandaprint and sprinkling on the embossing powder. In the end I just painted on the xpandaprint. As I have not yet purchased a heat gun I had to heat set with the iron. This is the photo after heat setting. You can see where the colour has just come off a little.

I have dissolved the paper in water and these will be applied to my Research Journal cover which I intend to stitch tomorrow (we have a long weekend here for the Queen’s Birthday).
Cheers till next week

Word Fun

I can’t resist word games. My favourite board game is Scrabble and I quite enjoy reading the dictionary!!!
When I saw this tag game on Norma’s blog I had to do it.

WHAT IS YOUR NAME

Jo-Anne

4 LETTER WORD

Join ( as in be in it and fabric)

VEHICLE

Jaguar

TV SHOW

Jordan’s Crossing (I’ve never watched it but must have seen the ad somewhere)

CITY

Johannesburg

BOY NAME

Julian

GIRL NAME

Josephine

OCCUPATION

Judge

SOMETHING YOU WEAR

Jodphurs

FOOD

Jelly beans

SOMETHING IN THE BATHROOM

Jungle (what it usually looks like with 4 children)

REASON FOR BEING LATE

jinks (as in high…)

SOMETHING YOU SHOUT
jingo (as in by…)
I tried to give this an Aussie flavour.
I’m off to finish an ATC after I listen to the little one do her reading. This is some background painting I did on cotton, destined to be postcards.

Cheers

Textile Group

Not a great deal of textile progress this week as I worked three days teaching. This is the postcard piece with a little FME. I thought it would be thick enough to stitch without a hoop but it did become a little puckered so I will use a hoop when I continue. Instead of a pin board in my textile corner I have it attached with magnets to the side of the steel filing cabinet. This gives the distance needed to work out where to stitch next.
This week I have been reading Margaret Rolfe’s Australian Quilt Heritage, a brief but interesting outline of the part quilts have played in Australian history from the Aboriginal Heritage to the end of the 90’s. Margaret was a presenter at last week’s Australasian Quilt Fair in Melbourne with her new book co-written with Judy Hooworth which I think may be called ‘Quilts on the Double’ (that’s what her seminar was called). I didn’t get to this session, too much to see, to much to do!!! The display quilts were sensational and included the Husqvarna Viking International Quilt competition – Imagine that and a display of vintage textiles from Japan.
The other exciting event this week was the inaugural meeting in Torquay of the Textile Group from our local Embroiderer’s Guild. This group stemmed from one of our member’s participation in last year’s TAFTA Forum at Geelong Grammar. At this stage we are a small group of 5 who will meet once a month to try out and share different techniques, working towards some items to exhibit at the annual Embroiderer’s Guild Exhibition in October. We have decided to use the postcard technique to each develop an embroidered box a la Janet Edmonds. For March we will be using some of Dale’s techniques which I tried at the Victorian Embroiderer’s Guild Summer School in Melbourne.
Cheers

Postcard in the post

Three posts in 5 days, wow, this is a record!!!
I had to post today because I received some exciting post (in the mailbox) this morning. An envelope from Susan Lenz with the Postcard I chose from her swap. This was the last one left of her Endless Possibilities Series, which has these digitized words and other machine stitched rows of patterns upon painted, heat distressed bondaweb(?) The scanner does not pick up the metallic thread, but they are in there. I thought this would be a nice addition to my daughter’s 18th birthday book. Susan’s other postcards in this series included vintage keys, but this one doesn’t. Luckily I have a few old interesting keys from our garage doors here and also some I picked up in my favourite second hand yard- Restorer’s Barn. I will add one of these (Hope you don’t mind Susan?).
Susan also sent in this parcel an extra ATC which will join the other one in it’s frame above my sewing nook. (Have to get rid of a couple of children before I can claim a room to be a ’studio’.). And here are some pics of the book. I was going to leave space inside for the postcard but thinking about it while taking these photos, I think I’ll dangle it with a key from a group of machined cords on the front cover. The dangle here on the front cover is actually a necklace I made that she can take out and wear. Some bits on these pages, such as the 18 wishes, were taken from an altered book on the web by Karen. She has some beautiful work on her site, so take a look.Here are a few more pages, just scan through if you’re getting bored with the family snapshots.This last pic is the back cover with a poem I found while teaching at a school. I printed it on some red plastic sheeting that was part of the Country Road catalogue!
I have started working on the return postcard for Susan Lenz. Following the endangered life theme of the ATC I sent, this will be the Orange Bellied Parrot, which migrates between Tasmania and the south of Australia. Rather than just do one postcard, I am doing a large picture which I will cut up for a series of postcards. This is the initial sketch of a parrot (you’ll have to click on this, it’s a bit pale):
Here is the background with some silk fibres/hankies being layed on:
Here I have added some turquoise organza ribbon to the wing feathers and overlayed with a pale mauve chiffon scarf (from the Op Shop). It is pinned ready for FME.
Just one final note, Dale mentioned at the Australasian Quilt fair that she will be running a Wild Women (and song?) challenge so watch out on the Thread Studio website for that. Perhaps Dale could post a You Tube of her singing a wild women song. I’d like to see that!!!!
Cheers