Wire Lace workshop

Forgot to say in yesterday's post ....that the Wire Lace workshop at the Sept AGM is a 2 day OR a 4 day workshop :-D

Wire Lace Workshop AGM Sept 2007

As promised ........here are the Wire Lace pieces for my workshop in September 2007... at the Australian Lace Guild conference (as mentioned in the Australian Lace Magazine). The "purple" necklace (and earrings), "Njmajek", is made in 3 parts and suitable for beginners and the other set "Paduan" for

intermediate.....or adventurous beginners :-D if you would like any further information do please email me on snailmad@iinet.net.au ... (you can click on the photo's to see them larger!)

Free Lace Butterfly

Hi ... A friend asked me about Jana Novak and the type of lace she does... so I dug out this butterfly which I made in Jana's 1996 AGM workshop in Melbourne ... it was the first AGM week I ever went to! It's made with Moravia Linen thread in several shades of blue and yellow and I wound "Kreinik blending filament" with some of the pairs...I enjoyed the free lace workshop and I designed and made 2 necklaces and a pair of earrings to match (the earrings match both ... one necklace is longish the other more like a choker) There are lots more beads on the Jewellery though than this butterfly.... There were lots of stitch and techniques tips in this workshop ... alot of which I still use!

Purple Venetian Gros Point Necklace

Hi All, I have been busy today ... went to visit a friend in hospital this morning and when I got home dear daughter wanted me to mend her studded belt ... that seemed to take forever!..... Last night I decided to "dig out" the Purple Venetian Gros Point necklace which I started in January 2005 supposedly for a wedding in November of that year ...(I ended up wearing a different one haha! 'coz it wasn't anywhere near ready) ... I had worked on it for a week solidly back in that March and ended up with a 10 day migraine ... I was working in very dark purple fine threads ... which put me off working on it for months...I have had to ration the time I spend on it now !!!!! The pic shown was taken way back in that "Migraine March" .... Now all I have left to do to finish it ...is the cordonnet around the 2 circles and then to take it off the pad and make some tiny Couronnes to attach and then it will be done and I just have to make the 2 earrings to match! I will take a pic when it's finished and post it on here....

"Little Frog" - Design page

Here is the Design sheet for the "Little Frog" Cordonnicot Lace piece. The drawing of a Tree Frog that I did at the top, then a couple of diagrams and notes for possible colours and thread selections.

I forgot to put in the post below that the eyes were made using 2 four petal Couronnes with a bead sewn in the centres.

The finished lace measures 50 mm x 70mm.

"Little Frog" Cordonnicot Lace

Here is the finished "Little Frog" Cordonnicot Lace piece.

The bamboo is done in "Single Corded Brussels Stitch", as is the upper part of his head. The lower part of is face is in "Pea Stitch Variation".

The black backgound filling stitch is "Ardenza Stitch".

Beads were incorporated as the arm was worked in Single Corded Brussels and the edging is a "Single Beaded Loop Edging". The lower half of the background leaf is in "Double Corded Brussels Stitch".

The Little Frog" is not actually in the book (see entry below) as it was made after the book was published but was made as an exercise to show my students how the idea/concept starts and what the finished piece of lace can look like..... :-D

Cordonnicot Lace Book

For more up to date information on my Cordonnicot Needle Lace please click here or copy and paste the following address below:
http://stitchetygrubs.wordpress.com/

Hi - I have had a couple of enquiries in the last week in regards to my book on "Cordonnicot Lace", which I published 18 months ago.

It is a style of needlelace which I designed and developed myself and taught at the Sept 2005 Australian Lace Guild AGM conference and I have also conducted a couple of other workshops since. I am travelling to Sydney, Canberra and Brisbane in a few weeks time (Mid March) to teach both this lace and also Venetian Gros Point to students there.... I have had raw (no needlelace at all) beginners and ladies who have had some experience already with needlelaces participating in my workshops and everyone seems to have enjoyed themselves (although that could be due to the Chocolate available haha!... no, not provided by me but the students themselves who know I am a chocoholic!!! :-D) and produced lovely little lace pieces. As the book is self-published, it is available direct from me only. For price please email me at stitchety_grubs@hotmail.com 

The piece on the front of the book is called "Morning Starburst" and is a necklace and earring set ... it is the largest piece in the book... all the other patterns are smaller projects.

My 2 Needlelace pillows

Here are pics of my needlelace pillows ... one with them in their carry bags......

I designed and made the larger one back in 2002 so that it was "light in weight" and could be "reduced in size" for packing in a suitcase ....

The "roller" is a polystyrene cylinder covered in craft felt and then a material cover.... with a small cover cloth. A tiny pin cushion on the end to hold pins and a couple of my ballpoint needles... The roller "sits" on a polystyrene "bead" bean bag (lovely and warm in the winter LOL!) ...There is also a pic of the bags open .. I have no idea what order "Blogger" will let me post these pics so finger's crossed... Another is a shot of me with the big pillow and you can see how it leaves both my hands "free" to stitch... and then the other pic is of me with the little travel one which I made last year for my UK trip when suitcase room was at more of a premium!

Now that I have become used to working with a pillow I rarely do any needlelace without it ... you definitely need it for larger works such as My Triennial Competition "Cordonnicot" knickers!They were worked exclusively on the larger pillow.

Bayeux Tapestry Replica

This is the scene from the Bayeux Tapestry from which I did my "Man with a sack" for my C&G Embroidery module A. He is standing to the right behind the yellow (!!) horse... wearing a blue tunic . Ahhhh memories ... that was back in January 1999... I was trying to embroidery him in 40°c heat and had troubles with a slippery needle!!! That was when we had no air con ... just a ceiling fan which managed to blow all the threads around everywhere! haha!

My friend and I managed to go to Reading Museum to view the replica back last June and it is absolutely amazing ....I would, of course love to see the real one but as the Reading one was only an hour and 3/4 drive away from my rellies ...much more accessable for me. Here is the web addy if you would like to take a tour around the Tapestry ... you can see it scene by scene ...a great site! http://www.bayeuxtapestry.org.uk/Index.htm

Sequins and Handmade beads

Hi ... here is the sample I did for C&G ... sequins and handmade beads.
( Click on pic to see enlargement)

Some of the beads are coloured paper cut in an elongated triangle and rolled up, some are "tea light metal" (plain and printed ones!) or fabric .. also made from an elongated rolled triangle... some are thread wrapped tubes ...all stitched onto Mohair fabric offcut which I bought several years ago at a local Craft Fair ... one of the stalls makes jackets, hats etc and sells the scraps in a carrier bag for a few dollars...
I had a good arvo at Lacecargot lace group .. drooling over lace and embroidery books and eating, drinking and laffin' and am sitting here with a grin on my face thinking about really big South African snails with wind (you had to be there LOL! haha!)

Colonial Knots- Garden Celebration mini quilt

As mentioned in a previous post we are participating in a Monthly stitch challenge at my Stitchety Grubs embroidery group... the first stitch is "Colonial Knots" and I finished the first small square for my Pantoran today ... I will take a photo of it soon and display it on here in a couple of weeks when the due date comes up... for now though I have included some pics of my "Garden Celebration" which was one of the main module pieces in my City & Guilds a few years ago.... Yep! every single stitch is a Colonial Knot! I wouldn't mind a dollar for every stitch!!! haha! Each colour panel is about 10cmsx8cms and was based on a close up sketch of a piece of our back lawn!!! :-D It is mounted on a small quilt background which was made of Calico "blow painted" with the swirly stripes and then a very pale pink chiffony type material over the top. The border is some hand dyed fabric which I did at the time. (Still have some - must use it some time!). The idea of the Monthly stitch challenge came about when I read about Sharon B's TAST (Take a Stitch Tuesday challenge) you can see it at: http://inaminuteago.com/index.html )

Medicine Bag - Back view

As promised in previous post here is a pic of the back of the Medicine bag ...

I went to Quilting today and am feeling very pleased as I managed to actually get some stitching done on my Kanthas Quilt... I started it a couple of years ago, but only worked on it once in a blue moon... now that our group is meeting during the daytime I am determined to get on with it! ... I finished one of the "tree of life's" today and started again on the fish!...I will take some pics next time I get the camera out. No lace tomorrow as the building where we meet is having work done on it this week so daughter and I are off to the movies to see "Dream Girls" .... lovely air con as the forecast is 40°c!. Well have to go do something creative in the kitchen ...... :-D

Click the pics for detail

Forgot to say that if you click on the pics below they then appear enlarged so you can see more detail!

Medicine bag - front view and inspiration

Hi .... well, I went to see the "Miss Potter" movie it was quite good but I couldn't seem to get past Reneé Zellweger having a pursed lips all the time ....like she had been sucking on a lemon! and if you closed your eyes whilst she was speaking it sounded like "Bridget Jones"!!

:-D

The scenery in the Lake District was awesome though and the story very interesting...

Here is a pic of the Medicine Bag ...front view and also a pic of the drawing I did of a Masai Hand Ornament whilst doing the research for the "Embellishment" Module... which gave me the idea for the bag. The front of the bag has my Native American Indian Birth Totem "The Falcon" ( some of you know that I am 16th Native American Indian ) so there was other symbolism happening whilst I was designing this bag. Inside there are the traditional Items ... Turquoise stones, a silver painted bean, a tiny cloth, embroidered with a totem raven's head, tiny stick and feather etc ..... Though I don't think the assessors even looked inside! They did want to keep it ( and a couple of other items) for display at the Alexander Stitches show in 2002 but after having an assessment piece go missing in the post when I sent all the work over for the assessment, I wasn't prepared to risk leaving anything in the UK for them to post back!

I will put a couple of other pics up next time .... of the back of the bag as it's different to the front...

Movie

Hi, I am off to the movies tonight with my best friend to see "Miss Potter" .. am looking forward to it. I have spent the afternoon making needlelace sample pads for my students for my "tour" to the Eastern States next month... it's only 6 weeks away ... getting excited...LOL!
I am off to my Embroidery group tomorrow morning "Stitchety Grubs" and we are starting the new stitch challenge ... I have actually remembered to put the hand painted felt which I did last Sunday into my bag! that is what I am using to make a "Pantoran" which will feature the stitches.... and I have also dug out the "sari" which I got last July in Dubai which is going to be a long curtain in our bedroom when we have decorated it and the colours from it are what I have painted the felt in.... as the finished Pantoran will go on the wall in there!
I have Wire Lace Group on Saturday though it is going to be very hot 40°c forecast, yik! It is the first meeting of this year but I still have to wind bobbins for the new pendant which I have planned to start.... will have to try and get them done tomorrow arvo after food shopping! no peace for the wicked! :-D

Ethnic Cross Stitch

This was the little Cross stitch "Ethnic" mat which I designed and made during my City & Guilds Emb stage 1 course a few years ago .... The cross stitch was based on research done on "tassels" although it looks a bit like a "robot" haha!

The edge is embellished with "Shisha" mirrors on hand dyed fabric and the edge is Needlelace loops with beads attached instead of picots.

Crazy Patch Needlecase

This is (so far) my one and only Crazy Patchwork piece ... it's a needlecase (surprise surprise!:-D) it is about 18cm deep and, when folded, about 12cm wide. It's embellished with some of my own tatting , silk ribbon embroidery, odd "geegaws" which a friend found in an "op shop" an odd earring which I got at an Op shop.... etc... it has a variety of bugs on it .. of course a spider ... whose legs are "3D"!, dragonfly, ladybug, Butterflies (one ribbon and one tatted) and bees. I made it a couple of years ago and hadn't seen it for a while (tidying up last week it resurfaced!) and I had forgotten all the little details :-D ...I am almost tempted to do some more ...but I really want to stick to my New Year's resolution of finishing "WIP's" and not starting new stuff.... sigh! oh for a few more hours in the day! LOL!

Russian Mat

This was my first ever Russian piece... "Boris" from Bridget Cook's first Russian Lace book.

It was done in 3 weeks 2 days ... :-D

It's a lovely pattern.

Haven't had a chance to make any lace today ... had to go down to the local Uni to sort out DD student card and car parking permit, enrolling etc.....

Only sewing I got to do today was DH shorts ... the belt loops had started to pull away ... he hasn't had them long either! They don't make things like they used to!!

I finished the wire lace earrings yesterday to go with the necklace which I designed and made last week... very pleased with them ... they are for the workshop which I hope to teach in September at the Australian Lace Guild AGM week. I will be putting a pic of them on here at the end of next month/beginning March in conjunction for the article in the March issue of Australian Lace. My embroidery group have decided to do a project together ... after reading about the TAST (Take A Stitch Tuesday) challenge run by Sharon B at the following link:(http://inaminuteago.com/index.html ) I mentioned it to the other 4 ladies at the group and they liked the idea too but were baulking at the fact there is only a week to do each stitch... so we thought that we would choose a new stitch at alternate meetings (we meet every 2 weeks so it would be 4 weekly) We are going to put 22 bits of paper in a "bag" ....each with a different stitch written on it and pull one out each time .... starting on February 2nd ... it will be interesting what everyone will do the stitching on! I am thinkning of doing a "Pantoran" in the colours which I want our bedroom to be decorated in .... must raid the material stash and maybe make some material ... felting or something hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm! :-D

"A room with a view" 2

Here are a couple of pics of my entry for the Triennial Lace Competition (Adelaide) in 2003. The title was "A room with a view" but my son has always referred to it as "Mum's Cheeky Lace" !!

The lid of the slim box which I made to contain the lace is made with handpainted "bricks" on cotton, brick shapes were then "quilted" and embellishments added in the form of needlelace vines ... woven leaves... and the little blossoms are made like "bells" using a Couronne stick then sewn into place with a tiny bead in the centre. The cream buttonhole stitch forms the window frame (which doesn't show in the photo but is actually cut out). The entry below shows the box "open" though it is a little hard to see the inside lid as I took the photo on the floor in the studio and it is very similar in colour!!!

"A room with a view" inside

The Venetian Gros Point lace inside ... click on the pic to enlarge.

betchya thought it was something else haha!