Needlecase Collection

Hi
I have been soooooooooooooo busy the last week or so ... all the preparations for the workshop I am teaching at the Australian Lace Guild in 3 and a half weeks are coming to a crescendo! ... I have spent the last 4 days winding Enamel Coated Copper coloured Wire onto small reels, selecting beads and putting "findings" into little "kit" bags for the students who are participating .... those doing the 2 day workshop will make one or other of the 2 sets of jewellery (See first blog entry for last February) or if they are doing the 4 day workshop and are very industrious!!! they can have a go at both designs! I have also been varnishing around 180 bobbins and still have a batch of about 50 to start varnishing! Here is a pic which I took at the Lace Day back in June and forgot was in the camera .. the display for the meeting was "Needlecases" (I started collecting needlecases just over 5 years ago) ...these are the fabric ones made by me and various luvly friends and I will post a pic in a couple of days of some of the cases which are made from wood, bone, metal etc...... If you click on the pic you can see more detail ....(Pat do you recognise yours? :D)

Stitchety Grubs Stitches

Hi

These two pics (specifically) for my "fellow" Stitchety Grub Embroidery Gals ... a pic of Ros's "Chambray blues" jacket and Colleen's Crazy patch bag (with of course her own handmade bobbin lace on it!) We have all done our last Month's Pekinese Stitch and are now onto this month's "Chain Stitch" -I haven't actually started mine yet but I know which little square of my Pantoran (see earlier blog postings) I will do it on ....I will do it in fine thread as ripples around the gorgeous "totoise" button a lace friend gave me 2 years ago ...I have been saving it for something special ... now is the time haha! I will ofcourse post a pic when done ....I have been busy varnishing around 180 bobbins at the mo and a another batch of 40-50 will need doing after that .... and I am also working on the Wire Lace workshop notes and of course luvly ATC's .... (spoken or rather written like a true addict haha! :-D) No peace for the wicked!!! he he he waggling eybrows!

ATC's ...still haha!

This is a pic of my first ATC which I made back in March for Pat (Hi Pat :D) I forgot I had taken a pic of it and it was loaded on along with the other various pics which I finally put on my puter last weekend. My last post was Sunday and on Monday I made another 8 ATC's ...yep am getting addicted haha! but haven't taken a pic yet ... haven't had time. I did take the ATC's along to one of the Lace Groups I go to on Wednesday to try and get the others to have a go (not sure any will!) There was a lacemaker lady visiting from New Zealand and she seemed very keen so I gave her one of my ATC's to get her started! I am madly preparing my teaching notes and patterns for the Conference next month ...the days are going by soooooooo fast .. .I will be going down to Albany 3 weeks tomorrow and will spend 2 whole days working on my Russian mat, yakking, eating, boozing! (in the evenings gotta have a glass of vino!) and generally veging out ... it's gonna be great! 'specially as there will be me and my mate, Ros (we usually both go) and 2 mates who are flying over early (for a bit of a holiday before the conference) from Victoria. Waa hoo!

Russian mat "update"

As promised a couple of weeks ago... here is an updated pic of my Russian Mat ... I really haven't had much chance to work on it this year ... only the odd "Lace Day" here and there and as all lacemakers know (those who attend Lace Days) you only get to put in a few pins at a lace day- 6 if you are lucky hahahaha! :-D

I am planning on taking it down to Albany in early September to work on it over the 2 days of their "Lace Weekend" . (For those of you overseas - Albany is a little town down South of Perth it is a solid 5 hour drive from my house ... so my friends and I will head down on a Friday ... make Lace for 2 days (Yay!) then head back on the Monday!). This will be my 14th consecutive "Albany Weekend" I will have to paint myself a bobbin to commemmorate year 15 next year! and take some "bubbly" down :-D oh and of course choccie haha!

Lacey ATC's

Hi

Here is a pic of 6 of the ATC's which I have been busy with over the last few days... I have done an additional 9 too but they are for specific people and I will try to remember to post the pic of them in about 7 weeks time after the Aus Lace Guild conference week.

All the lace is hand made - using a variety of techniques: tatting, and bobbin lace ... I bought some more sequins last week too ...dontcha luv it when you get something new like that and you sew them onto everything ... my son better make sure he doesn't stand still near me or he could end up with them on his Footy shirt (he might get a 'complex"..... though of course he has known for years that his Mum is nuttier than a fruit cake hahaha! :-D)

From "Duster" to artwork!

Hi
Here is a pic of one of the dusters which Pat at
http://alteringthoughts.blogspot.com/ sent me back in mid March. I ironed tiny bits of polyester "fluff" stuff which I bought for a couple of dollars onto it (I think I mentioned this in previous blog entries) then added Angelina fibres, stuck it between "glad Bake" paper and ironed it -then free motion embroidered it with metallic thread. Next I will add some bits of various knitting wools ... and do a bit more machine embroidery then embellish with bits of my hand made lace, sequins, beads etc ..... I will use some of it to make ATC's for the upcoming Australian Lace guild Conference swap ... If there's anyone out there in "blogland" reading this who would like to exchange ATC's with me please do get in touch :-D - there is supposed to be a display of ATC"s at the conference as well as the swapping going on but all I have is one card which the lovely Pat sent me when she sent the duster package and a set of 9 made by the Lace Guild Committee gals last year which I was lucky enough to win.... I am so "behind the eight ball" when it comes to ATC's mainly 'cos time has been scarce this year! I have lots of embroidery projects planned for after this years conference ... the teaching side of things is a great consumer of time!

Inchies with tiny tatted bits!

Hi

I have been really busy the last week and a half hence why I haven't had a chance to do any blog entries!

I also have some pics in the camera and need to take some more. I have been doing a few ATC's ready for the swaps that will be taking place during the Australian National AGM Conference week at the end of September! Here are a couple of pics of the early stages of some of the Inchies I made a few weeks ago.... I have been also madly tatting tiny little bits to embellish them with.

I am trying to get my bobbin orders done too ... on Monday there was a vague light at the end of the tunnel but yesterday and again today I had a couple more orders come in hmmmmm. So it's into the studio tomorrow and time to get the paints running "hot"... I went to an op shop today and managed to get a copy of a big book by Steve Parish of Australian Rainforests ... beaut ... as it is the theme for the 2009 Australian Lace Guild Triennial Lace Competition ... I already had 2 books on this topic but I had coveted this one several years ago when I was doing the City & Guilds..... back then I borrowed it from the local library.. so Yay! :-D I am doing a happy dance that I have my own copy ...haven't had a chance to look through it yet but when I move away from this computer tonight and over to my comfy chair with my cuppa tea and some choccie I can give it my full attention!

A few weeks ago my daughter helped me update to the newer blog and she put a pic up for my "title" but unfortunately I lost my Blog Embellisher ring logo box thingie and also my Neo Counter ... foobah! I guess I will have to redo it sometime :-(

Old ! Embroideries

Here are a couple of embroideries which I did about 15 years ago! I found them again recently when tidying the studio!! I didn't get a chance yesterday to take pics with the camera as I had hoped... but spent the whole day working - painting bobbin orders ...and again today ... feels a bit like swimming in custard! sigh! :-D

So hence the two pics which I took a few weeks ago!

Hello!

Hi
I am hoping to take some photo's tomorrow and load them on Monday as the kids have used up all our "fast time" and the computer is on a "go slow" and it's driving me nuts!
So "hold that thought" and come back for a visit in a couple of days :-D

Altar Cloth 3

Hi
This is the Altar cloth at St Nicholas's Church, Ashmore in Dorset. I took this last year too on the UK trip but it is also the church where I got married just over 22 years ago and yep this cloth was on the altar then too LOL! :-D

Bumble bee

This pic was taken by me last year on my UK trip in a beautiful Garden called "Larmer Tree" near the village in which I grew up in Dorset. It was a fabulous day weatherwise and hardly anyone else there ... I took this pic cos my Australian friend who was travelling with me had never seen a Bumble Bee before as we don't have them here in Aus!! I had forgotten all about this pic until I was reminiscing through some of the pics and found it....

Blog header

A quick question ... do any of you fellow bloggers know how I can personalise my header? any tips gratefully received :-D

Encrusted Beaded Zip Necklace

I have just been snoofying around in this computer and found a pic of me wearing my Encrusted Beaded "Zip" necklace - 'cos it's made using glass beads it is quite heavy - so I made a second one in creams/browns and golds which is in plastic beads. I love how plastic beads are made so much better nowadays ... a lot of them don't even look like they are plastic!

The idea wasn't mine ... a lace friend came to visit from the Aussie Eastern States and a friend had given her one as a pressy ... I wasn't the only one who just had to have one - there were about 7 of us at my lace group who all made one and we all wore them on this day to our Xmas celebration!

Alter Cloth 2

Hi

Here is the 2nd Alter cloth pic which I took last year in UK. This one is in the Salisbury Cathedral ... absolutely stunning in real life ... the colours are much better than this pic... it doesn't do it justice.

I pulled the muscle in the right side of my neck this morning :-(

(I usually manage to do it about once every 12-18 months!). The time before last I was towelling my hair dry and this time putting a jumper on and "twang" it went ...darn thing!... I have been trying to ignore it all day ...this morning as I was painting a bobbin order and this afternoon as I was mounting a piece of Bedfordshire lace I had made using 4 sided stitch .... thank goodness for head magnifiers!!! as the cotton fabric I am using is very fine! but as the lace itself is fine it had to be .... sigh!

Pantoran's Feather Stitch

This Month's stitch for the Pantoran I am making is "Feather Stitch" and I was very organised this time and actually did the square the afternoon that we chose the stitch (the first 4 stitches I did in the first week of each of the 4 weeks we had alotted but the 5th square I lost the plot and didn't do it until the day before show and tell oops! hee hee!...) This time I am way ahead of time yay! It is the elephant ... if you look at his cloth on his back and the one on his head you can see the Feather Stitch and also a little line of it on the ground! I am really pleased with how he turned out ...he's soooo cute haha! :-D There is a closer shot of him too - though you can of course click on the pic for an enlargement.

Stitchety Grub Group Challenge

Hi

As promised here are pics of my Pantoran squares. I posted the first 3 stitches (1 month per stitch) in an earlier blog entry and here are stitches number 4 and 5. Just to recap - month 1- the first stitch was : Colonial Knot, the 2nd: Fly Stitch, 3rd: Sheaf Stitch, 4th (and pictured here as the scales of the fish) Wheatear Stitch (Mine is actually detached Wheatear stitch). Also pictured here is the 5th month: Thorn stitch incorporating a pressed metal medalion and sequin waste. (I have also done stitch no 6 which isn't due for 3 more weeks ...yes I got on with it fast! ...and I will post a pic of that one soon).

I am feeling very chuffed tonight as I had an email from the Australian Lace Guild NAC Committee to say that my Wire workshop at the Annual Cnoference at the end of September is a "goer" for all 4 days so I am doing the happy dance yay ... now have to get on and do the workshop notes! ooo er! also there are apparently a few vacancies for the Thursday/Friday one if anyone is interested! :-D

Willow Pattern Bobbin

Hi - I promised someone that I would pop a few pics of the willow pattern bobbin on here (from early 1990's!!) managed to find it in the 2nd bobbin case I looked in which was great as I would have had to go through at least 8!

You can click on the pics and they will enlarge. It was quite hard to photograph because of the flash and the satin varnish on the bobbin!!! :-D

But it will give you an idea :-D

Fluffy, Felty, Glittery Inchies!

Yay !I finally got around to loading on some pics which I took the week before last... I recently made some "Inchies" ... using a base of normal craft felt (in the top pic-on the right), I then ironed some bits of Polyester "cotton" balls on to it (between glade bake paper of course).

These balls of "fluff" I bought at a local $2 shop (equates to around 85p) ...$2 for a mixed bag of colours ... the following week when I went back they were clearing them out for $1 a bag ... bargain!!! so I bought a couple more! :-D

Here they are in the shoebox (having a son with size 13 feet is very handy for storage haha!) As I was Ironing on the "fluff' I also ironed on fibres (not actually Angelina fibres though I do use them, these were a cheaper version I had bought at a craft shop and wanted to try out). Then I randomly stitched with a veriagated thread over the felt .....then..... well I'll tell you what I did then in the next installment!! ......... :-D

Alter Cloth 1

Hi All
As it is a year since I was in the UK I was taking a little trip down memory lane and looking through my happy snaps and found some pics of Alter cloths which I took.
The first one here was taken in Salisbury Cathederal.
I will post some more over next few days.
I have been busy in my studio madly painting bobbin orders every morning ... everyone seems to have decided to order at the same time plus I am trying to get stock done for the September Albany weekend and the AGM conference... no peace for the wicked he he! The afternoons I have been busy with the workshop notes. I haven't even had time to start putting items away in the new "tallboys" in our newly decorated bedroom ... lots of stuff still in the games room ... sigh! pity there's not more hours in the day! ;-D

Paintings and Peacocks

Hi All - I was looking through the photos which I took exactly a year ago when I was on my UK trip .... here is a pic of the "stage" in the gardens of "Larmer Tree" in Dorset (near my Mum's!). On the day we visited there weren't many people there although it was a gorgeous sunny day and around 24°c .... In these gardens there are all sorts of different little "buildings" ... every time you walked around the corner of the hedges there was another unique building which past owners had collected from around the world (late 1800's) ... I couldn't resist a pic of the beautiful scene painted as a backdrop and a very obliging Peacock which happened to be there at just the right time!