Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Merry Christmas
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
More Reticella
Thursday, November 29, 2007
Personal Challenges
Thursday, November 22, 2007
A New Toy To Play With
Monday, November 19, 2007
A new blog to visit
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Mixed Threads - An Exhibition
Mixed Threads - An Exhibition
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Cutwork Success!
Tuesday, November 06, 2007
A Digitized Cutwork Disaster
OK, so it was all digitized, everything looked spot on. I download the design to the machine, hooped the fabric & stabilizer & off I went. Everything was good until I had to remove the hoop to cut. Once I cut, the stability was all gone. Obvioulsy everything all moved, maybe I didn't have it tight enough in the hoop.
I let the design continue without cutting the second side and as you can see it is beautiful. Obviously I need to sort out the support issue once I cut. Back to the drawing board again.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
More Reticella
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
A Summer Sanctuary
More Needlelace Trials
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Reticella Recognition
Fabric Bowl
Monday, September 17, 2007
Inspiration
I could not resist this book either. It is the first time I have ever bought a book just for inspiration. The designs are awesome and they will give me inspiration for my lace for many years to come. Definately money well spent.
More Lace
The top one is a length of filet around a meter in length. I can see little ends peeking out every so often where the joins have been done. I also have another shorter length in a different pattern.
The middle one is a piece of bobbin lace. By looking carefully I can see a few spots where the twists are just not quite right, a sure sign of being hand made. It is about 80cm long.
The bottom one is a beautiful collar done in Battenburg style. I know this is hand done because of the filling stitches and when I looked really closely, different threads had been used in some parts. I think perhaps the maker ran out of the lovely fine thread she was using & had to make do with what she had on hand to finish. Another thought is that perhaps it has been mended in a few spots & the original thread used not known. More likely this was the case.
A very talented person has made them, I just wish I could have met her so she could teach me how. I will take them all to my local Lace group in a few weeks & proudly show them off. One of our members is very preficient in the history of lace & how it has been made, so she will definately let me know one way or the other how they have been made. Whether hand or machine done, they are still all beautiful & I intend to clean them all & recycle them into something new.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Lace Motif
Sunday, September 09, 2007
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Reticella Piece Finished
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Mother Nature at Work
Monday, August 20, 2007
Tissue Box Cover
At long last I have finally finished my tissue box cover. This was started way back in 2005 & put on hold while I did my course last year. This piece has been on my want to do list for a few years. I was going back through my inspiration folder just yesterday looking for inspiration for my next major piece when I came across my original notes & sketches for this one. It took a lot of planning, plotting, thinking & counting, but I think it was worth the effort. I am rather proud of it.
My Great Aunt's Tatting
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Exhibition Pieces
This is one of the first pieces of Drawn thread that I ever did. It now hangs proudly on my dining room wall.
This is atissue box cover that was also made in a class. The class was to explore chain stitch, but I managed to squeeze a few more stitches in for effect.
This beautiful lady is a pin cushion. I first saw her in a magazine & just had to make one. So the search began for my china half doll. I needed her first as that would tell me what her skirt would be. Not sure that I will ever use her as a pin cushion, she is too much a lady to stich pins in.
This is a piece of Casalguidi. Another piece worked in a class that I really enjoyed.Wednesday, August 01, 2007
English patchwork
This piece of English Patchwork is what what I started the last time I went. I need to start another project like I need a hole in my head, but who can resist? Now I am thinking " What am I going to do with this? Any ideas?
First Reticella Piece
This has been worked by withdrawing threads from a piece of linen, then filling the resulting holes with needlelace. I think there are some books out there that describe Reticella as purely needlelace, but the earliest forms were made this way. I can understand why it quickly evolved into all needlelace, as to buy this type of fabric is $80/m, only to throw most of it in the bin as we create the holes. Funny isn't it, but the journey of learning & creating is worth every $ I have spent.
Should be finished soon, then to decide what to do with it. Mmmmmm more food for thought.
Crochet Collar
I have done some digging & found out that it has been made by a lady named Nancy, now deceased, probably dates back to the 1940's and has been made using sewing machine weight thread. I have seen lots of crochet work in my time, I even have drawers full of doileys that have been made by both grandmothers & my mother & myself, but I have never seen anything as fine as this. I am awe as to the creativity, patience & eyesight of the maker. I personally think the piece belongs in a museum somewhere, but while I walk this earth it will stay in my possesion. I have plans to have it framed to hang on my wall so that it can be admired by everyone.
I know it is Irish Crochet, something that I have not done, but now want to do with a vengence.
Do you all think I wll be all the envy of my textile friends? I think so, & I cannot wait to do show & tell at my next lace meeting.
Friday, June 22, 2007
Quilt finally finished!
Monday, June 18, 2007
Tagged !
I am a water girl, love to sit beside it, look at it, listen to it, splash my feet in it, you get the drift. Anything from the ocean, water-falls, lakes, rivers etc. My favourite is the beach, I love to sit on it, lay on it, walk on the sand, dabble my feet in the waves, & search for the wildlife that live near-by.
That being said, rain is one of my my least favourites. Most of the time I find it depressing. I can cope with one or two days of rain in a row but by the third day I am climbing the walls! I think it has something to do with my low levels of vitamen D! But I do so love the sound of rain falling on a tin roof! ( a memory from my childhood)
Thunderstorms are my nightmare. Ever since I was a little girl I have been frightened of them. I have tried to overcome my fear a few times but each time I have got caught out, once in the car with a screaming 2 y/o in the back seat & hail pounding on the roof of the car! Though once they have passed over me, or prooved they will not come near me, I can watch the lightning for hours, especially if it is out off a beach!
This love of water has produced my favourite colour of blue/green, but combine this with pink & maybe a dash of white & we have my all time favourite colour scheme.
I am a perfectiomist. Everything has to be just SO & I get frustrated when it doesn't happen. This has led to a lifetime of learning to make everthing perfect!
I love a challenge, makes me think ouside my square & usually sends me off to research something.
On the other hand, I am a scardy cat, & have to do my research really well before takling something new! This might have something to do with being a perfectionist, & wanting everthing to turn out right the first time.
Now it is time for me to tag seven people.
So:-
Christine
Margaret H
Pam
Sarah E
Misa
Norma
Mandy
You have all been tagged!
Monday, May 28, 2007
Knotted lace
Today I went to my local embroidery group & when I arrived there were a group of women gathered around the back table, so I went to see what they were all looking at. One lady was in the midst of laying out a carry bag full of household linen onto the table so I asked her where it had all come from. The story went that all the linen had come from her neighbour who was moving & all the linen was for sale. As she was talking, the above piece caught my eye so I asked the question of "How much?" The reply came back "50c or $1" . The piece above was instantly mine! along with another three of similar workings & two filet crochet corner handkercheifs!
I have heard of knotted lace, I even posess a book on how to make it, but I have never actually seen a piece! This had made my day!
The story continued that the lace was hand made by the neighbour's elderly Greek aunt who is still living, so I have asked that the message be passed on that it has gone to a very welcome home to sit behind glass!
Friday, May 04, 2007
More Shoe Bags
The last few days have been a little testy over the changes to my classes. So I have buried myself in my sewing room & stitched out another 4 shoe bags. I think that is about 10 now & when these are finished being made up I think that will do. They want about 18 of them but I am not sure if I want to do another 8. I still have to finish two pieces of my own work so I think I might try & concentrate on those pieces.
I'll probably get side tracked into something else though, like the "Sailing to Byzantium" challenge for one of the on-line groups I belong to.
Thursday, May 03, 2007
A WISP Nearly Finished
It is however the first large quilt I ever started ( I remembered there is a cot quilt that is 23 years old & as yet not finished!). So far this quilt has been 15 years in the making & I pulled it out about 3 weeks ago & decided it was time to finish it.
The fun part has been the quilting. I decided I would try to free machine quilt it with a traditional design . Never again! There are so many ends to end off!!!!!!! The FMQ has certainly been an experience! I have done FME before but doing it on an A4 size & on a 60" square quilt are two different things!
Oh well, it should be finished very soon, only 11 squares left to quilt, end off all the ends, then bind it. Time then to tick another WISP off my ever growing list!
Wednesday, May 02, 2007
Old Back Steps
Class changes
They are also talking about changing the venue for the class. I know where this new venue is but I have not seen inside it. I need to check things like table space, power points, lighting, seating, whiteboards etc etc. There is plenty of parking, 2 minutes walk to a train station, & only 5 minutes drive from home for me. I think it might be a good move, we just have to wait to see what the students think. They don't get much of a say in the matter, but if they don't like it they won't come to class. The current venue is much more central for the district, but this new venue has plenty of advantages. The shops are even close by & if they run out of thread they can duck up to the shop & buy some. There is also talk of lengthening the class time which should be good.
The one dissapointing thing was that my Seniors class has been cancelled for good. It is a bit of a shame as it was the only outlet for some of these older generation. The class was supposed to be tomorrow & I only found out by accident that it was cancelled. I just hope they have rung all the students or there will be some very unhappy people tomorrow.
This has all happened because we have a new principal. It would be interesting to know how many other changes he has made in just 9 days of being in the job.
Tuesday, May 01, 2007
A few days R & R
This fellow was very obliging & posed for lots of photos. There are lots of pelicans around & they are funny to watch when the fishemen come in. If they are not careful they will lose their catch to the pelicans very quickly!
Just three of the sunrises we managed to get up early to see! It isn't very often we take the time out to see the sun rise but I am sure glad we did these three mornings. I tried to get pics of a sunset too one day but we got chased by a shower of rain!
I'll say one thing for sure, this planet we all live on is truley stunning if we just take the time to admire it's beauty. We all have to take precautions to make sure it is still here for future generations to come.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Can't See The Forrest For The Trees
Thursday, April 12, 2007
First Reticella Sample
So this is my first sample. I so wanted to learn how to do those horrid little buttonholed triangles, and try as I might I could not get them the same! Then I was introduced to a wonderful new book which gave me a whole new insight in how to do them. From then on I was on a roll. Now all I need to do is plan out a major piece & I will be set!