Christine's Band

Band Round Robin

This is the band I have done for Miss Muffet's band sampler. MM has done the Wessex Stitchery at the top & I have done the Drawn Thread in purple.

My instant reaction when this arrived was that it needed orange. However, orange is not my favourite colour to work in & there was not quite the right shade in my stash. I did however have the same shade of purple, even if it was a thicker thread than I normally use.

I deliberated for some time whether to use this thicker thread and in the end decided to just go for it. I usually like to work in much finer threads that this. However I feel that this thicker thread has added some texture & contrast to the piece and also blends with what MM has done.

It will be interesting to see what other people add to it.

This afternoon was a bit of fun. I am trying to prepare for another piece of work, ready for an exhibition in October. I have an immage in my head that I want to produce, and part of that involved doing some resist dyeing. So I have tried out two different resists, one using cornflour and one using stitching. I also wanted to try out some colours with the dye to see which would give the best colour for what I wanted. The stitch resist worked the best and the best colour ( I think) is a mix of two different colours. The fun part will be to reproduce the mixed colour ion my actual piece!

Fabric Postcard

Well it has been one of those days today, wild, wet and windy, and parts of Sydney are flooding. A far cry from last week when the ground was dry & parched. I was supposed to go to my embroidery group today but with car shuffles going on, and the weather, I decided to stay home, stay dry and create.

One of the on-line groups I belong to has monthly challenges of which I haven't participated in much lately because of my course. So this year I decided I would try to participate, trying to stretch myself in some way, shape or form. This month's challenge is "Alphabetica" so I thought I would practice my digitizing and produce my first postcard. Next time I will try something that I have not done before.

Hi to everyone from LMT. This postcard is for all of you.

Shoe Bags 4 & 5

Yesterday was the first day I had home for a while that I could sit & play with my machine. So I decided to churn out another two shoe bags. I have to do about a dozen of them before August so I thought I would make a move. So that is five done, they just have to be made up now but that will not take very long & when I have them all stitched I may just set up a production line and do them all at once.
I have been doing other stitching as well but you will have to wait a while before I post those.
It has been raining most of the day today YIPPEE!!!!!!!. Some people may wonder why I am happy about the rain but I guess if you are reading this from Oz then you will understand. For everone else this part of our great country is in serious drought and we need the rain DESPERATELY!

Well, it is that time of the year when I have to think about my classes. My Seniors class is the one that I have to think about the most. Remember, they are Seniors, that means they are older than me and have had way more life experiences than I have. One lady has even worked in the textile trade all her life and she is now in her 80's . Most of them come for a day out, some come to chat, and the odd one comes to learn. It is still my job to inspire them and maybe teach them a new skill. Now do you see my delema?

So, my way of getting around this problem is to give them a challenge at the beginning of each term.

This term's challenge is to use scrap fabrics, cut it into strips, then do something with it. Of course, I have lots of magazine pics and a few things of my own to inspire them but it will be really interesting to see what they come up with.

So I went through my own fabric stash and chose the ones in the top pic, I have then cut them into different widths and stitched them together to form one large piece of fabric which is the bottom pic. I now have to think of what to do with it. I have an idea but that means a lot more work. But that is OK because this thing is talking to me already. I feel lots of machine embroidery about to happen.