A Little Needle Roll

Nearly a week ago now I spent the day with my creative stitching group Stitchers Plus. They are such a fun group of people and very, very creative. This year we have decided to each take a day and present a little challenge to the group. This little needle roll is the result of one of those challenges.

The challenge was set by Annette. We were each given a little kit that contained the basic makings of this little needle roll. Included were two needles already threaded with fuseble thread, and a blindfold. Yes,  a blindfold!  We had to stitch with the thread provided with the blindfold on! Now that certainly was a first,  a fun and very interesting exercise! Below was the result of my stitching by feel only. Later I added some more to fill in the gaps.

Then came some fun with the iron. We had a few different foiling sheets to choose from, and I actually used two different colours on my sample which produced an interesting result.

That was as much as I got done on this piece on the day, but when I came home I picked out some threads from my stash and started to stitch.. I added feather stitches, french knots and woven wheels.

The kit also included some Dr's flannel stitched onto a ribbon, which I then stitched onto the back of my decorated piece. 

I also added a handmade toggle and twisted cord for closure.

Such a fun day,  with a very creative little needle roll as an end result.

Fun & Frivolity

Last Saturday was the monthly meeting of my creative stitching group. It was a coolish, very wet day( it absolutely poured!) so what better way to spend it than stitching with friends.

Part of the day was spent study a particular embroidered piece, in particular how the stitcher had used her stitches to effect. So the afternoon was spent playing with stitches on a doodle cloth. As it happened, my doodle cloth was a piece of scrap linen left over from something, and my stitch play has turned into this bookmark.

Anyone interested can read about the remainder of the day here.

Calendar Piece - "Past Horizons"

Over the last 12 months, my creative stitching group, "Stitchers Plus" , has been working hard to produce a calendar to celebrate our 10th birthday. As it is has now officially been published, and many are now hanging on walls around the world, I thought I would show my contribution.

The piece is called "Past Horizons", and is worked using my own hand dyed fabrics & threads. It was rather a challenge to produce, as the fabric was a dressmaking linen, not an even weave linen. I noticed this as soon as I started counting, and noticed that one side of counting was longer than the other. This got me thinking that it was going to elongate my design too much. So ? What did that matter? It was after all a creative piece. As soon as I started to cut & remove threads, the weft threads started to stretch, another problem that had to be solved, otherwise all my wrapping & needleweaving would be wobbly.

The design is original & has been interpreted from a sketch that I did some years ago of a beach, headland & surf club.

To check out all the calendar, visit here .

A New Major Work

It has been over a week since I posted anything here, so I though I would give you all a teaser as to my next major piece for the Stitches Plus Group. The linen pictured here is one which I hand dyed last week, along with the perle 12 thread on the white reel. The linen is one which I purchased cheap about 2 years ago. I knew it had a stain on it, (I thought that was the reason why it was cheap!) so I avoided the stained piece when I put it in the dye pot. Over the last few days I have started stitching on this piece & have found that it is not an evenweave linen, (another reason why it would be cheap). This now leaves me in a delema, whether to continue stitching & see where the uneven weave will take me, adjust the stitching to make it uneven, so counteracting the uneveness of the weave in the linen, or start again on a new piece of linen, which I know will be even weave & give me what I want. Decisions, decisions!

A Stitchers Plus Day

Today was the first meeting for the year for my creative stitching group. Show & tell as always was pretty amazing, we are such a creative bunch. There are lots of pics of what we had all been doing over here. The ladies in the Library were also having a major sorting out. I made a donation & in return added two more books to my personal library at home, both on bobbin lace. This is just one of the pages in one book. I dream to be able to one day work these beautiful edges.

A New Toy To Play With

Last Saturday was A Stitches Plus day. It was our last meeting for the year, so Christmas lunch (where we all brought a plate), & an inspirational walk in the bush was the order of the day. So armed with camera , I set off with everyone to photograph anything which caught my attention. There were amazing seed pods, beautiful & interesting Australian wildflowers, multi-coloured & textured gum leaves, interesting rock formations & much more. I turned on the camera only to find it would not turn on fully. Disaster! After much fiddling, changing of batteries, prodding & poking, I gave up on the camera & resorted to my very limited sketching skills.

Yesterday I took the camera into my local camera store to see if they could shed any light on the problem. After much prodding & poking by the technician, I was told that it would cost $$$$$ to fix & I could buy a new one for just a few $ more. So I am now the proud owner of a brand new camera which takes pics like this.

A daisy which is about 5cm in diameter.

A 2cm width sample of my bobbin lace.

Anyone like to guess what this is?All I have to do now is learn how to use it to it's fullest. The camera shop will give me free lessons so I think I will take them up on their offer.

A new blog to visit

Last Saturday, over our Christmas lunch meeting, my creative stitching group voted to start up a blog about what we do. I had been thinking about doing it for a while but needed to ask everyone else what they wanted. Of course I was met with questions like "what is a blog", but after much discussion most of us agreed it would be good publicity. So our new blog is up & running & can been seen here. I hope you all join us as we share our travels through the world of creative textiles.

Fabric Bowl

On one of my on-line groups someone has been asking about hand made free standing bowls. This is one that I made about four years ago. Mine is made from fabric & uses embroidery, beading & crochet motifs as decoration. It was made as a "Circular Shades of Black & White Plus One" challenge with the Stitchers Plus Stitchers group that I belong to. Any type of bowl will need some kind of support for it to keep it's shape. This one uses plastic, but a lace one would require something else.

Book Cover

Welcome to my blog.

This is my latest creation. It is a book cover that was inspired by a challenge from The Stitchers Plus group I belong to in Sydney. The challenge was to use a found object. I found my key on a morning walk around my neighbourhood. I used the techniques of FME, reverse applique, machine embroidery & added some beads. The girls in the group have not seen it yet, only one has seen this pic. I can't wait till Saturday to see their reactions & to see what everyone else has come up with.