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!

Lace Exhibition

Later this month the Fairfield City Museum & Gallery will be host to an exhibition of works by Western Sydney Lacemakers. There are ten of us in all, ( including myself) that will be exhibiting a number of our works. Techniques include Bobbin lace, Needlelace, Tennerife, Chrochet, Wire lace, Romanian Point lace, Batternberg lace & Reticella.

The exhibition will be officially opened on May 31st at 1pm, & will be open for viewing until the 28th June. So for anyone in the area, it will be a feast for the eyes,

Band Sampler Round Robin

Way back in January of 2007, a group of ladies from around the globe started a Counted Thread Round Robin. My first band can be seen here & my second is here. Then there was a very long wait until the next one arrived for me to work on. This sampler is for Norma in the USA & I have worked the Wessex band at the bottom.

May TIF Challenge

The May TIF Challenge is out on Sharon B's blog. This month the theme is "what do you call yourself and why?" This could prove very interesting!

Initial thoughts go to wife, mother, teacher, dressmaker, stitcher, lacemaker. So many names, I could go on forever, but I think I will go away & think some more. Let's see where this month's challenge will take me.

"Seasons Of Change" - April TIF

" Seasons of Change" is my April TIF challenge complete. It began here & continued to this, which I wasn't entirely happy with. So I cut out my leaf & appliqued it onto a green background. I think it looks much better & has more life than before. I tried to portray the changes in colour & shapes that Mother Nature gives us as she changes the seasons. I have used digitizing, applique & machine embroidery to achieve the result.

Filet Lace

Back in November I listed my personal challenges for 2008. One of the things on my list was to have a play with some filet lace. Behold! Challenge complete! The two pieces pictured here are both worked straight from the book "Filet Lace - Stitches & Patterns" by Margaret Morgan. I must admit I was a little scared of trying as I was worried about all that under & over stuff & ending up where you start. It was not as hard as I thought. I am only up to page 40 in the book (there are 168), but I feel like I am ready to tackle a design of my own. The only problem is that the mesh has been very hard on my fingers, giving me a small dose of dermatitis, which I think has come from the dressing that has been used to stiffen the mesh. I will just have to withdraw threads from fabric & make my own mesh to avoid this problem, something that has been an aim anyway.

Autumn Leaf Update

After some show & tell with yesterday's Autumn Leaf, Trish from on of my on-line groups gave me a hint about fixing up the spots on my leaf. I knew the ones I had done were very regular, & I had thought of a few ways myself on how to get them more irregular. Trish offered me another way which is what I have used here. I have also changed the left side of the leaf so that each layer is a different colour so I will get more colour depth in my leaf. I have not stitched this one out yet, not sure that I will, but it is one design to be saved.

April TIF - A start

I worked on my April TIF this morning. I had the idea to digitize a leaf to symbolize the change in seasons. I wanted one side to be one colour & the other side another colour, showing the changes in colour that a change in season will bring.

I found a leaf pic that I had scanned into my PC in an Autumn gone by, imported it into my digitizing program & off I went. I remembered that I had a colour blending tool & thought that would be good to try to see if I could get subtle changes in colour. It worked on one side of my leaf but not so well on the other. This was the first time I had used this tool & I learnt heaps. I found out that I could create many layers of colour using this tool, also edit the stitches & fills. On the final layer on the left, I edited the stitch to be a candlewick one, so giving me spots on my leaf, the type that appear as a leaf ages. What I didn't change however, was the colour. So consequently when I did the stitch-out, my spots are the same colour as the layer before, & are not as visible as I would have hoped.

I am not exactly happy with this but it certainly has been an interesting exercise. Now I have to decide whether to start again, or make something of what I have done. I think it will be the latter as I should really be doing wedding sewing instead of playing, and time is precious.

Creating Patterns for Digitizing

Today I am a Happy Little Vegimite! Ever since aquiring my digitizing program I have been wanting to create a hexagon fill for use in my digitized lace. This morning on one of my Yahoo groups there was some discussion about creating circle fills without jumps stitches. So with a little play, and lot of thinking I have created this! The best part is that there are no jump stitches which tend to take away from the look of the design. This design would not stand up to digitized lace as it would all fall apart in the first wash out test, but the technique of creating the pattern without the jump stitches is inspiring.

With the press of a button I have produced this pattern which would pass the wash out test for my lace.
This led me to trying again to digitize my hexagon lace fill. I still have not been successful for what I want but I am closer than before. The fill below would not pass the wash out test,

but this one would.

I haven't tried to stich any of them out yet , I have been too busy playing on this PC. Time I got off & tried to do some stitching!

Change - A TIF Challenge

"Change" is the topic for the TIF challenge for April. This topic is so broad it can just about cover anything. So here are my first thoughts about this challenge.

OK, so what can change.

The weather. It changes every day, sometimes many times a day, from brilliant sunshine, to cloud to rain. It can be stinking hot one minute, then freezing 10 minutes later when the southerly changes come through & drop the temperature 20 deg in a short time. I've seen the days when I could draw a line across the sky, blue on one side, black on the other with electrical storms on the way. The change in the weather is always a topic for discussion.

The Seasons. These go from summer to autumn, to winter to spring. All very scientific with the tilting of the Earth as we revolve around the Sun. As we change seasons we see an overall change in the weather, from the hot humid days of summer to the cool crisp days of winter. We also see changes in the garden with different flowers emerging & leaves changing from green to gold to nothing.

This then leads to the discussion of "Climate Change", which seems to be gaining political ground. Personally I think it is all scare tactics to make us look after our precious resources better, & yes I agree we need to do this . However, I have seen droughts before, along with bad storms with hail & floods. I remember as a child not being able to get to town because of floods, carting water from town every day in the droughts to water the garden so we would save our precious tank water for drinking & cooking only. I'm sure we have all heard of "Ice Ages" & how the Polar Caps slowly change in size as the planet cools down, then change back again as the planet warms up again.

Our health can change from day to day with contamination with certain bacteria & viruses. Some of us take extra care with our health with simple measures of cleanliness, eating healthy food, & exercising regularly. Others will abuse alcohol, cigarettes, fatty foods & avoid exercise, all of which will cause change in our health at some point.

Family will change with the birth of a baby or the death of a loved one.

Living arrangements change by moving house, getting married, children arriving, children leaving home, or Mother Nature being violent in some way.

Metamorphose is change in shape, the most common example is the caterpillar to butterfly
story .

Change can be slow or instant. Sometimes we get warning & can prepare for the change, like a new baby arriving, or the change in the seasons. Sometimes we get no warning about the change, like when the storms hit & the lightning strikes, or when a love one is killed in a road accident. Us humans can be resiliant & have learnt to cope with change.

I have thoughts already for my piece but you will all have to wait, watch & see what eventuates.

April TIF Challenge

The April TIF challenge has been posted on Sharon's site this morning. The colour scheme this month I find very warm & cosy, something we Aussies might need as our weather changes & cools down. The theme is also about "change" & how we see it. Stay tuned to see where this month's challenge will take me.

English Patchwork - A "Filler"

When I finish a major piece like the one in the previous post, I quite often feel on such a high that I need something to bring me "down". I still need to stitch, so I usually look for something that I consider "mind numbing". The above piece of English Patchwork is just one of those types of pieces. The only thing I have to think about is choosing fabrics to put together. I have started a collection of these to one day put together into something usable. This is the second "flower" in the series, the first one is here, so the finished something might be a long time comming.

A Pulled & Drawn Piece

Today I made the final cut to my latest finshed piece. This is the piece that I started way back in December and was supposed to be like this. I showed a small snippet of it in January after I had discovered my mistake when I made a slight adjustment in design. This small adjustment led to the counting error & the fact that my border design would not fit. I had a great long list of things to try to fit into the resultant space & ended up with this Pulled work stitch. The fact that I was four threads out ruled out a lot of the things that I really wanted to do.

On the positive side, I have delved into the world of Pulled Work & I have learnt to check the whole design again after redesigning. Now the piece is finished, it may not be as I would have liked but it is finished, & now I can move onto the next piece which has yet to be designed. I think there might be a few "filler" pieces to keep me busy over the next few weeks.

March TIF Challenge "And There Are Spots"

I Finished the March TIF Challenge yesterday. My inspiration came from the little spotty details on the insects that live in my garden. I rummaged in my fabric stash trying to remember the colour pallete & came up with these. There is some red felt, green satin (though it looks very blue here), three shot organzas (red with black, red with blue, yellow with pink) and a bright pink crystal organza.

I then layered strips of the satin & organza over the red felt taking care to overlap the pieces so I got the colour changes happening, finishing with a whole layer of organza.
This sandwich was then hooped & my basic "spots" were stitched. I then cut back through the top layer (reverse applique) to expose the colours underneath. I had to be very careful here as the fabric was still hooped & had to remain that way so I could then stich the outer section of my spots. The stitching had been digitized & if the fabric moved in the hoop then my outer spots would not cover the basic ones. This is the first time I have tried digitized reverse applique and it was my first time at playing with the textured edge feature of my program. A fun way to spend Easter Monday afternoon.

Deadlines, 2008 Personal Challeges Update & March TIF Thinking

Back in November I set my personal challenges for 2008. The year is ticking along, the deadlines are getting closer & my challenges are well & truely happening so I thought I would post an update.

The wedding is progressing. I have measured two bridesmaids & the bride, made the patterns for the bridesmaid's dress & made one toile. This has been fitted on one BM & changes have been put in order. This afternoon I will start the patterns for the wedding dress.

Quilt No 1 is nearly finished, just a little more quilting then the bind. Yippee! I am at the point that I am tired of working on it so I am glad the deadline is close. ( Only a few weeks.)

Quilt No 2 has fabric bought & washed ready for cutting but that is it. I have a design in mind but that may change. The recipient of the quilt knows how much work I have on & has gladly said it can wait untill the next big birthday. That would be in just over ten years time, so that will give me plenty of time to finish. Nothing like deadlines that move.

The piece of Reticella, yes well.......... we all know the story about that one. For those readers who don't, the story starts here. It has turned into a piece of counted thread work which is well on the way to being finished. It needs to be finished by April 14th for an exhibition. It may just make it.

The filet work has started. I have had a small play with the needleweaving, & linen stitch but that is all. I haven't really the time to play at the moment with so many other looming deadlines.

Then there is the TIF Challenge. I have managed to produce one for January & February. So far so good. I am not sure about March, other things that are higher priority are taking over. This month's challenge can be read here & I have managed to do a little thinking. At the moment I cannot get past the little things in my garden, like the grasshoppers, aphids, worms, spiders, ladybugs, butterflies, beetles, wasps, etc etc. Without these little things, the bigger picture of my garden would not function. They all play a part somehow, from airating the soil, to pollinating the plants, to eating predators.

The one thing that I have noticed about all these small creatures is that they all have spots in some way, shape or form. It might be spots for camouflage, spots for eyes, or spots for decoration. So maybe spots will be the theme for the March challenge.

March TIF Challenge

The March TIF challenge is out over on Sharon B's blog. The above colour scheme is it, and the theme is all about paying attention to the small details.

I have been paying attention to the small details of my garden of late, like the weeds that have over-run all the plants because of all the rain we have had. So maybe the small details of my garden will be my inspiration for this month. Time will tell.

Loops Of Life - A TIF Challenge for February

I finished the February TIF Challenge today. I must admit I found this colour scheme a little dull

to work with. A few years ago I would have loved it but my friends from Stitchers Plus have drawn me out from my comfort zone & taught me to add sparks. To me this still needs a spark in some way, shape or form.

My thinking on this piece can be read here, and my stitching went like this. I started with a blue piece of poly cotton, then added my digitized design of circles. This was made by creating a background in a candlewick stitch, cutting circles in this background with my "cut holes" tool, digitizing satin stitched circles, cutting, pasting & re-sizeing them to where I felt they looked OK, then added a row of stem stitch to tie them all together. Once stitched, I then added some buttons to continue the circle theme, add more texture & interest. The pink button has given a little life to the piece but not enough in my opinion. I'd be interested to hear opinions of others.

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.

Mother Nature's Architects

February in Sydney can be extremely hot, humid & sticky. This year has been a little different in that the extreme heat has not eventuated, however the humidity has been horrendeous. We have had rain nearly every day, sometimes in storms, sometimes in just little drizzles like this morning. The little fine shower early this morning was just enough to accentuate the spider webs in my garden.

February TIF Thinking

I have been thinking a little about the February TIF challenge that Sharon B has posted. Mmmm...... what am I old enough to remember?

The first thing that came to mind was the Moon Landing in 1969 where Armstong took "one small step for man & one giant leap for mankind". I was in primary school at the time and had the headmaster for a teacher. He happened to live next door to the school & I remember our whole class was squashed into his private loungeroom that afternoon to watch this historic occasion on black & white TV. I might add that the rest of the school were in the school hall watching one little TV set out upon the stage. I somehow think that we had a better view, even if we were squashed.

The other history event that I vaguely remember is our Prime Minister Harold Holt dissappearing off some beach somewhere in Victoria. I was only really little & the memory is more about my mother being glued to the radio trying to listen for news updates. Please note this is the radio my Mum was listening to, not a TV. The only technology we had was the radio, television was something new that only the richer people in town could afford. I remember being taken across town to my Mum's friend's house to watch "I Love Lucy", it was a treat for Mum as her name was Lucy also. Mum finally bought a TV when I was 11, and that was because my older brother had homework of watching certain shows on TV. A little hard when we didn't have one.

Because my early chilhood life was without TV, we spent lots of times playing outside. There were daisy chains to make, bikes to ride, a double block of land with lots of friut trees & garden to play "hidies" in, the kids next door and across the lane to play with. On hot days there was the council pool or the river to swim in, & on rainy days we played games like monopoly, ludo, scrabble & cards.

Then there were the trips to Newcastle by bus, (getting up at the crack of dawn because the bus left at 6am), Queensland or Sydney by train, all because we did not have a car. We would go to these places for holidays to visit family, & I remember my Dad carrying suitcases to the station to catch the train. We were lucky with the bus, it started just next door.

Telegrams were the quick way to get urgent messages. Few places in town had a telephone and we often relied on neighbours to relay messages that were of utmost importance.

I remember stinking hot days when we would play in the tar bubbles on the street, temperatures of 108 deg F in my mother's kitchen. Then there were the mornings when the ice would put a layer over the dish of hand washing water outside by the tank. The loo was ouside in the garden, a torch was required at night to see the way and also to check for creepy crawlies. The only running water in the house was in the bathroom & to get it hot to have a bath we had to light a chip heater. At my Aunt's house the "dunny trucks" would come twice a week to take away the human waste because the sewrage was not yet connected.

We walked to school everyday, & came home for hot cooked lunches every day. There was no fear of predators & we walked the streets a plenty collecting bottles for refunds for pocket money.

Cooking was on a fuel stove, the ones that you had to light a fire in to get heat to allow you to cook & boil kettles to wash up the dishes. This required wood & kindling & it was my job to collect the kindling ready to light the stove. This stove provided our heating in the winter & I remember getting dressed in fornt of it so as not to catch cold on those cold frosty mornings. Our school clothes would be hung on a wire above the stove so they were warm for us to get changed into.

OK, OK, enough of the childhood memories. So what are my thoughts on this challenge? I feel that life is a circle. We are born, we live, then we die, some of us think we are born again. Throughout life we see changes in technology & our standard of living, but there are times throughout life when we don't have the technology, like when we lose our mobile phone, or the power goes out for hours at a time when Mother Nature gets angry. Who can forget Cyclone Tracey who flattened Darwin?, and more recently the tsunami that devistated the Indian Ocean rim, or Hurricane Katrina ? So what do we do then? We go back through the circle of life & remember how we coped when we didn't have the technology. So I think I will base this month's challenge on circles. I have been through my fabric & thread stash ( pictured above) & picked out some colours. Not sure how it will all come together yet but watch this space & you may soon find out.