Challenge Update

Back in November 2007 here I set myself some personal challenges for 2008. As it is getting on in the year I thought I would do an update.


Challenge number one was a wedding. I might add at this point that this challenge is totally consuming me. Progress is definately happening. More on this much later in the year.


Challenge number two was two quilts. Yes well, one is finished & is loved more than I can say, the other is still just fabric pieces and an idea. This has been postponed until all wedding sewing is out of the way.

Challenge number three was a piece of reticella. Well, those of you who are regular readers will know what happened to that piece. The end result can been seen here. I am, however slowly working on a creative piece of Reticella/drawn thread work using the fabric & thread pictured here. This piece is for a major project with the Stitchers Plus group that I belong to.

Challenge number four was the filet lace. Yey! Accomplished! Can be seen here. I really want to do some more but that also will have to wait until wedding sewing is complete.

Challenge number five was the TIF Challenge. Yes well, a girl can dream can't she? I signed up with all good intentions thinking it would provide some light relief in my stitching. Unfortunately, the wedding has totally taken over & this challenge has definately slid down the list. Maybe I might pick up where I left off sometime in 2009.

OK, so to keep a long story short, if there are no posts here for a while, that is because I am busy with challenge number one, the wedding.

By the way, the beautiful cat at the top is Lucky. I posted this pic of her because visitors to our home very rarely, if ever, see her. She is a little sensitive to strangers.

Lace inspiration - A New Book

Last Saturday I had a day with my Stitchers Plus group, & my dear friend Robyn presented me with this book. What a treasure! The front cover alone has inspiration enough to keep me occupied for a lifetime, so I'm sure you can all imagine what is inside. A treasure chest of photos of the most amazing buildings including:-

The Alambra, Spain
The Roman Forum, Italy
Heidelberg Castle, West Germany
St Peter's, Vatican City
Temple of Amon, Egypt
The Imperial Palace, Japan
The Binnenhof, the Netherlands
Edinburh Castle, Scotland

My instant reaction is of course lace, & I want to start a piece now. The reality is though that I have more pressing matters to attend to, so you will all have to wait a while before you see anything inspired from this book.

A Cutwork Bookmark

This little book mark was made as a sample to a major piece I am working on. It was to test a pattern that I had designed but when I worked it, I didn't like it. I have since changed the design & the major work is happening on this fabric. It may not be the best bookmark that I have made, but it will get used, even if only to mark a place in a stitch book. It used scraps of hand dyed linen & thread from my stash.

I've Been Published!

Look what I found on my doorstep this morning! A copy of the local Fairfield Advance Newspaper with this article written by Joanne Vella.

TIF Challenge - June

All year Sharon B has been running the TIF Challenge. I had good intentions of completing something every month but things have got a little out of control lately & I have let the TIF challenge slide. I have completed January, February, March & April, but got stuck at May. I have an idea, & got all my fabrics ready to do the challenge, but that is as far as it got. Now the challenges are up for June & July & I am getting further behind.

The June Challenge is about "Stash Busting - Stories That Are & Stories That Are Possible'. So while I have been working on the RR of my previous post, I had to sample a new stitch, and guess what I dug into to do this sample? Da da........ my stash of course! OK, so while I was working the RR sampler, I also started turning my sample into a book mark. It only took me a month to think that this was actually stash busting, and that there is a story behind the stash of fabric and also the thread. So here goes.

About 8 years ago I wanted to make a hardanger sachet, (above) so went about designing it & worked out that I needed a meter of Belfast linen. Any hardanger worker will know that a lot of the designs are worked on the diagonal, and this one was no different. So consequently I had a lot of fabric left from my meter, just odd shapes. The shapes were definately big enough to do something with so they went back into the "Stash" for later use.

About 4 years ago I dug into this "stash "to see if I had enough fabric to make my tissue box cover. Yes! One piece was just enough! The pattern for this was also a strange shape, with funny corners cut out. To do the drawn thread work, I had to withdraw the threads & work the ends back into the fabric. When the piece was finished I had more odd shaped pieces (just smaller than before) , but this time with ends woven back into the fabric. These woven ends can be seen still dangling in the pic below.


OK, some of the pieces are big enough to make small doileys, parts will make book marks & some really small parts might just squeeze in a scissor fob or tassle, so back into the stash they went. It is one of these pieces that I pulled out to sample "single cross eyelets" on for the RR. The sample has since decided to become a book mark.

Then there is the story behind the thread. This story begins also with the meter of fabric and the hardanger sachet. I wanted the stitching to be pink & green , & was game enough to dye my own thread. The problem was that when I dyed it, I wasn't happy with the colour, so wound it all up on empty machine thread reels & placed it in my thread stash. When I started sampling the single cross eyelets, I pulled out this thread from my stash to use, after all it was just going to be a sample.

Now the book mark is nearly finished. It has used fabric & thread from my stash, and combine this with a new stitch to me, I am very happy with the result, even the colour of the thread! So the story began eight years ago with a meter of fabric, and will continue well into the future with many stories to come. The book mark will mark my place in many of the novels that I like to read before going to sleep, as well as references to new & wonderful stitches that I want to try.

Sarah's Band Sampler

Another band for the Stitching Sister Counted Thread Band RR finished. This one is for Sarah in Texas. This one was a little more difficult for me to design for than the previous ones that I have done. Initially I thought that I would work some cherry blossoms, or maybe some Chinese scrolls, but when the sampler arrived, I didn't think these were suitable at this point in the sampler. Sarah had already worked scrolls in the previous band, so they were out, & the cherry blossoms were curvey & I felt this needed something geometric. So I looked to the card that came in the package for inspiration.




My eye instantly went to the key design in the border on the Emperor's robe, so I took one section, mirrored it, then flipped this to form my basic motif, which when repeated, reminded me of Chinese lattice work. Design decided on, I now needed to think of stitches. The fabric lent it'self to pulled work, something I have not done very much of, so I found a stitch called "Single Cross Eyelet" which I thought would work. So I graphed the key pattern over three squares on a graph, supposedly working the eyelets in a checkaboard pattern, only to find that this made the whole design much wider than what I intended. So then I marked the key pattern in just a single row of eyelets & it worked fine.

I worked the eyelets in two strands of DMC Stranded thread, & when they were finished I felt they were a little bland. I tried to outline them in back stitch but the eyelets are worked over five threads & this did not work out mathematically, so I tried over one thread (yuk!) and also over all five threads ( also yuk!). In the end I woked tiny cross stitches in blue over the single cross formed in the center of each eyelet.

So now this sampler is ready to continue on it's journey. Sarah, I hope you like what I did.

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.