Scrappy Blocks all finished.

Ken wasn't feeling too good today, so he slept most of the day away, which gave me time to finish my blocks for New Zealand quilts. There was just enough dark blue fabric for me to finish them all, and I'm tickled pink with the result! Here they are all laid out on the floor. I haven't joined them up - I'll leave that to the experts! But I've asked Jean, the lady co-ordinating the quilts effort, if she will send me a photo when they are made up into something.

Quilt blocks for Christchurch.

I laid all my baby blocks out on the floor again last week, to see how they would look if they were joined up. I finally decided they would look better if each block was surrounded by sashing in a neutral colour. When I found a heap of dark blue cotton in my stash (that I'd pulled from the remnants bin at the Guild), I figured it would look well with the brightly colour blocks. I've made up two so far. As this is my first attempt at making blocks out of scraps in this way, they probably aren't perfectly lined up, but I'm hoping the ladies over the Tasman will be able to put them to good use. I'll have eight blocks in total when I've finished. What do you think? Be honest - I want to improve my skills here!
I promised myself I would finish this round robin this year, although I don't think it is on my UFO list, because all it needed was a border around it. Took me six years to get around to doing that border, and I'm happy with it!

Not doing much, but here it is.

Since Ken's heart surgery, I haven't been able to concentrate on much in the way of stitching, but messing around with fabrics is a sure way to relax, I've found! Cruising craft sites on the net is a great way to find freebies and tutorials, and I've printed off stacks of tutorials giving ways to use up small scraps of fabric. This one on "My Current Obsession" goes back to 2007, but is a great way to make up blocks using small bits of material. It is a mindless way to spend time with fabrics, just what I needed over the last few weeks, and I've produced 25 little blocks which I will join to make larger blocks. These will go to a crafter in New Zealand who is making up quilts from donated blocks, to go to victims of the Christchurch earthquake. Here are my baby blocks laid out on the floor. They won't necessarily be joined up in this order.
I've also done a bit more stitching on my NSW Waratah for another group making quilts for Queensland flood/cyclone victims.

Mug Rug.

The things people come up with! I saw a Mug Rug mentioned on somebody's blog, so I followed the links until I found the tutorial. It is quick and easy, a great way to use up small bits of fabric, and is just too darn cute to resist making one immediately! I used scraps of fabric that had teacups and cakes to make my Dresden wedges. Gingham and pink cotton borders, and a plain brown back.

Next small project.

The Queensland floods and cyclone, followed by the New Zealand earthquakes, have galvanised the craft community into action. As with past global catastrophes, quilters and stitchers immediately get busy making things to send to people who have suffered such terrible losses. Helen over at Hugs From Helen has asked her readers to stitch blocks for the Aussie spirits quilts that she has designed, and when the blocks all come back to her, they will be made up into quilts to be raffled to raise funds for Queenslanders. She sends the volunteer stitchers the fabric with the design already printed on it, plus a length of floss which she has selected. So all the blocks are of the same fabric, and using the same coloured thread. Clever and well organised lady! I offered to stitch a block, and Helen sent me this one - NSW with the waratah emblem. I'm anticipating that most of this will be stitched while Ken is in and out of hospital appointments in the coming weeks!

Valentine Biscornu finished.

Worked my little fingers off this weekend to complete the biscornu, and I'm quite satisfied with the result. I was going to add beads, but after going through my stash and laying various beads on the stitching, I just couldn't find anything to suit, so I just put the heart shaped button on the front, and an ordinary little red button on the back. Hope Kim likes it!

My current stitching project...

...is the Valentine biscornu for Kim in the USA. Today I finished the backstitch border around the second piece, so all I have to do now is sew the two pieces together, stuff them, and post the result to Kim. It is easier to photograph a 3-dimensional obect before it becomes 3 dimensional. And I just remembered that I'd promised myself I would add some beads to it. So it will be a few days yet.

Not my work, but well worth seeing!

I was visiting my friend Val last week, and her MIL (who is living there) showed me some of the tapestry she worked many years ago. It is actually petit point, and is so beautifully done that I asked if I could photograph it for my blog. I don't think she understood what a blog was, but when I said it would be on the Internet, along with her photo, I think she will get a kick out that! Val wouldn't let me take HER photo, but I've got other pics of her, so I let her get away with it this time! The framing sets both of these off perfectly, don't you agree?
This is Mrs Paulette Forbes, the lady who stitched these pictures.

Works in Progress.

I vowed I was not going to do this again (work on more than one project at a time), but I can't help myself. I committed myself to an exchange on Stitchin Fingers, which was silly of me, but as I initiated the exchange, I felt obliged to be in it. I'm swapping biscornus with Kim in the USA, and this is where I'm up to so far. I'm stitching on 28ct linen for a change. Pam K. sent me a heap of hand dyed linens ages ago, and I chose a pink piece for this project.
This is as far as I've got with one of my UFOs on this year's list. I've only been stitching it when I am in a waiting room somewhere, because it is portable, and I don't have to refer to a pattern. I've finished the two matching doilies, but won't show them here until I've finished this centrepiece.
I saw this design on another Stitching forum I belong to, and purchased three copies, as it is a fund raiser for Qld. flood and cyclone victims. It is so cute, and only $5, and I was so distressed by the catastrophe in Qld, I felt impelled to start work on it straight away. If anyone wants to buy one, you can contact the designer Carrol Nielsen at her website www.carrolsx-stitch.com

Painted and stitched picture.

After messing around with this for the past few weeks, adding stitches here and there, changing a few colours that I wasn't happy with, I suddenly decided I'd had enough of it. The end result is not quite what I wanted, but if I spend any more time fussing over it, nothing else will get done. So I found a suitable frame in my box of opshop frames (bought for the purpose of framing my own work cheaply!), and tried my picture in it. It is just a temporary job for now, as I haven't laced the back of the fabric properly, but I'll do that in due course.

Fabric postcard arrives from U.K. at last!

Sheila in Scotland posted her fabric postcard to me well before Christmas last December, and I can only imagine that it has been caught up with masses of mail delayed by the severe weather conditions in Europe at that time. It arrived today, and I just love it! The technique reminds me a bit of what I did with the painted fabric workshop at our Guild; Sheila as used a piece of fabric with a snow scene printed on it (patchwork fabric?), and she has embellished it with beads, stitching and bling. Gorgeous!

Hospital stitching.

I spent most of yesterday at the Austin hospital, while Ken had an angiogram. In the recovery room, family members are allowed to stay with the person they accompanied. It is one big room divided into cubicles by curtains. We had to be there by 8 am, and most of the morning is spent waiting until it is your turn to be 'done'. Ken went into surgery at 11.15 and came out at 12.30. I went off to have lunch with a friend and got back about 1 pm. I stayed until around 3 pm, but when I was told he had to stay until 6.30, I decided to go home and pick him up later. I had better things to do than hang around for another three hours with a woozy half asleep husband!
So in the four to five hours I was with Ken, I managed to get a fair bit of stitching done. I took my vintage peacock 3 piece Duchess set to work on, as it is has been on my UFO list for ages, and I keep putting it aside for something more interesting. Yesterday was a good day for simple stitching which didn't need a pattern to follow. I finished the two small doilies, but haven't finished the centrepiece yet, although now I've made a start on it, I'm determined to keep at it until it is complete.
The painted fabric scene I started at the EGV workshop is just about finished, so I'll scan that in the next day or so and post a pic here.

EGV Summer School.

The Embroiderers Guild of Vic. closes down over January, but runs a Summer School for the members, who sign up for it early in December. I decided to enrol in one of this year's workshops, and now wish I'd joined up for more! I thoroughly enjoyed my two days at the Guild with tutor Wanda, and a dozen other ladies. Our class was called "Embroidered Gardens or Landscapes", in which we learnt how to apply paint to fabric, then embroider details of a scene on to it. I have messed around with painting calico, and stitching random patterns on it, but this was a chance to learn to do it properly.
Wanda supplied the fabric (Clydella) and the paints, and we had to bring a photo or picture, our threads and sewing necessities. I couldn't find a photo of a garden or landscape that appealed to me, so I took this picture from a Japanese calendar. Which I folded in half to use this side of the picture.
The first step was to draw a sketch of how we wanted our picture to look, defining the background, midground and foreground. Then we wet our piece of fabric, and applied paint in the colours and areas we'd chosen to match our pictures. This was then dried with a hairdrier, and ironed to set the colour. This took about an hour, with much laughter as we moved around the table with tubes of paint and checked each other's fabrics. This is what mine looked like: The next step was choosing the threads to match the painted fabric, as well as extra colours needed to embroider our pictures.
Wanda showed us how to start stitching the background, and most of us completed that by the end of the first day. Mine shows the mountains in the background and the outlines of the ravine and trees on the right.
The next day, Wanda looked over our work and made suggestions for added stitching where she thought it would enhance the picture. By midmorning, I had filled the trees at the top with French knots, and couched threads down for the tree trunks at the foot of the picture.
We moved onto stitching the midground area, and by the end of the day, most of us were finishing off the foreground and highlights of our pictures. During the afternoon, Wanda also gave us a demonstration of how to frame our work, from stretching the fabric over board and lacing it, to selecting a frame. All in all, a very useful and enjoyable workshop.
By 3 pm, this is where I was at. All this needs to finish it is the foliage on the trees at the bottom, plus a few more seed stitches and lines on the ravine to fill in the blank spaces.
Our class room. Wanda has done many of these embroidered pictures over the years, and had about twenty on display to inspire us. These are just two of them.

New Year resolution, or goals for 2011.

I was making up a new list of things to do this year, and went back a year ago on this blog to refresh my memory of what UFOs I had listed back then, that I wanted to finish. There were seven listed on the blog post, but I added a couple more throughout the year. I had two CQ blocks to finish, a bookmark, Aussie RR sampler, Xmas RR sampler, Calico redwork bag, Peacock duchess set, Semco blackwork kit, and the cross stitch map of Australia. I finished all bar the last three items. So my 2011 list starts with those three, but they won't be first off the rank as far as finishing them. I can manage the duchess set, and probably the map of Australia, but the blackwork project will probably stay on the back burner for a few more years...
My UFO list 'to do' this year is as follows:
*Peacock Duchess set
*Art deco tea cosy (this was given to me by someone at the Guild, and it only needs an hour or so to finish the embroidery)
*Bluebird supper cloth (another project started by someone, that ended up in an opshop or on Ebay, I can't remember) which needs about 10 minutes of stitching to finish.
* cross stitch map of Australia
*a small cross stitch of baby Lorikeets, which a friend gave me about 10 years ago. I only re-discovered it a few months ago, and as the friend has since passed away, I would like to finish it for sentimental reasons.

New Projects - I'd like to have these done in time to enter them in one or both of our Homecrafts shows later this year.
*Japanese Crane fabric quilted wall hanging
*Owls wall hanging (a kit purchased at a craft show last year)
*a patchwork throw or wall hanging made from my collection of men's ties. I'd also like to make Ken's niece's daughters a small quilt each, featuring Sunbonnet Sue, but that will be low on the list of priorities, as I doubt if I'll have time after attempting everything else on this list!

Friendship stitchery

Cheryl gave me this little stitchery kit for Christmas, and apologised for not actually stitching it for me. I told her not to fret over it - I would do it myself. It only took me a couple of days. I haven't decided what to do with it - maybe frame it, or sew it on to something else, or use it in a block for a patchwork project.

Christmas gifts of stitching.

I was delighted to receive some handworked gifts for Christmas this year. This fabric postcard is from MaryLou in Canada - one of my cyberspace friends on Stitchin Fingers. We weren't in a swap, so this was a nice surprise in the mail just before Christmas.
Ken and I drove up to Bendigo on the day after Boxing Day, and on the way home, we dropped in to see LeeAnn and Rob at Malmsbury. They invited us to stay for a barbecue tea, and presented us with gifts as well! Mine included these beautiful patchwork place mats, and the gingham apron with a crocheted Dolly Varden design - gorgeous!

CQ goodies from Pam K.

For a few years, I have been reading the blog of Pam Kellogg, and it was largely her influence that got me started on crazy patchwork, although I don't embellish my projects to the extent that Pam does. Her stitching and beadwork is fantastic! Knowing she loves collecting lace, I've been buying laces whenever I see them at opshops, and every now and then I post her a parcel of laces, just 'cos she is a lovely lady! She is also a very generous person, and as well as sending me American needlework magazines that aren't available here, she has also sent me several examples of her stunning CQ works. I purchased one from her Etsy shop, but the other three she has sent out of the goodness of her heart. I recently asked her permission to post pictures of them on my blog, and she said that was fine with her. So here they are, and to dear Pam, thank you very much again for your generosity and friendship. My best wishes to you and hubby for a very happy, healthy and peaceful New Year. (BTW, I've just mailed another package to you!)
This is actually a 12" square wall hanging - Red Hat Society theme.
Pink and Black cushion with cord to hang.
Slightly larger cushion with peacock theme.
Cell phone pouch, also using a peacock theme. Can you tell, we both love anything with peacocks!

I'm back online!!

This is the best Xmas present I could have wished for this week - to have the internet back! I'll write more about that particular trauma on my other blog, but for this blog, here is my last minute Xmas gift to my mate Cheryl. She has had a very stressful year, particularly at work, so I figured she'd appreciate the sentiments on this. After I took this photo, I made it up into a small wall hanging with 20 minutes to spare before she arrived here to swap Xmas gifts. She absolutely loved this!! Said she would be hanging it in her office the next day, but would bring it home again - doesn't want it to disappear from her office!

Happy Xmas and see you around sometime

I just posted on my other blog that we have lost internet connection at home, so I'm doing this at a friend's house. Telstra have been massively unco-operative, and I don't know when or if we'll ever get back online, so I just want to wish my blog friends all the best for Xmas and The New Year.

Last minute Fabric postcard

The Postcard Group on Stitchin Fingers didn't have a Christmas swap organised, so I jumped in last week and said we still have time to do one. There are six of us - three Aussies and three overseas, so I've paired each Aussie up with a 'foreigner', and my partner is Sheila in Scotland. Here is my fabric postcard which will be mailed tomorrow (Monday 13th) and hopefully, will arrive before the 25th. If I'd had a few more days, I would have added beads and sequins to liven up the stitching, but I think the Smiley button cheers it up a bit!
Completely unrelated to this post, but not worth creating a new one: I've just posted pics of a new apron on my Aprons blog for anyone who is interested.