Orange, Stitches and Rocks

Today was varied
A play with my new camera, which I'm only just beginning to scour the surface of - it does lots of cool stuff. For anyone interested, it's a Panasonic FZ50 digital, and I've just ordered an extra macro lens for it. For today - "Orange, In Still Life" :-)


Next it was off to Spotlight with Meshell to relieve ourselves of our Christmas money. I love skipping round craft/habbi stores with my basket buying a little bit of this and a little bit of that. Best buy was three big rolls of Xmas ribbon for next to nothing, and a piece of linen that was being discontinued and was going at about 1/4 the normal price.


In the afternoon the cross stitch girls came over, and I continued on with my Kandinsky cross stitch, which hasn't been touched for a few months whilst Christmas craft took over. This is one of Kandinsky's paintings that I converted into a cross stitch pattern using some natty software.


Then finally I popped into the Radiology clinic to collect the X-rays on my big toe, which has been giving me grief on and off for a couple of years, but the last few months it's got to be a right pain in the...well... toe!
I suspected osteoarthritis as I have that in my knee, and the report certainly agreed to that and talked about degenerative and lipping and spurs, but I can't stop staring at these bloody huge rock looking things on the bone - what the freaking hell are they!!
I have no idea if they are even the problem - I'll find that out when I head back to the doctor to learn my fate. I keep staring at my foot trying to visualise big lumpy marbles that I'm seeing on the x-ray. Creepy

"Read"

It's my Mum's birthday today - Happy Birthday Mum xxx
I made her this bookmark to go with a nice big fat novel to get her teeth into.
She and I went out to lunch today and gutzed ourselves on Garlic Prawns. No-one does Garlic Prawns as brilliantly as the Witch's Cauldron does!

Madame On Felt

You know that I've got this slight obsession with polymer clay faces right? Yup. Well actually it's kinda strange because I have a little container full of the faces I've moulded thus far, all sitting there ready for action, to be part of creative endeavours and wondrous things. But then I get thingy about it and don't want to use them, like I'm some sort of weird, over protective parent or something. sheesh

Anyway, in saying all that, the other day I DID use one of my little people. I had a yearning to make another wool felt keyring having made one once before with a bit of embroidery on it, but this time I wanted to use a face.

I had another go at using bullion stitch for hair. I reckon it makes cool hair, a bit like ringlets. And I had more practice with scroll stitch around the edge in purple.


And Madame herself is attached by way of three holes I poked in the edges of her head before she was baked. I was a bit worried that the weight of her face would warp the shape of the keyring so I counter-weighted her with a polymer clay bead on the back. And equally handy was the fact that the bead has holes in it too, so I ran the stitches in between the holes in the two clay things, which has made everything nice and stable.


I tried something a bit different for the edge treatment this time. First I just did a whip stitch (I think that's what it's called, just ordinary stitching round and round the edge). But as I was doing it, I threaded a long silver bead on every second stitch. It was difficult to keep them all straight and even but regardless of that I quite like the look. And it's very nice and feely to run your fingers around the edge.


And on a complete change of subject, I thought I'd throw in a photo of our lime tree, which has obviously hit some untapped source of nutrition underground because it is absolutely dripping with blossom at the moment. It smells lovely.


And the old apricot tree has started blossoming too. We've had the apricot tree for about 25 years and it's been a legend, producing kilos and kilos of fantastic fruit. But the last 3 years it's done virtually nothing and Steve has tried all sorts of different ways to prune it to try and coax it back into fruiting life. Most of the branches are showing promise with spatterings of blossom, but here we have one smartarse overachiever, one scrawny little twiglike branch completely covered with flowers. We are watching with interest to see what results.

Bookmark (I Need To Work On Witty Title Creation)

I took the opportunity this week to stitch another bookmark, catching up on some Take A Stitch Tuesday stitches and having another practice of some I've done before.


This week's stitch (well, actually it was last weeks I must confess) was Shisha stitch, the art of attaching small mirrors and other such things to a piece of embroidery. I was pleased when this stitch turned up as I've always wanted to know how to attach shisha glass.
Although the mirror is snug and safe in its stitched cradle, I have actually stuffed up the stitch.

I was checking out some samples of this stitch done by others and wondered why theirs seemed more woven/net-like. I think my mistake is when I've carried the stitches over then under the foundation, I was meant to bring that underneath stitch over the top of the first part to basically create a little cross before doing the anchoring stitch in the main fabric (do I sound like I've been drinking or something?)
A little later I did a small sample on some scrap aida cloth and got it right - yay :-)

The edging stitch on the petals is crossed buttonhole stitch and surrounding that is scroll stitch - a stitch that I'm determined to master neatly as I really like it. It's very easy to pull it too tight and lose the lovely curve, but I'm finding it easier to control if I use a thicker thread.


This little flower is simply edged with buttonhole stitch and the stems are fly stitch. Above the flower is a border of Portuguese knotted stem stitch, another one I really like.


I started the embroidery on this flower by doing a round of palestrina stitch in purple, then using white thread to do a partial whipped wheel stitch, then backstitching around the edge of the petal. Finished off with a few french knots and a bead in the middle. I like the zing the colour of this flower gives to the rest of the bookmark.


And after the bookmark was finished it was time for a little indulgence. I had found the recipe for this yummy Chocolate Tart here and made it a couple of times. It's been perfect and delicious each time. Which is fabulous because I suck at making pastry, a dismal pastry failure. This recipe tells me how to make it using a food processor (a device that spends most of its days lonely in a darkened cupboard), and IT WORKS! MAGNIFICENTLY! I am so proud.

The Warrior Princess

You know how I've been playing with making polymer clay faces lately? I've got a little box full of clay personalities, solemn, furtive, peaceful, proud, all sorts, all silent yet saying a lot. This particular face appeals to me, she is strong yet gentle, proud yet compassionate, and I wanted to save her for something a bit special.

I've been interested in the Comfort Doll project and the co-ordinator for the Southern Hemisphere is Jo from "No Matter Where I Go... I Always Meet Myself There". She is collecting dolls and each time there is a dozen they will be donated to a Womens' Shelter, the idea being to send a message of encouragement from a stranger in the form of an art doll. A strong compassionate doll I thought, a warrior princess.

I had some wool felt left over from the batch I made for my tea cosy which I thought might be suitable. I love the colours in it, and when the piece was felted it reminded me of the ocean, which seemed appropriate as the ocean is strong and follows its own path.

I stitched her body in the womanly figure-eight shape, not only to show her femininity, but also because she is very holdable being clasped around her waist. I needle felted a red heart for her compassion and caring, centred with a flower bead to show positive feelings 'blossoming'. An embroidered flower at the bottom shows flourishing, gaining in strength.

I wanted her to have a proud, strong, protective look, yet beautiful and adorned, so I started by looping and knotting different coloured yarns to give almost a headdress look. Her face is surrounded with green scroll stitch, with a gold bead in between each knot, and then embroidered around that with white basque stitch. She's wearing a beaded necklace with a protective amulet to keep all around her safe.


I finished her off with a quirky little hairpiece made from an enamelled bead and strings of small blue beads. Because she is a lady.

I really enjoyed making her, thinking about how to adorn her and for what reasons. If she manages in any way to give an abused woman or her children something to smile about even briefly then that's a good thing. Jo, she'll be winging her way over to you tomorrow.

I've Had Mail!

I've been blessed with some very pretty mail this week. Firstly was this wonderful surprise fabric postcard from Kate of Kate's Quilting (& other fibre arts) Blog. Isn't it cool! I had sent Kate some of the little polymer faces I'd moulded and she send me this as a thank you - well, thank YOU Kate!


And equally as wonderful is this fabulous altered postcard from Dani of Pyglet Whispers. I have long admired Dani's wonderful artwork and I was somewhat gobsmacked to discover a post on her blog where Dani was offering this postcard to someone leaving a comment, and no-one had commented yet! So I was the lucky recipient and I chuckled at the howls of disappointment from the people who commented after me. :-) Thanks Dani, I really love the card.


I've even had a wee go at making my own fabric postcard for the first time, as a personal swap with someone. As she hasn't received it yet I wont post a complete photo, but this is a corner of it. I've been moulding more faces, and experimenting with mixing different polymer clay colours together. I love things that have an ancient "dug up out of the ground" look, so am liking urky mud type colours. This one was moulded from a mixture of green pearl and black clay, then daubed with a little bit of Treasure Gold. What do you think?


And I've done a small TAST sample of Cast On stitch and Crested Chain stitch. I like the crescent shaped Cast On stitch, it has interesting texture. Not so keen on Crested Chain stitch though.


And I've had my nose in a book this week, on recommendation from Meshell who has finished it. "The Golden Compass" was suggested as a book to read if you enjoy reading Harry Potter and other such fantasy books. It's good, I'm enjoying it. Aaand, better still, the movie is in production right now, to be released in December! I saw the preview of the movie a couple of weeks ago when we went to see Harry Potter and it looks great!


I'm finding it difficult to blog regularly of late, and I'm not happy with myself because of it. A few blogs I read are doing an "Encyclopedia of Me" type thing at the moment, every day posting something about their lives in alphabetical order. I'm toying with having a go at this myself, as it might make it easier to smaller posts but more regularly. hmmm....

Take a Stitch Tuesday - Bullion Stitch

I've been waiting for this impatiently - I LURVE bullion stitch! Thank you Sharon for including it in TAST. It's so cool the way it winds itself around haphazardly if you use lots of twists around the needle. And inspiration came quickly this week after the postman arrived with polymer clay face moulds that I ordered last week.

I had been visiting Jo's Blog and was so taken with the fimo faces she'd made that I just had to interrogate her for more info! These particular moulds are from a series by Maureen Carlson and I bought my moulds from ZigZag in New Zealand.

Anyway, I had a wee play with the fimo and made a couple of faces, and then when bullion stitch came along, it just had to be that it was wild Medusa-like hair. I know Medusa looks menacing whereas mine is asleep but you get the idea. :-)


I also finally got around to making a quick pot holder for the oven. My existing one has been hanging in shreds for some time so this one will come in very handy. There was a rather creepy moment though - the very day I make a new pot holder the oven door falls off. I kid you not! It really did! And the only thing that stopped the oven door from smashing to smithereens on my foot was that I had hold of the pot holder that I had hooked around the oven door handle which took some of the weight of the door as it fell! Luckily I have a kind and handy husband who managed to put the door back on for me, so we don't have to go out and spend a small fortune on a new oven. I still thinks it's creepy....



I spend most of yesterday spinning the next skein of fleece for Steve's jumper, which is underway! I have "Spinners Knee" today, hobbling a bit - what comes of treadling like a mad woman for too many hours! :-) You put up with these craft related injuries though don't you, different if it had been because of scrubbing the floor - a LOT more fuss would have been made...

Sunseeking

Brrr, it's been so cold this week. The sort of of weather when a sun soaked cushiony quilty corner seems the perfect place to snuggle down with my laptop and catch up on blogging.


I finished my tea cosy, gee I love it. I think I'm drinking twice as much tea just so I can use it lots. :-) I ended up running a row of machine straight stitch around the edge for strength, then used Butterfly Chain Stitch for a decorative embroidered edge.


I am so in love with wool felt. I knew diddly squat about it until a couple of months ago, but at the moment I want to make everything out of it, and stitch on it constantly. I love the way embroidery stitches slightly sink in to the felt and nestle in. It's also handy for running the loose end of the thread inside, so it can't be seen. A friend of mine has a birthday this week so I thought I'd make her a little something. A little wool felt keyring, adorned with my two favourite embroidery stitches to date, Whipped Wheel Stitch and edged with Butterfly Chain Stitch again.


I caught up a little with my Take A Stitch Tuesday stitches too, by adding some dragon breath flames done in Satin Stitch with extra spitty bits of flames done in single Wheatear stitch. I wanted the satin stitch area to look reasonably raised, so I cut the flame shape out of a scrap, thin piece of red felt, laid it down and satin stitched over it. Which achieved the aim of raising it up, but also, being red, meant you can't see any wonky gaps between the stitches. I'm so clever I scare myself sometimes. ;-)


I made a cake, complete with beautification. I got a piece of paper and folded it up and cut bits out of it like we used to do as kids to make snowflake Xmas decorations, then plonked it on the cake and sprinkled icing sugar over it. Kinda funky eh


Steve's been planting out his vegie patch. He tries each year to plant things earlier and earlier in the season, to try and get some things harvested before the cabbage white butterflies arrive en mass in spring. It's looking good with the promise of things to come.

Coral, Kandinsky and Eagles

My insides are jumping around with excitement right now, I've just discovered The Crochet Coral Reef Project. Oh my lord, if you are interested in freeform crochet then go take a look, make sure you look at the galleries. I've been investigating freeform crochet for a few months now, just reading, looking at pics and absorbing, revving myself up to have a play.

I've got 6 skeins of hand dyed yarn that I bought in an online sale recently that are a bit coarse and I've been trying to think of something to use it for, and this idea is just perfect. The colours of this yarn are very 'nature' and would look darn spiffy as brain coral and tube worms. I've spent hours wandering through the Crochet Coral Reef site, jotting down ideas and suggestions - the people there are very generous with their explanations of how to create certain effects when you look at the taxonomy gallery photos. It's basically called the hyperbolic effect - pretty much just regular and intense stitch increasing which produces convoluted effects around the edge. Ooooo, I love it!!!

On a different note, I thought I'd show you the progress on my Kandinsky cross stitch...


Compared to the last photo, taken in October 2006. It's a slow process as I only cross stitch for a couple of hours a week when our group gets together, and the main focus of our group I might add is to dissect the problems of the world and the neighbourhood, and to drink champagne, so actually doing cross stitch is a poor second... or third... :-)

Wassily Kandinsky painted this in 1925 and it's called "Yellow-Red-Blue" (no marks for originality there!). I used a cross stitch conversion program to turn the image into a stitch pattern. It's quite interesting to see how the pattern has interpreted certain parts of the painting, particularly the thin straight lines - the cross stitch has hints of lines rather than solid ones. I'm not sure yet if I'm going to do any back stitch. I'm thinking that I probably will, just here and there.

And changing the subject yet again, I forgot to mention that Steve and I scored free tickets to the football a few weeks ago. We thoroughly enjoyed watching our beloved West Coast Eagles flog the pants off the hapless Melbourne Demons.


This is the Eagles mascot, who was wandering around outside the ground putting people in headlocks or hugging pretty girls and posing for the camera. He has attitude, you can see by look in his Eagle eye :-) That bit of blond hair in front of him is the fleeting image of a young lady who has just escaped his taloned clutches...


This was very very cool.... at one end of the stadium that contained over 40,000 excited people waiting in anticipation for the game to begin, a man released a REAL eagle - it was freaking huge! It gracefully and slowly flew from one end of the oval to the other, flew through the goalposts, then parked itself on top of the grandstand. In the meantime then handler walked into the middle of the oval where he placed something yummy on top of a giant football, then as I watched him I saw him tap the football with a stick, at which point the eagle lazily turned around and looked at him, then took off, flying back through the goalposts and landed on the giant football to eat his reward. Then the handler put the eagle (did I mention he was huge, he totally dwarfed his handler) onto his arm and walked the perimeter of the ground. It was awesome! I was amazed that the eagle didn't freak out at all the noise of the crowd.

Take a Stitch Tuesday - Crossed Buttonhole Stitch

This week's TAST challenge was Crossed Buttonhole Stitch.


I had a good play with this stitch on the wool felt I made last week. I have some of the other TAST girls to thank for the discovery of how fabulous this stuff is to embroider on - I've been admiring other peoples' samples on wool felt, so much so that I choofed off down to the library and found myself some books on how to make my own wool felt. I think I could get addicted.... just what I need, a new craft addiction :-)

Anyway, crossed buttonhole stitch. I started stitching meandering lines of this stitch, changing the thickness of thread, changing the colours, stitching upside down and in a circle, overlapping a couple of lines, until I felt that I'd produced a fairly broad array of stitches. Then I put my work down and had a look at it, then it struck me...


There was a little creature looking at me! Like a cute little dragon or something. How cool to have a little being bursting forth amidst random stitches - I was quite chuffed and felt somewhat motherly....

Then I took some photos, and this one, taken on a slight angle, created some confusion. Cos now it looks like a bird!


A slightly peeved, prehistoric bird to be precise. With a glittery beaded eyeball.


It just goes to show, there is excitement to be found in embroidery... :-)

Take a Stitch Tuesday - Butterfly Chain Stitch

This week's stitch for TAST is Butterfly Chain Stitch, an interesting combination of two different stitches. Firstly is a row of vertical stitches and then these are knotted together with a horizontal row of twisted chain stitch.

I did lots of thinking and experimenting with this stitch, I think it's quite versatile and pretty, particularly as an edge. As I've been making wool felt this week, my thoughts wandered to that. I decided to cut the felt up into smaller pieces as it is very bright and I thought if it was smaller then it would calm it down a little. Then I started thinking about whether this stitch was strong enough to stitch two pieces of felt together. Then I wondered if I could go so far as to attempt something 3D, like a small open box.


It was quite a fiddly exercise, I found it hard to hold the felt in place but at the same time to do the line of straight stitches loose enough so the sides of the box would actually bend. I used Perle 5 thread for strength and popped a few beads here and there for prettiness and to cover the raw edges on the tops of the side seams.

I then stitched a line of butterfly chain stitch as an edge stitch "over the top" of the upper edge, so it ended up that the knotted line of twisted chain stitch goes along the top edge. Am I making any sense at all? I feel like I'm tripping over words tonight!


In the corners of the bottom edge I used 6 vertical straight stitches knotted together, with three from each side, in an attempt to stabilise the box and pull it together a bit more. The inside of the little box is a bit messy, with the debris of stitches and knotted threads everywhere. I'm thinking I might glue a light fabric lining inside it, for both strength and tidiness.


I think it's kinda cute. :-)