Tuesday 30 November 2010

Various Xmas Ordy's as swaps

 These three shown on the right are the three I made for various Xmas Ordy swaps. The red one went to the USA for one, the middle one went to my Southern Cross Crazy partner in Ayr (100km south of Townsville), and the other one went into the basket for our Embroidery Group at Fibers Xmas lunch swap.


Below are all the ones I have received so far this year.

The large heart is from Martha Green from the USA swap, and the teddy bear in the train is from my Fibers swap basket.

 The three across the bottom are all from one of my Crazy patch class student. The Angel is a sewing angel, she has her thimble ready for blessing.  The Angel on the far left is made from Yo Yo's (or Suffolk puffs - thinks that's the spelling)


This stunning shoe is from my Friend Patti in Ayr, we are part of the Southern Cross Crazy's Yahoo group.

Thank you to all who have given me these lovely pieces of work, I will treasure them always.
TTFN
Arlene

More catch up stuff

On top of doing the stitching for the Round Robins I'm part of, I've also been making some Xmas presents for some of my friends. I was given a few strands of pearls, and was aksed by the giver if I would make a brooch out of them for her, so the cream on on the left is for her, and the pink is for her daughter, the others I can't name as then it won't be a surprise for those who are receiving them, that read my blog.


Here are six I have made so far, I still have to make some for Family yet, but most of these are going overseas, so have to get in the post tomorrow.





















Below are close ups of them all.






TTFN
Arlene

Maureens English Garden DYBlock

As I mentioned earlier it was a catch up weekend for me, finally no other commitments, and so I was able to get loads done.  I locked myself in my air conditioned craft room and went to work. So I've finished Cathy's Pansy blocks and Maureen's English Garden block was next.  I had already chosen the colours etc I wanted to use, so it was just a matter of designing what i wanted to do and get to it. So here's the full block and following are the elements.

I had seen recently somewhere some grid ideas and through this would look great on this block, so here is the grid. Made up of several chevron rows with Fargo roses and colonial knots. The little wheel barrow button, looked just right there.
This element is my favourite, there colonial knot scallops with wheat between each. I found some gardens in the UK do have some wheat growing in amongst the flowers.

Maureen wanted her cottage framed, so I stitched detached buttonhole all the way round a couple of times to give it a kind of fringe.  I also did feather stitch around the edge of the block as it just needed some filling there. I added beads for some enhancement.
Next came the lace above the Chevron grid. I dyed this to match the muted tone of the block, and added smokey blue beads.
Last of all was the flower motif, that I hand dyed and the little buttonhole butterfly to fill in the last little gap.
Maureen I hope you like the work I did on your block.

TTFN
Arlene

Cathy's Pansy Blocks

Well have I being playing catchup this weekend, I had a sinus attack on Saturday afternoon, but managed to take some hay fever tabs that did the trick.
This first block is the one I did, the last of my ribbon pansy motifs, with herringbone down the centre. My beaded dragonfly that I copied from the group block (using some recycled beads), and a bead trail at the top right. Cretan, cross stitch and detached chain go down the seam to another flower motif. Going up to the left is a row of half buttonhole pinwheels and lazy daisy flower stems. with little daisy's multi dyed along the bottom edge.

This is the group block, my work is the little pink rose in the top left corner and the butterfly in the top right along with the lace trim and beading.  There was not much room for anything else.

So there now on their way home to momma.....

TTFN
Arlene

Friday 26 November 2010

FIbers and Fabrics Christmas Craft Fair

December 4th and 5th are the dates for those readers who are local, need to remember.

It's the date for our Fibers and Fabric's Christmas Craft Fair.  Being held at the CWA hall on the corner of Denhem and Walker Streets, Townsville.
Times are from 9.00 am to 1.30 pm each day.

There will be a lucky dip table, $5 table, books for sale (real cheap), and the many craft tables from members of Fibers and other members of the public.  There is also 4 raffle prices, 3 hampers and a wonderful painting donated by Susie Maidens hubby Geoff.
Here are some of the wonderful ladies I have the pleasure of working with; Annette, Deb and Christine at their table last year.

Will we see you there...?????
TTFN
Arlene

Thursday 25 November 2010

Christmas Advent Swap

I was part of this swap last year, my swap buddy being from another part of the world, but not this time, my swap partner is Gai, from Narromine in NSW.  We will swap 25 wonderful gifts over the 25 days of Xmas.

Here is a picture of the box of goodies going to Gai. Each gift is numbered from 1 to 25, so we each will open a gift on each day leading up to Xmas day and gift number 25.  Can't wait, I received some wonderful gifts from my friend Ankie last year.

TTFN
Arlene

Sunday 21 November 2010

Scout awards presentation

Back on the 1st of August, myself along with several others were awarded Scout awards for our service to Scouting.  Today we were presented with those awards from the Chief Commissioner for Scouts in Queensland Maurice Law. Also in attendance was our Mayor and President for Scouts Kennedy Region Les Tyrell. Also in attendance was our member for Parliament Mandy Johnson, along with some family members and fellow leaders.

This first photo is of me receiving my award from the Chief. My award is the Silver Arrowhead, for excellent service to Scouting 8 - 12 years.
And the award winners photographed below.
Les Tyrell and Mandy Johnson,(Far left)  Maurice Law (Centre back) 1 x Certificate of Merit,(Doug) 2 x Silver Arrowheads,(Maxine and I) 1 x Silver Koala (Annemarie) and 1 Silver Emu (Ernie-our Region Commissioner-far right). We also had presented 1 x 25 years service badge and 2 x Scout Medallions (Nicole is pictured).
Congratulations to all award winners.

TTFN
Arlene

Saturday 20 November 2010

Oz Postcard swap with Embroiderers Guild Forum Ladies

I suggested to my Craft group - Fibers and Fabrics if they would like to do a postcard swap with the lovely ladies on the Embroiderers Guild Internet Forum.  They said yes, and I got 14 ladies interested in swapping. Unfortunately only 9 ladies on the Forum said yes, so thankfully a couple of the ladies from the Forum made a couple more.  Here are the first ones that are being swapped, I will post again each week until they all arrive at their destinations across the globe.



This one I sent to Isabelle, it's of Townsville, across Cleveland bay towards Castle Hill and the City of Townsville from Palleranda (a northern suburb of Townsville).










 

These three above are ones that Isabelle sent over here to Linda, , Anne and I



These two above are from Kim, there going to Annette and Sue

This love rose is from Maud to Karen, Karen's family was from Lancashire - how coincidental


Jane's lovely English Garden went to Beryl



 These two are from Julie, Margaret and Nita will be the lucky owners of these two.
This wonderful work of art is from Jo in the Orkney's, Faith will be so happy to receive this one.
And last for this post are Grace's lovely cards, Debbie and Kathy will both love these.

There will be more to post as they arrive.
TTFN
Arlene

Blogs

My friend Carol, (Rosey's first mum) has a blog, and there Carol has blogged about her new pets and some other useful information. Please visit her blog and our craft Group - Fibers and Fabrics.

Please feel free to brouse the list on the right here for other blogs I like to visit often, including the buttons to the Yahoo groups I am members off.

TTFN

Arlene

Thursday 18 November 2010

Embroidery Group Xmas Party

Today we celebrated our Xmas party for the embroidery group at my home. It was lovely and cool inside my home, thank heavens for air conditioning, because it was very warm and humid outside. Here we all at the dinner table before we ate ourselves silly.

Around the table clockwise.
Me (Arlene), Joan, Sue, Pam, Suzanne C, Barbara, Janet B, Carol, Joan, Sandra, Judy and Jessica.



We exchanged the traditional Xmas ornament, and discussed our program for next year.

TTFN
Arlene

Saturday 6 November 2010

Stumpwork Assessment Piece 2 - part 2

Ok, time for your next installment of this project. Making the background; this was fun, and didn't take as long as I thought it would.
Dying the background fabric


Time: ½ hour plus 2 days drying

Materials used:

• 12 inch square of pre washed calico.

• 4 bottles of Ozecraft colour dyes ; Brown, Green, Luscious Lime and forest green – 10ml of each colour, and 50ml water

• Various sizes of leaves; sticks from the ground.

• Glad wrap (Cling wrap), rubber gloves, hanger for dying. Sunlight

Get together all supplies and working in a wet area (somewhere where it doesn’t matter if you get wet with paint). Mix all three green coloured dyes together and water in a small tub. Pre wet calico (making sure it’s already been prewash). Soak Calico in solution, so that the colour gets into the strands.

Whilst you’re soaking the calico sort out your leaves, large, small, get rid of any dirt.

Place dyed wet calico over a backing material, I used an old floor mat. Then place leaves as random as you like. Once your happy with your layout, cover with glad wrap, this is more to keep in place than for any other purpose.

Place in full sun and let the sunlight do its job. Allow to dry a day in the sun, covered in glad wrap (plastic) so not to blow away.

Next day remove plastic cover and spray with a darker colour dye. I used brown in a pump action spray bottle. Recover and allow material to dry one more day in the sun.

The finished piece, should have a green coloured background with brown flecks and shadowed gum leaves.
This was the larger gum leaves, which I will be using for my piece.

This is the smaller leaves and sticks, I will use this for another project.

I used a hot iron to heat seal the colour, but also to press any creases out.  I was extremely happy with my results.
If you want to follow my journey on making this piece, watch this space.


Part 1 - Ideas and inspiration

Part 2 - Making and preparing the background fabric.

Part 3 - Making Gumnuts, blossoms, leaves, log and branches.

Part 4 - Attaching elements to background

Part 5 - Rosey, Kookaburra and insects

Part 6 - Attaching Rosey, Kookaburra and insects

Part 7 - Finishing Touches

TTFN

Arlene