Playing with paint

Playing with paint
abstract art

20 October 2013

Surprise Gift and Great Purchases

It is Sunday morning here, and outside the weather looks a bit bleak and cool.  Other parts of the country are experiencing horrific bushfires and extreme heat so I wont complain about our weather.

Since I last blogged about my birthday, I had a nice surprise when my good friend Dianne arrived with this wonderful gift for me that she had made.

Isn't this just gorgeous.  I love the fabric.  She has watched me carrying my fabric pages round in a zip lock bag, so this is just the most perfect give for me to protect my embroideries from getting crushed and dusty.
At the moment I dont have any photos of the completed pages, but they are coming I promise.
With this beautiful gift I received a hand made card by Di as well.  I love it.  She is so creative.
This last week has been a busy week for me, out almost every day, both for social and business reasons.

Twice this week I have had social outings....   The first was a visit to the Toowoomba Embroiderers Guild Open Day, where visitors had the pleasure to view some extraordinary beautiful embroideries.    Sorry no pics.   I did take my camera but left it in the car....

They had a sales table of books culled from their library and I was fortunate enough to buy these...for the princely price of $2 each and the small one was 50c. As if I need another embroidery book, but I could not resist these.  They are older publications, and I have discovered there are ways of using some stitches that I dont have in other books so I am tickled pink with my purchases.
creative and inspiring
this has history and clear illustrations
a great little book to carry in my sewing box.

this just makes me want to get the threads out.

This will give me lots of inspiration for thechallenge.
some great designs from the past
When I was culling some of my old handmade magazines, I tore out patterns and designs and discarded the rest.   While looking through the boxes I discovered this book which means I now have my favourite patterns from those magazines in one handy book.  The little doll in the front was one I made for a grandaughter together with that bear, except I made him in fabric


On Saturday after the Art Quilting meeting to discuss the challenge for next year we visited an exhibition  by the local ATasda Group.  (Australian Textile Arts and Surface Design Association).  Wow the work we were privileged to see was mind blowing.

The theme for our art quilt challenge is "Bottanica" and I think we all came away from the ATasda Exhibition  with our minds reeling.  If you want to check out this group go to their website at www.atasda.org.au.

Have a nice week everyone.










8 comments:

  1. Dianne has certainly made 2 very nice gifts for you, the roll is very pretty and the card is unique, time Dianne shared some more of her work on her blog for us to see, are you reading this Dianne?
    Sounds like 2 veyt good and inspiring exhibitions Shirley. Some lovely book you have there, Verina Warren`s work I love, she came and gave a talk at our guild years ago and I bough a print of one of her pieces of work still with husband then or could never have afforded it, so he did have some uses!

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  2. What a lovely gift and I really love the card.

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  3. You found some wonderful books! Di's gift to you is beautiful, and I love all the texture on your card. Hope the week ahead is a pleasant one.

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  4. Ah Shirley, you've been spoiled indeed! ;-) And I'm positively green over your embroidery book purchases. Well done!

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  5. Thank you Shirley for your lovely post. I think I have been shamed into doing a blog. About time eh? It has been an inspiring few days and now our minds are swimming with ideas. Dear God, can we please have another 10 hours a day?? xxx Di.

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  6. What a lovely gift you received and the card looks great. I see that one of the books you purchased is on needleweaving. I recently tried a small owl using the needleweaving technique. Not sure if it's the same as the book though. We also have a couple of these books in our stitchery guild library and I have borrowed the Landscape In Embroidery a number of times. Enjoy all your treasures.

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  7. The gift and card Di made for you are just so lovely and will be much appreciated. They will be a lovely show and tell items at the meeting days.

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