Quilt Show, Carnival of Flowers Week

This week the annual Carnival of Flowers has been on here in Toowoomba and this means Toowoomba Quilters have their quilt show as well.   A lot of time and effort has been put into making this years show a huge success.  If you click on the link above you will be able to see photos of some of the quilts each day.

I had a couple of favourites, but of course my photography is nowhere near the professional photos on the Toowoomba Quilts blog.  So pop over and have a look and this interesting site.

I just loved this floral applique design. 

Here is a collage of some of the quilts that took my eye.

The theme for the art quilts this year was a self portrait.  Do you recognise anyone on this set.  You may need to enlarge it but the clue is she is a favourite of many.

This year one of the fund raising events was for breast cancer so a challenge was thrown to the members to make art bras.  The colour was purple so we have quite a few on display.

These are just a few the other photo was too blurry to post.

Two other projects for the members were making table runners, and small hangings with the them Tea for Two

The members who participated put in some excellent results.  There are a lot of accomplished quilters in this group.

Many of the members gave demonstrations on various techniques relating to quilts and Dianne was kept busy with interested visitors wanting to see how to use the circle cutter.

Last but not least.....I went shopping.   We had a lot of traders stalls, and I could not resist this one.   If you go to the website you will find WackyJacky.com.au where you will find the most wonderful colourful batik fabrics.  Here is Jacky on her stall and below that are some of the fabrics that were irresistible. They have made my fabric pages zing.......yes that is right I could not wait to enhance my fabric pages with them. Di has a new blog eatplayquilt.blogspot.com

Unfortunately I have not been able to get round the gardens this year.  The weather has been quite hot...33degC today.....so when not on duty at the quilt show demonstrating embroidery, I have just been slothing around at home, sewing and sleeping.

Busy Week and More Pages

I have been home a week now, and during that time I have ruthlessly de-cluttered my clothes and paperwork.  Out of all the "ideas" we tear out of magazines, how many do we actually use........when we find we have them 10 years later then the answer has to be not many.    I cant believe I paid to have so much useless paperwork moved.  But it is a good feeling to get rid of it. 

The clothes did fit me in those days.  But now I have gone from 83kg to 69kg everything was just falling down.

So I packed all the clothes that no longer fit me into  large plastic tubs.......just in case my willpower ever leaves me and I outgrow my "skinny" clothes. . I now have 3 tubs of clothes that dont fit.

I can hardly ever bring myself to throw clothes into the bin.....on a property there is always a need for old things for round the yard and with red soil they soon get grimey and then thrown away.

 Anyway, if I hadn't worn it for 4 years, out it went.  Unfortunately I still seem to have a full wardrobe, but not a crushingly full one. So I am pleased.

Does anyone else find they tend to wear the same things all the time because they are favourites.

While at the shops I found this little gadget that I can use to pick out the letters on the tiny keyboard on my phone.   My fat fingers just dont cope very well as anyone who has ever got a confusing txt from me knows.   It has a little rubber pad on one end and on the other a soft screw to push into a hole in the end of the phone.  I am very excited about this.

 Managed to get a little bit of sewing done this week as well.  I now have 16 pages completed, 10 to finish embellishing and 6 to find background fabrics for. Hopefully will find just what I want on one of the traders stalls at the quilt show.

 Here are som pics of the latest completed.

This is the verson I had at first looked at it for ages before deciding a big NO!

Here is flotsom and jetsom version that I prefer.  I feel the neutral cords dont take anything away from the embroidery. The background is also a neutral print cotton.

Chevron stitch round the duck embroidery.  Chevron is used in smocking and fits well into sircles. The ratstail cord is couched on

Triangular feather stitch.  The lovely tatting pieces are from my friend Sue from Suztats. The orange buttons were just perfect to match the tatting.   There are also some woven chain leaves

Since I came back I have also been able to complete the leaf sampler of stitches that have come up in Tast, and a couple of others that I like.

The outside edge of the leaf is buttonhole herringbone in a variegared stef francis thread.  Inside the leaf from left is chained cross stitch, wrapped coral, scroll, buttonhole bullion, scroll st, up and down buttonhole, twisted chain, breton stitch, knotted chain, sailors edge, portuguese stem stitch.

On the right side of the leaf starting from the bottom are buttonhole triangle, barred chain, spanish knotted feather, zig zag chain, crested chain, coral stitch, chained cross, top knotted buttonhole.

In the centre vein french knots lead to long legged bullion.  To the left is a spray of up and down feather, with bullion and buttonhole bars for the flowers.

The background fabric is a cotton which I coloured using acrylic paints and fabric medium.   The leaf is sitting on some dyed crepe.

I am going to use the leaf idea to show a new set of stitches to some of the ladies at quilting in November.

Sunday today, and since I have had lunch, it could be time for a nice nana nap.

 

Birthday Party, Flowers and Wildlife

What a busy 2 weeks I have had.  We were fortunate enough to experience fine weather for the whole two weeks.

For the first week I cleaned and scrubbed everything within an inch of its life in preparation for the big weekend.   I did make time to take  photos of some of my flowers in the garden including the last of the orchid.

The last of six sprays of flowers on the orchid

Bauhinia

The azaleas made a lovely display

We  had some wildlife visitors as well 

The ducks from the dam going for a walk and met up with a bunny

There were two mothers and babies coming in to feed among the male wallabies

This scrub turkey became quite a nuisance

I always feel very peaceful out there, and the view never disappoint.

View down the valley from the front patio

Himself turned 80 while I was there and I had organised to have a BBQ lunch for his birthday with friends and neighbours.  I collared one of the husbands to cook the barbie.  Another neighbour presented himself with a medal on a ribbon on which was engraved  O.B.E......which stood for over bloody eighty.

The day was wonderful with fun loving happy guests, and much laughter.

Himself with his badges

His very favourite dessert is pavlova so Julie made this for him for a birthday cake

Friend Dianne bought this delicious roast pumpkin and baby spinach salad.

The happy crowd blue was the colour for us girls.

BBQ ready to eat

Yours truly with some of the salads yes I have the same top as Denise We I went shopping and both loved the same one so said what the heck she lives in Brisbane and I live in Toowoomba and never the twain shall meet.

The day after the party I began the job of setting up the E Reader we had bought him.....well what a job......three whole days of frustration and still could not get the damn thing to work.....I was sitting up watching movies the third night but my mind kept returning to technology so back I went to the laptop.

I have decided that my brain works best in the middle of the night because.....wallah!!!! the lights turned on and one of the things came into focus and when I clicked on it there it all was.... I had only been reading half of what was there!!!!

So then came the job of teaching himself to download books......halfway through I just wanted to run away and go home.   I don't want to know when he gets round to doing it for himself....the mind boggles at what could happen.

This is the E Reader and friend Dianne made the lovely bag for it to live in. It even has an extra pocket for the cords and attachments.

It is always good to come home to my little domain and this was no exception.  Sorry there is no stitching but I have one piece to show in my next post along with some more fabric pages.

Byeee

More Pages for My Fabric Book

 Samples from when I learned silk ribbon embroidery

Hi to all my cyber friends.   I have been busy finishing off some more pages.  They are not all of Tast samplers.  Over the years from when I was quite a novice embroiderer I made samplers of various stitches resulting in quite a few so I am incorporating some into this book.  I have just realised that those examples are almost 20 years old.   And yes, again, I am reminded that I definitely do not have a "straight eye"  Isn't it funny how the camera shows up what the eye cannot see.

The three outside edges of the pages will be trimmed  with pinking shears and after sewing two pages together with the right sides facing and pressing them forming  the neat inside edge for the spine side I am going to stitch the pinked edges together.   Does that sound like a lot of pollygobble?

I am still trying to decide whether to line the pages to help stiffen them a bit but that is a decision I will make later.

Still have a quite few pages to go so this book looks like being quite thick.....hmm I can see the hand sewing of the pages together at the spine is going to be a monumental task......but will think of that later.

When I was learning Cracy patchwork as it was known way back then I made some samples of seam treatments

this is my sample of crossed feather stitch from Tast last year

My herringbone sample from Tast as well

This was a sampler of cretan stitch and roumanian stitch from a creative course I did many moons ago

Tast running stitch sampler made into a new page  It turned out to remind me of garden beds

My woven wheels sampler I also worked some other styles of weaving.The brown piece on the side is not supposed to look like a prehistoric weapon.  The fibre I used is felt and the colour just "went" or at least I thought it did but looking at it now it seems out of place with the wispy effect of the other sampler.

Still Shopping

On Friday i had to go and get some scrips renewed and my good friend Di offered to drive me.   As it happened she had to go to a quilt and sewing shop, and you think I came out empty handed.....wrooooonnnggg!.   I spied these two lovely fabrics that will just go perfectly for the cover and lining for my fabric book.   The blue/purple has some glitter effect and will go perfectly with the ET embroidery I am using for the cover.  

The aqua piece on the right is for the lining for the cover. 

Came across this blog here called Patras Place of Stitching and Vintage Linens which has some good ideas of putting the fabric pages together.

My friend Dianne, from http://dinkydideequilts.blogspot.com.au/  has a new blog called http://eatplayquilt.blogspot.com.au/ where she is talking about her three loves....eating, travelling and quilting......not necessarily in that order.

Pay both these blogs a visit....I am sure you wont be disappointed.

"Himself" is turning 80 next month, and I have organised a Bbq at the farm with a few of our close friends and neighbours....it was to be 12 people, but since I tracked down an old friend of his who is also coming it has turned into 13...aaark....better add someone else.

He desperately needs a new pillow to replace the sculptured one he has loved for over 25 years.  Found this 'memory foam' pillow for him.   Left it in the car while we did some food shopping and when we returned the car just "ponged".....the smell was terrible and it turned out to be ....the pillow.   I am wondering whether it is the formaldahyde that any imported textiles these days are treated with.  It is a shame because it is lovely to use otherwise.

Since then I have taken the cover off and aired it, but the smell is permeating the unit and I may have to return it if it does not go away.  Fingers crossed or it gets returned and I am "back to the drawing board"......and the idea of a book reader.

By the way you will all be pleased to know that I am slowly conquering the wretched changes to my computer.  Have returned to the original programme for adding photos, and am learning my way around the latest Gimp.

Hope I can get through the month now with my data allowance and no new big downloads.

Pages Completed and Ready

In between dramas I have had with my computer and getting my system upgraded, I have been stitching to de-stress and now have some completed and ready.  i know I have posted these before, but I have now done some extra embellishing of the pages.  A big thank you to all my friends who have commented and complimented me on my previous post with the pages.

Barred chain on the left and detached chain on the right

Fly stitch

image from Gimp printed onto linen and embroidered. The background fabric is one I painted

I have just added some buttons and braid to this to finish it off

All I did to this was to thread some ribbon through the lace and embroider round the edges with herringbone at the top and barred chain on the torso piece.

I have had an external hard drive for about 2 years and after the initial set up I left it plugged in as instructed to let it do its thing, then one day needed the usb port and never got to put it back in.   Then I tried to do an update with it and could not get it to work.  I have been waiting all this time to get someone to help me with it....and when I did it would not work at all.  

This meant investing in a new one so I could back up everything before the upgrade, and the new one did just that, and then would not allow us to reinstall.

There were ways round that, but whatever could go wrong did, and it all took 7 hours, and even then I just had to say stop because the dollar signs were rolling over and over.  

It all stressed me out no end, and I do miss having my clever son around to do all this stuff for free.

I am not quite sure yet whether I like the new distro...and I am struggling with some things.   Lost my photo programme completely and the new one I installed myself scared the wits out of me.....it just took over, and there was no where to allow me to open up my photos in Gimp and edit them......ooops that got removed very quickly I can tell you.  I had visions of all my photos disappearing into netherland.

Anyway I am battling to understand all this new "stuff", and change is something I dont cope with these days.

So my stitching project has been a blessing and helping to take my mind off anything stressful.

I have my unit inspection this week so had better do something today about tidying up my sewing room.

Fabric Pages sneak Peak

For some time now I have been collecting samplers of stitches and techniques which I have worked, and am finally getting round to making a second fabric book.  I reckon that someone in the family might be more prone to want to keep a book I made rather than a whole box of scrap stuff.

I have decided on my embroidery I called ET for the cover, so the pages all have to be 12in x 12in.    I have been working on them for a couple of days now, and thought I would share some of them.   I have worked out backgrounds and positioning of most of them, but these are a few that I consider finished.  The stitches are all from Tast, and some of the pages from workshops I have done with Sharon B at Pintangle

The cover is going to be my ET piece and the blue fabric in the background is some I dyed myself as are a few of the background fabrics.  The felt backing is all I have left of some felt that I was gifted that was left over from a theatre curtain.  I am sorry now that I had used it all up on other projects.

I have still to finish hand stitching the velvet ribbon surround, and find some matching felt for the back cover

I haven't worked out trims for this called Carnivale  yet. This design was produced through Gimp and printed onto linen and embroidered with a variety of stitches in the 2010 Tast.  i dont know why that top centre seam looks crooked it isn't in real life....probably due to my inadequate photographic skills.

On the blue felt background is chevron stitch and the bottom samples of contemporary Casalguidi stitching

The Torso is Bonnet stitch, and the upper sample is of woven wheels, barred chain and a mix of other stitches

You will notice on the page below  the seams are not of professional quality..oops  ..that is why i am not a patchworker. I did unpick it 4 times and this is the best I can get.  I cant even walk a straight line so have no hope of sewing one.
                                                                                                                    

Knotted Buttonhole, sheaf stitch, palestrina stitch, Bonnet stitch, and buttonhole stitch.