2009 Xmas Ornies - part I

Every year I make a hand made ornament for my family members. This year I am getting organised early, as I am usually still working on these come Christmas Eve. I am determined not to do that again (but I am sure I will be...it's the thought that counts, surely..)

So here is what I am doing this year. Snowflakes.

First I decided on a shape, and cut a sturdy template. I am doing these on black felt. I cut out a whole heap of templates on tracing (baking) paper, and drew my designs on to that, then pinned that to my felt. I stitch directly through the paper , on to the felt.

Once I have finished my stitching , I gently pull the paper away. You do need to be reasonably gentle, but i don't get to much pulling that can't be tightened, and in the next step (future post)  a fusible medium will hold it in place.

 

Here are the 3 I have stitched so far. After pulling the paper off, I added beads and sequins for shine. Very subtle, but just enough for a wee bit of zazz.

And here is the inspiration for these...a gift bag

The back of the ornies will have the recipients name and the year embroidered on them, and a hanging loop will be added when both sides are fused together. Stayed tuned for part two, hopefully before xmas eve!!

I can also see other great ornies coming from this bag. Those baubles are just screaming to be stitched.

Fabric Paper Journal Covers

My online pal Ati, has been making the most fantastic postcards. I bought one a while ago, and begged her for the instructions (which were apparently already in the public domain) , but i begged anyway!
 Well today was a crappy day. The BFF and I had plans to scale a small mountain, but the rain dictated otherwise, so we crafted. Belinda wanted to make a journal cover for her sister for xmas, which lead onto me saying, "hey, I have all this cool stuff to make fabric paper". So off we set. The dining room was transformed into a workstation (yes, I do have a studio, but it is small, and full of stuff, strictly room for one only). We had a blast.

the "stuff" we used, most of it generously supplied by Ati

Belinda, hard at work on her end of the table. (Pam, can you see your card in the background?) . Speaking of Ati, one of her blocks inspired the colour choice for my lounge walls too...

 

This is Belinda's first piece in progress.  The following three are mine finished.

 

 

I am a little unsure about the strength of the purple in the second one, however these will be further stitched and embellished, and I can live with it.

By the final one I was deciding what else I could pillage for text . The newspaper wasn't very inspiring, so I grabbed a dictionary. The possibilities are endless.

 

I particularly like this one. The text is a perpetual calender. The words are the definition of time, and Belinda thought the moon fitted the time theme well. We are both impatiently waiting for these to dry. We can only hope they hold together as well as Ati's postcard, which sat in full view to serve as inspiration. We are off to a 24 hr second hand book sale on Saturday night (I know, if there's a party, we are there...not) , to look for vintage recipes books, dress patterns and medical text ( I LOVE medical texts!)

Ati does have the tutorial for this posted on her blog, so I will send you there for instructions. Needless to say, it was a great day, and a fun, fun thing to do. I have so many ideas.

Look, I do have something to show you!

I did quite a bit of stitching while I was away on holiday, and I found a couple of bag fronts that I completed that I had forgotten about.

 

 

 

I have used the same handpainted silk in both of these, but played off the different colours. One is more the purples, and the other is the blues and teals.

I also have a couple of custom orders. Here is the first one, half done. Just need to add the stem and leaves, and assemble

Well, I said I have something to show you, but I have very little to say....bye for now

Bad blogger. Bad, bad blogger

I am starting to feel like one of those people who randomly update their blog every few months ( I know its not that bad -yet) but thats how I feel. Next I'll be posting links to others blogs just keep it interesting here.....

I really haven't been doing anything blog worthy.
I haven't done much sewing. A couple of custom orders -which is fantastic- but they are not far enough along to show.

I have barely stitched for about 7 days!! That is big for me. I am taking on a new challenge next year, and I am starting to fall into that role now, and it is keeping me busy. ( I can't talk about it really as it is an elected position, and I have not been officially "elected" yet). My calender is filling up already with lots of national meetings next year.

so thats it. Boring boring. Bad blogger...

Back and blogging

I have been so busy the last couple of weeks, I apologise for the neglect, although not a lot crafting wise has been going on.
It is a busy time of year for Playcentre with centre AGMs, and I had a national meeting weekend just gone. I did get some stitching done.

The CQI  group is working on another breast cancer fund raising quilt. The theme this year, cream/white piecing, jewel tone embellishments, butterflies and dragonflies. I had to be very picky about what I took with me, and the colours etc, as I had limited time, and space (which was more the issue!- apparently we are expected to work as well...). No beads to be included on this years quilt as it makes assembling difficult. (so I used a honking great ceramic face. Sorry Debbie)
So here we are so far. There is still some work to do, and I have several small butterflies to randomly  stitch around the block

all the seams have been done in various shades of sassalynne greens, and the rest is obviously ribbon work. I wanted it to look like a vibrant garden. I dyed the butterfly myself. It is the first time I have had any real success at trying to get a decent variety of shades on a motif, and it doesn't look like a dogs breakfast.

I also managed to finish several more pouches last week, the ones I stitched during the holidays . My "Christmas" rush hasn't started yet over at my etsy shop, but I do live in hope.....come do your Christmas shopping people. I will mail directly to the recipient, all gift wrapped, with a card....

Anyway, I digress, here are the pouches.

there was also a lovely "shabby chic" green, with pink roses here, but it sold. I got brave and took EVERYTHING to my conference with me and displayed them, and I got a few sales.

this is my current fave. I just love those faces!

Well that's about it really. I left for my conference on Friday, and Rob bought a new car on Saturday... it really is not a good idea to leave the menfolk unattended with the cheque book.

Christmas RR

I have been stitching on Debbie Qs blocks, which is my final block in this RR.
This was fun, doing a whole block. Took a while to get back into the embellishing swing of things, but once the sequins came out, I went to town.

The silky I attached with heat'n'bond, and I hooked the lace under there to before ironing. This worked really well to keep everything in place. The heat'n'bond did darken the image a little , but I quite like the line the gold fabric produces. Looks like the moon shining thru.

Not sure if I have showed the following picture. This was the motif I did on Leslie's block. A bullion xmas tree, with swarovski crystal decorations. They really catch the light and look just gorgeous.

edited to add: seeing as the gorgeous Diane has featured this tree on Craft Gossip, I thought I would give you a bit more info.

Bullions are done with the beautiful hand dyed thread from Sassalynne. This thread is what Myfanwy calls 'fine;' and is equivalent to perle 8 cotton. I love it , it is my favourite thread. The thread is not a specific colour, just a variegated green.

It is school holidays here, so I will be gone for a week or so.

Ciao!

The Stix, in all their glory

Here are all the "Stix" created so far.
"Awesomely Tacky"  was the high praise received from my cyber buddy, Dakotah. And I think awesomely tacky is just the look I was going for for some of them. The others I hope are witty, or just plain fun.
I have so many more ideas for these ...

they are all, of course, available for you to purchase.

are you getting bored with these yet!!

sorry. Its all I've got! You could tell me your ideas though...

More Stix...

 

What about these colours? Boy and girl, or just stick with the black?

new idea

 You know some times, you just get inspired. Ideas come form literally nowhere, and you run with them, and they seems to work. Well, this is what I have been doing overnight.
Had my teen here - miss 14, and she thought the were great.
So, feedback from you, and any teens you have in your house would be great.
I have pages of ideas for these, and quite a few guy ones too. I am calling them "the Stix".

 

These will be up on Etsy soon, not yet, but soon, like tomorrow. I have run out of black fabric , Arghhhh!! I was thinking that they might look good on a denim look chambray, but I also think they are incredibly effective on black. Am I tooting my own horn to much, or is there potential in these?

The Neglectful Blogger

I might have to change the name of my blog, I have been so useless lately, and I have done heaps to blog about, so on with the show.

Firstly, I have secured my Fleetwood Mac Tickets, they are in my hot little hands. I am so excited, and I only have to wait 3 months! Argh. They are playing in quite small venue, that is a 6 hour drive away, but I am so there. I have two tickets. Does that mean twice the experience?

Last week saw two trips to the Hamilton Quilt and Craft Fair. This is an offshoot of the  Melbourne (Australia) Quilt and Craft fair. Two trips meant quite a bit of financial mis-management on my part, but come on, when a girl needs beads, she needs beads, and there were a LOT of beads....
Thursday saw Belinda and I shoot down after dropping the kids at school (an hour drive). We browsed, bought and tried plenty.

Here we are trying Bobbin lace. What a process. It was actually quite relaxing once you got into the rhythm of it, but the chairs we had to sit in hurt my back, so there was no way I could sit there to finish it. The lady demonstrating had a wonderfully intricate piece she had been working on for 3 years. She estimated 4 more years until it was finished. Belinda is below working on the same piece.

 

Below is our piece...

and the piece the lady next door was doing, which was lovely. She was naturally talented at this obviously.

That wrapped up Thursday. Saturday, the craft show posse turned up at 8am, and off went again, more browsing, more bead buying (seriously, you can never have enough beads) and a couple more classes I booked into on Thursday. The craft show was actually really well organised I thought. They offer lots of what they called craft circles - which were the classes you paid for, and got a wee kit to work with. The workshops were the free 'talks' basically from various stall holders plying their wares. I went to a couple of those, and will try for more next year. Helen Dafter , who is an Aussie SRE expert gave a few talks throughout the day. She was an excellent presenter, humorous, lots of samples she passed around and tips and tricks. I didn't stay for her whole workshop as I had a craft circle to run off to, which is a shame. She is on my 'to do' list for next year. To finish up this mini review of the show, I was impressed by the fact that  there was  some good deals to be had. Prices were not overinflated, especially on beads....

So here is what I did

This is a paverpol sculpture. I have long been (about 20 years) enamored with these fabric sculptures, and this was a must do one for me. You are basically using a strong PVA glue to harden the fabric. Some of their sculptures can be put outside, but i would guess there is a special ingredient to make them weather proof. I just loved the hands on messiness of this.

 

Next was this beaded pendant. Not really my cup of tea, but i wanted to learn the technique, and it served its purpose there . Apparently I was the only person to finished the entire thing . Brooke, loved this so I will give it to her .

To finish off this mega catch up post. A few more things for the shop.

First these stockings, which are custom order, so don't y'all go rushing off to buy them...though there is a similar one there in blues

 

 

So there you go. As you can see I have completed 3 out of 5 pouches to meet my weekly target, so I have some stitching to do tonight and tomorrow.

More finishes

Just eye candy today. All these pouches are listed over at Functional Fiber.
I know it seems like that's all I am doing these days, but I figure that you come for the view rather than the scintillating conversation....
I have made 5 sales in the last week, so I am a very happy camper.

Here is another custom order. My BFF is a great saleswoman!

the WINNER

I have done the draw for the 600th post giveaway. I thought it was something I should get on with since I do have a tendency to let these things drag on....
Random number integer was used as usual.
The winner is

Random Integer Generator

Here are your random numbers:

57

Timestamp: 2009-09-02 11:23:52 UTC

by my counting, that makes Aida the Winner!!! Congrats Aida. I'll be in contact for mailing details. So if I recall, you get the pouch, the doilies, the good bag, and the not so good bag.

I also said I was going to throw in something extra for the 100th comment. That comment was made by butrfly2200. I will contact you too for mailing details. You will get a card pouch also. Now this one is not perfect on the inside because I put the magnetic snap in the wrong place the first time. But the embroidery is still very pretty all the same. These pouches are also smaller than what I make now. They were the prototypes, shall we say. You can get several cards in them, just not as many as in a 'bought one'.

Here are some pics of the latest offering over at Functional Fiber

I am a very happy camper today as I had 3 sales overnight. That means I can go and get my car registration. Yay! Its not as dire as it sounds, it was just a big bills month with Robs golf fees needing paying too...which I forgot to get money off the term deposit for. As Oprah said today on her show about mums - " You need a wife!" She is so right!

Blog Flog

Although it is highly unlikely that anyone who reads here doesn't read Pin Tangle, I am still going to send you all on over there to see Sharon Bs recent work.
I am enamoured, smitten, in awe of, and inspired...
Check it out.

A free day

I found myself with an entire free day today. I thought I had a meeting, but that was last week (and I was there!!) and yes, I could of gone shopping, but heck, that's boring. So I stayed home. Did a little work (pd by the hour) and some stitching.

 

I found these great little motifs I could rescue from a scrap of tatting. I saw them and though "flowers". I was going to , and even started , doing the embroidery in the same colour as the tatting. I think I will do that next time. The leaves I took the leap and did satin stitch. I avoid that like the plague usually. You have to be so precise....I am happy with the way it came out though.

I had  a meeting last night, so I took my box of goodies and set everything up (etsy inventory). I meant to get a photo. That was a bit of an intimidating experience. I have really had to take a deep breath and start selling myself. I don't mind online stuff. I have time to think about what I am going to say. I don't have to look you in the eye, and pretend I am confident. I am getting better at it. But I figure if people don't actually know what I do, well, they can't buy anything can they. No sales, but hopefully I have planted a seed and people will think of me in the future.