M is for Mariposa

I called this freeform hat Mariposa, because it reminded me of a posy of flowers. I made for Baby Bear to wear to Music Camp last year. She loves it, most gratifyingly! 

L is for Lichen

I am SO far behind on my ABC Along!

Lichen pictures from the weekend. I want to do a series of small embroideries inspired by lichens, I think. 

Texture

This is a series of photos taken between Wangatta and Beechworth on Friday. I am very interested in using natural textures as inspirations for textile pieces, and so George and I gathered some photos while we were away to use as future reference points.

More on our trip later on in the week. 

Project Spectrum - June - Blue

Rather late, but here are the pics from the gorgeous stuff sent to me by Carolyne. The teddy bear is just too, too cute! She also made me a darling little needlecase out of Japanese fabrics. There was also fabrics, threads, beads, a necklace and earrings, and some yummy Lindt chocolate which did not make it to the photo!! 

Project Spectrum - July - Purple

This is the pin I have made to go with the bag I am making for the Tote Exchange. The bag will be finished later on today, it just needs sewing up. I really love making these pins! 

Project Spectrum - July - Purple

A pair of socks I knitted out of yarn I dyed myself. It was a white or cream sock yarn, Patonyle or St Ives - I was using an op shop lot that had these various combinations in it to dye seeveral different lots - dyed with Landscape dyes while in the ball to see what the effect was. It made a really bright pair of socks! Yes, George does wear them with a business suit. 

School Holidays

We're halfway through the school holidays here and it has been hard getting computer time, so not much blogging has occurred.

We're having a pretty quiet holiday, as we were all recovering from (everyone else) or starting (me) yet more colds and things - it has been a bad winter for viruses. There's been lots of computer games, DVDs, Gamecube games, reading, beading and hanging out with friends, so that's been nice.

Last night we visited friends for dinner and had a lovely evening - their house is full of dogs and artworks and artefacts from foreign travels, and they are wonderful people.

I took Wombat to see Over the Hedge last week and quite enjoyed it.

It is Baby Bear's thirteenth birthday on Saturday and I have presents to wrap. She is going for a sleepover tomorrow night so I will probably do it then. Hope she likes her presents! She is then going off on a music camp on the Sunday - this is normally in the school holidays, but because our holidays are all muddled up this year because of the COmmonwealth Games, she is actually missing a week of school. She learns so much music though that we think it is an appropriate use of her time. We will go up to Albury for the following weekend to attend her concerts. It has become quite a ritual, going up there every year, and we have our favorite places to visit.

Poor Baby Bear has been going through some traumas at school recently. We have turned ourselves inside out trying to sort things out over the last couple of months. I have been left feeling that the school is not serving her well either emotionally or academically - though it is excellent musically. I strongly want her to shift schools - she doesn't - George is undecided. We have enlisted the services of a psychologist who has been very helpful, and is going to talk to the school himself next week to see if he can shed any more light on the problem. It has all been very stressful. I didn;t sleep properly for a couple of weeks and was close to having a total breakdown at one point, I think, though I have now been able to distance myself a bit and use some of the stress-relieving techniques I learnt last year.

I now have to organise to take Wombat and a friend out to see Cars this afternoon - it was meant to be yesterday afternoon but we took WOmbat to the doctor instead, because he still has a persistent cough after having a cold a couple of weeks ago. The doctor didn't think it was anything sinister, but it took up the time in which I had planned the cinema trip. So I had better check session times!!

Project Spectrum - June - Blue

This is another pin I made at the same time. It is a present for someone so I won't go into more details as she might read this blog! I like making these, I feel some more in the works. In fact I am about to make another one to go with the bag I am making for the Tote Exchange. 

Project spectrum - June - Blue

With my school work out of the way for a couple of weeks I have time to do some other stuff. This is a beaded pin I have made for Wombat's school teacher, who has left at the end of the term (boo hoo, though her replacement seems good). This is my first attempt at making one of these and I am rather pleased with it! The face cab came from a seller on Ebay and I have several of hers, they are all gorgeous. 

The Other Folder Cover

This was the other major project. It was inspired by Fred Williams landscape paintings, which I love. The sky is strip pieced, and so is the first half of the land, which the bottom half is torn fabric strips. The trees are circles of fabric with hand stitched stems, and if you look closely there are a couple of hand stitched dead trees. The whole is held together with free machine stitching and some discreet hand stitching. I am really pleased with it.

The cover fabric is white bengaline, sponge printed in diluted acrylic paint. I used a sea sponge, and placed gum leaves randomly over it and sponged over them to leave show images. Unfortunately the camera battery died just as I was about to take a picture of the back, which shows the leaves properly!! 

Project spectrum - June - Blue

The complete foler cover. I deliberately dyed the small piece a lot more aggressively that the large piece. It worked out really well considering it was the first time I had tried discharge dyeing (not counting those accidents where one accidentally gets bleach on ones clothes!) 

Project spectrum - June - Blue

This is my major project for one of my two subjects that will be handed in tomorrow. We had to design a cover from scratch, using the principles we had covered in the course. After much fiddling around with ideas - I originally started off being inspired by Aboriginal dot paintings, and there is still several embroideries in that idea to come! - I ended up with this, which quite accidentally looks a bit Japanese, I think. The appliqued dots are a montage of Aboriginal art that I did on the computer and then printed onto iron-on fabric. The background fabric is denim, discharge dyed with bleach in the washing machine. 

Project Spectrum - June - Blue

This is some fantabulous, splendiferous yarn I received from The Stripey Tiger for co-winning her blog competition. I think she must have sent it out moments before going into labour with her very adorable baby Bronte Violet.

It is Knit Picks Shimmer, which is 70% baby alpaca and 30% silk, and it is extremely cuddleable. At 440 yards i should be able to get a lacey scarf out of it, I think. It's got green and purple in it, as well as blue, but I;m counting it towards my June pictures.

Not much blogging has occured Chez Sheep Rustler because of protracted illness (children - what a term for illness this has been!!) and frantic finishing off of school work (me). All is done and will be handed in tomorrow, to be followed by a lavish lunch with fellow sufferers. I wrote a draft of a long, whining post about how woe was me because my children are always sick, etc, etc, but it bored me even to write it so I have deleted it and will be posting more pics instead. 

Frog Rain and Toad Soup

This mixed media collage would have been perfect for Project Spectrum last month! It's what we did in class last Friday. I don't actually like it much, I felt too rushed while making it as we were pressured to get it done in the two hour class. I mounted it on the green felt and did the stitching at home, though. I would like to try mixed media again with some careful planning and thought. The couple I have done this semester have not worked out very well because I have felt presured to complete them in a certain time or with certain materials, and I would like to practice with some greater freedon of materials and with no time pressure. I have seen some fabulous mixed media stuff that I would like to be inspired by. 

Project Spectrum - June - Blue

 

Project Spectrum - June - Blue

 

Mini Wool Expo

For the first time I actually managed to get to the Handknitters' Guild Mino Wool Expo at Coburg Town Hall. June and July are always very busy for me and it tends to be one of the things that gets missed out on, especially as Coburg is a long way away from where I live. But I got dragged along by my friend J and a good time was had. I'd never been inside Coburg Town Hall before and was quite charmed by the gilded mouldings and the balcony - reminded me of Kyneton Town Hall where I often went to things during the time I lived there. But it was freezing cold and badly lit! It was nice to be able to look at things without a crush, though, unlike the craft fairs I am used to going to, where the crowds swell and everyone has really sharp elbows.

I was operating on a strict budget, plus sticking to my yarn diet. (Actually I have not used up my Yarn Day from May yet, but I am waiting on Sock of the Month stuff and I might get two in June, now, so I wanted to avoid buying yarn if at all possible). There was much lucious yarn, of course, but I didn't buy any. I did buy 100g of turquoise blue roving, and could have bought much more roving and wool tops (and other fibre tops - so many gorgeous ones!) but didn't. And I bought two magazines from the Artisan Books stall - the current Interweave Knits Crochet special, and Cloth Paper Scissors, which I wanted to read before I considered subbing to it. I have already subbed to Quilting Arts but I wasn't sure that the other one would have enough textile art stuff in it for me. After a quick flick through last night I am not fully convinced that it would be worth the money for me, but it is a most gorgeous magazine and I love it!

I noticed three major ommissions from the stuff available - there was no sock wool (that I noticed), but then I wasn't really expecting any, necessarily. But I was very surprised not to be able to find any exciting laceweight yarn, or indeed any laceweight yarn AT ALL. It is hard to find really lucious laceweight in Australia, and I had hoped that that might be one place to find it. But none. Not that I NEED any, I already have a modest stash of laceweight yarn, but you know how it is... I was also surprised, considering how many undyed wool and other tops were there, that no-one was selling dye. I would definitely have bought dye! Not that I don't already have a fair bit of dye, you understand, but it's something I generally have to buy by mail order (or treck right across town to far flung suburbs) so I would have snapped up some if it had been available.

J and I then had a late lunch and a thoroughly enjoyable chat before going home to hot cups of tea. If you're reading this, J, thanks for encouraging me to go yesterday, I really enjoyed myself and it was a very pleasant afternoon!

Project Spectrum - June - Blue

Not a technique I am likely to do again in a hurry - or at least not at this scale. Trying to stick all these stupid little pieces of fabric down without losing any was a nightmare. But I like the idea of a skewed grid on a larger scale, and/or repeating it.

Project spectrum - May - Green - Also K is for Kid

Fashion Show at The Highway Gallery for this year's Come For a Yarn, their festival of knitting and crochet.

It is a Shardigan, pattern by Terri Ranck (Google for her, she doesn't seem to have an actual site as far as I can see), knitted in quite different yarns from those used in the original pattern.

On me it is a shoulder shawl.

Project Spectrum - May - Green - Project Colourswap

Sneaking in JUST before the end of May, here is a picture of the glorious goodies that Celia sent me. The two balls of Anny Blatt funky stuff will probably go into freeforming - it has funny bits sticking out of it and will be perfect in lots of freeformy type things! The roving I will either spin or needlefelt. The embroidery threads will go into my stash of very special threads and will turn up in something crafty some time. I felt very spoilt, thank you Celia! 

Project Spectrum - May - Green

This reverse applique is this week's homework for TAFE. It is also the first time I have done reverse applique. I'm not sure that I am really pleased with this, the teacher asked us to bring glitzy fabrics even though they fray, and the bright green satin frays like mad and irritates me when I look at it. Plus the crystal organza was a pain as it was SO easy to cut through by mistake! I might use the technique again with nice, closely woven cottons (as the top layer of this was), but then again I doubt if it will ever become my favorite technique. 

Project Spectrum - April - Yellow/Orange

So It's nearly June and I'm posting an April picture - who says I am disorganised! This is the lovely parcel that Morgan sent me for the April Colourswap. The cutest beaded hook, stitch markers, some gorgeous patchwork fabric and sock wool to die for, all in the cutest, most useful little knitting pouch in bright orange! I think I will be brave and knit socks out of this that break away from my standard toe-up plain stotcking stitch socks, nice as they are (and easy, because I have the pattern memorised). I think it is time I bit the bullet and tried some lace socks. I have three patterns earmarked but we shall have to wait and see what I choose! 

Work in Progress

This is going to be on the front cover of one of my two folios for TAFE. It still needs handstitching - to give trunks to the trees (the green blobs) and to include a couple of dead trees. I'm quite pleased with it so far. The piecing went as hoped and the effect is pretty much what I was after. I was disappointed in the machine embroidery thread that I bought, at first - on the reel it looked as though it was in variagated shades of orange and purple, which was just what I wanted, but on close inspection that was an optical illusion and it was red and blue, and red and yellow. It still looks OK though and I managed the machining with only minor disasters (shredding the thread a couple of times, and discovering that machining at high speed over a pin breaks the needle - well duh!! I hope this gives an outback-type impression, as I was inspired by the paintings of Fred Williams, which I have long loved, and the way the trees float on his landscapes. I have some wonderful hand-embroidery threads which I will be using, either tonight or over the weekend. 

J is for Jolly

I really like this piece of embroidery and I think it is very JOLLY, hence the use of it here. I loved doing it, all the bright colours and the playing around with patterns. It creased up a bit when I put it on the scanner but I rather like the effect, so I didn't rescan it. It is perle cotton on black felt. 

Reporting on my Yarn Diet, and other trifles ... mmm, trifle....

My yarn diet is going great guns. As explained in a previous post, this is a yarn diet with a difference, or a cop-out if you like. We can buy yarn on one day in each month. I have joined a sock of the month club and that is being my one purchase for the month at the moment. I received my sock wool in April, and that was my yarn purchase for the month. This month's hasn't arrived yet but I am sure it will during May, and that will be May's purchase. And likewise for June - I signed up for three months. I am not counting the sock stuff I got from Sockmonster (see my sidebars) because I had ordered it in March so it didn't come under the auspices of this yarn challenge (run by Rebekah of Knit Knack, again see my sidebar). I am proud to say that I haven't fallen off the wagon once, though it was a near thing a couple of times.

Wombat is off school yet again. He has had ongoing problems with his ears all term. This was the third syringing and the doctor said that any more problems and he will need to see a specialist. At least once the wax was flushed out, there was no sign of infection, which is good - last time, when it was in the other ear, there was infection under all the gunk. He has been rather fragile this week and so I have pulled him out of school for a couple of days. This means that I have not had one full day at home on my own for what will be four weeks come the end of this week - there has been a child at home or George working at home every single day, or else I have been at TAFE. It is driving me mad and I am threatening to move into the shed for some peace and quiet!

I have been working on my course work like a lunatic the last couple of weeks. I now have my folios 95% complete, ready to be checked over by tutors on Friday, and leaving me three weeks to finalise anything that is missing or wrong. (I know I am missing one large handout, and therefore haven't labelled two weeks work on one subject because I know the descriptions of all the exercises are on the handout). I have prepared the fabric for the reverse applique we are doing in class on Friday. I have revised my ideas for my two Major Projects. Heck, I've even made a start on one of them! Sewing and everything! As I will be stuck at home with Wombat all day tomorrow I hope to get that piece well advanced by the end of the day - it definitely won't be finished but I hope that enough will be done to make me feel that I have broken the back of it. Despite being shattered (I am also having a fibro flareup) I now feel that I will get everything finished in time and it will be all right - this time last week I had my doubts about that!

I might try to take some pics over the weekend.

Project Colourswap

I have just posted my May green parcel to Celia. In fact, two parcels, as just as I had sealed up the main parcel securely I saw the last present sitting forlornly on the coffee table waiting to be asked to the party. I had lots of fun putting together green things and I hope you like them, Celia!

I still have not posted pictures of my April colourswap gifts - I took photos of them last week but a certain someone who shall be nameless deleted them instead of downloading them for me. I will try again!

Despite leaving a comment on Morgan's blog to thank her for the bueaitufl things she sent me, that comment has never showed up, nor have I heard from Morgan to know if she received the parcel I sent her. Morgan, if you are reading this, I hope everything is OK with you.

I went out and bought a blue card and wrapping paper today, and I haven't even received my June partner!!!

Project Spectrum - April - Green

 

Happy Mothers Day!!

I know I'm a bit early there but won't get another chance to blog until Monday at the earliest. We personally don't make a BIG fuss about Mothers Day but we do a little bit, and it's always nice. We are going to spend some time with George's mum and sisters and I am really looking forward to that. I will knit a sock (my Project Spectrum project for the month as it is multi shades of green, dyed by my fair hands) on the way down, and while we are there I will work on this week's stitch homework which is a textured piece on canvas. (It was meant to be on rug canvas. I didn't buy any rug canvas as a kind person in class had a big roll of plastic rug canvas to share around. I tried and tried but I just couldn't use it, it hurt my hands, so I am using a much finer piece of canvas which was the only one I had under the bed). I made her a little bag to keep wool needles in, with a couple of packets of them inside. I;m rather proud of it, it's a Humbug bag in the medium size and big enough to keep sundry sewing supplies in. It was very easy to make and took me an hour from start to finish, not counting quilting the fabric - I ad two patchwork fabrics I wanted to use and I decided to take the plunge and machine quilt them. This is important because I tried machine quilting some years ago and made a horrible mess of it and threw it away and vowed never to quilt again. But I have been teaching myself to do free motion machine embroidery recently and thought that machine quilting is the same technique, more or less, so I would give it a go. And I conquered my fear of machine quilting! I was so proud of myself.

Work is really ramping up on the course and I am starting to panic. Considering that I don't even have a paid job, you'd think I;d have time enough compared with all the others, but I guess the down time of CFS and fibromyalgia takes up a lot of time. At least I can often get stitching homework done when I am too flaked out to do anything except loll on the couch. This week I have to do the canvas work and write two design briefs for next Friday. One of them will be from scratch (except that I have already pretty much thought out the basics of the design I want to do), the other one I have already done all the research for and just have to put it all together. Plus I have to deliver stuff for sale at The Highway Gallery on Thursday to go into their Come For A Yarn exhibition in a couple of weeks - all the stuff is made, except for some patterns I need to print out, but I need to price them and fill in the consignment form. I have also agreed to teach two scrumbling classes during the exhibition. So am feeling a little panicky at the moment! I was going to exhibit three things as well as the stuff for sale, but I think it is only going to be one thing now as I haven't finished the other two and it is unlikely at this stage that I will finish them.

Plus we have some stress going on at the moment which I won't go into right now, we're in a difficult situation with one of the kids and we have to make some tricky decisions quite quickly. Teri, who left a comment on my previous post - when I have some time I will email you and continue the conversation you have started!

I hope you are all spoilt by your kids, if you have kids, and spoilt your mothers, if you are lucky enough to have mothers!

I is for Iridescence

OK, so this picture isn't technically iridescent, because that can't be captured properly using conventional (digital or otherwise) photography. But I played with the colours to brighten it up and I quite like this picture, and I have been in a funk over my ABC along pictures recently and I just have to break the cycle and get on with them!! 

H is for Hats

It was a cold day in Melbourne, and Wombat could not decide which hat to wear ... Good thing he was wearing a Project Spectrum green scarf for the month of May. 

First the Grumbling...

Wombat has been off school all week with a heavy cold, and now I have it and I feel like death warmed up. He is VERY demanding when he is sick, understandably so, but it means that I am spending time defending myself in Pokemon battles when I really want to sleep. I also have a pile of homework to do for Friday - I have done most of it, bar the sticking down and captioning, plus an embroidery piece that will probably be finished by tonight - but i would have prefered to do it in a less fragmented way.

Baby Bear had her parent-teacher interviews on Monday. I couldn;t go because I had to stay at home with the hacking, spluttering Wombat, so George went along. NOT HAPPY, JAN. It turned out that our happy, cheerful child who is having such a wonderful year is indeed having a very happy and cheerful year but at the expense of things like schoolwork and music practice, and is spending most of her time talking and not paying attention. Poor child has the misfortune to be 'gifted' both academically and musically, so of course we expect a certain standard of work from her (not an exaggerated one, and we are always careful to praise what she does, but we do expect her to work to something approaching full capacity, not slacking off like she has been doing). So we have had to take the cruel and heartless parent line and re-establish some very firm ground rules. I think it really hit home when one of the teachers showed George a classroom test that had nine questions on it, which everyone else in the class had completed but she had only done one question. And no, it wasn't particularly hard, and it was in a subject she likes and is capable at. More stress that we could, frankly, have done without.

And to cap it off, it turned out that she had not bothered to tell us about the Victorian Flute Guild Competition which is being held this Saturday, at which she is expected to be all day. She entered it last year and I happily spent the time there, knitting a sock in between sections, and enjoying a very high standard of music. We think she did not tell us because she knew there was a birthday party on that day (of one of the girls who should be in the competition, no less!) I got really annoyed about this because we had already planned out the day for Saturday, because we all had to go in different directions and then go out in the evening. George is doing a working bee at the primary school; she was going to and from this party, quite a longish drive away; and I was going to spend the afternoon slowly chopping and simmering and organising an elaborate dish that I am taking to the dinner party on Saturday night. Now I have to make the thing on Thursday and refrigerate it, which means doing an online shop for tomorrow because Wombat is still sick, which means that they almost certainly won't send something vital because they ALWAYS run out of the most amazing things; I;m always exhausted after school on Friday, and as I am quite sick that will be even worse; and now I have to spend the whole day at the flute thing and then be the sparkling life and soul of the party on Saturday night. If she had told us in advance we could have at least preplanned something to reduce the pressure on us both. Snarl, snarl.

On the up side ... i got my parcel from Morgan today for the Project Spectrum colourswap and I am so thrilled with it! No pics till Sunday, probably. It included some amazing sock wool, stitch markers, some patchwork fabric and an ornamental hook for the wall, all tucked into a bright orange knitting pouch. I felt truly spoilt, and goodness I needed it!