WIP

I couldn't walk past these beautiful sweetpeas the other day. They have the slightest hint of pink and they smell divine! Standing next to them is my beautiful lady that grandma made a few years ago. She painted her and hand sewed the beaded skirt, which you can't see properly, but it's gorgeous. She later discovered she had cateracts in her eyes (which has now been corrected) - yet she still managed to make such beautiful work.

This is my WIP. I now have 5 vehicles (a car is separate) embroidered and ready for making into little stuffed thingos. The thingos will be transformed into a hanging mobile. This will be a gift for my soon to arrive, very first ever nephew!


Here's a close up of the police car...


All of which was started because mummy drives an ambulance (and daddy used to drive a truck). The drawings I did freehand but was inspired by drawings I saw here on the web at Richard Neuman Prints. I'm sure I'll post the finished object sometime soon...

Heaps of stuff

I had trouble getting into blogger yesterday, when I had more energy and actually was in the mood for posting stuff. Tonight I'm a bit tired...but I'm here anyway. I'm still working on getting our money back from the disasterous concert in newcastle, but the online booking company seem quite OK so far.

I recently found some photos and information about PINCUSHIONS. Very high tech stuff, I assure you. I've read through some tutorials and made my first pincushion the other day to submit to the Pincushion Challenge. It's a recycled theme, and hopefully by submitting a photo of my attempt, I can qualify to join the pincushion swap happening next month! YAY! More swaps. Here's my pincushion. Isn't it cute?



Last week or so I sent off all the tea towels I embroidered for the tea towel swap on swap-bot. I tried to wrap them nicely


but then I had to squish them into the envelopes anyway...This first photo is of the last one that I finished. It was for a person who said she liked coffee/tea/food type images. I hope she likes this.



The banner was inspired by Floresita who has embroidered many beautiful banners. The next one I finished first in Berry. I received an email today to say that it had arrived, which is great.


Seems like it was a hit, so I'm very relieved - she did say she's like flowers (and was easy to please). The last one was made to go into a vintage/old style home. I started in the cottage in Berry and felt that although it's not traditionally 'old', it still had a vintage feel to it. Hope she likes it!


It's actually my favourite, so it was hard to give away...

Last photo for today is me proudly showing off my tea bags that I received in the tea bag swap. Unfortunately Australian Quarantine got to 2 of the parcels and confiscated ALL the teabags from one of the parcels...Oh well. I'm glad I got some at all in the end.


Thanks to everyone who sent me tea!

Weekend in Newcastle

What a tiring weekend. 3 cars went up - I was followed by Karin and Tom from Austria as they were starting their holiday around Australia. The 3rd car had Fiona, Pieta and Michelle. Our mission? To have a grand night out to see Pony Up (Montreal, Canada) and Starky (Australian) play. Did it happen? NO! It bloody well didn't! Why? The manager of the Northern Star Hotel on Beaumont St Hamilton (fat, slobby, unprofessional, brown hair in an outgrown faux hawk, pin dick (I'm basing this on his intelligence)) is a complete cockhead. We were a group of 9 people, the youngest being 23. 4 of our group were from Austria. The security guards took it upon their discretion to refuse Thomas' entry as they didn't recognise his Austrian drivers license as being Authentic. They actually told us he needed a NSW drivers licence or proof of age card to be permitted entry. WHAT!!!!!! It was his BIRTHDAY to top things off. No amount of reason or logic sufficed with this idiot. He was too busy stuffing his face with food and speaking to us with his mouth full to listen to us. I would like to argue that if Pony Up had been carded, they too would not have been granted entry to their own gig. They look pretty young, and I would be very surprised if they carried their passports with them. I guess the security guards at the Northern Star in Hamilton are pretty up to date with each countries passports (in terms of their authenticity) as opposed to drivers licenses. How silly of us!


So anyway, I guess I'm saying, if you're thinking of seeing some quality music performed live in Newcastle - in particular the Northern Star Hotel in Beaumont St Hamilton, make sure you're all white, born and bred Australians with a NSW drivers licence. Preferably residing in the Newcastle region - as outsiders are pretty much not welcome and you cannot guaranteee that they will deem your ID 'real or fake'.

Apart from that - and being refused a table at the Northern Star Italian Restaurant a few doors down because we were a group of 9 and their maximum is 8 - a larger group like ours is an OHS risk apparently, we managed to recover our miserable introduction to Newcastle and bought some wine (we weren't asked for ID) and headed back to Valentine to chill out for the rest of the night. HAPPY BIRTHDAY THOMAS!

I'd just like to point out that we were not drunk or intoxicated in any way. We'd driven up from Sydney around lunch time, did some sightseeing and headed to the beach before going to Hamilton to enjoy our night out.

Yesterday (Sunday) we had a nice day up in Nelson Bay/Tea Gardens. It was sooo hot (flet at least 35) and we didn't have much time to hang around, but we got a glimpse of some dolphins from the ferry and had a pretty lazy day. I'm exhausted from all the driving though. Hoping to recover today.

No photos. Paul has the camera and he is in Kyiv, Ukraine. Back tomorrow. Looking forward to hearing about the trip and seeing some photos (if he remembered to take any...)

My talented sister

My sister Lauren has just launched her new online portfolio. She's a music photographer based in Melbourne. She's bloody good at what she does and she's recently bought herself a kickarse camera, so things have really taken off. Her portfolio shows off some of her photography, so make sure you take some time to look around.
http://www.laurenbamford.com

Here's a sneak peek:

Happy hook holder

A while back while browsing around, I came across this photo from a Japanese craft book showing a untensil holder made from linen.




It was just the sort of thing I was wanting to make to keep all my crochet hooks organised and in one place. Up til now, they were just loose in the bottom of about 3 different bags or with whatever I was making with them at the time. I never knew what I actually had. I'd go to spotlight and get all excited about seeing hooks there and buy the ones I thought I didn't have. Well, now that I'm so well organised I can see how many bloody size 3 hooks I bought. Most still in the packet. I don't think I've ever even used one of them! Typical. Anyway, they can be given away to people who want to learn how to crochet, etc.

So, here is the hook pouch/holder whatever you want to call it, that I made. I didn't have a sewing machine when I made it, so it's all hand sewn. I could've made something a bit more like the one in the picture with a machine, but I like the roughness of this anyway.




I've since bought the book (ala the photos above). I don't have any other photos from it to post today, but I will another time. It's got some beautiful ideas in it. Here's a photo of the cover if you're interested. I can't remember where I saw it online unfortunately.

Red Hat landed

Yay! I got a parcel in the letterbox today. I love getting mail and parcels are the best! I got my beanie from the beanie swap. It's so beautiful. A lovely thick yarn in various shades of red and grey. It's really warm, so there's no way I can wear it again this year. I'm looking forward to trying it out next winter. Let's hope it gets cold enough.

Here it is:



I've also got all my teabags packaged up and ready to post out for my next swap. They're going to the US, Germany and the Czech Republic. Great stuff. I need to get the tea towels wrapped, but I'll do that on the weekend.

Tea towels are a go

I'm on track with the swap thingo. My 3 tea towels are all stitched up. They're laying about in different parts of the house at the moment. My 3 swappees are located in the US and UK...so it will be interesting to see how much it costs for postage. Shouldn't be too bad. I'm looking forward to wrapping them all pretty and sending them off.

The beanie went last week. According to that swap, not everyone has sent their beanie yet and the send by date was September 10. Been and gone baby....what's the deal with that, I wonder? Here's the bundle I sent..





Oh, OK I might as well post the picture of what was inside as well. It's very unlikely that the recipient will see this before they receive the parcel anyway. I guess it should be there in the next few days. It was sent to a swappee in NY state.




Not the greatest wrapping, but I was quite rushed. It's OK. I sent 2 beanies though, cause I couldn't decide which one would be better. The sizes are quite different too, so again, I wasn't sure which one would be a better fit for my person. Anyway, it christened me into swapping. I must admit that I am hanging out to receive my first parcel...hurry up beanie!

Inevitable

Um. Maybe I should put a language warning on that last posts link....I't my favourite quote from Team America, which happens to be one of my favourite movies. So bloody funny. I didn't realise you tube had such a great range of clips from the movie. If you haven't seen it and you like South Park . You HAVE to. I piss myself every time.


Here's another favourite bit from the movie: Haans Blix

This definitely has a language warning!

Flat Fairies

So I've got these 4 flat fairies that I embroidered years and years ago. I started them in the US when I was living there with Paul, so I guess that makes it 96? Anyway, I never really knew what I was going to do with them, and now I still don't know what I want to do with them. I'd really appreciate some creative ideas from all the creative crafters out there....

This one is the first one I made and also a favourite. I was really able to add everything in to her as there were no others to compare her to. I was experimenting with new stitches to see how they looked, etc.



This one is my next favourite. I love French knot stitch. The way you can tone shades and create such a rich dense colour. Just like my favourite paint is guache...thick even colour. It took a lot of time, but I was inspired by some landscape garden type embroidery that I'd seen somewhere. The whole picture was french knots and showed a view of an english country garden. So much work! My flat fairy is nothing in comparison.



This one I tried to come up with a new hair style. It's OK. Nothing could beat the hair of my first fairy though. Maybe I should have succumbed to the inevitable and done all their hair the same. It's how I always draw my flat fairies after all...



This is the last flat fairy I made. Again, I began searching for some new way of creating her hair (you can see the similarity to flat fairy number 1) and decided I needed to try more of the beading look. She's a bit skinny. Or there's not enough
body in her skirt or maybe it's just there's not enough variety of colour in her dress. Anyway. She's the least favourite. Poor thing. It's not her fault she's not as cool as the other girls...



So, that's them! I was thinking of putting them as blocks into a quilt. Or using them as panels on little cushions that might feature on a bed. Or little pillow/cushions with a hook and filled with lavendar or something to hang on a wall in the bedroom to smell nice. This idea at Wee Wonderfuls was another thought. Making them into little weird flat stuffed fairies. There's something cute about that idea, no?

Softie Scotty Dog

I recently found this pattern on All Sorts blog. It is so easy and so cute. I made these two little guys - the white once has been given to Pa today as part of his Father's Day present.





(Can you see I added an authentic poopie hole?)

Pa loves little Haguki best (who's asleep at my feet as I type), but he's not allowed to have a pet in the villa where he and Gram live, so I thought he'd like this one.


Jenny's Allsorts blog is so bloody excellent! I would love to be so creative and web-skilled to develop such an interesting blog. I don't know how people find the time to keep them up though. I'm struggling to add a post every couple of weeks!