Another page and a correction

This is just a quick blog showing the latest page I have sent away for the Fibre Fever swap - a game of draughts.  I forgot to take a photo before I sent it so this is just a very small one I have lifted from the fibre fever site.  I was cross with myself after I had made the page, when I realised I should have moved some of the draughts before I stitched them on - the page would have been much more interesting.  I had to make a page showing board games or cards or such like.  some of the other pages have been very clever.

In my last post I was bemoaning the fact that the Textile Forum next year has been cancelled, when I really meant the Textile Festival.  I have had an email pointing out the difference and how much more doom and gloom there would be if the TAFTA Forum were cancelled.  That is quite a different organisation, they do wonderful stuff.

Gorgeous weather here at present, I think Spring is really arriving.  There are lots of little honeyeaters singing away in the garden, but they move so fast I have no hope of taking a photo of any of them.

Now I need to go back to finishing sewing a birthday card  to send away tomorrow.

Playtime

We introduced Jock and Sascha to each other today, and about 15 minutes later they stopped long enough for me to take this photo!  They had an absolute ball, chasing each other round and round the garden.  Sascha always had another dog to play with till she came to live with Dougal and Nikki a few weeks ago, but Jock hasn't had a playmate since he was only a few weeks old.  he turned two on 19 July - time is flying!

this is the birthday card I sent to Ati in Norway for herbirthday - part of the Fibre Fever group.  The flower heads are made from the lovely Sari silk ribbons from The Thread Studio.  I bought a couple of skeins at the Textile Festival in Brisbane, and this is the first time I have used some of them.

Sadly, the Textile Forum is no more.  Many of the exhibitors were unhappy this year and the show has been cancelled for next year.  It was wonderful for us country plebs to be able to go and see so many exciting things in one place.  Hopefully someone else will eventually run with the idea.

I was also glad to see on a recent walk in the Botanic Gardens that there are still a few trees left for the egrets to roost in.  I think it will be at least another twelve months before these trees are pulled out.

Now I had better go and dye some lace with some new dyes which I also bought at the Textile Festival.  Hopefully photos next time.

felting yet again

I have made the scarf for my DIL in colours she chose, I am quite pleased with it, but have made a mistake - again!  I  forgot to add wisps of wool over the top of the heavy silk thread I lay out and it hasn't felted in in some places.  But I have discovered my pen style needle felting tool with one needle works a treat.  I am on roster on the Gardens desk tomorrow so now I have my task for the day.  The weather is supposed to be more of the same as we have had today - and that is horrible - so there are unlikely to be many visitors! 

Lorenza from Italy sent me this page for July for the Fibre Fever group.  All the pages are so different.

This lovely photo was taken late in the afternoon a few days ago when the weather was much nicer - looking at the old water tower at the Gardens from the other direction to the one on my header.  The egrets you can see in the tree if you click, will not be very happy now.  The trees have been cut down in the last two days to make way for the development of the next stage of the Gardens.  There will only be plants native to our immediate region planted over there.  These trees are ones which came up of their own accord many years ago.  I hate to see them go, but we do need to promote the local flora so that more are grown in home gardens around Mackay and district.

A scarf, some fibre fever pages...............and life's tough

blogger has finally decided to load the pictures, even if not in the order I wanted!  I have been tryingfor the last two days to show you this page which Maria sent me from Portugal as part of the Fibre Fever swap. My theme is blue/green.

This is the page I sent to Birgit in Germany - her theme is cream/white.  We both have very easy themes - my lack of imagination is thereason for the simplicity of mine!!

this is the latest nuno felted scarf I have made, using a fine silk scarf which I dyed green.  this was a practice run before I make my Canberra DIL one for her birthday.  I am quite pleased with the results, though I would like it to have been a bit longer.  I have now worked out that if I position my ironing board right beside the table at the same height I can add another 20 cm so that is what I am doing for the next one - which will be onto silk georgette dyed a deep pinky red.

I had to post this photo of Jock - he has taken overthe chairs upstairs in the office and flakes out completely!  He likes his creature comforts.  He didn't even move when bill dropped his pet rabbit toy on top of him, and only opened an eye for a second when I took the photo.  Oh to be a dog!

Around the garden at home

I am still getting used to using Picasa, which has grabbed myu photos and I can't seem to upload except through Picasa! This is taking forever, but so far today I have had no issues with Blogger and I haven't yet bothered to change to Wordpress.  The first two photos are in the wrong  order.  I know I showed the Congea last year, but this year I think it is even better and I have to show you again.  Bill is threatening to prune it back severely in the next week or so because it has taken over so much of the roof, but it will continue to deepen its colour for another two or three weeks yet - if he leaves it alone!

The Zygocacti are flowering in all their glory at present also.  The orangey/pink one below is hard to photograph as I only seem to remember to take my camera downstairs when the sun is shining on it! 

This one has a lovely pale pink tinge to it and loves the position in the shade house.

I haven't shown you a photo of Jock for a while.  he absolutely insists on having a game of chase the kong in the late afternoons.  Bill makes him wait very expectantly for a second or two before throwing it for him.  Kongs are toys made especially for dogs to chase, they last much better than tennis balls and they bounce eccentrically - more exciting for everyone!

I have felted another bowl - not aiming for the see through effect this time, just the colour.  I took a photo of the last one with a candle in it, I will see if I can find it and get back into this post to add it.

Well, blogger is very well behaved this afternoon!  This bowl is not really as yellow as that, but I couldn't make it any whiter with the night light.  I doubt if I will bother to empty out the battery operated tealight to turn it on and drop it back inside very often however!

Now I had better start typing out the minutes of the last committee meeting for the Gardens Friends which is what I should have been doing before I started this!

More felting

Life seems to have be remarkably hectic since I returned from Brisbane a couple of weeks ago.  I found time to practise my felting before I forgot what we did in Brisbane, but I didn't make a very good job.  I carefully laid out all the fibres in a lovely thin layer on the silk - all in the one direction - so of course it didn't shrink sideways very much at all!  I will learn my lesson well though for next time, and this will become book covers or something else interesting.

I spent last weekend at another felting workshop here in Mackay.  It was sponsored by Artspace Mackay and the tutor was Wanda Bennett, al very talented lovely lady with a great sense of humour.  There were twelve of us at the course and we all had so much fun we have asked for another workshop later in the year.

This is a photo of some of the things we made.  There were some very talented ladies in the group. The first day we made a 3D vessel which was a fascinating process.  They all had balloons blown up tightly inside towards the end of the process to give them their shape.  Mine is still drying out so I can't pop the balloon, probably tomorrow.

This is a closer photo of the vessels and a few of the bags.  We made those on Sunday, also some little nuno felted bags.  The flowers had traditional felt for the lower layer and nuno felt for the top layer.

I loved the colours and the texture of this bag.  Every workshop I have attended has shown a slightly different method of felting.  I think in the end you take what you want from each tutor and make up your own method.  I will definitely be making another vessel soon so I can hope I can remember the instructions I wrote down and follow the photos I took!  Wanda had a series of different sized vessels with tea lights inside them.  they give a lovely soft glow in the evening.

Just for a change of topic there is a new dog in the family.  A gorgeous young kelpie labrador cross has come to live with our son and his family.  Her name is Sascha, she is twelve months old, partly trained to lead and sit and come when called and Alexander is totally besotted with her already.  He was in trouble for letting her jump up, but he plays with her every minute he can.

Now I need to clean up my workroom so hopefull I can soon start on the Hot Needles, Cool Stitches online course I signed up to do and haven't even looked at the embellisher yet!

Qld Quilters Association quilts

This is the last collage, I hope I haven't bored you too much - you don't have to read it of course if you don't wish to.  The yellow quilt at the top centre is by Linda Robertus who is featured in the latest Quilting Arts magazine.  There were a lot more quilts than shown here and they were wonderful to look at - but I still don't want to be a quilter!
I read on Dale's  blog that she didn't feel the show had the excitement it should have.  I am sad that I am never likely to have the opportunity to attend Ally Pally to see the zing she was talking about, but for someone who is only able to go as far as Brisbane for a show, I found this year's event to be inspiring.  I am so glad they have started feeaturing classes again - last year they had none, and I found lots of stalls selling stuff I had never before seen.  I know the show could be improved but I am so glad it happened again this year, and I certainly hope it continues again next year.  Of course, one of the highlights for me was meeting up with Dale again and watching Jacinta and Dale having fun playing in the Artists' working area.
I need to get back to the nuno felted scarf I have been making today - I have made it too wide, but I have learnt a lot - and I think I can remember most of what we were taught in Wendy Bailye's class!