Fundraising for Alzheimers

I was surfing the net the other day and found that Ami Simms is raising funds for research into Alzheimers through the auction of small quilts. Since my mother had dementia for many years, I thought I would make a quilt for this initiative. I read this morning that they have discovered an Alzheimers vaccine that works on mice, I can only hope that trials on humans will be successful.

Quilt show

Here is a feast for the eyes, beautiful quilts from a Dutch quilt show. Enjoy!

Recycled textiles

The is very much a WIP. Made from sample net curtaining, most likely c.1950s, that was given to me by my friend, an op shop shopper par excellence! I suddenly had the idea that this stuff would shrink given half a chance, so I cut it up, machine embroidered it together under dissolvable film, and of course, it did not shrink. Great re-thinking of project,and the crazy patch of lace curtain and doyleys are in process of being appliqued to tea dyed cotton with cotton batting, so that eventually it will be recycled into a wallhanging.

Recycling is a bit of a buzz word these days, but having grown up in the war when clothing was on coupon, I lived the first years of my life in clothes that had been something else originally, including parachute silk knickers that my Mum fashioned for me and my sister. The fact that it was bright yellow did not deter her at all!

Tumbleweed postcard

I wasn't able to get this image onto my blog the other day, but things have magically righted themselves, and here is my hand embroidered postcard celebrating the randomness of tumbleweed blowing across the outback terrain.

Tatting

I found a new book by Judith Connors in the library, 'Contemporary Tatting; New Designs from an Old Art'. I think I will have to buy this book, meanwhile I have been trying to master the central mock ring - grrrr, I will get there, but not just yet!

Beanies and more beanies

After my mass production of moebius scarves and long scarves over the last two years, I have changed to knitting beanies this year. This is a selection of those I have knitted. The dark blue one is for my son who cycles to work and being a chef has very early starts or very late finishes to his days. The others are mainly for charity. I still have more wool that will make another two beanies, this morning I found a nice cable patterned child's beanie, pattern looks good.

Still trying to sell our house, I spent home open time with my daughter and our dogs. We had a nice feast on hot cross buns, and later when it was a bit cooler pruned and deadheaded some of her roses, the great heat we had resulted in some dead wood on one of her roses and we took that all out. Now she is off to feed and ride horses and I am home thinking about cooking dinner.

Hand dye fabrics

It was pointed out to me that the link didn't work in a previous post. Have just been to find the link again - here it is: http://www.amafu.co.za/

Needlecase Round Robin

I have joined a needlecase round robin with my online crazy patchwork group. This is my unembellished needlecase cover which is to be sent on next month to start its round of this Australian group of crazy ladies. I chose to make mine in red so that when it is finished and turned into a needlecase I should be able to easily find it!

Tumbleweed postcard

I've been offline with computer woes, but am all clean now and have a new anti-virus 'kill everything' programme installed. Only hope it does not turn its attention to me!

I finished the tumbleweed postcard. Amazing that I am not at all impressed with the compost dyed silk, but it does seem to be inspiring me. Postcard on compost dyed silk with some of my hand dyed silk threads.

zapped tyvek

Here is a piece of zapped tyvek created to age a treasure chest. I painted this piece with gold, copper and forest green acrylics before zapping and although the photo is a little on the dark side, the tyvek has a lovely sheen with the green creating the aged look with the way it has blended into the metallics.

Treasure chest

I have been getting stuff ready to apply to my treasure chest. My box has just been hauled up from the briny deep and so need to look aged and worn. To this end I have had a gloriously messy day painting nappy liner, dryer sheets and tyvek and trying to stop them blowing round the garden before dry. I have done some zapping with the heat gun, but as yet have taken no photos of this part of the fun.

Hand dye fabrics

Nice site here for the quilters to browse through. Glenda does lovely hand dyes and screen prints, some with an African theme.

Fabric boxes

The challenge is to make a fabric box. I somehow did not feel inspired to do this, also although I had taken the right fabric with me, I did not match up the threads I had in my bag, so I scrolled through magazines and found the most gorgeous Russian icon to make, only I very much doubt if mine will have any religious content, like its historical counterparts.

And I think I may also sign up for Annie Rawle's workshop on boxes. Still trying to sell our house and keep things neat and tidy, I just feel my creativity is being stifled by now being able to delve amongst my stash to find just the right piece of fabric or thread to enhance whatever I am working on.

Catalyst Textile Workshops

Catalyst have just started their own weblog. These workshops have been running for several years and it is worthwhile taking a peek at the eye candy that will be on this blog from time to time. I'm certainly very tempted to do the trinket box workshop, both my daughters love boxes, and that is a nice little present with some little treasure to find in the box.

Tumbleweed WIP

Tumbleweed postcard - I have done cretan stitch over some of the background to look like sparsely vegetated soil. This has worked out rather well as the silk background has texture like sandy subsoil. Have just started embroidering the tumbleweed. Compost dyed background, the embroidery threads are some silk perles I dyed the other week. Love them!

Very small part of stash

My heart fails me when I look at this pile of fabrics ready for the challenge/workshop on Saturday. It does look like the 'rubbish' it has been designated by the people selling our house, but is mostly irreplaceable. The pile of coloured fabrics are part of what my friend inherited from her aunt, who was a dressmaker for most of her adult life. The fabrics are top quality, Jacquard silks, silk and silk velvet ribbon, etc., I would never be able to get stuff like this again, even though it is mere scraps.

Beanies

I finished the little beanie with the mock cable stitch, it does look nice, but I won't be doing that stitch again in a hurry. The one I am knitting is a lovely Italian wool/acrylic, nice and smooth wool, I was in Spotlight when they were selling this off for $2 a ball. Think this one might end up for me it is so pretty.

Getting workshop materials together

We have a challenge/workshop at my machine embroidery group on Saturday and I have a list of materials to get together. Hmmm, what to take, what to take, Joan is not giving out any hints, so I am not sure what sort of fabric play we will be doing.

Currently I am still in beanie mode, knitting a toddler beanie in pure wool for charity. Oh, why oh why did I choose to add the mock cable in the pattern I have, I never liked doing this stitch and still am not at all enthusiastic.

Yet more screenprinting

This is the third and last piece of screenprinting I did on Thursday. Do I hear a sigh of relief? I intend to add some foiling to this piece as I think that will add a bit of glamour to a rather lowering piece. Maybe I can turn it into a storm and add some lightening? I so enjoyed this whole thing that I went out and bought myself a silk screen kit today, luckily our local art supply shop had a sale on so I was able to get it a little cheaper.

More screenprinting

This time the leaf spray is printed onto a green fold resisted hand dye. I used blue, yellow and just a touch of red paint to get the image. Once I can sew again I think I will cut bands of leaf print and add them to the side of place mats.

Screenprinting

I have been wanting to learn to screenprint for ever! Today my friend showed me how to do this amazing thing. We used a stencil to obtain the print on some of my hand painted fabric. Three colours of paint were used to obtain the image; pink, yellow and red. I still have a lot of practice to do to obtain a perfect print, but Zoe even showed me how to patch up a bodged image.

It was fun to get away from my pristine up for sale house and have fun covering myself with paint and playing with textiles.

Toddler's beanie

Finished at long last! I find these days fine needles tend to hurt my hands so it has been a couple of rounds and then rest my hands piece of knitting. The yarn knitted up so prettily, it worked out in sort of spirals around the beanie, the patterning courtesy of random dyed knitting yarn, which actually is not at all random.