Gum Blossoms

 I have made a start on my gum blossoms.  Once again I just went to my stash to find the materials I needed.

winter woolliea

After spending too much time sorting problems with the internet I had a pleasant visit to some op shops.  

These beautiful cascade house crewel wools were less than 20% of the retail price - such a bargain.

They are great for embroidery but also work well with felting or creating with the embellishing machine.

These yarns are wonderfully soft and beautiful to work with.  

 

They will go into the stash until I am inspired.

living the dream

I am almost finished this wall hanging at last.  After many months I just need to sign it and add some embellishment and add a rod to hang it.

 

Art Doll

The weather is still pretty cold and wet so today I had a day of creativity.

First I sorted through my scraps and fibres I keep for felting and embellishing.

My friend Norma had asked me to make her a brooch:  the order was for a "doll" brooch, mainly red in colour and featuring a paint pallet.  So here it is.
 

  
It is not a good pic but you can see the little pallet.

I used my embellisher for most of this and luckily I had everything I needed in  my stash.

Winter is an ideal time to get on with special projects. 
 

A new leaf

 Today  I made a start on my second eucalyptus leaf.  

It is needlefelted onto evelon.  This time I have mainly used silk fibres with some wool rovings.  Down the centre I have used some stranded thread with is held down by the felting.

When this one is finished I will start on the gum blossoms.  I am trying to decide on a colour.  Red always looks effective but orange or yellow would be a possibility.

Thanks for reading my blog and I always appreciate any feedback or  comments.

 

A little cottage garden

I bought this pretty little doiley at an op shop some time ago: unfortunately the linen centre was badly stained so I have filled it in with some silk ribbon,

french knots and beads.

It looks really pretty and I am thinking of putting it on a cushion cover.

playtime

 I have been rather busy lately so I don't have much to show or write about.

While I was minding the twins today I noticed how many of their toys came from the op shop.

The little ride-on toy cost just a couple of dollars as did the toy in the first pic.

The lovely doll pram was a really good find: at $12 it was a bit on the high side (for op shops) but the girls just love it and use it a lot.

Clothes, rain boots and hats all come from the op shop and go back when they are outgrown.

I find op shopping really relaxing and I like the idea of re-using or recycling as much as possible.


If you haven't tried it - give it a go.  It helps the charities who run the shops, it helps our budget and it helps the environment.

 

shaky

Tonight we were shaken by an earth quake.  This is a most uncommon occurrence here.  It was not too destructive as far as I know and was centred away from where I live.  According to the reports is was about 5km beneath the surface and it was felt for hundreds of  miles around.  We do experience a little tremor every few years but this was much more substantial.  

I hope everyone is safe and there is not too much damage.  It is always very quiet here in the evenings but tonight it seems rather eerie. No dogs barking, no possums running across the roof: just silence.

Back to Bendigo

Today we went back to Bendigo.  He had a meeting to attend and I had the car.  

The weather was much better and I managed to take 148 photos in about 1 hour.  This collage shows some of the features of the area surrounding the Dragon Museum.

Bendigo was settled during the gold rush and many Chinese made their home here and there are many parts of Bendigo that reflect these early influences.  It is an interesting blend of the old and modern and eastern and western wherever you go.  Much of the old mine workings are also preserved and the civic buildings reflect the wealth of the area.

After taking the photos I called in at a shop I glimpsed on our way in.  Art House is a treasure trove for anyone interested in colour and creativity.  

I bought home brochures and colour charts for future reference.

 Of course I didn't leave without spending some money.  I bought some new pencils and crayons and some "dry medium" pumice to experiment with.

There were some other books and goodies that I will show you another time.

Next door to the art supply shop is an op shop - you can imagine  how delighted I was.

I found this interesting implement but have no idea what it is for.
Any answers would be welcome. 

This pretty piece of lace was too good to leave behind.

And then just as I was starting to enjoy myself it was time to buy some lunch and coffee for our drive home.

I will put some other pics of the buildings and gardens in future posts.

It really was a lovely day out: about 5 hours driving for 2 hours sightseeing but we enjoy traveling together and it means we spend most of the day together.

blooming beautiful

needleweaving and french knots

The last few days I have been working on this little piece of embroidery.

The needleweaving and blanket stitch are in a variegated perle thread and the french knots in single strand cotton.  

I am not sure what I will use it for yet but it was relaxing to do.

cloudy days and creativity

 After several cold and very rainy days it was lovely to be able to go out and walk on Frankston Beach this afternoon.

 Before long the clouds rolled in again though.

 The area has a lot of these coastal banksias in bloom at present.


The brushes are so big and soft looking.

 After the wild weather of the past few days the water was quite flat.

As you can see there was no one else in sight.  The whole beach to ourselves.

 I have been working on one of my book covers during the past few days.  A couple of leaves, some metallic paint and some heat set crystals have just about completed this.  The crystals are hard to photograph but they look quite pretty.

silk scarves and cleaning

Although Tuesday is usually my op shopping day, I was kept indoors most of today by the weather.

I just popped out for the supermarketing and came home again.

However I do have some pics of recent purchases.  Scarves and hankies are always useful and especially if they are silk.

The scarf in the middle pic is lovely dusty pink with autumn leaves.  It is not in good condition so I think it will be cut up.

Probably the most exciting bargain is the vacuum cleaner I bought last week.  I have been looking for a new one for months but they are so expensive.  My playroom/workroom is downstairs and seperate from the rest of the house and carrying the vac up and down the outside stairs is just a pain so I really needed a second one.  When I saw this Volta upright I was thrilled.  $29.95 and home it came.  It works a treat too.

So you see op shopping is not all frivolous - there are some real practical items to be found.  Recycling at its best.

 

more needlefelting

 I have managed to do quite a lot more work on this felted piece.


Yesterday I went to my textile group at   the art group and took my pfaff embellishing machine with me.  


It is amazing how much you can do if you devote time to it.


I added quite a lot of synthetics to the surface: this blunts the needles and eventually breaks them.  I only had 4 (of five) needles left and by the end of the session I had 2 left.
Since then I have been using the clover hand needlefelting tool to add more wool and silk.
The bottom left hand corner is built up with grey silk and then some mossy green silk on top. 

The burnt tree is built up with a lot of very fine silk fibres: a few added at a time.

I am going to frame this piece so before I go any further I will try to fine some mounting board and mat to see how it looks.  

Walking in the rain

Wednesday was a cold and drizzly day so I dressed the little girls in their wet weather gear and we went for a walk along the beach path.  They would walk a few steps and then stop to look over the side of the wall.  Spending time with little ones like this really makes you stop and look at everything along the way.  They were fascinated by the movement of the water and at one stage there was a flock of cormorants fishing in the shallows.


A lovely way to spend a rainy morning.