Two more beaded objects

I have not been well this week so have been home for a couple of days and finished two beaded decorations. The first is from a class I took last year helping people read a pattern from bead and button. The second is from a class that I have taken just recently. This is the third one of these I have made this year - called Tania's Feathers. It was a really fun class and the ladies enjoyed it. Hopefully they will all go on and do some of their own variations.
Also nearly finished the cover of my album from conference. I will post photos of that piece later in the week.

Tania's Feathers red with silver.

B&B Pattern completed from 2011.

February finishes

2011 Guild Retreat project finished.

Our embroidery guild have a retreat every year at Opunake and we usually do a project for the weekend. Last year's project was taken from the Stitch magazine and we used the transfer paints on chiffon. This was really fun to stitch and most have finished it with one person doing two - a dawn and a dusk picture. I painted my canvas black to make the dawn setting pop of the screen.

2011- Lee's pomegranate scissor keeper.

My other finish this week is a pomegranate scissor keeper from one of our guild meetings. Lee designed this delightful keeper and I finally managed to put it together. I was not happy with the way the beads sat in the centre so added more. I have put it on a thread cutter for my travels. These are handy for the plane journeys planned this year.
I have also finished the sample ball for the Tania's Feathers class and will take a photo soon. Still doing ATC's for the BJP 2011 and have another three planned out ready to bead.

New Christmas Tree

Mum and I took delivery of these new christmas trees last weekend. They are really neat and a great way to display all the decorations. no leaf drop either.

I had my class make the sequinned dainty ball which was really fun. Another lady came along, Naomi and she really enjoyed it so we have another person to come to beading classes next year. 

Tony and Dot outside my house with the mountain in the background on Tuesday night.

Dot (spare sister from Melbourne) gave us short notice that they were coming to stay. We had a great couple of days with them (Dot, Tony, Geoff and Pauline) all mixing in with the Stratford families. They managed to get to see the mountain, the only overseas visitors this year that have had the privilege so that was good.

Holiday catch ups

Adding the beaded face.

It is time for the end of the school term and holiday time. I have six days off this time and busy completing my entry into the national exhibition. I am busy getting all the elements stitched and added onto the base goddess. Hopefully I will be completed by next thursday when I go back to work. Soduku has been getting a couple of squares stitched each day so I have finished 5 sets and onto the 6th set of nine stitches.

Also I have been completing a few other jobs over the past weeks. I made 4 baby bibs (with one to complete) so that is a job of the list. I have my notebook to make for our trip away - we have tickets to the ice hockey in New York but no trip up to the crown of the Statue of Liberty.
I have my cake mixer fixed (not doing to badly for something that is 30 years old) and purchased a pizza stone so that is the next cooking element. This afternoon I am going to try out the Tarte Tartin recipe from Masterchef as I have a suitable dish now.

On the book front I have been listening to the new audio books from the public library. They come on a little MP3 player and really great to use. Have another which is on CD's so that will take a couple of days to listen to but makes the beading and hand stitching go faster.

The bike riding has started and I am off this afternoon for a 20 minute ride around town while I get my confidence back. Hopefully I will be able to keep it up. Certainly I am more confident in changing gears and using the hand brakes. The weather is not very conducive to riding bikes but it will improve as we move nearer to spring and summer.

Busy working

A busy fortnight has seen me make a number of coffee cup holders for small coffee cups but I am going to make some larger ones now. They have been really fun and I sold about ten of them so was pleased with the effort. I have made a number to give away as presents for Xmas so that is a start.


The next exciting thing that has happened has been my attendance at a creative stitchers play weekend. Jo and Anne from Creative Craft Supplies came and showed us how to use lots of their products; rubbing plates, polysol dyes, shiva stiks, xpandapaint as well as using some new materials polysuede and evalon. It was loads of fun and I have painted lots of paper with colour to start making some little goddess dollies. Think that they will look really cute and hoping to spend next holidays on making them.

Also I have started the ANG needlepointers piece of work “Sudoku” by Marilyn Owen. We met Marilyn at the seminar in Ohio and I am looking forward to doing this with the class. The class members have chosen the colours that Marilyn used (or slight adjustment) but mum and I are stitching differently. Mum is doing hers all in greys and I am using orange and black so it looks quite vibrant.

Went to see “Mozart’s Sister” last night at the Kings Theatre in Stratford and it was really great. Lovely costumes, sets and even the inside of Versailles I am sure.

Diane

Busy Stitching week

Busy ten days.
We have had our Latvian class with 21 attending the two classes and lots of progress made by various stitchers. Lots of colour choices as well with some changing colours halfway through (Lee). I have only stitched in class and pleased with my progress and colours chosen by Maree as an accident selection.
          I have all but finished the stitching on my canvas biscornu and will sew it up over the weekend. I am very pleased with it despite having problems following the pattern and colours. Should have had four threads and I used five or six. Should have had five patterns with three of each stitched the same to make the 15 sides but I managed to only do two the same of each pattern and then add in my own stitches. I think this comes from having too many favourite stitches. Ann (tutor from weekend) showed us her little blackwork biscornu with 15 different patterns stitched on it. I may have to do something like that with my Florence fabric and a silk thread.
          I have started doing a couple of swaps with swap-BoT.com and sent my postcard off on Monday. This week I have two more to send off – need to put eyes on a Christmas decoration before I can put it in the post on Friday so that is tonight’s task. After that it will be to start the decoration for next months swap. Think I will be in advance of this one as I have my idea and want to get it made.
          The holidays are looking to be busier than ever and hoping to have a few days at the beach with mum at some stage so that will be lots of stitching time on walk on the wild side.


Ann showing the weekday class some of her finishing and other designs.



My colours.  I have nearly completed one half of the holbein stitching.

          As far as beading goes I have completed febraury BJP (no photo taken yet) and it seems like the ATC size is the go for this year. I am trying to complete a couple of some of them so I can send them to Karen Cohen for the ATC swap so holidays will mean that another couple will be completed and can be posted off to her. I have the May page for 2010 to do and I am thinking about whether to continue with that series as I enjoyed the process from each person but it was really hard to get inside their heads.

Stitching taking place



Tabitha's pocket in one of her incarnations.

It has been a busy couple of weeks with stitching taking place on a number of things. I have been putting more stuff onto my Tabitha’s pocket – more needed according to the tutor.

I have also completed the pre-stitching for the Latvian class for next week and chosen some colours. I hope that they look good and I will take a photo of the class next week.

Also I attended our regional embroidery retreat and make a book using paper. It was really loads of fun and quick to do with lots of exciting things being done. I had a blast and think I may make a few more at some stage (great idea to use up old visoflix which is not working too great).
Also stitched a little more on my BJP but not certain if the February one is finished yet.
My Biscornu has three squares to go so wanting to get that done before our meeting on April 19th so I can sew it together at the meeting. It is looking good and I am pleased that I have done it. I will have to look into another way of displaying my pincushions as getting too many for the basket now.

Update on Stitching

It seems like a long time since I wrote anything and I feel as if no-one is watching. At night class we are doing a short class with Lee (www.notesfromunderthemountain.blogspot.com) and making her pocket for Titania. It was loads of fun last night and we have another night in two weeks so I will try and remember to take a photo of us all.

My pocket is for Tabitha as shown in the photo below. I have also been busy completing stitching for the Woman’s Institute Arts Festival - great expectations as mum keeps telling everybody about my work and I have finished several items, cushion, craft bag, knitting needle holder, one button bracelet with another on the way and two brooches.

I would like to get a prize but I am competing with lots of experienced ladies so fingers crossed. Tonight I will finish the button bracelet and then label everything so I can take it to mum’s tomorrow as the festival is on Thursday.

Beaded Journal Project
I am hoping to get another month done after this week. I have started the backgrounds for two more ATC's so one is done and I will photograph it to put onto here later this week.
This year I have been making ATC's which will go into the book I am now keeping. I decided I liked the size of that and inspiration for me will be words, poetry, songs that mean something to me at the time.

Holidays are busy!

We are in the midst of our winter holiday so the weather started off not great but for the last week it has been fine days and minus temperatures overnight. Still a good excuse to sit in the conservatory and stitch.

Last weekend mum and I travelled to Hamilton to see the exhibitions for the ANZEG biannual conference. I was slightly disappointed in the number of entries particularly in the miniatures and members and hoped that many entries were not judged out of the competition. The variety of work in the junior members exhibition was phenomenal and I was really excited by our junior tutors news that next year our group may be moving into town and that will give me an opportunity once a month to share with them.

I purchased a couple of books – one on inchies and making backgrounds so I am inspired to rejoin swap-bot and see what’s going on. The other was the new one from Effie Mitrofanis, an Australian embroiderer, who I think has a wonderful way of combining colour, techniques and textiles to produce some exciting work.

I have also finished another cell phone dangle for my sister for Christmas and this made me finish the cube that I had nearly done. This was another kit by Laura McCabe and I have to say that they are the most delightful kits with plenty of seed beads so you can be a bit picky with them if you want.

the laura mccabe cube that i have finished. as usual I had to change something - the crystals in the corner - i did not like the colour of the ones provided so I used some of my own and will use the others in another piece.

March month is coming along for beaded journal project so this year has not been so successful with completing pieces but I have April’s mapped out in my book so that is good and I have mounted one piece already although I have to put a few more beads on the January piece to make it fit into the page opening.

School has been busy with things going on and I think there will be job changes for all in the offices at the moment so that will be an exciting time ahead. I have also been doing the advert so hopefully tomorrow I will have the last advertiser on board and that will be a great thing. This will be the first year that the cost to the school is less than half so that is good news. Jessica from our local paper is lovely to work with and she has lots of great ideas for layouts, etc which are exciting.

activities this week.

This week has been a bit difficult as I got to school on Monday to be told that a member of my night class had died. She had just over 12 months with cancer but finally went to peace on Sunday 17 Jan. her funeral on Thursday was very emotional affair with her family and a huge turnout.

Our embroidery this month is bargello and the workshop at my place was attended by a small but dedicated group. I completed the decoration below which uses the pine tree pattern. I have used a rainbow gallery rayon thread and carefully chosen the variation to give the illusion of the trees. Was most impresses and Mary showed me a new method of finishing which makes a nice decoration.

Heart of a cabin is coming along and I have found that some of the threads are too thick on the 22 count canvas so altering the threads to use #8 perle and less strands. Also because getting the anchor threads is sometimes difficult I have been substituting them slightly. Mum is further ahead with being on the 3rd block. I am hoping to finish block two this week and even get onto block three.

My embellished canvas piece is coming along but I have not really stitched any since I returned from Auckland. Having an internal debate about the colours so will see what happens to this. May remove some of the plain thread and use the variegated that I have self dyed some years ago.

School starts in earnest this week with two days of power cuts so that will be fun with all the reenrolments happening. Alice and David did okay but Alice was not pleased with her results overall. Used my slow cooker for the first time and it was okay. Was concerned all day about it being on but will get used to it I am sure.

heart of the cabin - block 1

This is the first block for the heart of the cabin cyber workshop. I have generally got the same colours for the dark family but have moved into the rust colours for the alternate family. I had to use a cording thread for the hearts in log 1 as we do not get the renaissance threads in New Zealand. Still I think it looks okay and we are using varities that work as we go. I have not put the beads in as I thought I would do that last as I may have to source special beads from USA. I have enjoyed this and have done most of the log 1 in block 2. very slow progress I know but hoping over the summer holiday to continue with more.
diane

pictures of projects

this is the beginnings of the August man. the circle of material is from an old school blazer and will not be completely covered. this man will also not be filled in as if to say all the inspiring ideas and creative thoughts have been spread around him over the past 12 months.


this is the beginnings of the Canvas piece called Heart of the cabin.
it is loads of fun and tonight i am completing the first two bars so i can do the next one tomorrow. This is from an ANG cyberworkshop and the third one my mum and I have done.

Holiday Break

The winter holiday break is nearly finished and I have completed the stitching on Pukeko Patch, my piece from 2008 embroidery conference. I have almost completed two more bjp pieces just need to tidy them up and post them on the blog so then only two more to do and 1 to finish in august. it has been a fun year and not certain if i will do it next year as comtemplating another cyber stitch class.
also been doing my swap bot entries so need to get them all done this week for posting away.

Creative canvas comes alive

embellished canvas class at the weekend was great. This is my book cover half done so I am getting excited about it. I have four more nights that I can stitch on it before I have to put it aside for another piece - Pukeko Patch. It has been fun using stitches in a more random way than I traditionally do.


Inchies number 2. This is the set that I have sent to Cheryl in USA. I hope she likes the beaded stars done with #15 beads. I love these stars and have made lots using plastic beads for christmas trees.

Stitching is coming along

Inspiration is coming out my ears this month it seems. I have been making up some kits for a couple of friends to make a beaded angel and also thinking about some new patterns for christmas decorations.
My mum and I usually make about 20 of a pattern before I teach it to anyone so I have to make up some new ones for next year. this year i will be teaching a set of three decorations called "Neptunes Waves" using a combination of a honeycomb net and russian braid. Neptune because I was at the beach when I was fiddling with the pattern. I really love the russian braid and find it a great way to cover a shape, especially an egg or oblong but sometimes the joining of the ends is always fun.