March is finished.

PARIS - the most wonderful musical with great tunes. By an amazing Australian artist - Jon English.

I am really pleased that I have finished this piece. It was a real struggle trying to interpret my vision for the music into beads and stitch. The background is coloured with watercolour pencils and ironed to fix. I then applied a piece of chiffon which I then ruched onto the background fabric. Because I tried to leave the stitching area not ruched it was not even but it does show the movement I wanted as like marble.

I used a different bead for each section of the letter to symbolise the various parts of the Paris story. I was pleased that the coin worked well and looks vaguely like a roman helmet which was my aim.

now onto the next one - Maree - very alternative and wonderful music tastes so this next piece should be fun.

What I have been doing?

I have done of two of the three canvas's for seminar. The pictures are not great but I am quite pleased with how it has gone. The third canvas is on the frame ready to start this evening.

I have continued stitching on the BJP for March. I found a coin from Brazil which had a face that was good but slightly bigger than i wanted so it appears slightly large. I tried to use a brick stitch for the bezel which was not too bad but a bit uneven. I am filling in around with little picots using the delica and #15 beads. I will keep going with this today as the weather is really shocking and quite cold so I can sit in front of the TV and catch up with viewing.
Also since the last posting I have completed two more christmas decorations for sale so hoping that I will be able to do a couple more in the next week.
I am going to see Shrek 4 this afternoon with friends as a relief from being inside as well I watched the Rocky Horror Picture Show with friends who had never seen it. It was a great couple of hours and fun to see it again.
Diane

Another Square done

What a great weekend. Saturday was wet and horrible so a perfect day to stitch on Heart of a Cabin. Finished two logs so really pleased and also started on the third of my beaded journal pieces for this year. Here is the finished square for HOTC and the sixth one I have done. Had a letter from L Reinmiller to say that we should get our canvas this week so this will be all that will be done on this piece for the next few months as I need the stretcher bars.

The third BJP for me this year is my friend Kim from Melbourne, Australia. She introduced me to a wonderful piece of music in about 1992 – a musical written by Jon English called Paris. It is the story of Greeks and Trojans with the horse and Helen playing wonderful roles. I have not seen it performed but have seen several clips on YouTube of the various performances in Australia. The music is wonderful and this piece symbolises the longevity of the story – I have tried to get a stone like look in the letters but the warmth of the wooden horse. I have taken a small snap of the semi stitched piece so you can see it.

Sunday was also spent stitching with friends from the embroidery guild on our christmas raffle. We are stitching an advent calendar so it was making the 24 toys to hang on the calendar then our next meeting will have some of the last bits to do and Maree will have all the putting together. It will look fabulous I am sure and I will be making a couple of new toys to hang on my advent calendar. Currently I have a selection of about 30 to choose from so that is really neat.

Progress

Had a lazy weekend but still busy. Creative Stitchers met on Saturday and it was interesting to see the different classes from conferenc. The remainder of the weekend has seen progress on Heart of the Cabin. Finished one square and started the next which is now halfway there. I am pleased with myself and hoping to finish this one before our canvases arrive for seminar. I am still enjoying this project and I realise that it will be a long term project but that is fine. When the canvases arrive I will have to change projects as I need the stretcher bars.
Got the list for my class with Beth Robertson and Suzanne Howren. It looks to be like lots of fun but concentrated time. I will have to do some of the preparation when we get to San Francisco as I am not able to buy the canvas here in NZ. Still it is not too much to get prepared.
Here also is a photo of the latest purchase – Geraldine has been around now for five weeks and is wonderful to drive. She has been named after one of the muppets from Fraggle Rock – definitely a girl car so could not be called Kermit (name suggested by friends at school). Mum and I took her to Hamilton recently and it was a great ride so really pleased with the purchase.

BJP progress is slow but moving. I have now got a letter to trace for the next one and will look at choosing beads over the next couple of days. This one will be mostly browns and I have some glass chips which I think might work. It was a challenge to trace my pattern but hoping that it will look great when stitched together.

latest work

Decided that I needed to complete another square for Heart of the Cabin. Here it is nearly finished so that is a great event. 5/16 ths of this piece done. I really struggled with the shading as I found that six strands were too many so had to use four so the shading is a bit shorter.

This weekend has been busy with fighting off a cold and having too much to do at school to have the time off. After Tuesday I can relax a little bit when things will settle down.

Friday night Marilyn asked me to bake for a cake stall to assist Nathan – pharmacist at her work who will be attending the paraplegic world cycling champs in September. I made my best cakes and they were a failure so Saturday morning I made two others. The new recipe this month is butterfly cakes from Healthy Food Guide and also remade the mocha nut butterball cookies. I found this on the internet and they are great. Both worked well so that is two more recipes for my challenge. A recipe a month this year.

Here are the two pieces that I did finish over the holidays. They are from conference 2008 - Allie Snow class of textile art. Really enjoyed this and think this is what encouraged me to start with the BJP. These are my first two flower princesses. I have one more started and would like to perhaps make more for display in the next Art Society Exhibition.

Another Kit done

I see that I have this picture on twice but I am very excited by it. Now what to do with it - it is very heavy - too heavy for scissors and not certain how to attach it to my new bag for school but i will think on it.
looking forward to starting the next laura kit - think I will do the scissor case

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.