Biscornu Finished; BJP 2011

Had an interesting week and finished another item. So pleased with myself as this is a 2011 guild project – started and finished in the one year. It is a 15 sided biscornu from the Stitch magazine from the Embroiderer’s Guild of England. I used a rainbow gallery encore thread in the greens and added a green marlitt, bright yellow perle 5 with a second variegated perle 5 in pale yellow plus the lime green thread was a rayon from Jane Van Keulen (a thread dyer form New Zealand). - Photo will come next time.

February 2011 BJP

February 2011 BJG - Red Eyes

Another ATC finished for the 2011 BJP so this is continuing the theme of eyes - “Red Eyes”. The word added to this one is precious. Lots of thoughts went through my head about this one and how precious our eyes are. Along with the thinking that eyes are precious the title of this piece was “Red Eyes”. Red eyes are eyes that are sore and inflamed hence the very redness of this piece. Precious comes from the fact that eyes that are often inflamed, sore and diseased may lead to blindness and the world of darkness, hence the precious sight is gone. A little bit of darkness in the centre of one eye shows that blindness is creeping.

Red eye also the late night flight into this modern age, a movie from 2005, the effect in photographs when using a flash and lots of eye disease.

Other finished items:

Also finished this month is Stephanie's birthday present - the three knitted coathangers. Lots of fun to knit and gives me something to do at morning tea time. I enjoyed these as all three are different.

The next thing to show are the two birds I sent for my swap with Carol in Tasmania. I am hoping that she should have received them by now so here they are. One of her favourite colours is purple so I did a purple one for her and realised (a week later) after I had sent them that I did not date and initial them. My apologies Carol for this oversight.

Birds sent to Carol in Tassie for the Swap - Bird for my christmas tree.

Also just done today is the most gorgeous phone charm from Maree for my birthday. A little lion face peers out from my phone now.

Latest stitching

I have had the weekend in bed with a dreadful cold. Started on Friday with a sore throat, saturday I had the rudolph nose and sunday the achy joints etc. Monday I spent most of in bed so not much stitching done.
Friday night I finished another part of Stephanie's birthday present and I will post the pictures next week after she recieves it at Easter.
Saturday was a busy day - I did a bit more on my Latvian mat as I had to spend 2 1/2 hours at the hairdressers on Saturday morning so I was pleased with that time being useful. Saturday afternoon I spent with Maree sorting out colours for Soduku and Crystal Waters.
Saturday night I was determined to sew up my biscornu and made great strides. Unfortunately sunday when I looked at it I did not have the pattern right and some of the squares would have matched. Backwards stitching and restitching later I am onto the last five squares and will be able to stuff it this week.
Sunday I also did some work on my colourific piece as well as starting to write my story about my goddess. I hope she turns out okay. I could not find the bead pieces that I have made but they will be somewhere and I do have more to make. I also completed the February BJP peice except for the hand stitching and applying the back (still undecided as I think I will put them into my book).
I also sent of three swaps for swap-bot - two tea swaps and one christmas decoration so I am excited to recieve parcels. I received one today from Europe and it is full of lovely teas that Suzie and I want to try.
Keep stitching everyone.

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.

Another month

January 29th

March 2010 BJP "Snake eyed floozy" - line from Capricorn Sister by Mother Love Bone

Another month has nearly finished and I have completed the third page of my 2010 BJP. This one is attributed to Maree, a friend who has widened my music taste so it now includes things like malfunkshun, kings of leon and nine inch nails. This piece is from Mother Love Bone, song: Capricorn Sister and the line reads “Snake eyed floozy”.

I have printed a picture of Mary (Madonna or Magdalene) and then an eye. Maree is a fan of eqyptian gods and the eye I have turned into a snake with the addition of beads in a snake shape. Mary Magdalene is regarded as the world’s most famous fallen woman but is also a Madonna figure of the power of redemption. I found this piece quite a challenge as my initial piece had a snake bead on it but it would not sit right and I could not bead around it. I have shown it to Maree and she really liked it so that was great.

Starting on the 2011 BJP and I am choosing to do the ATC card size so I can do a swap with Karen (Florida). I have made the backgrounds for January and thoughts to go with it will come on the next posting. I will be using words that mean something to me each month but may also use quotes from other. I am hoping to get my computer sorted as i cannot always download pictures and can never get anything that needs an adobe product.



I have been keeping in touch with the BJP'ers and found this via bloghopping on Sue's Craft Cupboard. http://tammysprinkle.blogspot.com/ has a Pay It Forward activity. The idea is to promise something handmade to the FIRST 5 people who leave a comment here. To be eligible, you too must repost this offering something handmade by you to 5 other people. The rules are that it must be handmade by you and it must be sent to your 5 people some time in 2011.
So - I promise to send the first five people leaving a comment here, a hand-made-by-me gift - soon, but remember you have to do it too. It sounded like a fun thing to do and as I love "snail mail" and "surprises" - and the film "Pay it Forward" - I'm following Tammy's idea too.

A Busy day

I have had a really busy day today with starting to make icicles for my winter goddess, complete the background for an ATC and a beaded journal page. also I have spent 15 minutes at a time cleaning up my ipod and deleted over 500 duplicate songs and spent all day listening to the Kings of Leon. Think they will be my band of choice at the moment.
Also spent 15 minutes at a time cleaning up my desk area and have nearly taken every thing off it to dust off the dust bunnies (the power of 15 minutes at a time - http://www.flylady.net/)
Also I have spent time tidying up all my photos from seven years so they are all stored onto a remote hard disk and then hopefully I will be able to get my computer fixed or sorted as I am not able to do anything with adobe files, quicktime or flashplayer so I cannot download any e-books onto my e-reader.
two more days and work starts again so going to spend several hours beading and stitching now and then to bed. Shopping tomorrow for new clothes (since I have a stylist I have discovered a love of nice clothes) and then gardening and house cleaning weather permitting.
Enjoy the weekend.