Received Lynda's Page!!!

Here are the 2 wonderful pages I received from Lynda for our Fiber Art Friends fabric page swap. How lucky am I that Lynda made not 1, but 2 pages - and they are both so wonderful!!! My theme is Art Nouveau, and Lynda has portrayed this beautifully!! The black and gold page is gorgeous! A lovely art nouveau butterfly, with an image inlaid which really looks 3D, it's amazing!! I love it! And the other page - is sooo Lynda, and I'm so pleased to have this too. Lynda has made it with her famous slash technique, and the colours above and below are gorgeous. I LOVE both pages - thankyou so much Lynda!! Oh, and I'm not finished - apart from the extra tissue paper that it was all wrapped in, I received a monkey (which ALL of my boys want), and here he is holding the 2 tags for the pages. The tags were made to match the pages. This post was such a pleasure to open and really made my day.

Embroidered Box

After looking at Emmy's, Kay's and Arlee's beautiful embroidered boxes - I decided it was time for me to make one too!! I know, I'm a copy cat - but I've had the book 'Embroidered Boxes" by Janet Edmonds for soooo long - thought it was time I actually made something out of it. I think I've found my forte'!! I absolutely loved making this box!! You know when you're making something, and then there's usually some parts of it which you just don't like doing - well, in this case that didn't happen!! The whole process was such fun, it went together easily, nothing went wrong - so looks like you might see a lot more boxes on my blog!!!!

What a day I've had at the AQC!!!

Today my friend Samm and I went to the Australian Quilt Convention in Melbourne. We had a great day!! We caught the train in to save the hassle of parking, grabbed our first coffee of the day and followed all of the other ladies heading in the same direction as us. First place we headed was to Dale's stand "Thread Studio". Oh, we were in heaven!! We didn't really need to go to any other stand after Dale's!! Anyway, here is some of the stuff I bought. Yes, you can Ooooh and Aaaahhh - as it's all just so luscious!!!

Then we went and had a look at all of the 250 journal quilts made by the Australian/New Zealand art quilters group. What a magnificent sight - they looked fantastic - and mine were up there too - how exciting!!!

THEN it was time to go back to Dale's stand to grab my 5 x ATC's for the Make 5, Take 5 Challenge. All of the ATC's were fabulous - here are the ones I chose!! And, guess what, one of them was made by one of my wonderful blog friends, Doreen!!! It's gorgeous!! (It's the green one).....

Here comes the Postie!!

Over the past few days I have received 3 lovely posts. Firstly was a wonderful ATC from Dotee, and also a little surprise goodie bag of beads and charms. Thanks so much Dot, the ATC is really lovely and love the extra little bag!!! Secondly was a gorgeous "Pickle" from Sammy. My Pickle is needle felted, with a painted clay face and some beautiful beading. She was also wrapped up in some lovely floral fabric. Thanks Sammy - she is beautiful and I have pinned her to my cloth mannequin for all to see. Lastly, was my 1" art squares from the group I was in - organised by Sara Lechner. Thankyou Sara for hosting this swap, I have enjoyed it immensely and it has been a wonderful challenge for me. I have yet to make 9 of my own red/pink squares, which will make up the total number of 63. Once done, I think I will mount all of my squares on a canvas so I can hang it up for all to see!!!

Dot's ATC and Bag of Goodies

Sammy's "Pickle"


My red/pink 1 " art squares

TAST - Algerian Eyelet Stitch

Just a quick post before I catch up on some much needed sleep. I'm trying to catch up on TAST. Here is my sample for eyelet stitch. Stitched with a variety of DMC threads, on a scrap piece of fabric I had previously painted. I will probably make this into an ATC....

Journal from Carol S

I received this absolutely magnificent journal cover (inc. book) from Carol Straus. This was so exciting, as I had been reading the blogs of others who had received a journal from Carol, and thinking to myself "oh, those lucky girls". I remember looking at all the pictures of the journals and thinking how talented Carol is, as they were all magnificient. Anyway, now I received one - and the photo doesn't do it justice - it is truly a work of art. Mine has so many textures in it, and different fibres and embellishments - even my DH (who is hard to please) had a close inspection and announced that it was "great"! Even tried to figure out what some of the materials used in it were, which caused a wonderful discussion - I'm sure I was right!! Thankyou Carol (if you read this) - I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!

P.S. Please take a look at Carol's website - she is a truly talented art quilter.

Phil's Wooden Bowl/Postcard from Emmy

Phil's Wooden Bowl

I've been so busy at work for the past couple of days, that I haven't been too creative myself - but my DH has!! I thought I'd show off the bowl he made....I LOVE it!! It's made out of a knot from a huon pine tree, and if I could add this to the Fiber Art Friends texture challenge - I would. The texture on it is absolutely gorgeous. It has pride of place on my dining room table. Now wouldn't it be great if DH was so enthusiastic about the textile pieces that I make!!??

Emmy's Postcard
Also, lucky me!! I received a beautiful postcard from Emmy - why, because she is such a wonderful, generous lady. I admired it so much on FlickR, and next thing I know it arrived in my letter box. Thankyou Emmy, it is beautiful - a great Valentine's card with all of it's lovely red.

"Texture" - for FAF

I decided to try a piece for this month's Fiber Art Friends technique. The technique for this month is "texture". I layed some silk throwsters waste over a piece of organza and then made it into a kind of silk paper. The yarns kinda stuck - not as much as I would've liked - probably should have added a bit more fabric medium?! Anyway, because a lot of the fibres were only "just" attached - it was a real pain to free motion embroider - in hindsight, I should've added a chiffon scarf over the top before I did the FME. After sitting at the machine FOREVER, I eventually finished all the FME, and I'm really happy with the result. It has puckered up a bit, but I like the way it's done that. Now I'm umming and ahhing about whether to give it a zap with the heat gun.......

Lynda's Fabric Page

Since the boys went back to school I have been so busy! For the last couple of days I have been working on Lynda's page for Fiber Art Friends fabric page swap. I painted the black fabric with a patterned sponge roller, sprinkled it with black/silver embossing powder and zapped it with the heat gun. Then I free motioned some grids over the fabric. I then added a frame made out of 1" white squares, which were made out of tissue paper bonded to felt and rubbed some red treasure gold over the tissue paper. The flower in the centre was cut out of the tissue paper fabric and I satin stitched around the edges. I'm really happy with how it turned out. Hope you like it Lynda.

A Postcard Making Day

Today I made 3 postcards - 2 of which are birthday postcards for members of Fiber Art Friends and the other one is for Gunnel. The top 2 are made with the fusible webbing and the muslin that I painted the other day. I ironed the fusible webbing onto some previously painted fabric, added some muslin and machine made cords - and a little bit of handstitching. I quite like the texture that the fusible web has made - and adding the muslin doesn't take away from it. The other card was made with the embellisher - lots of different yarns and other bits and pieces of fabric - then I did some free motion embroidery over the top.

A Great Day!!

I had a great day today! It was a scorcher today, so I got up nice and early while the boys were still in bed and went for a run. It was a lovely mild morning and I ran like the wind (well, maybe like a slight breeze!). I found a lovely birds nest on my run, and it even had a bit of pink thread woven in it. A bird after my own heart!! Then I organised the boys, drove them to their respective school bus stops, and then had the WHOLE day to myself. After having the boys home for 6 weeks, this was bliss. I did only the housework that needed to be done, read for a while, painted some fusible webbing, and also some muslin. I also received a beautiful postcard from Gunnel. It has beautiful colours and texture and I love it. Thanks Gunnel!! All in all, I had a great day!!

Painted Fusible Web and Muslin

Gunnel's Postcard

TAST (Cretan Stitch) and New Post

TAST (Cretan Stitch)

Well here is my last week's TAST sample. I used a scrap piece to sew on (which I had fabric painted) and the thread I used was Rajmahal Art Silks - they are just luscious - beautiful shine to them and the most wonderful colours!! My Mum and Dad live in Bendigo and that is where Rajmahal's shop outlet is.... I'll most likely make this into an ATC.

Postie's here!!!

And another great post!! I received 2 x fabric ATC's, which were a swap from the Textile Challenges Group. The first one is from Carol Clasper - so beautifully textured (I have to email her to see what she did). The second one is from CarolT, which is gorgeous - lovely texture, FME, and beading. Love them both - thanks to the 2 Carols!! PLUS, I also received this beautiful mermaid postcard as a RAK (random act of kindness) from Leslie. Thankyou Leslie, it is gorgeous - I love anything Fae!!

Embellished ATC's

I have made 3 more ATC's for the make 5 take 5 challenge. Now they're ready to send off to Dale for display at the Australian Quilt Convention. I made these 3 on the Embellisher with different yarns and wool felt, plus I added some organza for a bit of pizzazz.