Strip Felting Workshop

Over the weekend I attended a "Strip Felting" workshop with Polly Stirling. What a great technique this is. It is kind of a nuno felting, but with strips of fabric incorporated with wool roving. What fun!! I made 2 samples - one being a cross hatch of strips, the other one I weaved strips of fabric together. I loved the end results - the textures of the fabric came out as such a surprise, and I learnt so much about what fabrics work well and what don't. A lot of the ladies, who were much more experienced at felting made wraps, vests and skirts. WOW! I know, I should've taken some photos - but they all turned out beautifully and different, with a variety of fabrics used - so the textures were so varied in each and every one. So, if any of you have a chance to do a workshop with Polly, take it - she is a lovely and talented lady!!! Now that I've experimented, I intend to make a wrapped shawl or a vest with the method.

So, because of the gorgeous texture produced by this method - I have incorporated it into Fiber Art Friends February Technique of the month, which is texture.

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.