This week

This has been a busy week but I don't feel like I've got much to show for my efforts. I have managed to put some colour on some pages which hopefully will turn into a wee book in the not-too-distant future. Been having fun with lovely sprays again - trying out different effects with paint and stencils, and mixing different sprays together on the same page getting lovely colour mixes. Love that nothing is a 'mistake', but becomes a layer, or a step on the way to something that works - this page was too bright for my liking to start with, and the distress ink thru a stencil was a bit much of a contrast. I washed over it with watered-down white acrylic paint - it made the distress ink blend through a bit, but this added to the softened look and now I really like this page (it's a soft purple in real life, less grey than it looks here).Hoping to do a bit more play on these pages over the weekend, but will also be devoting time to this book which I am already half-way through : another goodie from one of my fav authors.
Have a happy weekend everyone - don't forget the Red Cross Booksale if you're in Palmy North this weekend

Yesterday

Had fun for a few hours this week using this to make this for a friend's birthday. Really different to knit with but a quite cool effect. It's very soft. And last night a friend and I went to the alt.shift.craft show at Square EdgeSaw lots of gorgeous work - lots of "my kind of craft" . Couldn't pass up this lovely ring by the very talented Debrina and discovered Sabine who makes 'Hadpainted yarns and fibres for the adventurous crafter'. This 100% hand painted cotton is now in my possession It has the delicious name of Viper's Bugloss and has a beautiful sheen - read more about it here and check out her other fibres and yarn for sale.
Other cool stuff from this week :
Great idea from Julie Fei-Fan Balzer with trimmings from your quilts : make fabric ATCs or postcards....makes me want to make a quilt just so I can trim it!
Always love Michelle Ward's enthusiasm - this time she's had fun with embossing plates thru a pasta machine
In love with the pink card in this post from Jackie of Dog-Daisy Chains.
And I am really enjoying reading this : Hope you have a creative weekend.

New supplies

New supplies have been making me happy this week. Tote and Gloat was awesome (see my posts last week). As well as the inspirational quilts from those attending, Yvonne Brown was our speaker and she talked widely about her life and the path she has followed to get to now. She showed us many photos, and shared her new book with us - which of course I had to buy :If we purchased the book on the day, we were also able to pick a piece of her hand dyed felt. This is my bit- trying not to follow my usual colour choices. Intending to make something like this or this with it - instructions are in her book. And then there was the shopping....I don't really need to purchase more fabric, but I did need to buy some things to feed my mixed media 'habit'. As well as some useful bases (pelmet vilene and cotton duck) I also bought some pretty colouring items. A lovely set of shiva sticks And got a good deal on a set of new spray inks - they are from the Starburst Sprays range I decided that I wanted a colour reference for all my sprays, so have sprayed a set of tags with what I have now. Loving the shimmery iridescent colours and now I know what colours I am missing that I might need to add...I also bought some new stencils recently - these are from the crafters workshop range : Mini Arabesque Mini Cosmic swirl - through the stencil and then once sprayed I tipped the stencil over and pressed the remaining ink down to get the opposite image. Need to have more fun with these. If you want some inspiration or basic lessons on using sprays and stencils (with other goodies like molding paste and ordinary paint too) check out the video tutorials by Christy Tomlinson.
One more addition to supplies at my house - can't say they are something I have got very excited about, but now I am in my 40's (gah!) my eyesight needs a little help so these are my newest acquisition to help with reading and hand stitching. At least I only need cheapies from the chemist at this stage. Must say my eyes are not feeling so strained at night.

Monday Monday

Thought I would start the week with sharing some sites that are making me happy
Remember these? Created by me from a pattern by Annette Emms. She has a new Pixie boot pattern available in her Etsy Store - fairy shoes also still available.

Judy Coates Perez created some delightful stitched houses some years ago. Recently other artists have created 3-dimensional stitched houses in their own style and brought them together for an artist village project. There is a blog tour during May of the artists' indiviual houses. All links from this post by Judy.

Linda Kemshall has a new blog

Thanks to Katherine who shared this stunning post of hand imagery with me. The whole blog is amazing actually - a new discovery for me : Sweetpea Path

Have you seen Chad Alice Hagen's Feltbooks on Flickr - lovely

Belated May calendar for desktop here

And I LOVE the books that Nellie Wortman makes and shares on her blog : some her pages gathered here

Have a creative week

Celtic Cutwork Class

Our speaker for our annual Show & Tell event this year was Yvonne Brown - a talented Textile Artist from the UK. She does absolutely beautiful work and I was very lucky to be able to attend a class with her on Monday. These are a couple of her samples of her cutwork technique She was a great tutor, willing to share many samples and her other techniques and how we could apply what we learned to different projects.
We were given a kit which had a background piece of her handmade tissue fabric, traceable vilene, kunin felt and a selection of sheers that will melt when heated. First task was to choose our design, which we then traced onto the vilene. We also had to rub our black tissue background with treasure gold to enhance the lovely textures. We stitched our design through our layers of background, felt and sheers with metallic thread showing on the surface here. We then used a fine-tipped soldering iron to melt away the sheers around our design. It seemed a scarey thing to do, but was actually quite fun and looks great. We also used the side of the soldering iron to melt some areas on top of the design to add interest to the surface.I am ordering my own soldering tool for a birthday present :-) These are some of the pieces made in the workshop And this is mine almost finished in the day - it just needs a bit of hand-stitching and maybe some small beads and then I can decide how to mount or frame it. A fantastic day with a generous teacher, and a new technique that I can see being applied to many future and varied projects.

Tote and Gloat

Our annual club show and tell event on Saturday was, as usual, a fabulous day for everyone : an inspiring array of quilts, great challenges to look at, a wonderful speaker, and fun shopping. I have lots to share about the day so will devote this post to some of the quilts on display. Fabulous number of challenges entered this year - click on the categories to go to the Rose City Quilters blog posts showing the entries and section winners : First Time, Beginner and Intermediate - Advanced and Professional - Anthing goes - open category but quilt related. Awesome variety of work.
We were also very lucky to have the New Zealand 2011 Hoffman challenge on show - click here for general information about the challenge. This was the fabric they had to use: I took photos of a few on display, without thinking about who had won, but turns out I liked all the winners. Best of show and Viewer's choice was "Ride with Me" by Joanne Mitchell, Geraldine. Best Traditional with a Twist was "A Pot of Fireworks" by Tracey Marshall, Temuka. Best Contemporary was "Masquerade" by Cindy Watkins, Tasman. I also loved "The Gift" by Mary K. Ohara Matheson, DunedinLots of inspiration there, and that was before we got to the speaker and the shopping!

Happy Mothers' Day

Sharing the Love

Looking forward to a few jumpstarts to my creativity over the next few days : The new set of lessons for Dale's Holey Moley course start today- the theme for May/June is Words Words Words. I am hoping that I will be able to complete some 'pages' or other 'somethings' that may incorporate this new theme with the (so far uncompleted) pieces of fun I had during the Flower Power months.
Then it's onto quilting inspirations. On Saturday our local club has their annual ticketed event : Tote and Gloat. There are always tons of beautiful quilts to look at and be inspired by, as well as lots of tempting shopping stalls. I am really looking forward to hearing Yvonne Brown as our guest speaker this year, and I am very lucky to have got into a class with her as well. This beautiful piece made by Yvonne was featured in Quilting Arts magazine Issue 20 : Winter 2005I will be doing her Celtic Cut Workshop on Monday, and will share what happens there.
In the meantime, thought I would share the blogposts I most enjoyed seeing when I caught-up on the 2 weeks I had been away from my computer.
Patty Van Dorin has been making some lovely hand-stiched pages for a fabric book.
Cool sewn paper postcards made by iHanna.
Another beautiful post from Carolyn - I especially love her handstitched silk ribbons - and her post led me to an inspiring new-to-me blog : Textile Butterfly - Chris Gray
A beautiful piece made by Jackie of Dog-Daisy Chains - colour, movement and stich.
And if you want some reading recommendations you might enjoy these: Hope you have a happy weekend :-)

Calendar Challenge : April/May

Happy May :-) Like last month I am a few days late with showing my pages (already 28 other entries at the Kathryn Wheel!) but once more have the happy excuse of being away on holiday. April was a wonderful relaxing month. This is how April started- a close-up to better remind you of the sparkle.And this is how the pages look now. We had wonderful weather and lots of lovely beachy days so the colour scheme I picked turned out to reflect what happened perfectly.We got home from holiday a few days ago to chilly breezes and a distinctly autumn feel so these are my base pages for May. Looking forward to crackling fires on colder days, with hope for some brilliant autumn sunshine still to come. Check out the other calendar entries for May at The Kathryn Wheel or the Flickr group.