Encrustations and beads

I had a bad night last night after seeing my mother it is just so depressing and she does the best she can but was not having a good day memory wise, my youngest daughter Tabby and I went and took her for lunch as the food in the home is not at all good. She loved having a fresh salad with smoked salmon, they never seem to get salads.
I came home tired and down. I took a long time to get going this morning and then finally decided to do some embellishing, and this, which was some left over wire, a bit of tyvek I had threaded through a rather wonky small frame I made out of a coat hanger because I cant find the ones I bought, some left over encrusted fabric from making tags and voila, some beads and it is a nice little patch for something.
I did a bit more wire and pipe cleaner stuff too so not much more and I think I will have finished my Module 4.
Dont hold your breath Dale, it will probably still be weeks.
I had a few lovely minutes getting enthused by all the lovely stuff on the other emellisher blogs, still havent got my logo up but I do notice that I am now a member.
I loved the houses Dale was doing so made a few of my own, dreadful copy cat but I love houses, I sketch houses too, have a look on my other blog with my boots and sketchbook in the links, the only link I managed to get up, hopeless when it comes to computer stuff I have to think about.

What I got today

My very dear old school friend Virginia sent me this wonderful little house in the mail today, a late Christmas present but oh so worth waiting for, it is of one of the timbered houses that are typical of the area in Germany where she lives, I looked at some when I was staying in 2001, wow that long ago, and decided I couldnt get it home and she rememberd and found this one for me. I love it and it will go with my other collection of houses. I am not sure where the little triangular bit of terracotta goes, any clues?
Thank you so much my dear friend.

cling wrap fabric

I have been trying to get back into my Module 4 stuff from playways and remembered that Di of Di's fibre feats had put up a tutorial on how to make this. I dont know what on earth I would use it for, it really seems pretty plasticy to me, but it does come into the bit on plastic and sandwiches so here it is.
I bought a respirator today as some of the stuff I have been burning is pretty awful I think I have worked out how to use it, feel like a space alien.One of out tanks has sprung a leak not the rainwater one but one that is gravity fed from a spring and we use that one for the loo and some of the garden, so John has had to go up and try to work out what to do with it. Very humid and not nice where he is working.
A yummy parcel arrived today from Dale of The Thread Studio, I try to only order once a month but it is hard.

Goolwa on a damp morning

This morning we were all prepared for a walk and a coffee and the drizzle set in. We decided to go over to Goolwa to look at the No 19 barrage across the River Murray, very damp, and I managed 4 photos and my camera battery died. I was not pleased. The bronze shows a relief of where the river comes out, aproximately, sometimes the mouth is closed, sometimes it moves a bit. The other shows some old pilons and the view, all damp and misty down towards the mouth. I think if you click on them you will get a better view.
So I did a bit of sketching, very hurried when I have John with me. As it was the last day of school holidays and a long weekend all the towns were very full and we couldnt find a coffee in Goolwa so we called into Pt Elliott on the way back and sat outside at the top of the hill in the main street and had a coffee and biscuit each and I sketched the view of the little township, That will be on my other blog (see links) later on.

Cretan Stitch

this is my sampler for Sharonb's TAST challenge. I have never done Cretan stitch before so it was interesting to do.
I rather liked the spidery flowers.
Yesterday was my last and very tiring day of doing my 4 day classes, My first go at portrait painting and not at all easy. I had about 4 tries and then ended up just doing tonal drawing as I felt more comfortable with that.
Today is Australia Day so I am up early as we are going in to the ceremony at 9 and I have ponies to feed.
Off to lunch after that. I think I would have liked to have just stayd home and rested!

Watercolour class

This is one of my efforts from todays class, we were doing trees and reflections, some ok some not so ok. A long and tiring day as we spent the morning from 9 until 12 outside painting, a lovely morning, but then back and a full afternoon as well learning techniques.
The painting I did the this morning is on my other blog, see in the links.
Too tired to think tonight.

Stargaze tome tag swap

These are the tags I have recieved from, on the left at the top Patti, bottom left Jacquie, Kathryn and on the right Marjorie. They are lovely and I am so pleased with them.
Today was another busy one at art classes, very tiring but I am getting a better handle on it all. By thursday night I may feel I know what I am doing. Our teacher Lorraine Lewitzka does lovely stuff
and is a very giving teacher, we are so lucky to have some one like her in the town. She does have a website if you google the name Lewitzka.

Embellisher ATC's

I made these and a couple more over the week end and have just finished blanket stitching around the outside. I made these on the embellisher. The ones on the left were just done on felt and the others were the same but had net over them. A bit of beading and a tiny bit of embroidery. These are for Dale's swap.
A busy day today, a full day of watercolour class I feel very tired and as if i didnt achieve much until the last hour.
Tuppy the male pug had come out in hot spots so had to be dropped at the vets in the morning so I was running a bit late and then picked him up afterwards he has larged shaved spots on him .
I hope this isnt the beginning of more problems, he was ok while the weather was dry.
I have now been doing this blog for one year. I cant believe it.

Detached chain

This is my third sampler for the Take a stitch Tu esday challenge on Sharonb's blog.
I had some lovely variegated threads, should have bought more, when The Thread Studio was doing a special and this is the other one I had.
I am having a lot of fun with these little samplers and looking up all my embroidery books which have taken a back seat for a while.
My DH tells me that he would recognise, well almost, my free hand style!
It is still this morning, a night of strong winds and some more rain. Probably over for the moment but we dont need the flooding some areas have had.
I collect my painting this morning, then where to hang it.
Off to feed my ponies and see if there is any damage. Nearly 2 inches of rain so the paddocks will be slippery.

embellisher fun

I havent touched my embellisher for a while and this morning as it is warm and damp and sticky, 40 mm since yesterday and it is wonderful, but outside so are the flies!
We had power black outs last night and the cows were very late being milked which they were not happy about and at about 4.30 I could here them bellowing. I missed the end of Death on the Nile too so will have to find the book and see what happened. We had a slow day yesterday, being so wet, missed the tour down under who were about 1/2 hour ahead of time, must remember they are faster in the wet next year.
Then the bank people out so we could all be together to sign stuff. I am still in a muddle from being away for 2 days! Next week I hve a 4 day class of watercolour painting which I hope will be fun.

Tiny silk purse bag

I made this out of some of the sik paper that we had made at the 2 day class I went to held by the embroiderers guild. I was supposed to make a larger one but the colours I was allocated didnt match anything I had with me. It will make something lovely now I am home. A very pleasant collection of women and although it was very hot and sticky we were air conditioned.
I really love making silk paper and it is so useful.
This will go to my grand daughter who has a birthday next month with a bracelet I have made in it.
Supposed to have a lot of rain last night. Some places did but we have so far had very little. I have a feeling we may have missed out again. The north got heaps.

The last foals

Something a bit different.
These two little boys are the last foals, the larger Section B colt was born in early December and the little Welsh Mountain colt was born on the 30th of December, he is a real cutie. Looked very tiny and scrawny when he was born but filling out and full of spunk now. We are so pleased with the look of him as he is by a young home bred stallion we used for the first time last year. I think they will probably both be geldings. A bit hard on both them and their mothers with no green feed but lots of lucerne hay is helping.
A dreadful day today, 40 degrees possibly more and a nasty north wind blowing. I am constantly scanning for smoke.
John is off to drought meetings as things are getting so bad here now that the worry is where do we get stock water from. The powers that be dont seem to want to know us and the majority of city people think we have access to mains water!! the latest is that it is illegal for your neighbour to give you any surplus stock water he might have. It is totally unbelievable. Days like this do not help the water situation.
I will not be on line for a day or two as I am off to very hot Adelaide tomorrow for a 2 day textile class that the embroiderers guild are puting on, I am dong silk fusion, will be fun.
I have been having great fun with Sharonb's stitch tuesday and am enjoying it immensley, some thing to do on hot and horrible days. I have also been cleaning out my work room, again, I see some wonderful workrooms, large with lots of space, mine well it was the smallest bedroom n the house and with all the shelves and things in it is even smaller. I cant even take a photo its so small.

Herringbone stitch

This was the first stitch that sharon B put up as part of her Take a stitch Tuesday. I didnt find it until after I had done the buttonhole stitch. I am still on my theme of a sampler done on felt and then put together later as a sample book. I had fun doing this although the colours dont show up as well as in my other one. Very stress free after yesterday to sit quietly and stitich. I liked the way you can use diffent things with this, so I went for beads and different weight and colour of threads. Getting a bit more ambitious! Some of the others that I have looked at do fantastic stuff. I would need many more hours in my day.
Heating up again today and I feel rather as if I have been run over by a bus after yesterday. Catching up on house work and watering and feeding ponies. My normal chaotic day.

Dying trees on the hills face

I tok this photo a couple of days ago, I think if you click on it it will show a more detailed image of the extent of the dead trees, I am not sure if this is the best photo as I am having trouble finding things since my computer got played with by big boys fixing something up.
Pony led show today for our Welsh ponies, we had mixed luck but that is good as it really doesnt pay to win all the time.
I managed to hit a kangaroo while I was driving there with the float on the back, Dont know what happened to the roo but we sustained a bit of damage to the car. Luckily I wasnt travelling very fast. Always been my worst nightmare as they can create havoc.
John had a succesful fishing day but we are now both very tired.

buttonhole stitch

I am doing Sharon b's Take a stitch Tuesday and havent managed to do the first stitch yet but have had a play around with the buttonhole stitch. I have cut up a heap of felt and am eventually going to make a small fabric book of stitches. This is my first attempt, we will see how much more I manage to do. For those purists who must have everything even and equal, dont look, I would rather do mine free style and have fun.I use ordinary buttonhole a lot just to bind edges but dont do wavy lines much so this was me trying.
I think Sharon would like me to put her stuff in links but I havent a clue how to do that, it is enough that I have my other blog in links and that took me forever to do. I even forgot I had signed up for this and had to go and look to see what I was supposed to be doing, cant remember my password or user name either, so I may be doing this on my own!!
Cooler today, We have been doing things around the house, I have a horse show tomorrow, our Welsh Youngstock show and i have to drive the float with ponies I think. I never look foreward to that.
Last night we went to the rotary Art Show and I bought a painting, not very expensive and I love it, all textile looking called "The girls" I collect it next Sunday, Where to hang it? Not sure on my crowded walls.

Old man kangaroo

I hope you can see him in the middle of the photo you should be able to zoom in on him.
He was on one side of the track when I went out to feed yesterday morning and I got such a surprise that he was so close I forgot I had the camera, he very elegantly hopped high over two fences and then stood looking at me. I would guess a good 7 feet from nose to tail.
I was out taking photos of the dead trees and scrub on the hills as part of our submission for exeptional circumstances for drought relief. We have never had trees die like this.
Still problems with the computer hook ups and this one is being done on the lap top to see how I go transferring data from one to the other. Not easy.

Birds nest

While picking mulberries John found this nest. I had been collecting leaves from the mulberry to feed silk worms and hadnt even realised it was there. The birds had hatched and gone by the time we found it. I am not sure what bird made it, a scrub wren perhaps or a fantail. Beautifully made with white horse hair, mulberry leaves and cobwebs.
Cooler today but the garden really did take a beating, I have tried to be economic with the watering but there is such a large area that has to be done. some of the big trees are drooping as well.
My two 14 year old grand daughters came up to day, to "spend time" which is lovely, then wandered off with cocoa and self raising flour to make a cake. I made them bracelets and earrings. They are growing up so fast.

Abstract or sea and rocks?

I am not at all sure about this except that it is colourful, I had fun painting it but I dont think I will do it again.
Very hot and windy here again today. I have been flat out trying to get the laptop set up in my little office off the bedroom, and moving things so that I can get at the printer when that goes in as well. main problem was being able to drop the blind with the arial out the window. I need to stop the hot morning sun. I am hot and dusty but think maybe it will work, a bit tight getting to some things but as I dont get to them all that often I think it will be ok.
Had to be in Victor early this morning for blood tests and then a coffee. Quick walk along the sea front but the wind came up and was hot and uncomfortable at 9 am.

Earrings

I have had my ears pierced for just over 12 months and in that time one hasnt liked me much so I wore sleepers for a lot of it. Now I am branching out into wild and wonderful earrings. I made these yesterday as so far I have about 3 pairs of dangly ones and that was all, the whole idea of having my ears pierced at this late stage in my life was so that I could wear nice ones.
I hadnt taken into account the fact that I cant see out of my left eye at all well so getting that earring in has been a challenge but now I think I have beated it. Whoopee!!
A cool day yesterday but warmed up and got sticky and the flies are awful again, Everytime I walk any where I am continuously brushing them out of my eyes, and when you wear glasses that isnt fun. They swarm all over my back and around my head, horrid.
The rain didnt amount to much but there are quite a few trees down from the wind, not that it was anything like the storm that hit Renmark the other day, that was very destructive.

more embellisher play

This bit was done on black felt with some bright ribbon and a bit of silk tops, some on the front and some on the back of the fabric to show the shadow effect you can get.
really very interesting. I still have a lot more to try but a rather busy week this week.
I have been doing my gate series of sketches on my other blog.

Playing with the embellisher

I have been playing a bit with my embellisher and this is what I came up with using varius bits and pieces, mostly wool roving. I dont think it is actually anything but I quite liked the way it has come together. Not sure which way up it should be!
Yesterday Wendy and I and varius members of my family got together and wound rayon thread, Wendy and I had bought between us this great stuff and the idea was to divide it between us. Well the first couple we did we made an awful mess of tangles and snares, after that we got sensible and the two of us did it and wound from one reel to another and it was much faster too. A great amount of giggling and hilarity was in place when the fellow from the bank walked in to discuss us transferring from one bank to another. He probably thought we were quite mad, oh and Oscar (the cat) got into the act too which didnt help.
Rained in the night again which is lovely because the wind yesterday nullified the good the last lot of rain had done. All smells so beautifully fresh and clean.

Last night at about 8 pm

It drizzled last night, about 5 mm all up, not nearly enough but something. It is now hot and very humid. We went to the Zonta needlecraft exhibition in Victor last night and left at about 8 ish and ordered a pizza from the best pizza place in town where we can get Tandoori lamb pizza, sounds bizarre is wonderful.
Any way while we waited for the pizza we went up onto the Bluff and parked and looked at the scenery and I took these photos with the drizzle coming down of the view towards Kings Beach.
I thought the light was interesting and wasnt sure how they would come out on my little digital but am really pleased with them.

The odd things my hairdresser has.

While waiting for John to finish having his hair cut yesterday I cast around for things to sketch, these were within sight of where I was sitting, a strange candle holder, a ceramic angels head, a sign and the wrought iron corner holding up a shelf. My hairdresser has the oddest assortment of stuff, but he does cut well and although it was sort of airconditioned it was hot. Hot and sticky this morning, I have just done the shopping and it was surprisingly cooler here than in there. We are hoping to get some of the rain that is flooding Western Australia but it has had a habit of missing us lately.

Vase of flowers

It has been very hot so I have been trying to find stuff to sketch while I was inside, this is supposed to be white agapanthus but I managed to get the green a bit green! I had a small bunch of them inside with a left over angel from Christmas. Oh and the odd thing in front is a leaf shaped pottery plate.
I am doing this late as we went to Adelaide today, the 40 degrees didnt quite make it, I think it was 38 but still awfull hot so we cut short doing anything but the essentials, seeing my mother and having our hair cut.
Done with pen and derwent watercolour pencils.

Stonyfell House

John has been doing a lot of research into his memories of his family home, Stonyfell House and this is a photo of a painting done by his Aunt Pat.
It shows the lilacs all out in flower so was Spring time. We dont own this photo a cousin does but it is one of my favorites and a great memory of a house I didnt know very well but enough to be very impressed by it. Now out of the family sadly, we have never gone back and after an article in a local mag dont want to.
I first went there aged about 16, and the aunts were really very old and most intimidating. Aunt Pat lived to see our oldest and adopted son before she died.
There were 3 maiden aunts, Aunt Lou (Lucy), Aunt Het (Harriet) and Aunt Pat (Martha) and a maiden uncle who got lumped in with the aunts, Uncle Tom. The oldest born in 1868 and died around the 1956 with the others going up until 1970 ish.
Aunt Pat was well known in the art cirles of the late 1800 and early 1900 but I never saw her paint, but we have many of her paintings here. Something to look up to.
John is the only son of the youngest son of 12 and his father was in his mid fifties when he was born so a huge generation gap. After John's mother died when he was 11 he was sent to boarding school in Adelaide and spent many happy week ends at Stonyfell getting to know it and his aunts as perhaps none of the rest of his generation could.

Textile Tag

I am doing a tag swap with one of the groups I am in and this is the one I have finished. The theme was friendship so there is a shrink plastic hand, I couldnt find a suitable charm, or rather enough of the charms I had so I made a few. The base fabric has many layers of paint, fabric angelina etc with some burning back, FME and using my flower foot on the machine. They were fun to do but have been sitting on my table waiting for me to finish them since before Christmas.
I have been generally tidying up, watering and watching my new foal in the heat, not that he seems to care about it.
Friends in tonight to eat prawns and the fish John caught.

Oscar and the trevally

Happy New Year to every one. I do hope that this year is better than the last one and brings rain and high milk prices and good health to us all.
John went fishing yesterday and amongst other fish he caught these trevally which I hope to sketch as well. Oscar LOVES fish and he nearly went berserk trying to get them. He usually stands up to his full and not inconsiderable height and tries to hook them off the draining board. Unfortunatly the photos of him doing this were blurred as he was in such a state. He did get fish, John usually brings home for him the ones that I wont eat.
We had a lovely night last night over at friends place at Parawa, although there was a lot of smoke in the air. Not sure where it was from as it was old smoke but John said there was a fire in the South east so maybe that was it.
We all contribute to New years Eve dinner and as I said I made cold cucumber, leek and mint soup, followed by a wonderful smoked salmon and egg pie with salad and an equally lovely panne cotta with fruit.
We sat around talking until well after midnight and I dont think we got home until about 1.30, by which time I was very sleepy.
I dont think I am planning on any specific New Year promises but I hope to keep communicating and sketching and photographing as well as doing textile work through the year.
My best wishes to all who read this blog.