Week 43

WHOOOOOHOOOOOO!
I have FINALLY dyed my own fabrics! This is something I have wanted to do for a very long time, especially since my foray into the art quilting side where hand dyeds are the best thing to work with. The depth of colour and shades, and oooooohhhhhh just love hand dyed fabric!

I could have started playing, but i am such a "course dependent" type person that I like to be shown something, at least just a little in order to give it a go. I wish I were more like my good friend J, she just leaps right in and her creativity knows no bounds. She is the most inspirational, give it a go and see what happens person I know and I don't know what she gets from working alongside me, but for me, she teaches me to let go, don't be scared, just jump! And look what we produced together yesterday:

The Quilt Indaba, hosted by Grass Root Quilters Guild, is held every two years I think? They always have classes for beginners, and advanced quilters, as well as a dyeing course or two. Helga Beaumonts class yesterday, was fabulous. We mixed up 15 different dye colours, and dyed fabric, lace, scrim and threads. To edn up with 30 fabrics, 15 dark and 15 lighter, as well as experimented with different dyeing techniques. J and I had a great day! After work today, I rinsed, washed and ironed my fabrics. Have a look at how pretty they are:

too much of lovliness!

So happy to share these beautiful vibrant fabrics with you. Now I really need to go to sleep as my head is buzzing with ideas of where to use them...and how I must go and buy some soda ash tomorrow!

xoxoxoxooxoxoxo

Week 42

Am "dyeing" (hahahhaha) to show you my week 43, but lets not jump the gun here. Lets finish off with week 42. Week 42 was a mixed bag, with some entrelac knitting and some fabric folding.

This is easier than it looks. You take a circle, and a square. The square's corners must touch the edges of the circle. Cut out a freezer paper circle. I used perspex templates. Iron the shiny side of the freezer paper onto the back of the fabric. Cut around the circle, leaving a bit more than a 1/4 inch all around. Thread a strong thread and run a running stitch around the edge of the fabric - be careful, if it frays, use fraycheck. Then pull up the thread to gather the raw edge closely around circle. Iron in place. You can now remove the freezer paper, unless you aren't ready to stitch, in which case leave it in so it holds its shape.

Then take the square shape, and cut a square of batting and a square of fabric for the inside piece. Once you have removed the freezer paper from the circle, lay first the batting in the centre (on the wrong side of the circle) and then put the fabric, right side facing you, on top. You will then fold the edges of the circle over the square, to hide the edges of the square, using a running stitch to secure - I used a perle hand dyed embroidery thread from House of Embroideries.

And TA DA you have a beautiful Japanese folded block, that is PRE-QUILTED! You join them by using a tiny ladder stitch, so you do not get a ridge.

Look what my man has been doing in his man cave, armed with manly airbrush...

for a novice airbrusher, i think he is pretty damn good. all that dormant talent, lying wasted all these years. well he sure is making up for lost time, i don't see him all night!

So, week 42 is done and dusted....go to week 43 and read on...just fulfilled a long time dream of mine, dyeing my own fabric.

xoxoxoxoxoox

Week 40, 41 and a glimpse into 42

phew! its such a bind when work takes over isn't it? the last few weeks have been hectic with early starts and very late ends. I have managed to get my challenge sorted each week, but haven't been able to find time to post or blog!

week 40 is a wonky star to go with my other star block. and i also added to my growing scrap quilt. i was SO lucky to have a generous friend on a clean out lark, who hoisted all her fabrics to two friends, me being one of them! Her fabrics are HUGE pieces, so maybe i shall be tempted away from my scrap phase!

My design wall is groaning with the scrappy blocks that multiply as if by magic (?)

week 41 saw me start some wonky log cabins...have always wanted to do these but never have....i love the wacky blocks so much, they appeal to my sense of humour

week 41 was also the week some knit friends and i partook in a craftsy class and tried our hand at entrelac knitting...that was a lot of fun...

week 42 saw the result of that....

and now, after a day of winter sunshine and fabric dyeing, my bed beckons. it has been a long week, and today was by far my favourite day. i shall tell you all about it tomorrow

xoxoxoxoxo

week 39: more modern blocks and some time travel

finished quilting my pinball machine block...

and made another modern block: missing your kiss from the modern blocks book i mentioned in my last weeks upload.

and another..yes, getting money worth from this book...wacky stars - with a real wacky manner of piecing.

and here is my scrumptious layout from a scrap lesson on saturday - what great fun, even if i was greated my grumpy people when i got home! the lesson was packed with about 55 ladies, we had delicious tea, a very clever teacher, in a lovely venue. it was so lovely to just be me, thinking about me, and doing me stuff. wonderful me time.

(thanks to scrap kits and my friend TRACY- they do monthly kits, and are on facebook...check them out!)

sorry for the rushed blog, but its bedtime, and the man is...yes, he is outside setting up his new command centre. very manly. so the bedtime story is beckoning...nite nite and see you on week 40. getting quite sad there are only 12 weeks plus 2 left of my self challenge.

xoxoxox

real men can craft

for 14 years our long standing joke has been my husband saying "i can make that" when i see something beautiful or clever. and hats off to my man, he often has done just that and made it. like the shelf i admired at tree house when pregnant with our first - he made it. like the lovely bookshelf i had to have for our at the time, 3 year old princess's bedroom, he made it....oh, and mustn't forget the pottery stint before our first arrived on the scene and rocked our world like a storm at sea rocks a puny fishing boat. Pottery lessons on a Saturday morning was our Something We Could Do Together. And yes, I was very proud with the lovely mask, still hanging outside our front door, and with the Japanese style platters painted with koi fish, but I was also slightly dismayed to be outshone in the craft division!

When the kids need a fancy dress outfit, or want a rocket ship made out of cardboard boxes, or little sylvanian family caravans from shoeboxes, they go to their dad. he is pretty good at making something out of nothing. very inventive.

but now i have created a monster. a few years ago i bought him a model to construct, an american tank with a command centre. it was worked on for a bit, then put away. well, its been brought out again. and then some. HE now has an entire command centre set up in our tv lounge, and has constructed, from scratch, a spray booth. With filters, fans and lights.

Oh Yes. A monster. All my paints have been pulled out of their many hiding places, and this weekend were tested with his new airbrush. Did i mention the airbrush? and the hours of u tube research. and the star wars model? i thought i was the only craft/hobby obsessed member of the family. but the bug has bitten my man.

It looks like the modelling station is being removed to one of our outdoor rooms, as it has taken up a lot of space. i was quite enjoying the company whilst i sewed, me on one side of the loft, him on the other. but it was starting to look pretty hectic!

i just hope this doesn't mean he will be too busy to make that zulu warrior outfit, or the darth vader mask....

week 38: for my husband

my husband is very supportive in all my crafty endeavours, crusades and conquests. he has been dragged around numerous shops, craft markets, exhibitions here and abroad and is begged to look for yarn, fabric, magazines on his business trips to spain, germany and england. poor man, i will never forget the first time i decided to take my sewing machine over to his place. he merrily went off to gym with his mate,  masses of testosterone in attendance, and knowing they would be gone for three hours, i spread myself across his dining room table. actually had i laid MYSELF across his table, he may well have been pleased but as it was it was my sewing machine, pins, cottons, fabrics and patterns spread out. he didn't recognise his bachelor pad and for a couple of hours I was nervous about where our relationship was heading. but clearly, he got over that, and 14 years on, he kinda expects my stuff to be everywhere.

so, when i saw the union jack block in my new, drooled over, delicious modern quilt blocks book, i showed him. and yes, its the first time he truly "ordered" a quilt. So dahling, this ones for you...week 38: just jack from modern blocks compiled by susanne woods -

and you will never guess what i found for the backing?! its a curtaining, but was told it is 100% cotton, but even if its not, i had to have it, i heart it, and this will be the back of my englishman's quilt....

also this week, I am busy with another of these wonderful modern blocks - this one is called pinball machine in the book...i am currently hand quilting it, and having tremendous fun, so TA DAHHHHH week 38: pinball block nearly done.

I have also added to my scrappy quilt, am pleased with the colours so far...

(and my peeka cat tried to slot himself into a compartment of my sorted scraps box...)

AND to top it all off, I finally completed my boy's dinosaur quilt....handstitched the binding last night, then covered him up as he lay sleeping....so thats this months UFO completed.

Signing off,

a very SMUG me.

xoxoxox

A Mother's Tribute to a Mother

Glennis May Lyle: 24 May 1938 - 10 October 1993

I don't know whether I am as obssessed with crafts and sewing as I am due to my family background, and in particular due to my mothers influence, or whether thats just the way my brain works. I can remember my mom always busy with her hands, sewing, embroidering, knitting, painting, screen-printing, wood-carving, beading...she was a jack of all trades and never with idle hands.

When I was 5, she taught me to embroider, I remember a pencil drawn house on a piece of calico, which she encouraged me to outline with back stitch. When I was 6 I was knitting coat hanger covers. When I was 11, I was making my own clothes, and she taught me to crochet. When I was 13, I taught her to cross-stitch. In high school I made knickers for my friends, and beaded necklaces.

We had a large studio room on the ground floor of our house, accessible by stairs outside. She used to teach morning classes - everything and anything ito hand stitching- ribbon embroidery, embroidery, candle-wicking, and painting - as well as printing. She also had two evening classes a week. I used to love seeing what everyone was doing, and I was immensely proud of my clever mother. She kept our family afloat with the income from the classes, but more than that it fed her need for creativity, which I understand only too well. She was generous of spirit, and loved passing on her ideas, and talent.

My friends always got a handmade gift - painted T-shirts, dolls clothes, pictures....

When I was 7, she was diagnosed with cancer. And given less than a year to live. My younger brother was 5, my older brothers 17 and 15. She was 43 years old. Refusing to give in, she got a second opinion and was given a slightly longer time estimate, I can't remember how long. But for 10 years she bravely fought leukemia, on a drug trial of tablets rather than the more aggressive radioactive therapy. She was determined to see her younger two children finish school.

In her final year, my first year studying, she had several blood transfusions, but I think she knew that her body was shutting down. I so admire her strength, she never ever complained or said Why Me? She accepted and lived to her fullest. A week before she died, she was admitted, and refused the wheelchair offered. She was going to walk in. The last thing she told me was had she known what drugs they were going to drip into her, and how awful she would feel, she would have jumped into the harbour. That was the first time I heard her admit defeat.

On her final night, she had already lapsed into a coma, but I know she could hear me pleading for her not to leave us. I was selfish. A selfish teenager who couldn't imagine life without this beautiful mother of mine. A tear rolled down her face.

True to her generous self, she waited for me to leave the room before taking her last breathe and passing over to another place. She is not lost to us. She is always with us, clearing the way of boulders.

If I am even half the person she was, then I am satisfied.

To my angel, I love you forever, I think of you always, and everything I create is a tribute to you.

xoxoxoxoox