A weft yarn

Can I finish this tapestry in time?

I try and work on my tapestry (Baxtergraphix flannel flowers) each Friday and Saturday night. Sometimes I manage to squeeze in some extra time but that is quite rare. We usually watch a kid's movie on Friday night with movie night treats: popcorn and chocolates. Then we put the kids to bed early on Saturday and watch our movie with cocktails and chocolates. For our movie viewing pleasure, we use one of those online DVD services where you subscribe, create a list of titles you'd like to watch and each week they mail you your subscription DVDs, which you then return in the post. Its a pretty nice routine and it gives me some predictable sewing time. Nonetheless, tapestries are pretty labour intensive and I've been working on this one since 2007. My tapestry teacher has offered to display it at the Craft Fair in August if I manage to finish it and have it framed in time.

 

It was really sweet of her because it gave me a deadline.  That red thread in the right hand margin of the tapestry is the half way mark and I was at that point last November. I've made a lot of progress over the past few months and got so excited I've started buying threads for my next tapestry. I've also been bragging at the classes about how close I am to the end. Which on the scale of two and half years of sewing is true, but on the scale of August is ... well.... lying is probably too strong a word but you get the picture.

My teacher doesn't run her classes through the winter so I wont see her until just before the craft fair. I was really optimistic when first we had the conversation but now I'm beginning to have doubts.

I've got to allow for 2-3 weeks for the framing, and the craft fair is early in August. So I figure I've got about 4 weeks of June and maybe 1 or 2 weeks of July. I've marked off the remaining canvas with needles on the left hand side of the tapestry, into 4 blocks of nine rows each. I did that last night while we were watching Stuart Little. Eeks I really only get 2 rows done a night. 4 rows a week x 6 weeks = 24 rows and I've got 36. Gonna have to pick up the pace if I want to meet the deadline.

Can you see the beautiful sunset from my sewing corner? Distracting huh?

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Lace at the Powerhouse Museum

After the star wars exhibition, the boys wandered off to do what boys do and Tess and I went downstairs to the lace room. The brochure said the Powerhouse has the biggest public collection of lace in the Southern Hemisphere. I'm not sure what I was expecting and was a bit surprised to find a small room, tucked away in a corridor on the ground floor. You would have to search for it. I don't think you'd just stumble into it. However, what a interesting place for us people interested in strings and twine, threads and crafts. The room is managed by different volunteers who are rostered on from one of the lace making guilds. Bev who showed us around is a member of the Tatting guild, and was doing a whole day volunteer shift.

You'll see she has a bobbin in her hand, there are examples of her work on the table, a new book from America with patterns she's trying out and in the little plastic box to the right hand side are her giveaways - wee butterflies. We were given a gray one and a pink one as we left. All up we spent the whole of our allocated free time in the lace room, before we had to meet up with the boys and head off to Nana's farm.

We took a look through the dozens of drawers, each organised by type of lace, in a kind of history of lacemaking style. There are pieces of lace that are hundreds of years old. And as usual, you marvel at the skill and time that has gone into these beautiful pieces. These drawers represent a tiny fraction of their collection and presumably those who study lace are able to arrange special viewings. We were fascinated by the metal lace, which is naturally enough at the "modern" end of the timeline.

After we'd looked through the drawers, Bev showed us some of her pieces of work and I particularly loved the bookmarks.

  Though these doilies are rather special as well.

Then we finished up with Tess having a demonstration and mini lesson of lacemaking.

She is being shown the "move them as pairs", can you see how the bobbins are colour coded? And there's and under/over motion that happens as well.  The long ribbon that is being created has all been made by children and visitors to the room. Their names are recorded in that black folder and eventually the Powerhouse is going to make something with the ribbon of lace and their names will be recorded somewhere. Tess was given a little certificate to say she had made lace at the Powerhouse museum. After my visit, I felt deeply curious and wouldn't mind giving it a go sometime - maybe a class down the track. I know there's a guild in Canberra which runs classes. Someday. Maybe.

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Star Wars at the Powerhouse Museum

It was fantastic. We went twice. When we were in Sydney for the April school holidays we bumped into a family on the monorail. There was mum, grandmum and two boys who were playing with their heaving breathing toys - you know the ones, "huh {breath} huh {breath}, come to the dark side Luke". I couldn't help smiling and caught the mum's eye. She replied "Star wars exhibition, its great, we've been twice". So I didn't need to feel so extreme. Tee hee. We went in Jan school holidays then back again in April school holidays. I love the powerhouse museum and the Star Wars exhibition was really special. Two floors of the museum, with loads of really intersting displays of the imagination and creativity that went into making the movies. The kids were really fascinated with the "worlds". They liked the displays of Hoth, the ice world. How the filmakers studied and spent time in Antartica and Finland. How they thought of all the details about how the techology would or wouldn't work in the freezing cold environment. They described how the creatures evolved and adapted to the cold. We were all impressed with the depth of research and thought that went into the imaginary worlds.

 

Then there was my favourite - the Wookie world. I loved how organic their tree houses and structures were. I love the details in this model and how it looks like those lichen, moss things that grow out the side of oak trees have been included in amongst the houses.

The youngest waited patiently in the queue to have a turn piloting the hovercraft and was really rather good at spinning it around. The oldest loved these guys and their light sabres. They were volunteers dressing up and attending for the weekend but they gave the place such a sense of fun. Their light sabres were great, really strong and fantastic colours. Apparently you can have quite a realistic duel with those things!

We also got a photo with the storm trooper out the front. sweet guy, I'm sure.

Aside from the creativity and fun, there was also lots of hands on science, where the children experimented with building robots, making platforms that could stand on slopes and on the flat, learning how to convey emotions in a robot (very hard - we humans are pretty complex). Half way through the exhibition, when we were all getting rather weary with all the walking and learning and we got to sit down and watch the robot show with that highly strung, neurotic C3PO.

Then finally, the highlight for the young master was the computer games. There were three different versions. In this one you need to harvest water from the atmosphere (spooky huh - that was in the original movie way back in the early 70s - so pertinent now). Here's what they do.
 

And here's the result. It's a three minute game and his score was 91% production and 58% efficiency. Not too shabby. We probably wouldn't actually go again if it was still on but we certainly had a good time.

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Easter sewing

Just made it. As I wanted to have a slight element of surprise, I didn't want to sew these at night while the children were up. We watched a fair amount of television in the lead up to Easter Sunday, which normally would be ideal for doing such projects but as I had company with all that viewing, I had to wait until quite late most nights until the kids were tucked up before I could start this Easter project. As usual, I ran right up till the deadline and had a couple of late nights finishing off. So, in my deranged tiredness I wanted a little snap of the wee chicks sitting with the Easter baskets before being pounced upon and somehow I managed to take a video of them with my small camera. Not a good look. When I realised later in the day that I didn't have a nicely composed image, I fetched the chicks off the floor (or wherever they were) and snapped a quick photo. Note nicely chewed pencil. Sunday mid-morning table - generalised clutter, more realistic of our life anyway.

The Easter baskets were made a few years ago with lots of hot glue gun work, crepe paper, fluffly chicks, egg shaped cardboard and don't you just love it - plastic grass.

I was a bit disappointed with my stitching on the little orange chicky, not as even and accomplished looking as I'd like. But he's kind of cute. Next time, I'd put more attention into matching the floss with the colour of the felt. The wing is meant to have contrasting stitches but I think the chick's body stitches should just kind of disappear into the felt.  There was one intended for each child but the 11 yold boy was happy to leave the 7 yold girl to play with them and I caught them watching TV on Monday morning when I got up.

Most of the television viewing we've been doing since the start of the school hols has been in preparation for our trip to Sydney. We're going up for 4 days and then a flying visit to Nana & Papa at Berry on the way home. Last time we were in Sydney in January we went to the Star Wars exhibition at the Powerhouse and it was unbelievably good. It was a wonderful mix of creativity and science, lots of hands on for the kids, including a hovercraft that the kids can briefly pilot. My impression at the time was that while they enjoyed it, they hadn't seen many of the movies. So I thought we should watch episodes 4-6 with the young ones and then next time we're in Sydney we can visit the exhibition again, and I'm sure they'll get more out of it - particularly the 11 yold boy. 

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Easter crafting project

For the Easter crafting project with children, I came across an old copy of Better Homes and Gardens with some cute paper Easter craft projects. After showing them to the littlest one, she chose to make gift bags of easter eggs. We drew up the list - school teacher, guides leaders, piano teacher, craft teacher, best friend. We have a really fabulous local paper craft store at Cockington Green - well we love it - Wrapped in Paper. So we headed off for paper and ribbons and cellophane bags.

If I had my new lightbox that I covet this would have been a bit easier, but it wasn't so hard to trace the bunnies onto the paper, and as it was "made by child" it should have a funky cutting look, not a magazine pristine quality. I still want the lightbox though.

It was a team effort and we settled fairly early into role statements and production line mode. I loved how she concentrated on her cutting. We did a little prototype to check out the process as part of the task demarcation. I'm glad we did. I hadn't really absorbed the size of these things. I'm not even sure if I looked at the measurements and even if I did I didn't convert them into a size. I just let 8 x 27cm slip right past. I had bought enormous bags and I somehow thought we'd use up heaps of our fundraiser chocolates but when we saw the prototype I realised that I needed smaller cellophane bags. In the end, I think its a really lovely size. Not to big and overwhelming, just a kind of "thoughtful gesture" size. Good for my psyche which doesn't want to be all teachers pet but does kind of want to acknowledge what a lovely job these people do in helping raise my children.

So here they are. We actually made 9 of them and we were q-u-i-t-e good about not eating too many eggs as we worked.

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Easter sewing project

Last year I used a couple of kits from Hobbysew to make the children small felted bunnies to add to the ridiculously, stupid amount of chocolate left in the house by easter bunny and his associates. This year I went back to Hobbysew but they didn't have anything particularly cute, small, easy, quick to do that was Easterish enough for me. They had some small bears (nah). So - brain wave - I decided to check my bookshelf. Oh, that's what the collection of craft books is for....I think I need some kind of hillbilly, backwoods accent when I say that. I have two versions of the Softies book - this one and this one and my chosen ones are actually on the cover of the second book!.

It is a neat little book - comes in a box, has a set of cards and patterns and instructions. At Brown owls I used the lightbox I fell in love with, to trace the patterns onto some baking paper so that I can keep the originals for posterity - cause that's important. I went back to Hobbysew and got the rest of the stuff I needed - felt and threads. So far, chick with pink hat has been cut out during watching Cinema Paradiso on DVD on the weekend. That was a bit tricky - watching a subtitled movie and cutting out small bits of felt. Great film though. I had seen it years and years ago but Tim had never seen it. It has an interesting theory about creativity and denial or suffering or loss. It seemed to say - you can't have love & happiness and small town life and become a great artist. It is so beautifully made and seemingly so Italian/Sicilian.

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Brown Owls #2 - Canberra 2nd meeting

I stumbled across Brown Owls through someone who had an I am a brownie button on their blog.  At the time, my daughter had just joined Guides, and I was having one of those soft moments remembering my own little green dress and green beret and badges. So, despite being interstate, I joined up. It was originally set up as a sewing crafting group in Melbourne, meeting twice a month. I joined as a Faraway and thought, you never know, I might actually make it to a meeting sometime. Here's a copy of the handbook they sent when I joined. Please excuse wrinkled table cloth backdrop.

 
In October 2008, we were down in Melbourne for a week of the school holidays and Brown Owls were meeting at their club house. When I spoke to one of the Owl organisers on the phone she said they'd be doing a sausage dog project and my mind went off on tangents around making a small stuffed toy. Instead, we were doing an embroidery piece and given I spent a good deal of the time at the sew along chatting to the ladies next to me, I didn't actually manage to finish. Typical of my pace. 2 hours should be enough but it never is. 

Well, the unfinished piece sat in my bag until Brown Owls started in Canberra this year (yay) and at our second meeting we were again doing embroidery. Whoo hoo. I might actually finish that sausage dog. And I didn't. I spent quite a bit of time standing in the kitchen chatting to other owls. But I had a great time. The venue was fantastic. Wonderful light and airy. Places for kids to roam freely and groovy other activities in the next room (think drumming workshop). The spread of afternoon tea delights was scrumptious. I am keen to gather at the clubhouse again. Here's a report on the meeting on the Brown Owls' blog. And here's the embroidery bit finished. Note - at least the embroidery is nicely ironed.

Thankfully, the instructions on how to finish the sausage dog were posted so I am able to show you (and myself) what needs to be done next.

I have plans to make a tote bag with some of the other bits of introductory sewing materials that I received with my membership last year. It should be ready by the time my daughter finishes Guides.

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Tilli Tomas Flurries Beaded Baby Hat finally sent

I knitted this, along with a matching blue one, last winter 2008 but have only just managed to send it off on Thursday to the young thing who lives in Melbourne. The blue one, which I had no trouble getting to the recipient as bub was born in Canberra,  has already been outgrown. The young fellow it was knitted for has already passed the "medium" size and is due for his first birthday in about three months.

The little peanut that this pink one was knitted for was only born a couple of months ago, and given that it was super, bushfire hot in Melbourne in February I didn't feel so bad about not sending it. Besides I had knitted it for a "medium" size - perhaps a 3-6 month old. I got the wool from the Wool Shack a couple of year's before anyone fell pregnant. I just loved it so much and completely fell for the sleeping baby on the cover of the pattern. It's a quick little knit and although others have complained about having to push the beads through once it's knitted up, I didn't mind so much. It was fun playing with the soft wool and pretty beads.

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The apple doesn't fall very far from the tree

My daughter was 7 years old in January this year. For her birthday I gave her a sewing kit I had purchased at Mike's last October, when we were in Melbourne for the school holidays. It had the cutest fabric - that's what got me. It also looked really simple. I've learned slowly over the years that when crafting with children simple, happy, done is a really nice combination. Kids like that too, though they also like messy, glitter, glue, drawing on walls....Anyway... Last weekend, instead of dragging myself around all Saturday pretending to do housework, I whipped through the chores and after lunch we sat down at the sewing machine.

Happy. Concentrating. Straight stitches. I made an effort to show her how to thread the machine, make a bobbin, pin the fabric, press the seams, and then I was very proud of how relaxed I felt as I let her sew up all the seams. I wasn't sure if I would panic and feel the need to take over. But I didn't. So that's good. The kit is super cute. It comes with an iron on label that you attach to the outside of the project, embroider on the label are the words "I made it". I loved that. So here's the finished project, being modelled in the back garden, complete with new dressing gown and crocs. As you do.

She took it to Guides on Tuesday night and the leaders signed off one activity against the "Scissors" badge. We had both thumbed through the book of badges and couldn't find the "sewing" badge. It's all so groovy now and relational and you don't do straight out things like "sewing". Anyway, she was pleased - can you tell?

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It arrived! My pleated beauty bag from the BTRS swap.

My bag  has arrived from across the world and I love it. As do my children who immediately sugggested a use for it! Thank you partner.

We loaded it up with 3 sketch books (all A3 size), pencils, watercolours, brushes, water and some afternoon tea and we took it along with us to the Botanical Gardens for some fun on an autumn afternoon. I was thrilled to get such a clever package. As it was my first swap, and I haven't done that much sewing, I really didn't have much of a clue about fabrics and choices. So, I didn't give my partner much to go on. She knew I liked gardening because when I signed up for the swap I hadn't started this blog, instead I was using my gardening blog as a link. Other than that, I suggested no preferences for colour or style. Yet it is absolutely perfect. How funny is this?

It matches the colour on my lounge room wall - both are a bluey/green colour. Yvette's bag (now mine!) is also made of a strong woven fabric so it has quite a bit of internal strength. I like that about it. The one I made was a bit soft for my liking. I choose a linen but it was a very drapey, soft linen and once the bag was all sewn up I was a bit concerned about how wrinkly it would get. Perhaps my swap partner can always try ironing it if it's too crumpled for her taste.

The other lovely little things about my gift/swap were the extra hidden goodness inside the bag and the lovely matching up of Yvette's country of birth with my part of the world. Yvette is from Sydney (I mostly grew up in Sydney from when I was 11-29 years old) and so when I opened up the parcel and found this, I was tickled with all the connections. Yvette had made me a fabric covered notepad. Very clever, with beautiful and thoughtful choices of fabric.

There's a pocket for some notes, a holder for the pen, a pad of paper and some pretty double coloured ribbon to tie it up. I'm a bit nutty about making lists and I love stationery so it was all so perfect. Thanks Yvette. I have to include one more photo so you can see how cute the front fabric is close up.

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