Felting and an old Project Re-discovered

It has been a long time between posts.  Life sometimes gets in the way.
Hope everyone has had a very happy Easter.
Lilian loved the whole Easter experience this year.  Here she is as the ‘Easter Bunny’.  Once she had the ears on, she took the role of Easter Bunny very seriously and began hopping around our local shopping centre.  Many people stopped her and asked if she was going to call in on them.  She would just nod and twitch her little nose. It was very cute. She seemed to have boundless energy!

Before Easter I got a bee in my Easter bonnet and decided it was time to get the felting machine out of the cupboard and give it a whirl.

I was a little bit rusty on how to go about it and ended up breaking 3 needles in quick succession.  Nonetheless, I did manage to make a couple of small items from the embellishing I did, and now have to embark on finding a local dealer to purchase more needles.

This first project was a case for my clip on sunglasses.  The black lines are herringbone stitches done in six strands of embroidery thread and then felted through the machine afterwards.  (Saw this on You Tube – so not my original idea). 
Basically the projects were done using wool roving and embellishments of other yarns onto an ordinary old piece of acrylic felt. 

Stage 1 laying down the roving       

I do a little bit of hand felting to secure the wool to the background first
          

Then comes the fun bit of embellishing.  One of the embellishments was this glorious yarn from Fibreworks (Kid Mohair Yarn) and then I used various other yarns and pieces of silk scraps etc.

A case for my new iphone.  It seems I have a penchant for green lately
During a mad de-cluttering stage a couple of weeks ago I came across these very old crochet squares.  They would have been started some 15 years ago probably.

I decided this would be the perfect project to do in the car as we are travelling along.  Luckily I can read, sew, crochet etc as we are driving along without getting car sick.
So, I have done a couple of squares to refresh my memory and the wool, hook etc is packed in a bag ready to go.
There are a few trips planned over the next few months.  This coming week we are going to spend a few days in a forest park about 3 1/2 hours north of here with our travelling friends.  Should be loads of fun.
Here are a couple of favourite pictures of our last trip to the southern beaches of NSW and Victoria.
 
Lake at Eden N.S.W

Wilsons Promontary Vic.


Sculpture of Ned Kelly at Jerilderie bakery make entirely out of old bread tins – ingenious!!

Until next time……………………….. Dianne.

Love Travel, Love Life

We have been doing a bit more tripping around.  This time to the southern coastlines of NSW and Victoria.

We have a “Travelander” which is kind of a tent on the back of a truck thingy.  We have our own shower, cooking facilities, pantry, queen size bed and a few other extras to make camping a pleasure.  On the back of our Travelander when it is folded up is a sticker which reads, “Love Travel, Love Life” – and that is just what we have been doing.
(Travelander on the left – my sister and her husband’s tent on the right)

Could this be an “I Love Australia” red onion???  See the little heart above and then the little Australia below?
Sorry Tassie this onion has inadvertently put you in the centre of Australia but I guess that is better than being left off altogether! 
At one isolated beach on the Southern NSW coast we bumped into an American couple.  They come to Australia every year to visit friends and see more of our great country.  The main thing that keeps them coming back is the Australian people.  They love us!!!  Another thing they enjoyed whilst travelling around our country was ‘the critters’.  So here, my friends, are just some of the wondrous ‘critters’ we bumped into over the past month.

Lots of these wallabys sighted at Mann River reserve, NSW

Cute, very fat, wombat at Tidal River, Wilson’s Promontory, Victoria.  He didn’t like the flash photography much, but these little fellows only prowl around in the dark.  This is the very first time I have ever seen a wombat in the flesh!!
Lots of birdlife, both coastal birds and inland birds.  Always hard to photograph!!

One very cheeky kookaburra (luckily the camp oven was cold!!)                           One very watchful currawong.

This guy was HUGE.  A yellow tailed black cockatoo – taken at Bundanoon in the Morton National Park

The magnificent crimson rosella photographed at Tidal River.


The usual assortment of water birds, but I couldn’t help loving this little cutie – the crested tern.  His hair was all fluffed up!!

Can you see the camel here??  This is Camel Rock beach just near Bermagui  NSW. 
My camera is just a little point and shoot thus some of the zoom in photos are a bit fuzzy.  Other than that it takes a reasonable photo – Nikon Coolpix S6300.

Here is Lilian about to go out onto the hockey field.  The littlies look so cute running around chasing a little white ball.
Until next time (when I hope to have some crafty/sewing stuff to show you)
Dianne