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

A Big Birthday - Best Wishes – Best Friends - Bits of Art

 

Yes, it was a biggy!

The actual day was on a Tuesday, and so on the Saturday, my darling husband and daughters arranged a family luncheon.  I did not have to do a thing – it was lovely and I was spoiled.  Our oldest daughter made the cake and it was a white chocolate mud cake.  I love white chocolate and the cake was delicious!!

Hubby doing the dishes  xxx

Lilian did her own make up especially for the occasion.

 

Even Bella, our 13 year old border collie cross, joined in the party and enjoyed some attention from our youngest daughter.

On the Monday my dear friends from quilting joined in celebrating, and we had lunch at ‘The Two Birds’ cafe.  All their food is homemade on the premises – it was yummy.

Around the table L-R  Vicky, Marilyn, Linda, Loretta,Shirley,Joan, Marleen & Moi.

  They also spoiled me rotten.

Beautiful gifts – thank you my dear friends. 

On the day of the birthday my hubby took me to the flicks and lunch.  We saw ‘The Book Thief’.  I enjoyed my day.

A few weeks ago I did this collage/painting spread on a piece of old card. It will be a book cover one day.

Front Cover

The branch part of this image is a collage taken from a picture in an old National Geographic magazine.

Inside cover

Bird image from Karen over at Graphics Fairy.

I have to finish with my cute little Lilian.  This is how they come out of prep each day holding hands – very cute. (Lilian in the middle)

 

Until next time……………..Dianne

Art Quilt Finish : Art Clean Up : Transfer Techniques

A finish at last!
A couple of months ago I did an online course with Deborah Boschert called “Branches Buds & Blossoms : a botanical fabric collage”.
This is the result and I will put it into our quilting exhibition display in September.  The theme for the display is “Botanica”, so this will fit perfectly.
I have called it “Branching Out” as I find my textile art is branching out into collage a lot lately.  It seems to be something I like doing.
Deborah had some great hints and tips, and it was a very enjoyable exercise.

Just recently I discovered a box marked ‘Art” which has been sitting in the bottom of the linen press for about 15 years unopened since we moved into this house. 

Embarrassingly, most of the stuff inside had to be chucked out as it had deteriorated somewhat.  This prompted a bit of an art clean out.  Looong time ago I was very into folk art painting and did such an awful lot of it.

A lot of the supplies from that era were put to the back of the cupboard and the back of mind until a couple of days ago.  Here is what I discovered ( & embarrassingly – again - I forgot I had some of these things).  I was very excited to find them, anyway. 

Brushes Galore - all shapes and sizes

A tube of oil paint in burnt umber which I used to love using for antiquing and giving the aged look.




An ink nib, a kemper tool (you fill the well with acrylic ink or watered down acrylic paint and draw with it), and my wonderful paint trowel.



The dining ??? table – plenty of paints.
Have you ever tried to transfer a quilting design onto a quilt which has already been layered.  Jeesh, it is no mean feat.  This often happens if the quilting idea comes at a late stage in the artistic development of the piece  LOL.
Firstly I tried using the pattern drawn onto tulle and this was very successful but I used a white pitt pen to transfer with.  By the time I had quilted one lot of scrolls all the other transfers on the fabric had rubbed away.  Grrr.

During a wakeful period in the night (you know how it is) I remembered I had purchased a clover product called Transfer Mesh.  Couldn’t wait to get out of bed next morning to give it a whirl.
I find Clover products very, very good on the whole.  This transfer mesh was quite troublesome though, as the pen and pencil wanted to get stuck in the wee holes, which is probably why they tell you to use blunt pencils.

I used a 2B pencil to draw the lines onto the mesh and then a Karisma pencil to transfer to the fabric (as per instruction on the video).  What I learned, with trial and error, was a light touch is better than going hard at it, and slow and steady is better than fast and impatient!!
If you have one of these sheets, do give it a try, it was the best solution to this awkward problem  You can see a video of how to use it HERE – but be aware the audio is terrible.
Until next time……………Dianne