A New House!

A lot has happened since my last post. Well, it is nearly a year, but still a major change has occurred! I sold my flat and bought a house! I lived in that little flat for 13 years, and am loving the sense of space in the house - there are three bedrooms - one for me, one as a craft room and one for guests.

The house is big enough for me to have hosted 12 people for Boxing Day lunch. We all fitted around my new dining table with ease. The kitchen was big enough to manage all the food and dishes. And the rest of the house was big enough for my 5 year old nephew to run around and play hide and seek with his older cousin without disruption. Perfect!

I am still doing up the craft room. I've stripped off the wallpaper, scrubbed off the glue and now have to patch up the cracks and paint. Will post pictures later. The craft room is taking longer than anticipated as I'm spending a lot of time in the garden! Loving the garden... So many plans, so little time... Will post more about that later too.

Remember this quilt? Well it is finally done. Quilted by the Quilted Crow ladies, and taking pride of place in my new bedroom.

This is part of my hallway with a map garland I made just before Christmas. I can see more garland making happening over the summer holidays.

A collection of flowers - some from my garden and some from a friends'. I'm so excited by the possibility of planting lots of roses and other flowers, and arranging them in the house.

 

And finally, some roses from my garden. I took this photo in the bright light of the morning, and the camera serendipitously overexposed the photo. It has the quality of a painting. If I had the painting skills, I'd try and replicate it on canvas.

Hoping to blog more very soon about house, and craft, and garden!

Ahoy, there!

My four year old nephew was wearing a pirate t-shirt the other day and it gave me the idea for this embroidered badge. I'm really pleased with the way it's turned out - I hope he likes it!

This brooch has been sitting half done in a bag for a couple of years now! It's been nice to get it finished. For both badges I used recycled linen, crewel wool and a felted wool back.

The clasps are from Spotlight and I hope they last. They feel a bit cheap, but were the only ones available at the time.

The yellow flower brooch was completed a few years ago and I had forgotten all about it. I quite like the format of these pins. There are quick and easy to make, and would make great presents - especially for children. I start out by making a gathered yo-yo from the linen, reinforcing it with a circle of cheap felt inside, then doing the embroidery through all the layers. The felted wool back is stitched on using blanket stitch, and then the clasp attached last of all.

It's Autumn

I love Autumn - it's my favourite season. The air starts to get crisp and I get all my winter clothes out from the trunk under my bed and start thinking about scarvess and gloves and hats. Yesterday afternoon I went fungi spotting along the Pipeline track up at Ferntree. So much fun. And so much joy in the cold air. I love to rug up and not overheat when I go walking.

The leaf photo above was taken today at the Botanical Gardens. Too many people around with the Environment festival, but the oak grove was practically deserted. Bliss.

This is a Noro catherine wheel scarf recently finished for my sister. I have one just the same for me, and I love it. It's such a joy to watch the colours unfold!

And another Noro scarf - this one for my father's partner. Again, a joy to watch the colours develop!

And finally a vest for me! This has been on the go for a couple of years now, and I finally got around to sewing the squares together! It's Rowan's Periwinkle vest and I've Ravelled it here.

I have a quite a few interesting knitting projects on the go at the moment and not enough time! I also have a few things queued.

One of my current projects is from an old Patons book from the Second World War. I can't reveal too much, as it's part of a suite of retro knits for a birthday present.

My queue includes this wonderful headband by Kate Davies and a striped vest knitted in a wonderful selection of Cascade 220 heathered blues and greens from the Stash Cupboard.

The knitting projects will never end. This is such a joy and a comfort - the certainty that I can always pick up the needles, the anticipation of a new project, the excitement of casting on, and the sense of satisfaction at a project completed. A blessing indeed.

One down, two to go!

First panel appliqued! It's a little wonky, but I'm sure the others will improve -  I'm quite looking forward to doing more!

The needlepoint purse is done! An interesting and fun exercise in colour shifts using my favourite colours. It's hard to photograph the colours accurately. There is no grey in the purse - what you should be seeing are subtle shades of the blue and green - but they've photographed as grey!

I lined it with bright magenta silk...

And backed it with soft navy leather.

This is my next needlepoint project. The design is from Kaffe Fassett's 'Pattern Library'. I've used this design in needlepoint before and it translates beautifully. I haven't quite finalised my colours yet. I'm wanting something softer and washed out - like the beach. I've been playing around with my skeins for well over and hour now! I can't wait to start colouring this in - I'm using a much softer pallet than usual and am itching to see how it turns out...

The converted baster

Hmmm. After my last post where I vowed I'd never baste, here is the evidence that I have recanted!

Things started off well enough with the yellow flower centres.

Then everything appeared to be ok with the green stems, but the pin actually pushes them out of alignment, and it was tricky to keep them nice and straight. This was when I started thinking that maybe people take the time to baste for good reason... And I could baste all pieces with one long thread and carry the basting from piece to piece to save fussing with a new thread for every piece.

It worked. And it wasn't too painful. And it made the actual appliqueing a whole lot of fun because I wasn't constantly dodging pins. I am a convert.

p.s. I made the sticky black rice pudding, and it was ok. Probably not as sweet as some people would like it, and I think thick coconut cream would be more luscious than milk next time.