Two gifts in one week

In the past 5 days I've been truly spoilt and received two amazing gifts from a wonderful new friend.

Sarah, at Sarah Sews Quilting Blog, kindly awarded me the Liebster Award for my blog.  We met through blogging and through our mutual enrollment with the School of Stitched Textiles - Sarah doing her City and Guilds Patchwork and Quilting, and myself doing the Embroidery Level 3, and now we have a lovely friendship where we chat about everything and all sorts, not just our C&G studies.  

The Liebster Award is a blog award, which apparently originated in Germany, to showcase bloggers with fewer than 200 followers.  Upon accepting the award the recipient must then pass it on to five more blogs of note, which is a wonderful way of introducing bloggers to your own favourite blogs.

The Liebster Convention says you must:-

1. Thank your award presenter on your blog and link back to him/her;

2. Copy and paste the award to your blog;

3. Present the Liebster Award to 5 blogs (with less than 200 followers) that you love;

4. Leave a comment on their blog to let them know;

5. Have faith that those award winners will spread the blog love.

For my own list of 5 favourite blogs, Sarah's would be one of them, but of course I can't pass the award back to her, but please do pop over and read her blog as its very enjoyable.

I would now like to send this award to the following 5 wonderful blog sites that I've been following for quite some time :

Amanda at View From Our Hill

Anne at Max the Lobster

Annette at Annette's Textile Tales

Louise at LouGardiner

Miriam at  77 Belle

And on top of all of this, yesterday I received a parcel in the post, once again from my lovely friend Sarah, and inside was the most wonderful hand made bag and a massive bar of chocolate, to congratulate me on completing my City and Guilds course after 7 long years. 

The bag was made by Sarah and is just delightful and a brilliant size for so many things - its fits a giant block of chocolate PERFECTLY!!  I'm going to use it to keep my mini scissors and needles in when I'm stitching in the evenings and shall think about Sarah each time I see it.  Thank you Sarah, its wonderful, and I will cherish it!

Isn't blogging a marvellous way to meet the most wonderful people?!

Beautiful Albany

Last week we took ourselves down south to beautiful Albany for a few days of well earned rest.  The last time we were in Albany was about 12 years ago, and this time we saw huge changes, but its still a quaint and scenic city, and I'd love to live there!

The climate was a bit of a shock to the system when we arrived after going from low 30's to 15C, but we soon got used to it and relished the fresh air and cool temps.  We stayed in the most beautiful accommodation at The Rocks Hotel overlooking Princess Royal Harbour, built in 1882 for one of Albany's first Mayors. Later it was a vice regal residence of state governors, a maternity hospital, a school, a surgery and doctors residence, a US Officer's rest and recreation centre and a Girls hostel.

Its the only 5 star heritage accommodation in WA, and the attention to detail  that the owner Noelene has put into the decor, gardens and building is second to none.   

You can just spot hubby on the balcony outside our bedroom doors.  Below is the room we stayed in ... pristine clean, and very comfy.  

We had the run of the hotel to ourselves for the two nights we stayed, but couldn't stay longer as there was a wedding party coming in the next day (perfect spot for a wedding!) which was a shame as we'd love to have stayed for another couple of nights.  This is the billiard room next to our room, and where we spent the first night playing pool. 

The next two photos are the view from our balcony.  It was so scenic that the first night we didn't go out to dinner, instead we sat out on the balcony watching the rain coming in, and nibbling on cheese, crackers, cold meat and dips with the most delicious bottle of port we've ever had.  It was a Yilgarnia port vintage 2007 from the local winery Yilgarnia near Denmark.  Great night! 

The Rocks has three garden areas, one is the front lawn and sweeping driveway into the property with a tennis court below; another is a garden to the side of the property with native plants and urns, and the third is this stunning formal garden with herbs and lavender, roses, garden benches and hedges.  I must've taken a hundred photos just of the plants in this garden.

Breakfast was delicious - a cooked one of course, but there are about 5 or 6 different types of breakfasts to choose from, all taken in the breakfast room.  You can see through the open door that there is another room to guests, this is the sun room flooded with natural sun light and where two little pooches like to play. 

One in particular, Eskimo, was very cheeky and loved attention, whereas his mate Mac is older and quieter, but none the less appealing.  This is little Eskimo wanting her tummy rubbed.

Despite some rain on the first day it didn't dampen our spirits, instead it blew away the cobwebs and refreshed us.  Check the rainbow behind me.

Tea and scones at Emu Beach were scrumptious, and the beach was beautiful.  The water was really clear and clean ... if this is what its like on an Autumn day, imagine how nice it is in summer!

Although it looks like a storms coming in, it blew over quickly with just a light rain shower. 

The view from the Anzac Memorial is spectacular, looking left to Middleton Beach, beyond this the next stop is Antarctica.

It seems appropriate with Anzac Day tomorrow to share Albany's memorial dedicated to the fallen soldiers. It was from Albany in 1914 that 70,000 Australian and New Zealand soldiers left these shores to fight in WWI, many never to return, with Albany being the last place in Australia they ever saw.  Of the 3,000 horses that accompanied the soldiers, only one returned.  "Lest we Forget".

 The view from the top of Mount Clarence looking down at the memorial and into Frenchman's Bay.  The statue is of a mounted Australian soldier assisting a New Zealand soldier whose horse has been wounded.

Of course, a trip to Albany wouldn't be complete without visiting the Gap in Torndirrup National Park.

The water just surges up through this gap, crashing into the rocks, and the noise is incredible. The Gap was formed purely by the waves of the Great Southern Ocean crashing against the granite and carving the gap, forming a 25 metre sheer drop.  Even though we were standing on a platform with railings around, my stomach was up in my mouth and my legs were like jelly.

All along the coast here are granite rocks and crashing waters, and the colours in the water are amazing.  Later in the year you can spot whales in this area, but it wasn't the right season for us, so it's a good excuse to go back again later in the year for some whale watching. 

I wasn't too keen on Ian standing so close here, but its not as close as it appears in the photo - but close enough!!!  My stomach was churning all over the place, I definitely wasn't comfortable until we were heading back to the carpark. 

 And another of nature's spendours in Albany is the Natural Bridge with the ocean surging underneath.  Its incredible the beauty nature gives us.

We drove around to the old whaling station and on the way stopped to look at the beach at Frenchman's Bay ... can you spot the fisherman?  On the shore you can see a cluster of rocks with a huge rock sitting atop ... this rock weighs 100 tonnes and was washed into its place by a king wave, quite a feat considering a 100 tonnes is the power of a steam locomotive.

The next day were took a drive to the nearby town of Denmark and had lunch in a pub overlooking the park and Denmark River. The colours on the autumn leaves were lovely and of course, I had to collect some for my sketchbook. 

All too soon it was time to head home again, but the break was lovely and now I'm refreshed and ready to get back into some creative work.

Finished !!!!

The last few months have been busy, busy, busy with my head down and bum up, working on finishing my Level 3 - Embroidery City and Guilds course, and ..... I've done it!  Module 12 is on its way to the UK as we speak (or read) and hopefully I've submitted enough for the final EV's assessment on 18th June.

What a relief, after 7 years of studying.   Yes, I know I'm slow, but sometimes life just gets in the way, and thats the beauty of distance learning, you do it at your own pace.  I've thoroughly enjoyed it, although there were times when I struggled to think outside the box, and the down side of distance learning is that you've no-one to bounce ideas off, so you're really on your own, and at times I wondered if I was on the wrong track, but all that is par for the course.  In the long run thats what determines your own style of work. 

I haven't yet found a particular "style" that I could say is "me", but I know what I'm comfortable with and what I enjoy doing the most.  I'm not a very loose artist, I find it hard to be very free in my designs and way of working, I'm more constrained and like to work in a precise way, but thats just me.  On saying that, the loose methods and designs I did do, pleased me, and probably surprised me in the end as well, so who knows, now I'm free to work at my own pace I might loosen up more. 

The other night my hubby was looking through my work from the very beginning and asked if I could believe I'd done some of the work, and I have to admit, some of it surprises me, but it also shows how far I've come and what I've learnt.  I have a better understanding and appreciation of modern art, varying techniques, how designs evolve and come about from primary sources, history - not just in textiles either, and a whole load more.  I don't regret it for one second and would encourage anyone who's considering undertaking such a course to go forth and grab the chance, because you won't regret it. 

I've included photos of some of my note books I created ... the first one was my notebook on Fabrics, Conservation & Laundering Methods.  I used up hubby's old shirts to create the cover as a little bit of a tribute to wonderful man who has supported and encouraged me throughout.

The second book was all about my white work techniques and was made with layers of fabric and net, free machined around the contours of a layer of lace to give it dimension. 

Next was a sketchbook, covered with pva glue and tissue paper, and washes of acrylic paint and wax.  Makes a good hardy cover, idea for a lot of handling.

The last one is my notebook on Patchwork Quilting and Applique and consists of brown paper, vliesofix, scrim, hand made felt and some hand stitching.

 And finally ... you can see the aftermath of all my work in my studio ... yes, I've a LOT of cleaning and tidying up to do, but thats for another day ... for the next couple weeks I'm putting my feet up and relaxing.

Productive Sunday

I finally finished the buttons and buttonholes for Lexies dress this morning, then popped around this afternoon to give it to her.  I'm pleased it fitted her and she loved twirling around in it, but it only stayed on for 10 minutes then she wanted her shorts and t-shirt on again ... she's a bit of tom-boy so I hope she wears it.

Another thing I did this afternoon was have a go at baking.  I love cooking but am not much of a baker, but it was a friends 83rd birthday and I wanted to do something special, so I made a chocolate cake with cream and marmalade filling, and even had a go at making chocolate leaves for the top.

It's not something I'd attempt to do again in the summer, no matter how much I chilled the leaves, as soon as I touched them they melted.  We had the aircon on full blast in the car to stop it melting, and had to chomp into it as soon as we arrived at our friends, but it was worth the effort.  Yummy!

Creative play

The housework can wait ... the past two days the kitchen looked like a bomb had hit it.  I decided to pull out all stops and have a creative play day,or two - taking over every conceivable surface in my kitchen and experimenting with paints, inks, stencils and whatever that I'd collected over the years and never put to much use.  I have to admit to not having a clue what I'm doing, but I guess thats why its called "experimental" work.  The first thing I did was stencil some gesso over a piece of pelmet vilene, then spray it with washes and sprinkle some powder over it.  It took ages to dry and didn't end up as raised as I'd liked, but thats probably due to using gesso instead of molding paste.  I just can't find the Golden molding paste here in Oz.

You can see here that I had a few things on the go.  Working from the far right I painted some vliesofix; stamped a predyed piece of fabric; made labels for my C&G notebooks; and tried an experimental piece.

The experimental piece has a bit of everything thrown at it ... I mainly wanted to use my paper casts, so I attached them to the vilene with gesso, slapped a bit more gesso around, then thought "why not some more gesso" so put some through a stencil of square blocks.  Stood back and thought, hmmmm, too much gesso, so pressed some scrim into it, then sprayed dye-na-flow over it.  It all went too turquoise, so I had to knock back a few places and bring back the white of the gesso.  Then waited, waited, and waited some more for it to dry - blasted it with the hairdryer, waited some more, then went to bed and woke this morning to find it had finally dried!!  Now just have to decide where to go with it from here ... I know there's more to do to it, but I have to have a think about it, over a cuppa tea maybe.

It'd actually all started with me making the paper casts, and wanting to do something to finish them off.  This was a cast I made using cheap loo paper.  It worked wonderfully when I was making the pulp with just the paper and water, but when it dried it didn't hold together very well (found out later after some research, that I should've used watered down PVA glue at the time of pulping and molding) - so - I lathered it with textile medium to bind it together, which seemed to work, and then painted it with acrylic paint and rubbed metallic wax over it.  It's very subtle and doesn't exactly hit you in the face - but this might work in its own way.

I stencilled another piece of pelmet vilene with acrylic paints in periwinkle blue and silver.  I like this, but again, need to have a think of where to go from here.

Even the paper towels I used to mop up and wipe down came in handy as pieces of mini art.  I liked the colours down the middle of this piece of towel, so I used up the left over dye-na-flow to cover it then found I probably like this best of all - Murphy's Law huh!?  When you're not even trying, is when you get the best results.

So after two days of play, it's back to housework for a few hours ...  then some afternoon down time to get the creative juices flowing again and decide what to do with them from here. 

Paper casts and tiny Ted

I've spent the past two evenings making paper casts for some textile work, and must say its quite therapeutic in front of the tele dabbing bits of paper with a paint brush and water.  These are the first lot I made, and being impatient for them to dry, I took them off their moulds and then they dried all buckled .... lesson learnt in what NOT to do!!

These ones are last nights batch drying slowly.  You can see I raided the kitchen cupboards for anything that could be used for a mould - bottoms of plates, glasses, bowls, along with all the proper moulds you can buy nowadays.

I also used toilet paper as well as water soluble paper - cheaper, dries faster, and smells nice too.  Not sure how well it'll withstand the painting and waxing afterwards, though.

The base of this dessert plate made a great cast using the toilet paper, so I might have a go tonight using the w/s paper and then compare them.  The snowflakes was another attempt with the toilet paper.

So after I'd made those I was itching for something else to do, and found a half made Ted in my UFO bag, so got stuck in, literally, to finishing him.  He's made using the dry needle felting technique, just rolling up balls of wool and stab, stab, stabbing, building up areas, until you get a shape you want.

Okay, he's not the most handsome bear I've ever seen.  No matter how many attempts at making his face smiley and sweet, he ended up looking mean and scary, but he still looks like a bear, albeit one with a bad case of mumps and arm and leg joints that don't line up LOL!!  But he does have a hump and a tail.

I'm sure I can only get better with practice.  I've seen other techniques for doing this too, so might try them later on if I can withstand the stabbed fingers (watching tele whilst doing this could be reason why I stabbed myself so many times).  As happy as I am to finish him another attempt can wait a few months - I think it'll make a good winter craft, but when you're sitting in 40C heat the wool just sticks to your fingers and gets a bit frustrating, then to calm you down you go and get some chocolate and then that melts and gets on your bear and ...... you get the drift.

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