Another UFO finished

One of my favourite embroidery designers is Tanja Berlin, a graduate of the RSN, who has been a professional embroiderer for the past 10 years.  She's based in Canada, but came to Australia to teach at the Beating Around The Bush convention in 2009.  As soon as I read that Tanja was coming to Oz, I just had to book my place at the convention, and all three of the classes I undertook were with Tanja.

To date, 4 years later, I've still only finished one of the pieces.  Shameful, I know!

This was another of the UFO's I decided to complete during the past year ... Tanja's "Tropical Bird" design, a 2-sided embroidery technique.

 

Despite being initially daunted by the prospect of a 2 sided piece, Tanja's instructions and personal guidance made it quite simple to create. Her instructions are second to none, and even for a piece with a total embroidered size of only 7.5cm x 9cm she still provides 19 x A4 pages of precise instructions and diagrams, with clear photography of the finished piece.

I loved doing this little design, but have yet to work out just how to frame it to its full advantage so that both sides can be seen ... something to ponder on.

In the meantime I've two more of Tanja's designs to complete so I'd better get cracking, heh?!

Where have I been?!

Hello fellow bloggers & blog readers,
Where have I been for the past 8 months? No, I've not forgotten you, sometimes life just gets so busy and the months zoom by.
Have I been creative? I sure have .... on a big scale .... hubby and I have created our own new home, built by us with blood, sweat and a few tears, sometimes of joy, sometimes of relief, and sometimes of sheer exhaustion, but its all been worth it.  We're in, and loving every minute of it.
This was the beginning - what used to be our workshop

and now this is it  - a home.

The view from the street.

There's still some titivating to do with the front wall, which needs rendering, and the pickets replacing, and the lawn tidying up ... and, and, and .... there's always something that will need doing for a while yet, but its liveable and completed inside.

Unfortunately the sewing/textile side has had to take a back seat, but I have managed to spend a few hours in the evenings to work on finishing some UFO's.

One of them in this Jenny McWhinney Camel blanket which I started in 2003 - how slack is that!?  Ten years to finish it, but I'm sure there's many of you out there with similar UFO's shoved in cupboards or drawers and forgotten about - its never too late to dig them out and work on them.  

I'm patting myself on the back for finishing the stitching, but I've still got to complete the blanket - I'm trying to find a suitable backing fabric with a bit of "oomph" and all the right colours.  I'm sure I'll find it sooner or later. 

More finished UFO's to come in the next post.