A big thank you !

My hubby and I don't get to spend a lot of time together as his work takes him away from home a lot, but just recently he's been home and has thrown himself wholeheartedly into doing everything ... shopping, cooking, cleaning, gardening etc .... so that I can concentrate on my C&G and catch up on lost time.

The other night he surprised me even more by cooking a special dinner, which started with a spicy prawn and vegetable crepe for entree ...

followed by marinated fish with nasi goreng for main ....

all washed down with a bottle of champagne ....

and a dip in the spa afterwards to unwind.

His thoughtfulness has enabled me to finish my Module 8 and get it off in the post for assessment, leaving me with a few days to relax and unwind, before throwing myself into Module 9.

Above is one of my transparent designs.  I stencilled flowers onto a piece of poly netting by rubbing shiva sticks over a cardboard stencil, then creating machine lace flowers which are hand stitched on to the netting.

Below are sample pages of my "thread sample folder" which I've created to log all supplies used on my samples.

And so to end this blog ... I just wanted to say a big THANK YOU to all the husbands, wives, children, siblings and friends who support us in whatever way to help us achieve our goals.

2010 - I'm back!

I've been trying to blog for a month now ... where does the time go.  Christmas and New Year came and went in a blurr, as did January.  Packed up boxes of craft supplies and hubby drove across Australia to set up a new home in Victoria whilst he worked on a contract over there.  No sooner had we set up home than the job crashed ... and homeward bound were we.  I always said I'd never drive the Nullabor again, but some things you can't get out of.  So off to Victoria I flew, packed up the house and craft supplies and spent 3 days, 15 hrs a day, driving back across the country.  I now vow that I'm staying put and concentrating on getting C&G finished.  That's this years resolution.

I've been working with transparent fabrics, and this is a shadow applique .... shapes cut from a preprinted fabric and adhered to a base, then sandwiched between wadding and a layer of nylon net, and machine stitched around the shapes.

Another sample for this module was a lace fabric created from free machining on water soluble fabric. This design was based on fossils, all placed randomly next to each other.

More machine quilting .... this was trapunto, with some stippling.  I'm quite pleased with this one.

The last sample of applique and quilting ... as it was Christmas time, I HAD to create this!!

Transparent fabrics

The creative juices finally kicked in last week ... how long they'll last is another question.
I'm still working on Module 8 with transparent fabrics. This piece was created using black organza, home dyed vibrant green muslin and crystal organza. I adhered some circles of crystal organza and muslin between the layers of black organza, and then adhered some circles on the top layer of black organza.
From there I machine stitched swirls and circles on, or around. the adhered fabrics, in black thread, and continued the circle design by stitching groups of circles in the negative spaces of the black organza.

I finished it off with some hand stitching in running stitch using green DMC floss, running around the outlines of the circular stitching.

The photos don't show the vibrancy of the colours or fabrics, which is a shame, but it shines and sparkles lovely.

My family thinks its like something out of the sea, but it reminds me of the stars, so I've called it the "Cosmos".

Transparent Fabrics

After a harrowing few months I'm now back into the swing of it and madly trying to catch up on lost time, throwing myself whole-heartedly into Module 8 : Transparent Fabrics, More Machine Techniques and a Working Design for a 3D item.
I spent the day holed up in my studio painting papers with transfer paints and crayola transfer crayons. Managed to make up over 50 papers .... some will come in handy in the future.

I used everything that I could find that could be described as a stencil of some sort, to try and give me as much variety in the patterns, as possible. Some worked better than others, depending on the fabric they were transferred onto.

I found that voile and nets were great, but crystal organza's blurred and didn't take up the transfer very well.

The transfer paints were great for stamping, and gave much brighter colours than what appears on the paper.

Rubbing mats were good fun to use with the Crayola transfer crayons, and the designs could be cut up and re-arranged.

I even tried the scrapbooking wooden motifs as stamps and stencils, they worked fine!

A productive day .... lets hope tomorrow is as good.