Fairbridge and Edenvale

After 23 hours of sitting hunched over my sewing machine, like a frenzied witch over her cauldron, I've finally finished the machine lace. 

A close up view of the fossils all linked together.  I'm now in the process of stitching it to a fabric base ... more pics to come later.

For a break away from the machine, and to stretch my legs, hubby and I took a drive out to Fairbridge yesterday.  Despite being in Australia over 40 years and Fairbridge only being half an hours drive down the road, I'd never been there before, but I'm glad we went yesterday.  It was really lovely and very interesting.

That's the chapel above.  Fairbridge Village began in 1909 as a Farm School for orphans from the UK and Dutch East, to teach them skills and education which would help them in their adult years. 

The village is made up of 52cottages, each with their own unique name, where the children were taught and lived with a house mother to simulate a home environment.

Today Fairbridge still operates to assist people with disabilities and disadvantages.

Many craft groups hire out a cottage for a weekend retreat, where they have a long weekend of quilting or stitching and I'm sure lots of chatting and laughing too.

We specifically went there yesterday to see an exhibitiion by the Murray Arts and Crafts Group of paintings and textiles.

Of course there were birds there too, but only a few, not enough to send me screaming down the road.

I was so impressed with the Village that I'm planning to go again soon.

This is hubby enjoying the view of the hills ... or perhaps he was just resting after I'd dragged him on a long walk around the village.

From there we went to Edenvale Homestead in Pinjarra, to the Heritage Tea Rooms.

Another quaint place to visit, with lots of history, and lovely gardens.

My main reason for going here was to see the possums.  Again, despite living here for so long, I've never seen a possum, but recently the local newspaper did an article on a group of possums living at Edenvale who come out in the day time to feed and play, so armed with my camera I dragged hubby along for a chance to see them.

But ... they'd come out and been fed just before we got there, and had disappeared in their burrow under the verandah, so we missed out!

I was consoled with a cuppa tea and apple cake and a nice chat with the owners who showed me their photos of the possums (not quite the same thing!).  So there's another place I have to go back to ... I won't give up until I see these possums.  I'm on a mission now.

The gardens at Edenvale were just starting to show their Spring promise with tulips and, surprise! surprise! something we don't see often around our neck of the woods - snowdrops. 

They brought back some lovely childhood memories for us.

17 hours and counting

So far, I've spent 17 hours stitching away, bent over a sewing machine, to make my fossil lace, and I'm still only half way there.  Why oh why do I start these things ... do you think I'll ever learn to do a quick and simple project for a change.  Mine always seem to involve hundreds of hours of creation.

Saturday afternoon was a dyeing day - trying to get the right colour fabric to match my machine lace.  I want to use this for the inside of the noodle box.  I also had to dye a piece of fabric purple for the outside of the box which will be covered with the machine lace.  The purple dye I bought was more a plum, so I added some blue and eventually got the colour I wanted but it was a bit splodgy.  I'm hoping I can hide it with the lace and stitching.

I did end up with some nice mottled and mixed coloured pieces, so I hope I can do something exciting with them at a later date.  The box is coming on slowly and starting to take shape.  I've got to rework the handle idea.  I woke up at 4am the other morning suddenly realising my handle design wasn't going to work .... why didn't my brain pick that up at the time of design instead of deciding to wait until 4am in the morning to tell me!?

After all this brain storming and stitching I needed to clear my head and stretch my legs, so I took wee Bons to Lakelands for a walk and found this lovely duck.  Usually they're the mallard types, brown and boring, but this one was lovely and was happy to pose for me.

When I turned around I found I had an audience.  What is it with these birds!!??  Last year I was terrorised for 4 months by a Heron, who took great pleasure hiding behind the trees near my pond, waiting until I got near before taking off into flight like a B52 bomber and scaring the life out of me, as well as stealing my gold fish.  I'm getting worried that one day soon my neighbours might find me running down the street, arms and legs flaying widlly screaming "the birds, the birds". 

They already think I'm whacky ... that'll just confirm it!!

A busy fortnight past

What a busy few weeks we've had.  I've hardly had chance to read blogs, let alone make any posts.  Hubbie's been on 2 weeks holidays so we decided to redecorate the kitchen/dining/lounge area.  Being optimistic we thought we'd knock it off in a week and still have time for gardening and maybe a few days away down south ...HA! it took almost all the 2 weeks to finish the decorating. 
It was a good break though, after finishing Module 9, and gave me chance to clear my mind and do something different.  I was really pleased with my feedback too, so now I feel inspired for the next module.
On Tuesday we heard on the late evening news that 4 southern right whales had come into the Dawesville cut (between the ocean and the estuary).  This is something we've not experienced before, so yesterday I took my parents down there to view them, but they'd gone ... obviously travelling up north to warmer waters ready for calving.  Its a shame we hadn't known about it earlier the day before.

So instead of whale spotting we took a walk along the channel and watched the cormorants and pelicans.

I love the pelicans, I think they have such cheeky faces.  Then we got a surprise as 2 dolphins came past, side by side.  Its just such a lovely place to sit and enjoy the water, and how lucky are we to see nature at its most perfect.

Earlier I had said that doing the decorating was a good way to clear my mind ... but clearly, my mind packed up and went away on holiday.  Do you ever do things that are so totally stupid and then wonder why on earth you did it?!  I've started work on my Module 10, where I have to create my 3D piece. I've designed a noodle box made from machine lace based on fossils all linked together.

So ... Tuesday, being inspired and full of renewed energy I spent an hour tracing my fossil pattern onto soluble fabric, using a water soluble pen.  By the time I'd finished it was near tea time, so I put it aside for the next day.

Yesterday morning I woke up to find my soluble fabric blank .... the pen I'd used was a disappearing pen and all the pattern had vanished.  The pen comes in two colours, one either end, a purple and a blue.  I'd used the purple as I thought it was darker - but this was the disappearing ink, however, I'd also used the blue (water soluble ink) to mark the folds and eyelets.  Because the fabric was blank, apart from the blue ink, I thought, Oh I know, I'll get rid of the blue marks and start again, so .... what did I do?  I put a wet cloth over the blue marks to make them vanish and the fabric dissolved as well .... duurrrrr!!!! I'd forgotten it was water soluble fabric too ... like I say, my brains gone on holidays and I've no idea when its coming back!!!!!

So after another hour of retracing the pattern using the correct pen, and another piece of soluble fabric, I've now started making my machine lace.  I'm sure I'll still be at it next week, as I've hours and hours of it to do.  But, its a wet miserable cold day so there's nothing better to do than sit and stitch.

Bonnie's got the right the idea ... just stay in bed.  During the redecoration we ripped out our fire and have to wait 3 weeks for a new one ... only one more week to go, thank goodness.

And , another event in our lives this week was our 20th wedding anniversary yesterday.  Unfortunately hubby is back at work and away from home, but we celebrated with a big family BBQ on Sunday.  I wonder where the years have gone, I'm sure we've skipped some, they've gone so fast, but I wouldn't change any of them.  I love him today just as I did the day I married him, and am thankful to have him in my life. 

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!!

Machine Lace - Module 8

I've had a really productive past 2 weeks, knocking out loads of samples of machine lace and feel quite chuffed with myself. After hours and hours of practice I'm starting to enjoy free machining and feel like I'm finally getting the hang of it ...

This one (below) was made with squares of spun craft paper, laid on Aquabond and stitched together with metallic threads.

This purple piece is a piece of net fabric, and I've created the negative flowers by using a Shiva stick over a stencil, and then the free machined purple flowers are just pinned in place (at the moment!)

I liked working with the metallic threads and found they seem to hold together a bit better than the finer threads. I made these snowflakes using a silver metallic thread in the top of the machine and a white cotton in the bobbin.

I then had a go at cable stitch, putting a thicker thread in the bobbin and tried to work on a mesh fabric, but it just wouldn't work and kept jamming, so I changed the needle on the machine to a top stitch needle and put the thicker thread through the top of the machine and it worked a treat.

And on top of all this, I even managed to finish a Michael Powell cross stitch design for my sisters birthday, so all in all a very good fortnight .... just got to keep up the momentum now.