of Nature, WIPs and Work

This new part time job is taking it's toll... : )  I'm loving it; but I'm exhausted! I think I'm still trying to get as much done (house, garden, studio) as I usually do and it's just not happening. I don't want anything to come between me and my creative time and I'm frustated with myself that I'm tired! I guess it's just all new and will be a matter of settling in. I started a little later this morning as I attended a little ceremony at my son's school........ It's great that my new work place is flexible; they're lovely people and I feel like I'm learning lots; it's hands on, which I love.

So, I haven't really done much needlework.... I started a little on the Blue Moon ATC last night... I'll see where that goes...

Blue Moon ATC

WIP

Yellow Clouds yesterday evening....

they really looked ominous and were strangely coloured.. 

but we didn't get a storm....

My very favourite rose: Mary Rose

see, I can do Shabby Chic!

Young Chinese Elm

My Silver Birch trunks are turning silver!

Having a bit of trouble with photo formatting of late. My pics are tending to get squashed up. I tried resizing a couple of them but now they won't centre.. so apologies for the mish mash array!

grrrrrrr

I have to make another 80km round trip into town tonight as Rose has a twilight school swimming carnival this evening...

The Hand Embroidery Networks (HEN) Winter Wonderland Exhibition is online here. There is some absolutely fabulous, clever and detailed work!

Joyous January!

First, a sneak peak at one of the challenges I've been working on!:

Detail

Detail

It's all finished now and I'm ready to send off photos for the deadline!

January has been wonderful! We’ve had so much rain that everything is lush and green and thankfully it hasn’t been too hot; we had a weekend away at Bellingen on the motorbike (we didn’t get wet this time!) We stayed at Casa Belle which is a wonderful piece of Paradise in the Bellinger Valley just inland of Coffs Harbour in the north east of the state of NSW! This is our 3rd stay in 3 or 4 years and we just adore it! If you’re planning a visit to Australia or are in Australia and looking for somewhere to stay in this area, we can highly recommend it!

We went on another organised bike run yesterday - a perfect riding day; I had a shopping day in Newcastle (about 4 hours drive away) with my eldest daughter (Kat) last week and bought some much needed clothes, shoes and underwear!; My youngest 2 children have arrived home from Christmas hols with their father interstate; and on top of all of that I’ve been busy working on challenges! Not so much studio cleaning and redecorating happening yet but the year is yet young! I'm harvesting Button Squash, Lebanese Cucumbers & 'Jack Be Little' Pumpkins (soooo cute!) from my vege patch (seeds were all from Eden Seeds - non hybrid, old traditional, open pollinated).

Here is the first of my ATC swaps. I'm not 100% happy with it but it's growing on me! It's just so different to the other entries posted so far- which are all divine!

Here is the link to Lenna Young Andrews Creative Swaps website with updates on this swap.

This is a little piece of needle weaving in situ on a piece of black felt that I did in front of the telly the other night. There is a photo and tutorial of the technique on this lovely blog: Creative Dabbling I came across the other day! Click here to go to the tutorial.

Needle Weaving on Felt

Needle Weaving on Felt

I couldn’t immediately lay my hands on my embroidery hoop to weave onto fabric and I was itching to try this sooooooo I decided to use the felt as a base instead with very successful results. The instructions are for a brooch but I may turn this one into a necklace (I’ve been doodling ideas for fabric necklaces in my sketchbook and jumped on this technique when I saw it!) Thank you Erica for wonderful instructions!

Erica dabbles with lots of different techniques (like someone else I know!) and I'm enjoying her blog. I've just 'met' Erica and realised it is her selvage quilt on the front cover of the latest Down Under Quilts magazine! Congratualations! Click here to go to Erica's blog entry about the cover and a further link to the article!

More journal pages....

I was lucky enough to get to Eckersley’s (Think art supplies!) on Tuesday when I took Jon’s boys back home. It was an hour detour from my already long journey…. Plus browsing time! ....but was worth every minute of it for the joy I had of being among all the art materials and having my sister-in-law for company.

Among the bits and pieces I bought, I found a wonderful alphabet stamp set by KaiserCraft. I'm impressed!

An old watercolour I added stamping too; I can now use it in my collage work!

I stamped some words onto white tissue paper and added them to this journal page. You may need to enlarge the pic to see.

Another new journal page; not finished but fun!

Here is a little something I'm working on. Don't really know why I started it... Just one of those things I had to do. I will put a face on the elfin figure and keep adding background and embroidered detail. It will eventually become a little art quilt.

Kleine Hexe

Here is my new herb garden that I blogged about recently. Jon and the boys helped position the heavy concrete troughs. They're all ready to plant up now....!

My new herb garden...

'Black' Iris, Herbs and Vegies

The dark iris buds have opened!

They are such a dark velvety purple and absolutely gorgeous!

Here's another yellow one. I love the surprises I’ve been having each day as the buds show colour and I find out which I planted where!

My favourites are pink irises….. but I’m fairly sure I don’t have one. I’ll need to keep an eye out at the nursery….!

We have 3 old and very heavy concrete laundry troughs which were located in various places in our huge house yard. They had been used as garden pots by the previous owners. Whilst Jon’s boys Ben and James are here we utilised their extra brawn to move them all into the vege patch, where I will turn them into herb gardens! They are all double troughs, so I have the equivalent of 6 new large pots! I added alpaca poop, compost and mulch to the soil. I’ll give them a week or so to fester nicely in the warmth and wetness before planting them up! It'll be nice to keep the herbs close together and they look great along the fence of the vegie patch...

The beans I planted a week ago aren’t up yet… hopefully they won’t be too much longer! The peas and snow peas are starting to produce… so we've been munching as we've been working. I don't think I've ever actually got fresh peas shelled, cooked and served to the table!

On the road again tomorrow; I’m driving the boys back home. I'll travel an extra hour to go to a large art store to get a few supplies!