Another Surprise!

Spirit Garden

My Spirit Garden piece is this weeks most popular photo on the Fibre Focus group. That was a lovely surprise which made my day!

If you haven't been onto this group before, take some time to check it out. There are lots of interesting and very talented people on there.

Textural Beading and Embellishment Class

I've started doing a Textural Beading class with Janet Lasher. This is one of the samples I'm working on. The class also involves making a beaded art doll. I've wanted to make one of these for awhile now and haven't got around to it, so I'm looking forward to finally doing it. The class is up to week 3 already. I wish the classes where 2 weeks to every lesson. It would give alittle bit more time to work on things as life always seems to get in the way. Anyway, I've been enjoying it and I'm interested in learning more.

A bit of an update on my mum - she is finally out of hospital after 8 weeks. She had her 75th birthday in hospital and my brother and Aunty came up to surprise her.

I'm Happy to Accept this award

Thank you for this award Jan from Stitch Witch and Darlene from Art4Sol. It was a lovely surprise and I appreciate that you thought of me.

I have to pass this award on to 8 other creative people. Here are a few rules when accepting your award (these are not my rules) Please feel free to deliver this gift to 8 other people and include the following text with the award on your site: These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in self aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers. I'm passing this award on to the following people who I've been inspired by, and love reading their blogs.

http://adventuresinthread.blogspot.com/
http://yarnaboutyarn.blogspot.com/
http://fat-quarter.blogspot.com/
http://margascrafts.blogspot.com/
http://alis-clair.blogspot.com/
http://lindavincent.blogspot.com/
http://verlenebrooks.blogspot.com/
http://travelfibreandthread.blogspot.com/

There are also many more blogs that I read and enjoy regularly too.

Arm Knitting

At the Textile Arts Festival there was a short class on Arm Knitting. I didn't do the class as there was a talk I wanted to go to. Anyway, I found instructions on the web and had to try it out. Go here for the instructions. They say you can make a scarf in 20 minutes. I'm only a basic knitter and it took me about an hour as I had to re-read the cast on instructions a number of times before I could work out how to cast on. But after that it was easy. My tension isn't the best. I'm going to pull this one apart as I just wanted to try it out, but I'd like to try it with the proper yarn sometime.

The wool I used wasn't the best as it was abit too thin. You need a much thicker wool. The wool they use is called Slubby Yarn. I think you could use any thick yarn.

If anyone does some Arm Knitting, I'd love to see your results.

Textile Art Festival in Brisbane

The Festival was great. I bought some bits and pieces.

These are all wool except for the one on the right which is silk.

These are sari ribbons, sari silk twist and chiffon.

These are the various material pieces I bought. I love the 5 design pieces on the right, it was hard just to pick these. The 2 smaller woven pieces beside these at the top are upholstery samples. The green piece below these is hand dyed and the Stitched brown piece is also hand dyed. It was from Lisa Walton's stall. She had lots of wonderful hand dyed fabrics. She sells these on her website Dyed and Gone to Heaven.

I went to a few of the talks - Dale Rollerson from the Thread Studio talking about her Textile Art Explorations, one on Shrink Magic and I went to the talk by Marion Gorr about Overseas Textiles.

Marion runs a Silk business and spoke about her suppliers of Silk in China. She showed slides of these. Also they have set up a craft centre for the women of the Vikasana Institute in South India. They have done workshops with the women and give them the waste silk which they use to make dolls. She had a selection of the dolls there. They are going to be returning later this year to give more workshops. The dolls are lovely and they each have the makers name on a label on the back. They had a computer link up with the women in India showing them making the dolls and we were able to ask questions.

This is a photo of some of the dolls. You can see these and other items on the Beautiful Silks website. You can also go here to purchase the dolls online. You can learn more about the Doll making project here.

I did a class with Dale on Ratty Tatty Papers. There wasn't enough time to make a little book as they didn't supply enough irons for us to all use. But we did get to play with making silk paper and using starburst sprays to get different effects. It was also good to be able to see Dale's samples and books she has made, up close.

All the Art Quilts and the other displays were wonderful to see (Recycle Reuse, Collections, State of the Art and Bernina USA Fashion show and Creative Challenge). It is always amazing to see what people can come up with.

I forgot my camera, but here are some blogs with posts and photos of the festival.

Lisa Walton - Dyed and Gone to Heaven. Lisa shows a photo of her quilt "Solar Flare" on her blog. This was really beautiful to see up close. The beading doesn't really show up well in this photo though. Lisa has sold this quilt to a Lady who is going to display it in her Healing Centre. How wonderful - I'm sure this piece will be helping out in the healing process for all those who come in contact with it.

Robin's Ramblings

Also another post by Robin which shows photos of some of the amazing quilts.

Dale Rollerson - Down Under Dale