Early Bird heart Challenge

I have been so pleased to have time to finish my heart challenge items for the Early Bird Christmas Crafting today. 
The pin cushion has a machine embroidered design, and I have added some of my favourite heart pins to finish it off.

The second item is this heart and roses cushion.  The hand embroidery is a design from here.  I liked this design so made it to the size I wanted, and embroidered it in pink DMC thread.  A piece of crocheted lace, some piping and 2 fat quarters of fabric finished off the cushion cover.  Still need to buy an insert for it.

Early Bird gifts

It has not been a very productive month with my Early Bird Christmas Crafting.  Sometimes life has other ideas - it has been a very busy month with our trip to Gunnedah and also helping my older daughter pack and prepare for moving to Moree in a few days time.  
I have finished two projects so far, with another couple almost done.  Maybe tomorrow will see them finished off.
I have made this coat hanger using  lovely light pink satin from my younger daughter's wedding dress and some white satin on the sides.  It has the secret zippered pouch beneath the outer decorative satin cover.

I have also finished this little lingerie bag made out of linen, with pintucks, lace and decorative stitching. 

It is so satisfying to try out a new embroidery stitch on the machine and find it is just what was needed.  I used one from the satin stitch section, which  when sewn with the right hand part of the stitch running along the edge of the fabric gave a scalloped effect.  The leaf stitch beside it finished it off nicely.  I love the lace - it has a vintage feel to it even though I bought it only a few years ago from Lincraft.

Computer woes

Isn't it a pain when your new computer has problems.  All was well the previous weekend.  We went away for a week, and now we are back it is refusing to open any programs, documents, just no action at all.  It is right now heading off to the store to diagnose the problem.

We had a good and successful time at Agquip in Gunnedah last week.   The weather held well for us until the last afternoon when we had light rain, making our packup time rather interesting.  Lots of drying out and washing off of mud to do when we got home.  But all is nearly back to normal.  There are now lots of contacts to be followed up on in the next few weeks, so business wise it should be very busy.

I so wanted to visit the store at Nundle, but just couldnt fit it in to the schedule. 

Now we are back home it is time to make a rush effort for this month's Early Bird Christmas Crafting over at Judith's blog.  I have planned some gifts to make this month but so far havent achieved too much. 

On our way to Gunnedah my daughter and I  made a stop at the town I grew up in.  I took a couple of photos of the view I would have seen from the front of "our" house - it doesnt seem any different from when I lived there, and I have been gone from there for 40 years.  We also went by the old house, and it felt as if we could just walk in and it would be just the same.  The outside was the same apart from a few minor changes in the garden.  The old sheds which were whiteant eaten 25 or more years ago are still standing - amazing.

Landscapes again

Here is my landscape as it looks this morning.  I have been working on the wattle in the background (lighter colour) in the last couple of days.  I now need to get back to working on the branches in the foreground.  It is good to see it photographed, it helps with seeing how the colours work.

The other girls in the workshop have also been working on theirs, and so they have advanced since I took these photos at the end of the workshop.

This landscape is from a photo taken in New Zealand.  Just behind the foreground grass you can see 2 cows.  There are more cows to go in yet.  The trees are looking good.

The photo this is based on was taken in South Africa.  In the foreground there will be aloe flowers and grass.

This one was taken from a photo in a book - It is an area in South Australia.  The colours are beautiful.  Most of the background has been achieved with paint, and the light and shadows are amazing.  Love the way the tree is looking.  This shows how we work - lots of needles and threads of all the different colours  to be used on the area being worked on - many shades of a colour to achieve the light and shade effect.

This one is from a photo taken in Scotland.  It doesnt appear to have as much work done on it, but there is one of those long fleeced sheeep to go in the green section in the middle foreground, and the sheep has been worked separately and will be appliqued on.  The sheep took a lot of class time to work on.

Lucky Dip and other things

Phew!  after a few days of being computerless it is great to be able to sit down and do some catching up.  I have lost (hopefully temporarily) all my email addresses - which are apparently somewhere on the computer but we have to wait to speak to the computer people after the Ekka holiday to find out where they are,  and "favourites" - well, to refind them I will have to go bloghopping and googling.  That will be ok.

On Friday I received a lovely parcel in the mail - my Lucky dip prize for the Early Bird Christmas Crafting from Judith.

Such a pretty bag.

With goodies inside - a pattern.  But there is more........

The stitchery pattern is Angel of Hope by Candlelight Creations, then there is a beautiful tatted bookmark in such pretty shades of green, and some lovely soft colours of DMC threads.  Thank you so much Judith.  All of them are beautiful. 

My landscape embroidery is slowly evolving.  I have been working on the wattle most nights.  So far it has  been done with french knots, mostly 1 thread and 1 wrap, except for the top wattle which is done in 2 threads and 1 wrap.  This was the progress about a week ago. Tomorrow I will take an up to date photo, which has much more of the wattle stitched.

I have  taken photos of the landscapes the other girls have done.  I will post them tomorrow also.

Today we had our first morning of the new group at the Bribie Island Arts Centre.  It is called Creative Embroidery and came about as a spin off from this landscape workshop.  We decided that we needed to meet regularly to encourage each other with our landscapes, and to bounce ideas off each other. We will meet twice a month, and the group is open to anyone who would like to come along.  We meet at the same time as the Textile Group and we find that our work overlaps with theirs. 

Now off to do some more bloghopping and finding my favourite ones.