Cloth Books

Today I aassembled a little cloth book to take with me on hols to do some drawing in. Inspired by this blog.http://lynnehoppe.blogspot.com/ I just love her stuff so i am doing my own. Well thats the plan anyway. Course I have not sized mine with acrylic paint but with soy milk and so far I am quite pleased with the result. The plan is to have a little book for each of my students at the Port Sorrell workshop for them to do sampling in. Must keep them amused while waiting for paint to dry!!!!
BTW we are off to Bruny Island in the morning for the Easter Break so hopefully there will be pics next week.

Quilts

Last week was spent frantically trying to finish the art quilts I had promised for an exhibition with the Break O Day Stitchers in St Helens. Thankfully I was successful in my mission and they were completed last friday about 4pm.

This one is called 'In Memorium' and was started way back last October in Glenys Manns class.
This is called 'Prelude' and it is a bit blurry but it was the best one.

And this is the back of the one above, coz it was a supposed to be a quilt which some of us know is " two pieces of fabric joined together with stitch". And well it wasn't and I didn't really want to cover up the back as it was just as beautiful as the front but I didn't wish to be disqualified either so I dyed some tissue silk in the hope that it would be seethrough enough to still see the back. I wasn't entirely successful but it was not too bad. So anyway the stitches can only be seen on the back of the quilt.

Then on saturday II spent the day at a market and sunday I had two lovely women come and spend 3 hours in workshop. They have both started dying their very own wrap vests and they made a small piece of felt which they are hoping to dye up at home and make into a wall piece. We hope to get together on a monthly basis with a group of about 6 and I will show them how to make lots of stuff well as long as it is within my capacity.

And yesterday I got my photos organised and sent off my application for the Tasmanian Craft Fair. Fingers crossed I will get in.

And this morning, just as I am starting to make preparations to go away for Easter I get a cold!!!!!!!!! So I am feeling very sorry for myself and I don't think Dan was best pleased when he got soup for dinner.

Finally Eggs on Etsy

I have just finished uploading 6 of the Egg Brooches onto my Etsy Shop and here they are.

All different all lovely

They have a soft gentle sheen because of the beeswax coating.

18 of them have gone Melb to go into my Cube.

The rest will be available at the markets. Civic Homespun in Launceston this Saturday. The Barn in Rosny Park near Hobart on Saturday the 10th of April.

And the Makers Market at the Convent in Abbotsford in Melbourne on Sunday the 18th of April.

And yesterday I went down to Hobart to visit some people and maybe just maybe these babies will be in a store down there very very soon. Oh I do hope so coz they are so lovely.

Egg Day

Today is egg day, I have assembled all my ingredients, brooch backs, strong glue, and of course the ceramic smoke fired eggs and now I just need to assemble them. Busy busy busy.

Food Frenzy

What a lovelt monday morning I have had so far. I have candied some lemon peel made a large jar of fig jam and prepared a batch of homemade bouillon loosely based on this recipe from one of my favourite blogs http://www.101cookbooks.com/archives/homemade-bouillon-recipe.html. Not only did I make this recipe but I use my own well semi oven dried tomatoes. I so love to cook.

Etsy

I am finally getting some new stuff up on etsy. Including those pesky pendants. Two will go on today and hopefully more as I get some nice photos. Well acceptable photos anyway. I am also putting on a scarf pin and a range of buttons in a lucky dip format.

Cube

I have a cube!!!!!!! Photos just in today of my new cube at Incub8r in Smith St in Fitzroy. So exciting!!!!

New Stuff

Heres some of the new stuff i have been working on in the studio.

A journal with a handstitched wool and silk cover, This has a stitched binding and an assortment of different types of paper inside including some of my old prints from when I was stdudying.

These are some scarf pins featuring my smoke fired clay buttons on naturally dyed wool.

And a stitched woman with a button face.

Some stitched hearts.

And this is the beginning of a quilt for an exhibtion coming up in St Helens and it needs to be finished in about a week!!!!!! So I best get back to it.

Smoked Eggs

Finally the Egg Brooches have been smoked and are ready for action well they will be as soon as I can get hold of some nice brooch backs, not those silly twiddly ones. So I have some on order and my fingers are crossedthat they will arrive soon. But heres a sneek peak anyway.

Backs
More backs

Fronts

And some more fronts.

The big decision! Some of the backs are nicer than their respective fronts do I turn them over? Can I do double sided brooches? Do I make more? Smooth ones so they are backs on both sides???? Hmm I think perhaps the last ones. Nice shiny ones with swirly smoke patterns. So now its just come on the Backs.

Blushing

It is more than wonderful when you send a little something extra and it is so well received as I read here http://puddleduckfarm.blogspot.com/2010/03/of-integrity-and-earthiness.html
over at Puddleduck.

And to further Gild my current Lily I was directed to look over here http://www.tasbasketmakers.org/ to find out that I am the Featured Artist when I thought I was just giving a workshop.

So right now I am feeling very special and all kinda war and fuzzy which is a just as well after my Sunday Market which was not as profitable as I would have hoped. Aah never mind we shall continue to persist. And to further my efforts to conquer the big city over the water as of friday I will have a few of my babies caged up (well cubed up) in a cube here http://www.incube8r.com/
and I will be back up at the Makers Market at the Convent in Abbotsford in April.

This weekend I will be at the Civic Homespun Market in Lonnie and I will I will get the pendants and the buttons onto Etsy. I thought I might do a lucky dip on the buttons, a choice of oval or round, smooth or lace or net textured. just gotto get them photographed.

Melbourne

I am off to Melbourne again Saturday evening and I will be having a stall at the Sunday Arts @The Convent in Abbotsford. I am hoping to have some Journals ready with Hand stitiched covers and a new range of Smoke fired Egg Brooches. I will be back in Launceston tuesday night and in the studio bright and chirpy (well 10ish) on wednesday.

March!!!!!!!!

What the hell happened to February? Here it is the third month of 2010 ( I still think that sounds like Sci Fi) and how are my goals for the year coming on? Weight loss program, hmm, not so good, but hey I havent put any weight on, so there is still hope. Get the business happening, well by the looks of whats selling at Etsy I need to dye more fabric and have that for sale. I am thinking of doing small lengths of fabric say 1 metre(yard) or fat quarters, custom dyed naturally. What do we think out there?