Dragon Fragments

Week 4 - The Brat!

2012-01-29T20:29:00.000+11:00

This week I was attempting to tidy my sewing room when Inoticed a small purple dragon lying on his back amongst the cottons andwatching me.

"Wat’cha doin'?" he asked.

"Just packing some tools away" I replied.

He examined my heat gun and soldering iron with some disdain, "I could flame holes better than these things" he said, as heturned them on and waved them around.

I grabbed the tools away as the nap onsome velvet started to smolder.

He darted under the table and started shuffling throughboxes of material.

I heard him muttering about "what is she doing withall this stuff - more material here than a dragon could burn in alifetime".

Just then he found the box with my miniature patchworkand as he grabbed a small hexagonal quilt, I heard him gasp “WANT! WANT!”

“You can’t have it” I said, “ it’s not finished”

“None of your stuff is finished - FINISH NOW!” hedemanded as small flames spurted perilously close to a pile of organza.

“Put it down and get out” I said.

He glared at me, smoke pouring from his nostrils.

“Lisssen here” he hissed “I’se been reading that GeorgeRaymond Richard Martin”

(I was impressed that he knew the authors’ full name, but then dragonslive for centuries, they have a lot of time to fill)

“ those dragons BURN villages – you want me to burn your village??” helooked threateningly at my miniature streetscape.

“Fine Fine” I yelled “I’ll FINISH the quilt for you”

I glimpsed him outside later, snoozing in the alyssumwith his quilt firmly clenched under his chin.

I've changed the batteries in the smoke alarm just incase The Brat decides to come back.

MAKING THE BRAT:

This is my original pattern, the same used for Lacey(week 1). The dragon body was made in plain cotton, then painted with gesso andcrumpled tissue paper was glued on the gesso to produce a crinkly skin. He wasthen painted in purple acrylic and brushed over with metallic Lumiere.

THE CHARACTER OFTHE BRAT was loosely (and lovingly) based on a friend’sgrandchild – she knows who she is! LOL (to date grandchild hasn't burnt any villages but give her time!)

Week 3 - Carving a dragon stamp

2012-01-22T20:04:00.000+11:00

This week I took time out from the rather intense sewing of the firstdragons to try some stamp carving.

I know I should have designed my own dragon but I had previously found thisimage recurring on tattoo sites and really liked it. It has appeared on many sites and I couldn'tfind any attribution for the original artist. If anyone recognises it pleaselet me know.

I had to redraw the design and squish it in a bit to fit the size of the stamp I wascarving.

Using baking paper I traced over the design and filled in the solid partswith a soft lead pencil.
This was then transferred to the white carving rubberby placing the paper face down and rubbing over the back of the paper with a harder pencil.
That left the carbon image from the soft leadpencil on the white rubber.

These solid black parts will be left as the stamp and the white surroundswill be carved away.

I used an 8cm square eraser from Batik Oetoro http://www.dyeman.com/

This is an Australian company run by Lynne Britten who is extremely helpfuland knows all there is to know about dyeing and printing and the materials touse.

The nice thing about these erasers is that they are thick enough to turnover and carve both sides. Two stamps in one!

For the carving I used a proper lino cut tool and a wood carving tool, thelino cut was the better of the two and sliced through the rubber like butter,sometimes slicing a little too easily but that was my inexperience at using it!

As I carved I kept stopping to stampwhat I had done just to keep an eye on how it was progressing.

So now I have a nice little Asian dragon stamp, which I intend using laterto print a backdrop for a wall hanging.

Week 2 - Lycopersicon, the tomato red dragon

2012-01-16T08:30:00.000+11:00

I was in the garden this morning picking tomatoes.
As I reached into the tomato bush, I felt a sharp little burn to my finger. "Ouch!" I yelled, as a small blister appeared.
"Oops, sorry" a little voice said, "I was just flaming some of your tomatoes for my breakfast"
She introduced herself as Lycopersicon, a little red dragon with a liking for tomatoes.

I persuaded her to come in the house so I could take her photo with the Oxheart tomatoes my son had grown.
She said they were most impressive but she preferred the little cherry tomatoes which she could tuck comfortably under her wing.

I noticed after she had left that there were quite a few of the little tomatoes missing.

The pattern is one I've made up several times now, it's very simple to put together.

The details have been lost but I think it was originally part of a kit from winterwoodtoys.com.au unfortunately it is no longer in their current online catalogue.

I've used commercial felt, and buttonhole stitched on the outside. A friend recently saw the same pattern made in lycra on the machine and turned, I imagine it would be fiddly as the pattern pieces are really small, but could be interesting to try.

How Siegfried slayed the dragon

2012-01-14T11:45:00.002+11:00

Fritz Lang's movie 'Siegfried' from the Dipthic 'Die Nibelungen'. 1924.

Poor dragon, he looked such a sweetie - but it's OK, it was only a movie, no dragons were actually injured in the making.

Week 1 - Lacey the Dragon

2012-01-09T19:15:00.000+11:00

I decided my first dragon should be something I'm familiar with, so I've used one of my own original patterns.

Even so, it's been some time since I've made up this pattern, so I brought in The Watcher to make sure I did things right. He was made from the same pattern.

Under his eagle eye, I used a finish that I've wanted to try on a dragon for some time - back in February 2011 I posted about adding scraps of lace and painting over them, a technique demonstrated by Margaret Talbot in Cloth, Paper Scissors magazine. (I might add that the doll in that post still doesn't have a head!)

A few mistakes - first I wanted the dragon to be white - not a good idea to use a dark blue base fabric, it showed through a lot of the little lacy holes.

The doiley wings were soaked in watered down PVA glue to stiffen them.
My next mistake was to use old sewing pins to pin the doiley wings into folds while they dried overnight - the pins rusted in no time flat and by morning my lovely white wings had rust stains which I then had to cover in white paint.

Brushed on several shades of Lumiere paint and she ready for her first flight around the clothes line!

Addendum to Lacey: One of my friends suggested that "Lacey" wasn't a highly original name - she even "hmph..ed" at it!!

I had to point out that Lacey was not her full title -
she is the Lady Lacey Fabula D'Oiley...and m'lady was highly offended at being "hmph..ed" at.

Changes and Dragons

2011-12-02T00:02:00.000+11:00

For various reasons that I won’t go into, I fell out of the blogging habit this year and lost my creative drive along the way. I'm told a change is as good as a holiday...so .....

I’m thinking of a new makeover for my blog and I have a project in mind for 2012.

I’ll explain how the two things tie in.

When I was looking for a name for my blog I went through a whole lot of magical sounding names and found the word “Gramarye” a medieval word, roughly translated, meaning magic.

Unfortunately the blog name ”gramarye” was already taken, anyone who has tried to start a blog knows the process of trawling through endless variations of names.

My next choices were something involving my love of dragons, or the word ‘fragments’ representing ..what?... fragments of the past…fragments of my many dabbling - again all the names I liked were taken.

I settled on “dragonfragments”….. a bit silly, but I think at the time I was getting quite fed up with not getting the names I wanted.

So as 2012 is the Year of the Dragon, I’m dropping the Gramarye name and will be using Dragon Fragments.

Which leads to the next part of the plan – I need a project - in the past, my daily “365” projects have failed miserably. Even my ‘photo a day’ turned into more than a quick snap and finished before the end of that year.

So instead, I’m going to try for a “52” -a weekly project.

It may take even more dedication because my plan is to produce A Dragon A Week.

I still have to work out the finer details, I’ve a list of dragon ideas, not quite at 52 yet. Some weeks will be intense sewing, there will be clay and there will be beads and drawings and other weeks might just be photographing my dragon collection.

Interspersed with my own 52 pieces of work will be some dragon lore and links to other inspiring dragon art. It will also give me the opportunity to try some of the many dragon patterns I’ve collected and never got around to making up!

I will be starting on January 16 which is Appreciate A Dragon Day, so until then, have a lovely Hogswatch and a great new year.

Meantime I’m going to have a clean up on the blog and delete some old irrelevant entries.

See you soon with a new name and a new look!

The Dragon Boat - part 2

2011-02-18T08:00:00.002+11:00

Next I needed to add an inner lining for the boat - somewhere comfortable to sit, after all it IS a boat, not a jet ski!

I made a type of pouch to fit inside the body -

this next picture of the reverse shows the amount of top sewing that went into the fabric collage:

Again the opening was too soft to hold its shape and I had to create a channel to take a circle of aluminium sculpting wire so the opening would stay open.

and here it is being fitted into the body of the boat:

In the next post, I show how the head was attached and the finished boat.

Technorati tags: textiles

The Dragon Boat - part 1

2011-02-14T08:00:00.002+11:00

The Dragon Boat was made for the 2010 ATASDA exhibition "Voyage of Imagination" held in the Palm House at the botanical gardens in Sydney.

The boat measures 46 x 36 cm, and is a fabric collage with added surface embellishments including beading and hand embroidery.

This is the blurb from the exhibition folder:

"The theme for this exhibition had particular appeal for me, bringing together my love of fantasy and story telling and the tactile qualities of fabric and surface embellishment.

In contemplating a piece for this exhibit I realised that to embark on my voyage of imagination I would need a vessel.

Drawing inspiration from the sketches of James Christensen and my previous background in ceramic sculpture, I've created my soft sculptured dragon boat.

The colour of the dragon boat embodies the hues of the fire it breathes.

It is embellished with the jewels and riches of the orient that the dragon guards fiercely.

The dragon's webbed rudder helps to traverse the celestial seas of our imagination whilst the golden tentacles ward off danger."

I trawled the internet and my collection of fantasy books looking for inspiration for my imaginary boat and kept coming back to the artwork of James Christensen.
Then came the laborious task of drawing patterns and trialing them in calico until I had a design I was happy with.

Next came assembling enough scraps for the fabric collage:

I then cut a cotton piece and thin wadding large enough to allow extra around the pattern as I knew the next step of free machining the scraps would pull in the fabric.

The next pictures make it look like it all came together perfectly but, believe me, there was much cursing and tearing of hair (and unpicking) before it reached this stage:

The tail was too floppy, so first I created channels and stuffed them, which then gave me a floppy stuffed tail! so a piece of aluminium sculpting wire was carefully eased up into the tail to hold it upright.

The fin has the fabric collage on both sides:

More to come next time on the head and the body of the boat.

Technorati tags: textiles

Braid & Lace Collage

2011-02-09T08:00:00.000+11:00

Going through my 'edit posts' list and found this entry still in the drafts folder.

I've shown the journal covers previously but haven't gone into the details of making them.

I first saw this technique demonstrated by Margaret Talbot in Cloth, Paper Scissors magazine (summer 2005) and thought what a great way to use up all those little scraps of braid and lace that were too good to throw away but too small to use.

The lace scraps are free machined onto a piece of fabric, colours are unimportant.

I then stiffened the fabric with watered down PVA glue, this also helped secure the ends and loose sections of the lace.

After the glue had dried I applied a layer of acrylic paint, then dry brushed a layer of paint in another shade. Next was to dry brush some metallic or Lumiere paint to highlight the textures.

I’ve made journal covers using this technique by backing the fabric with felt, adding two smaller felt ends to tuck the covers of the books into then joining them all with a close zigzag stitch.
Take the zigzag very slowly because the process of glue and paint over lace will create a very tough surface to sew through and can cause broken needles.

So then I started to wonder if it could be applied to 3D, in particular bodies of dolls or figures.
I started this doll body then it went into my WIP’s box where it has been for THREE years.

My aim for this year (as well as the experiments and using stash, is to finish as many works in progress as I can)
I finished sewing on the laces and gave it several coats of paint.
Very bright blue base layer first:

then a coat of metallic paint:

I still haven’t decided on a face for this doll, nothing seems to suit, I was thinking perhaps a blank face holding a mask. He/she has sat around so patiently for so long now that I think it's time to decide.

A fabric swatch for the Goddess of Fire

2011-02-07T08:00:00.001+11:00

Continuing with the Goddesses of Ice and Fire wall hanging - here is the piece for Malveria the Fire Queen.

I had almost as much fun photographing these two pieces and I did making them.

Monkey Spawn by Rockpool Candy

2011-02-06T10:31:00.000+11:00

Inga Hamilton from Rockpool Candy has again left me speechless with her newest installation "Monkey Spawn"

she says on her site:

"It is by just a tweak of nature or environment that we are here in our current form. Evolution has many branches. Had the World been a wetter place, would we, or indeed would monkeys, have evolved to spawn like frogs instead of give birth to live young?"

go take a look

A fabric swatch for the Goddess of Ice

2011-02-05T18:11:00.002+11:00

Even though I've been missing from the blogsphere, I was still creating, so in no particular order, I'll be posting some of the things I've been working on.

Last August, I took part in ATASDA's Palm House exhibition "Voyage of the Imagination".

I had a few ideas bubbling away for this but finally settled on a dragon boat and a wall hanging. (the dragon boat I'll show later)

The wall hanging was in two parts, a red piece and a white which I joined together for the exhibition, but have now separated them into two individual pieces- they are a fabric collage with added surface embellishments including beading and hand embroidery and handmade cords.

I've had the pictures on Flickr for a couple of weeks but here is the story to go with them.

"Fabric Swatch for the Goddesses of Fire and Ice"

I love trashy fantasy novels and in the midst of planning and experimenting for the Voyage of Imagination, I started reading Martin Millar's "Lonely Werewolf Girl" (the Guardian newspaper credits him with having invented the genre 'pulp fantasy noir')

Two of the minor characters in the book were the opposing elemental goddesses of fire and ice.

In this 21^st century, Malveria, the Fire Queen, found it no longer socially acceptable to cast sacrifices to the volcano, so she contented herself by watching fashion shows on cable TV and consulting with her designer to surpass her rivals at the Ice Queen's cocktail party.

I like to think both ladies would approve my red and white pieces as fabric swatches for their latest outfits.

This first lot of photos is for the Ice Godess.

Australia Day 2011

2011-01-26T12:31:00.001+11:00

Australia Day 2011, originally uploaded by gramarye.

The sewing room

2011-01-20T12:28:00.000+11:00

As I mentioned in my last post, my husband is now working from home - one of the things he had to do was completely dismantle all the work stations. The owner wanted the property completely empty and the boss said to tip all the furnishings as they were too old.
I hate seeing waste like that, so we did some measuring and found that some of the pieces would fit perfectly around my sewing room.
Take a good look because you may never see it so empty again!

These units are now around three sides and I fit perfectly in the middle!

But where, I hear you ask, did I put all the contents while this was happening....

that's another story:

Back again

2011-01-13T00:27:00.000+11:00

Not sure where I've been since May - I slipped into a pit, a cluttered deep and dismal pit, both physically and mentally. Won't bore you with all the details, but believe me it was easier to sit at the bottom of the pit for a while than try to climb out, and it is so hard to start blogging again after such a long break but I'm trying!

We've just spent the last two days with the TV on all day showing the devastation and heartache of the floods in Queensland.
I don't know how the people of Queensland will recover from this massive destruction, so much loss - of life, whole families lost, of homes, of pets and livestock and native animals, workplaces, neighbourhoods swept away.
It puts all our other worries into perspective.
ABC 24 hour news channel

There have been changes at home, husband's office has closed and he is working from home, not sure if I think it a good idea, every spare space (and there weren't many of those) is full of 'work' things, and it is too easy for him to keep working past when he should have finished for the day.

But the brightest little star in our personal heaven has been the safe arrival last week of our new grand daughter.

Yay! Winter is finally here

2010-05-19T13:55:00.000+10:00

I'm the only person I know who likes winter and the last few years we don't seem to have had one, is that global warming? Last year I hardly got the chance to wear any of my umpteen handknitted scarves, but now it's turned cold and dull and heavy grey rain clouds are hanging over the coast.

And we are crook (Australian slang for unwell) husband had his flu shot last week and became so sick he actually took two days off work (that's an historic event on it's own) and inevitably I've caught it from him (cough cough)

So whilst I'd like be out striding the cold streets in my handknits (just kidding, I've given up striding) I'm actually huddling in the handknits, quaffing vitaminC and picking up some slow cloth.

I think by now most textile people on the net would have come across the slow cloth concept - if you haven't, read Elaine Marie Lipson post on the 10 qualities of slow cloth on her blog Red Thread Studio. I'm not sure if what I do fits the criteria, but there is a certain joy and contemplation in the process.

Jude Hill creates her little slow cloth stories and melds them into quilts and look at Jude's links for other people working this way, it's not a project, it's a process.

It's also about sustainability, with this in mind I took another look at some old indian print wrap skirts that have been sitting in my stash (they must have shrunk because they no longer wrap me!)

What if I rip and weave and stitch together "a la" the slow cloth movement?...

What if I also open up some calico henna dye bags that my daughter gave me - printed with interesting Indian writing which unfortunately faded out when I prewashed the fabric...

What if I add some old doilies from M-I-L's house which were going to be thrown away..

What if I collage pieces?

Because my newly discovered arthritis in my thumbs is stopping me from long handsewing sessions, the contemplation may take longer than the process, which is OK too, I'll just pin them up and enjoy.

Anzac Day

2010-04-25T23:16:00.002+10:00

My grandfather's two brothers in WW1

Dr Who?....

2010-04-25T21:58:00.000+10:00

I'm still making up my mind about Matt Smith and his companion....I
guess they will grow on me.......David Tennant certainly did.

I'm also making up my mind about the new writers, the last Dr. series was developing a deliciously dark side which seems to not be there now, I'll reserve judgement til I see what they do with the last of the 'Blink' angels in a couple of weeks.

And speaking of writers, I've just finished watching episode 2 - did anyone else get a hint of Pratchett?
I mean..really...a futuristic Great Britain travelling through space on the back of a giant star whale??

Slow cloth or fast?

2010-04-15T10:42:00.000+10:00

My maths has never been good which is why it's probably only just hit me that the 1960's was 50 years ago! (or maybe I'd developed a mental block about it)

Back then my mother was the cutter for a big millinery business in Sydney, one of their lines were flower power beach hats.
Mum brought home the offcuts destined for the bin, I think because, like me, she was a bower bird and these were just too bright, too colourful to be thrown away.
They sat in her sewing room before migrating to mine. I've used bits over the years but because of the odd sizes, never really did much with them.

The older I get, the more concerned I am that I have more material than I could use in several lifetimes, and as my friends are all in the same boat, we all worry about the eventual fate of our stashes.

Which brings me to my method of getting over the mental blocks that I'm sure we are all plagued with at times - what can I make next.
I tidy my sewing room, I sweep the floor, I put away, I look at the stacks of material and am blank.

When all fails, I make log cabin quilts.

I know, boring....
but there is something relaxing in cutting up 2 inch strips and mindlessly sewing them together, I don't fuss about matching corners, I put a CD on and just sew.

My mind goes off for a little wander on it's own....and when it come back, it brings new ideas with it.

It's certainly not slow cloth, it's frantic and I love it.

....and I just saw a little face peeking out of the fabric, can you spot it?

Static pages

2010-02-28T11:16:00.002+11:00

Considering the amount of time I spend on the internet I've been a little slow finding out the fact that Blogger now has the option of static pages, just like Wordpress.

I'm still investigating but a good review on how to use it is here at Making A Mark, I'm sure there will be lots of others if you google.

I started another blog at Blogger which I intended to use as a gallery and make a static link to each gallery page from this main blog, but it all got a little complicated.

I had been on the verge of changing over to Wordpress and I've set up a blog there to play around with, but now I might just stay playing at Blogger.

I can see some long nights coming up.

Has anyone else discovered the pages and started using them? Please leave a comment so I can visit

Collections

2010-02-16T09:02:00.003+11:00

Do you ever see something that either inspires or makes you madly jealous that you didn't think of it first - or both

Lisa Congdon is documenting her collections with a photo a day and blogging the photos HERE

I spend a lot of time cruising blogs and websites and I worry constantly my inspirations are in reality 'copying' so can I bring myself to do something similar without my inner self (and other people) saying that was Lisa's idea....
but then Lisa says on her site:

"The practice of collecting and documenting collections is as old as the hills. I want onlookers here to know that I do not profess to be doing anything new or unique or ingenious."

I probably have more than enough collections to do the same, and it would make a really interesting project...but I'm currently doing my drawing a day which is taking up a chunk of my day, do I really need to start a new 'daily' something?
and as I've already taken part in a photo-a-day group on flickr, I know the time involved in setting up photos.

oooooh, but I can't wait til next January ooooh....ooooh I think I have to do this NOW

Playing catchup

2010-02-11T16:45:00.004+11:00

My computer died, it's been threatening to do it since last October, and finally said "see, I told you I was sick"
It's back with a new drive, and I'm trying to remember which programmes I had and where I found them from the old drive, I now have a BOOK and am I'm writing it all down, what and where I'm installing....it's not like I'm new at this and it's never happened before, but some of us just never learn.

So until I get my photos sorted and nicely written up, here is a little teaser

Jessie the Elephant

2010-01-21T11:56:00.003+11:00

When I was a tiny tot, and a VERY demanding only child, my mother would tell me "you've got more hide than Jessie!"
Which meant nothing then, but I later found out that Jessie had been an elephant at Taronga Zoo, and indeed had a very thick hide, though a different hide to the one referred to by mum.

What's this got to do with anything?

Nothing, except in connection with my family history, I've been trolling through the old Australian newspapers which are online at the National Library http://newspapers.nla.gov.au
Oh boy, are they addictive!)
and entering one of my rellies by the name of Jessie in the search, I came on a lovely story of how they moved Jessie the elephant from her old home at Moore Park, to the new Sydney Zoo at Ashtons Park (now Taronga) on the other side of Sydney Harbour. (Here's the link to the article)

Jessie would never fit in a cage to be trucked to the new site so it was decided that she would have to walk.

Now this was in 1911, so there was no Sydney Harbour Bridge, I had imagined a very long hike but Taronga's website says the elephants crossed the harbour on a flat barge.

The other problem was the fact that Jessie had never had an outing like this before.
A quote from the article:

"It remains to be seen how the airing will agree with her.
She is not familiar with trams, or lorries, or motor cars.
She has never paraded up and down our busy streets, and the strangeness of it all may not be to her liking.
She is, however, a wonderfully good and sensible elephant, and it is not anticipated that she will give much trouble.
But, in order to keep her in a good humour, she is to be given two nurses, who will walk one on either side of her - two of Wirth Brothers' circus elephants, if they are to be had.
The only fear is lest evil communications may corrupt Jessie's good manners, and lead to her running away to join the circus"

Jessie didn't run away with the circus and eventually settled into her new zoo where she lived until 1939, dying at the age of 69.

I never had the pleasure of meeting Jessie, but on later visits to the zoo there was always an elephant ride for the children.
Of course now this is all looked on as having been cruel treatment of the elephants, but who knows, maybe they looked forward to a stroll around to break the boredom.

The open wooded green park imagined and described in the article didn't really eventuate, animals were confined in small concrete display areas for many years and it's only relatively recently that the zoo has undertaken remodelling to give them more natural and kinder surroundings.

Jessie was an Asian elephant, the latest additon to Taronga is another Asian elephant, little Luk Chai, born at the zoo in July 2009

A Drawing A Day

2010-01-21T11:20:00.002+11:00

Just fiddling around with filling in the blank spaces around previous drawings,
still on a "creatures" bent

Hybrid seahorse maybe? and evil goldfish

A Drawing a Day and Avatar

2010-01-15T09:00:00.001+11:00

OH WOW, OH WOW
We went to see Avatar.
I'm a little speechless.
I've seen some 3d movies before but this was AMAZING.
So were the creatures, and the forest plants and the characters and the war machines, so stunning and visual and just simply AMAZING.

A warning though, my husband felt really nauseous from the 3d effects, they didn't worry me but he was sweating and couldn't wait to get out of his seat, I thought he was imagining it but googling later I found a lot of people who had the same thing.
He suffers from some middle ear damage and gets very seasick on boats so maybe it's similar.

I also didn't know until we saw the trailers, that Alice in Wonderland is also going to be in 3D, can't wait for that one - I might have to go on my own, or give the old man a sea sickness pill first.

I may be drawing creatures for some time

A Drawing a Day and Mythic Creatures

2010-01-14T09:00:00.002+11:00

We met the family in town and went to the Mythic Creatures exhibition at the National Maritime Museum at Darling Harbour.
It was difficult to photograph because they'd used lots of 'mood' lighting, my flash washed out the objects and to take them without a flash I needed a tripod, so these aren't the best.
I loved the exhibition, would have liked to have taken home the huge model of the dragon, but we settled for some tiny ones from the museum shop instead.

This last one you might not recognise, it's Chupacabra

Outside we had a look at the replica of Captain Cook's Endeavour

There are more photos from the museum on Flickr, click any of these to get to the set.

My drawing that night was dragon inspired.

Husband and son went fishing next day, so the next two were a bit fishy

Frangipani

2010-01-13T15:38:00.000+11:00

This is my pink frangipani, my cousin (who has since passed away) gave me a cutting years ago, they take a long time to flower and this is the first year it has had a lovely crop on all 6 of its little skinny branches.
It lives in a tub next to my neighbours fence.

This is my pink frangipani after the neighbours leaned over the fence and helped themselves to not one piece but two (in fact from their side they would have had to stand on a chair, so it certainly wasn't an accidental break like my kind hearted husband suggested)
Bloody hide of some people, it was only a little tree but if they'd asked I would have happily given them a bit.
It still lives in a tub a long way from the fence.

My garden may be an overgrown jungle, but it's that way because I like it, not because I don't know what goes on in it.
I know every plant and every bug and what they are all doing - including those lecherous frogs that carry on every night in the bird bath.

A Drawing a Day

2010-01-13T14:19:00.003+11:00

New Years eve I pulled out this lovely big thick bound sketch book that I'd bought from Borders for a song!
I actually bought two of them, that's how good a song it was.

I was all ready to start sketching on the first day of 2010.

Bright and early I started with a pen doodle, just something swirly and easy to get things flowing.

Horror! my pen showed right through the other side of the paper.
I hadn't given a thought to the thickness of the paper, what on earth do people use in thin-papered sketchbooks.

I tried a water colour wash on a page, aaaargh!! it buckled like a piece of tyvec under an iron.

I tried pencil drawing, OK, but I don't WANT to do a whole year in pencil.

I could just draw on one side of the page and leave the other bleeding through and blank, but I don't WANT to draw on one side.

I WANT to open my book and have THINGS on all the pages, front and back.

Oh, the angst!!

My big, thick, juicy (and don't forget extremely cheap) blank book is back in the cupboard and I'm drawing in a 110 gsm sketchpad which could ideally be thicker again, but it will do for now.

Sometime later that day I redid my swirly doodles, these are great to do while listening to TV

and the next day I did another

and then, carried away with the bliss of doodling, I did a week of them

A Drawing a Day

2010-01-13T13:33:00.002+11:00

In 2001, Australian Textile Fibre Forum magazine (issue 1 no 61)published an article by Inga Hunter where she wrote about a Drawing a Day Project, I loved the sketches of her books, enormous and overflowing with inspiration.

Her fellow travellers in the project were mainly textile artists, some loved the year of drawing, some hated it, some kept going after the year had ended.

The project sat at the back of my mind for a couple of years til I was finally prompted to look into art journalling, along with inspiration from Gwen Diehn's books and Danny Gregory's yahoo group "Every Day Matters"

I journalled spasmodically through 2005 to 2007 then lost the "oomph".

2008 I joined a Flickr group to take a photo a day and was over that by September.

2009 my hand problems started and I didn't feel like doing much at all. I was really depressed with the fact that I had problems holding a needle, let alone pulling it through fabric, especially the fabrics and threads that I like to play with, they are not exactly fine needlework.
But there is a limit to how long you can sit moaning, and how long your friends and family are prepared to listen to it....especially those friends already suffering arthritis in their hands who are in a worse state than I am, and who just get on with it.

Then in November 2009, issue 4 no.96 of Textile Fibre Forum hit the news agents, and Inga had revisited the Drawing a Day project.
There is a PDF file of the article on the Fibre Forum website.
Adele Outteridge sends out a mailing list to the interested participants, so I wrote to her and put my name down.
It would be easy to start a yahoo group but Adele likes the personal touch, she reads and collates all our messages and any photos of work, then mails it out to the group.

Here is a little on what Adele says about the project:

Essentially this is a self motivated project. It is entirely up to the individual to decide how much or how little they do.

The idea is to commit to doing a drawing every day for a year.

You may use any strategy to help get through, there are no rules.

If you want to start at any time, you may.

If you want to leave blank pages for any days, you may.
There is to be no guilt for missing days.

If you want to spend five seconds, five minutes or five hours on your drawing, that’s ok.

You may use any medium.
You may use any substrate……………ie book, single pages, bus tickets, the margins of books, fabric, special paper etc etc.

The most important thing is to make marks of some sort
…..and don’t forget, writing text is making marks.

Your marks may be ephemeral. Drawing with a stick on sand is OK too. You may choose to record your marks or not.

You may choose to set a theme for the year or per month or week.

I like the sound of the 'no rules' and just making marks and no guilt for missing days, but I know me, it's too easy to backslide with 'rules' like that, I'll be pushing myself to complete something each day.

More next post, I'll go and download what I've done so far.

Summer in Sydney

2010-01-10T20:54:00.000+11:00

The crepe myrtle spreads a pink carpet on the ground and we wake in the morning to the strong sweetly cloying perfume of the murraya.

The temperatures are in the high 30C and the southern states have severe to catastrophic fire warnings for the next few days, meantime the northern part of NSW has had so much rain the rivers have broken their banks and flooded. Who would be a farmer in Australia, if your stock are not burning to death, they are drowning.

Anyone in the northern hemisphere want to swap some heat for a little snow? - we don't want it ALL thank you, but a just a couple of inches would be nice

Is it April 1st already?

2010-01-07T18:16:00.000+11:00

Our illustrious (in his own mind) prime minister, Mr. KRudd, has written a childrens book.
It's described as a "kiddies' adventure story about the PM's cat and dog", quite a departure from his last literary effort, an essay on the decline of capitalism following the global financial crisis.

Perhaps next he could write a fantasy about Australia saving the whales,
or protecting Australia's borders from people smugglers,
or a musical on reducing carbon emissions - we could call it "Wonderful, wonderful Copenhagen" starring farmer Peter Spencer

We could think up a million subjects for you Mr. Rudd, but we'd rather see you improve the performance of your day job.

Next election I'm voting for Mem Fox.

Tuesday Dolls

2010-01-07T11:49:00.007+11:00

Our fortnightly Tuesday doll group started out as a class with my friend Marilyn teaching it, finally Marilyn decided that they all know enough not to need any more lessons and gave her so much cheek it became the 'The Tuesday Travelling Torture The Teacher' day -
now it's just TTT

We don't always make dolls, (in fact we don't always make anything) but we manage a couple of round robin projects a year.
The girls have just finished a butterfly doll RR using Julie McCullough's 'Glitterbug' pattern - well, MOST of the girls finished - there's two who haven't started yet, not mentioning names.
The dolls that were completed returned to their owners at our xmas party.

Here's our poor long suffering 'teacher' with her doll:

and here are the other dolls,

We also had a Kris Kringle bring a present swap, the present had to be something starting with T -
doesn't Pat look happy with her large jar of Tim Tams!

so that was xmas

2010-01-07T10:53:00.003+11:00

.....and a very low key one it was,
family arrived in the afternoon for a late lunch/early tea,

we opened presents

threw some prawns on the barbie

and tucked into daughters first attempt at pavlova making (and it was very successful, thanks to all those after school hours years ago with her grandmother, making meringues)

I could show you the after-dinner shots, laying around the lounge room snoozing, but I think they'd shoot me.

I am playing catch up with my posts, it's just been too hot.

Sports Day at Riverside High – circa 1960

2009-12-23T09:01:00.004+11:00

(A little personal journalling project)

I’ve never liked participating in sport.

I don’t know why, Australia is a country that apparently thrives on sport and the great outdoors. Australian children have sport thrust on them as soon as they can walk, via a Saturday morning activity called “Little Athletics”
Thank the Great Craft Goddess that Little Athletics had not been thought of when I was young.

Each summer for about a decade my parents booked me in to the Learn to Swim classes run by the education department. We spent our summers holidays at the beach so I was in a class with local kids who had grown up at the beach and were quite used to the water.
Each summer I sunk miserably to the bottom and managed to catch a cold half way through. The thought of their little pet sitting shivering and coughing at a rock pool was more than my parents could handle so I never finished the classes.

Their next attempt in the Learn to Swim Saga was a little closer to home.

Back in the 1950’s Balmain baths was a meshed off section of Sydney Harbour where fish brushed your legs and sea weed tickled your feet. The older kids told us stories of octopus waiting at the bottom to catch us and hold us down while sharks watched just on the other side of the flimsy mesh, waiting for a careless arm or leg to protrude.

The idea of standing on the bottom of the pool was unthinkable, I learnt very quickly to float and tread water, and I could manage a passable dog paddle.
This is the pool that created champions like Dawn Fraser, but I couldn’t wait to get out of the water.

It didn’t help that my 2nd cousin several times removed was Jon Henricks, another Olympian swimmer. My parents would mutter under their breath, “don’t know why she can’t swim, look at her cousin Jon”. If swimming was hereditary then all the family swimming genes must have gone to Jon and missed me.

I don’t remember much else about primary school sport, I recall a fair amount of ball throwing and skipping but our little inner city asphalt playground wasn’t built for serious activities.

Then came high school.
High School held four horrors:
A gym
A playing field
A weekly gymnastics class
A weekly sports day

If I had put as much effort into taking part in sport as I did into avoiding it, I’d probably have been an Olympic champion.

In gymnastics my friends and I developed a sweet way of avoiding the vaulting horse, we would wait til our gym teacher was looking the other way, run madly around it then thump on the floor as if we’d just landed on the other side.
More than once we’d finish up with detention because there were more of us hiding out in the toilet block than there were attending class.

Racing I thought just plain silly, what on earth is the point of running around an oval to see who is the fastest, I could tell them straight off it wasn’t going to be me.

Games that included hitting a ball were OK so long as it didn’t matter which direction it went.
Games that including catching a ball were not OK, I was very good at ducking and cringing.

Our school had only one approach to swimming events – "EVERYONE in the pool"
As I was still at the "Tread water and don’t get the face wet" stage of my swimming career, the "everyone in" was not going to work for me.
We soon learnt that no one was really paying much attention, so a whip under the tap was the answer to "Have you been in the water" "Yes, Miss, look at my wet costume".

You’ll notice I have been using the plural "We".
Sport Avoidance took careful planning and worked best when carried out in a small group.
After nearly fifty years I am still friends with my partners in crime and am pleased to say they have both survived a life without sport.

We three soon discovered that of all the sports on offer for the weekly sport day, tennis was the gentlest option, especially when played as we did.
We found another like minded partner for our hit and giggle foursome and we were generally left in peace as no one else wanted to team up with us.

The school hired tennis courts in the next suburb, a waterfront property right on the Parramatta River.
Having lobbed a couple of balls over the net "was that 20/10? – no, I think it’s 40/40 – well, we must be finished then..." we would spend the rest of the afternoon, shoes off, sitting on the sea wall, dangling feet in the water.

Our most daring afternoons however, involved the Great Escape trek through the bush to another part of the river. Our school grounds went right to the foreshore of the Parramatta River, first past tended gardens then into overgrown scrub to the rocky outcrops on the water’s edge.

The escape involved a path in full view of the headmistress’ office window, we would run bent double, commando style, through the gardens and into the scrub, our gym teacher would have been proud to see us in action.
Luckily for us no one ever did see it – I think now the head took a little after-lunch nap in her office while we spent lazy afternoons lying like lizards on warm rocks with the water lapping softly beside us.

My dislike of organised sport continued into motherhood.

My children were taught not to take on any sport activities that involved me and a folding chair on a Saturday morning.
For a short time they tried the Little Athletics and collected first, second and third stickers to fill their attendance books. My husband was persuaded to officiate but I drew a firm line when they tried to give me a stop watch as well. I was there solely to support my children, and didn’t give a damn how fast anyone else was running. It was a relief all round when the kids decided they had had enough.

We were on holidays at the beach when my son first learnt to ride a surf board.
I would dutifully embarrass him by accompanying him to the beach, til one day he said "Mum if I fell in out there, just what do you think you could do about it?"
Too true, I decided what I couldn’t see, didn’t hurt me.
I was quite happy to be the mother who got up at dawn, collected a load of lads and their surfboards and put them on the surf train to the city.

My non-sporting attitude has carried me well into my sixties, I have no idea what a silly mid-on is, (except to think it rightly named) only a vague idea of a goal, watching sport bores me mindless, I get really cranky with the ridiculous amounts of money poured into sport (while arts funding goes begging) and the equally ridiculous amounts of money paid to self-obsessed local heroes and their show off, loutish, drunken behaviour.

I have never had the desire to take part in a swim, run, cycle, hit a ball event of any description, but DAMN, that blue ribbon on my doll feels GOOD!

On writing and reading

2009-12-23T08:40:00.006+11:00

(introduction to a little personal journalling project which will pop up on here from time to time)

OK, I admit it, I'm a bookaholic.

If I am stationary for any length of time, it's with a book.

I dip, I dabbble, I get absorbed to the point that I don't know what's happening around me.

I used to struggle through to the end of each book even if it was not good, I felt I owed it to the author to finish.
I've since decided that life is too short for bad books.
The best books have a beginning, a middle and an end, if it is a bad book I now omit the middle.

And along with the reading comes a desire to write.

You know in your heart you could do as good (or bad) as those other authors.
So I began the research into keeping a written journal, I'll dig out some of the links and advice if anyone is interested.
The one piece of advice that keep recurring was "write about what you know best - your own life"
That's a bit daunting, I'm a private person, I don't open up, especially not in public, but hey, if you can't bare all to complete strangers on the internet, then who CAN you tell.
I've had a go at a couple of my memories, and thought they might give you a giggle, so here goes, (I hope you enjoy them enough to read the middles as well)

Happy Hogswatch

2009-12-21T13:51:00.003+11:00

I enjoyed Halloween so much that I didn't want to take the decorations away, but I guess there is a limit to how long you can have bottles of Goblin Snot and Pulverised Dragon Bones in your kitchen before people start to think you are weird (huh? what? oh they already do....)

there's more on my Midnight at the Crypt blog

hand problems

2009-10-12T09:35:00.005+11:00

They say that it only takes 21 days to develop a habit.

I don't know what 'they' have to say about dropping a habit, especially the habit of regular blogging, you just find that life keeps getting in the way, you have nothing creative happening and you have nothing for the "show 'n tell" aspect of blogging.

One of the main reasons for the lack of creativity has been problems with my hands, both thumbs have been giving me increasing pain which I originally put down to some sort of RSI injury after a very intense crochet session at the end of last year.
I eased off, gave it rest, hot and cold treatments, various rubs and lotions.
I am having pain when I try to hold a pencil or a needle so anything requiring fine handwork has just been too hard.

Then we started helping daughter with some house renovations which involved lots of rubbing back woodwork and walls and painting, this seemed to freshen up the pain, I finally went to the doctor, had x rays done which shows I have degeneration and cysts in the base of both thumbs.

I was not happy with my doc who didn't even bother to look at the x rays and just said "oh that's part of the aging process" When I said "but it happened so quickly" the smart B... laughed and said "what?? 60 years??"

I asked if cortisone injections would help, non committal from him, but he did give me a referral, so now I have to decide for myself whether to go ahead and have the injections. I've also discovered via google that there are 'hand' doctors who specialise so I think I'll also pester doc for a referral to one of them.

Meantime, daughter (who was staying with us during the house renovations, with boxes and belongings ad infinitum in my living room) has bought the house and moved back and taken all her boxes with her....phew....
...and her house looks amazing... I never believed a brown wall would look so good

it's been a while

2009-09-02T15:58:00.002+10:00

(unfortunately I haven't been anywhere exciting like a desert island)

Problems with Blogger comments

2009-07-01T09:15:00.005+10:00

Over the last month or two I kept coming across Blogspot blogs where I've written a comment and had it totally disappear - at first I wondered if it was awaiting moderation or just a glitch on my part, then lately I've found I couldn't even reply on my own blog to comments, so apologies if you have left a comment here and I haven't replied.

I went googling and found I'm not alone in this, (I found a post from Rurality with just this same problem and lots of her readers with similar)

It appears to be the blogs that have a little comment box under the post - which is called embedded comments.
No matter how I try to sign in to this box, with my google ID or open ID, just nothing works.

It has to be a Blogger problem and I suspect it has only recently begun to happen.

Which is why I've now switched to the full page view for comments, this seems to be the one that works best.

It would be interesting to hear if you have a Blogger blog with the embedded comments form - have the number of comments on your blog mysteriously dropped off during the past month? You might want to switch to the full page comments.

Edit: November 2009
I found another "fix" which involves allowing third party cookies on your browser -
If you are using firefox, go to tools..options..privacy.. enable third party cookies.
I was already allowing these with the option of "keep til I close Firefox", I changed my option to "keep til they expire"
I have no idea why this allows the comment box to work but apparently it does.
This was on the blogger help forum

In answer to another comment on how to change from embedded box to full page comments:
go to your dashboard...settings....comments...comment form placement...full page... and save settings

It's a bit hard to tell everyone they should change their cookie settings so they can comment on your blog, so by swapping to the full page for visitors and changing my cookies, I think the two "fixes" will work together for me, I hope it helps someone else.

(by the way I use the Firefox browser, so have no advice on how to do this with other browsers)

EDIT
24 November 2009,
as you can see from the last couple of comments, weird things are happening, a comment starts off as normal then an advertising sentence is tossed in making the comment read as total nonsense.
I have no idea if this is deliberate or accidental, I suspect deliberate as the two commenters have their profiles hidden which is suspicious to start with.

I've left the two comments in, giving them the benefit of the doubt, I may come back and delete them later, but please don't follow the links.

I'm also stopping comments on this particular post.
I think I've said all I have to say on how I got around the problem, so you guys are on your own now :))

No Koala Prison !!

2009-06-28T15:12:00.004+10:00

Last weekend at the Winter Magic Festival at Katoomba we saw this group in the parade and decided to find out more.

A development application (DA X/1128/2008) has been lodged with the Blue Mountains City Council (BMCC) for an animal exhibition space (described as an 'educational facility') at Echo Point, Katoomba. (a very popular tourist spot)

The applicant wishes to display reptiles and koalas.

The arrangements for housing and displaying the koalas are appalling.

According to the development application, two koalas will be imported from Victoria and housed in an enclosure in a basement-style room.

The koalas will not have access to sunshine or fresh air, and will be made available to members of the public for petting and photographing for an unspecified number of hours every day.

Potentially, the koalas could be handled by thousands of people every day.

The koalas are from Victoria, meaning they don't like to eat the less-nutritious leaves from NSW eucalypts, and so arrangements have to be made to get regular shipments of Victorian gum leaves to Katoomba.

The Blue Mountains Council has already denied the Development Application for this project so the developer is now approaching the next highest authority, the Land and Environment Court of NSW.

Sydney Morning Herald, Basement Koala plan savaged

More about it in the Blue Mountains Gazette

We signed a petition at the festival but were unable to get to the rally yesterday, I've been looking for information on how it went but haven't found much to date.

Winter Magic

2009-06-28T14:23:00.002+10:00

Last weekend we headed up to Katoomba in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, for the annual winter solstice festival.
Previous years have had good clear sunny winter days, but this year it was bleak, grey, foggy and the rain kept up all day in light splashes.

It was looking very bleak as we reached the outskirts of town:

but it didn't stop the crowds, Katoomba Street was packed:

The Fashion Police were writing tickets for anyone dressed in beige:

The Grand Parade was interesting as always, lots of characters and colours

and bellydancers who didn't look the slightest bit cold

and zombies (there was to be a Zombie Ball that night)

and very cool steampunk

and a very sweet Mad Hatter serving coffee

and this is Bandit in her dragon costume:

I've met up with Bandit over the last three years of festivals, in her outfits, unfortunately her owner thinks this may be her last year as she has leukemia and is not responding to treatment, she is such a lovely patient dog.

There were several local issue groups, one protesting the closure of Katoomba Hospital - the maternity ward has already been closed then re-opened from public pressure then closed again, nearest hospital is Nepean, which is a 45 minute drive away (that's on a good day, with no accidents on the one road out of town which can tie up traffic for hours)

Another issue that we learnt about during the parade was the plan by a developer to install two koalas in a BASEMENT room at the Echo Point tourist centre for photographic and petting opportunities:

I'm going to make another post just about this, it is appalling treatment of our native animals

After the parade, we wandered up and down the street stalls, then headed off home pleased to be leaving the cold wet mountains behind:

Here's my video of part of the parade,

slow cloth and practical pottery - #8 the kiln

2009-06-03T10:43:00.003+10:00

Here's another little piece of my low fired embroidery series, the kiln, on rusted fabric

Technorati tags:
textiles embroidery

miniature hexagons

2009-05-08T10:20:00.003+10:00

Time to get back to something textiley -
I spent last weekend at the Sydney Miniatures Show (will post some pics in the next day or so)
Some of the miniature needlework on display and for sale was exquisite. I can't say mine was anywhere near their standard, but here are a couple of quilts started yonks ago and never quite finished (sigh....why is that not surprising)

This method is usually referred to as 'English Patchwork’. A most used shape is the hexagon, assembled by tacking patches over paper templates, then over-sewing the edges together.

Mal has been showing some of her hexagons here - Mal could easily join the exquisite ranks, she mentions using a ladder stitch to join the pieces, and you can't even see her stitches, unlike my hens teeth overcasting.

I really do admire fine needlework, I could probably do it if I set my mind to trying, I just always seem to be in a hurry and hurrying doesn't gel with fine work.

I'm not sure what I'll do with this last one, it started to sprout in all directions at once, not at all 'quilty'

Geocities Nostalgia

2009-05-05T14:41:00.006+10:00

Yahoo is pulling the plug on all those free Geocities web sites - there must be millions of them out there, including three of mine which I'd practically forgotten (and it seems can no longer access, thanks Yahoo!)

It was back in the halcyon days of early internet - Geocities was the place you practised your self taught html skills (or lack of).

Suddenly everyone (teenager or middle-aged geek) with a computer and internet access could realise their dream of becoming a web designer and show the whole world their holiday slides and photos of the cat.

It was the place you found java scripts for cute things that followed your cursor around and made snow and autumn leaves flutter down your pages.

(see here for example if you use Explorer, never could get it to work in Netscape)

It was GRAPHICS personified - gifs that moved, jpgs, flashy backgrounds with Borders on Both Sides, how cool were we!

It was the home of halucinogenic colours and flashing lights and moving things and dreadful wav files of Strawberry Fields Forever.

And every little hobby group suddenly realised they too could become a world renowned force for good.....which is why I'm wasting time downloading ten year old pages and trying to persuade said hobby group that web sites are old old old - get a blog heavens sake! - we could even TEAM blog! (this is one of the sites I lost access to which is why the content is about 10 years out of date)

Back before Yahoo took them over, Geocities had their own little social networking system, our sites were in themed 'neighborhoods' then each neighborhood was divided into suburbs then into blocks and that's where you built your site. We had community leaders and it was all very pally and helpful.

I was trying to remember the name of my original neighborhood and found this old list of names - I was in Heartland/Meadows

Yahoo took over Geocities in 1999 at the height of the dot.com boom and immediately dismantled the neighborhoods.

Some would say that was the beginning of the end, but I think the end was helped along by the static nature of web sites in general, much more direct were the new social networks offered by blogs, facebook, YouTube and photo sites like Flickr

Somewhere I read a note comparing Geocities to an abandoned amusement park - perfect description, the ride is over, just waiting now for the demolishers to move in.

gggrrrrrr!!

2009-04-16T16:28:00.002+10:00

I am really p---d off!! - REALLY I AM!!

I set up some Google alerts, stuff like "textile art" "cloth dolls" just time wasting little things that let me know when someone has written something about them,
(like I need more blasted links to follow!!) (sorry Paula, lots of exclamation marks in this one)

anyways - one of the alerts I set up was for my full name, which lets me know if anyone mentions me by name - it very seldom happens, but today an alert came through with my name and a link to "sculptured dolls" - which when I clicked was a BLOODY PORN site!! (more exclamations)

It has picked up the meta tag description from my web site and used it to lure people in to their dirty little site - do they really think cloth doll people want to ogle hard sculpted naked bodies (don't answer that!!) (exclamation) I suppose you could call it anatomical research....

So I've just spent hours re-wording the meta tags leaving my name out, which involved downloading files then uploading again to the server.

I've been thinking about deleting the web page and just using the blog, much simpler to use, and the web site is so out of date, I need days to write new pages - this might have just been the push I need, we'll see.

Meantime, just watch out where your mouse is taking you!

Salvaged

2009-04-06T19:04:00.001+10:00

salvaged bag, originally uploaded by gramarye.

The Generation X'er broke the zip on her cooler bag - "I'm throwing this away mum, DON'T get it out of the bin"
"But it's still GOOD..." says the Baby Boomer mother

and so it was, once the zipper was removed, and the flap lid cut off and the outside patchworked.

and I've got a little carry bag for my little projects.

Voyages of the Imagination

2009-03-28T09:30:00.006+11:00

The textile group that I belong to has decided on a theme for their show next year.

"Voyages of the Imagination - journeys travelled or imagined into illusion or reality, resulting in exploration, questioning, challenge perceptions of reality - speculate and discover stories and techniques on a travelled journey limited only by your imagination"

Doesn't that sound fun!

This used to be a yearly show but has just gone to every second year, I've taken part in several of their smaller challenges but never the 'big' show, it always seemed to come around too quickly, so I thought, as I have the rest of this year to work on it, I'll have a go (of course that doesn't mean it won't come around just as quickly - or that my work will be accepted)

I am heavily into fantasy worlds with my reading so I started skimming a few books, as well as skimming the internet, all in the name of research I keep telling the family.

I landed on a name generator site and discovered that I am really Queen Silvercold of Elencia, which took my fancy.

Elencia sounded vaguely familiar so I thought I should google it and not step on anyone's toes if it is being used.
On the Urban Dictionary site I found that 'Elencia is the rumoured nightmare/psychological "happy place" experienced in a coma'- well, that threw me for a moment (only a moment) and then I decided why not, sounds good to me.

I've decided on two directions of work.
First I need a means of travel to get to my happy place, so a boat sounds in order, to be heavily inspired I think by James Christenson.
Then I need a journal for the voyage:
either the "Expeditionary Journal of Queen Silvercold"
or "A Field Guide to the Flora and Fauna of Elencia"

With the field guide in mind I started this piece:

I'd picked this up at a remnant sale simply because I like the gathers which reminded me a little of shibori, it's some kind of elasticised synthetic, maybe it can be distorted and painted to colour that awful green.

Then I tried a few leaves and shapes with free machining on water soluble Solvy plastic, then painted them.

I made a cord by zig zagging thick rug wool, and draped it over my 'shape' - haven't decided just what it is yet - who knows what strange fungii grow in Elencia.
Then I tried to crochet some leafy bits to the cord.
In retrospect it would have been easier to add all the pieces to the cord before fastening it to the shape, but that is what hindsight is all about.

So here is the first trial piece for the Field Guide, I just have to be careful where I keep it, I have a feeling this is the sort of plant that spreads.

What If Wednesday

2009-03-18T08:33:00.004+11:00

I haven't had a What if for a few weeks so here's a double helping.

What if I take a piece of terylene curtaining fabric with embroidered flowers and needle felt through it -
On the front the embroidered threads just chopped up, but I liked this piece best - worked from the back of the fabric the embroidery merged nicely as the wool pushed through to the front of the fabric, and framed the one flower that was not felted.

and here is a very easy way of adding texture to paper,
paint a layer of gesso onto paper then rubber stamp into the still wet gesso.
Best with a large stamp without too much fine detail, here I used stamps that I had carved into erasers.

Icelandic Fairy Story

2009-03-09T10:30:00.006+11:00

I do love a good fairy story, especially when it is true.

From Iceland (via Vanity Fair magazine)

"Alcoa, the biggest aluminum company in the country, encountered two problems peculiar to Iceland when, in 2004, it set about erecting its giant smelting plant.

The first was the so-called “hidden people” — or, to put it more plainly, elves — in whom some large number of Icelanders, steeped long and thoroughly in their rich folkloric culture, sincerely believe.

Before Alcoa could build its smelter it had to defer to a government expert to scour the enclosed plant site and certify that no elves were on or under it.

It was a delicate corporate situation, an Alcoa spokesman said, because they had to pay hard cash to declare the site elf-free but, as he put it, “we couldn’t as a company be in a position of acknowledging the existence of hidden people.” "

slow cloth and practical pottery #7

2009-03-04T19:53:00.002+11:00

I'm still working on the "thunder of the gods" piece but think it may have gone as far as it's going - I'll put it aside for now (but you haven't seen the last of it)

Meanwhile I whipped up a log cabin, love the logs, they go together so fast, even faster when you don't measure or worry about straight seams!
The colours put me in mind of the red heat of a kiln and the dark bricks and smokey atmosphere of a reduction firing, so I played this by ear and just stitched

ripples of heat haze

and the flames rise higher

weaving cloth

2009-02-25T08:00:00.002+11:00

I watch the magic that Jude creates when she takes strips and scraps of cloth and weaves them into whole pieces and makes a story of them.

Way back in another age, I was taught to turn and finish and hide the seams... way back I had problems coming to grips with the raw unfinished edges on 'art' quilts, but the more I work with the ripped and torn, the easier it gets.

This little piece of weaving was just 'for' - not part of anything, not with a purpose, not to exhibit, no one to ask 'what is it for' - it was just for me, to stitch and touch.

It might turn into something else or it might just stay as it is and go into a drawer and years later I'll find it to touch again and be reminded that things don't always have to be 'for' or finished or turned and tucked.

a bag....or maybe not

2009-02-23T09:32:00.003+11:00

I started to make this little patchwork bag, really like the way the three fabrics were used in the pleats...and then I thought 'what the devil am I going to do with this bag' I can only just fit my hand inside it, it's way too small to put all my junk in, I don't go places where I need a delicate little clutch bag.....
but it does.. sort of..look like a cocoon
I seem to have a thing for cocoons lately, snug little nests, somewhere to crawl into and hide from the world ....nothing to do of course with the fact that daughter has just moved back home, VERY temporarily, and we are trying hard not to invade spaces...

slow cloth and practical pottery #6

2009-02-19T09:02:00.000+11:00

I added a couple of strips of rusted cloth to the bottom left corner but wasn't happy to leave them alone, so drew the outlines of more pots and coloured them with fabric crayons, then outlined and filled in with embroidery

slow cloth and practical pottery #5

2009-02-17T10:42:00.004+11:00

Here is a little more of my slow cloth project, I wasn't sure enough of my drawing skills to work directly onto the fabric, so made a couple of attempts on paper first, then pinned the tracing paper to the fabric and stitched through it onto the fabric.

I really like the shadows and lines that the stitching creates in the fabric, a bit like digging furrows in a field.

really cute

2009-02-07T18:43:00.002+11:00

Want to see something really cute - these photos are not mine but have been circulating around my friends and their friends - we have been having incredible heatwave conditions, it's our turn in NSW this weekend but the southern states of Victoria and South Australia have really been hit hard the past week.

This little koala wandered onto someone's verandah trying to escape the heat, so she put out a basin of water for it.

New curtains and cushions

2009-02-07T18:34:00.004+11:00

Oh waily, waily, waily,
it's SO HOT!!
....and everyone from UP THERE keeps posting their snow pictures!

I decided to tough out the heat in my sewing room and make a new kitchen curtain - none of the squares line up because it was too hot to measure the window first, (well that's my story) I just kept adding bits then holding it up to the window.
I'ts really hard to get used to not looking straight out the window so I added a couple of lace squares as little spy holes - and it stops short of the sill so I could show off my teapot collection.

then I remembered some UFO cushion covers started yonks ago, so I finished them off by adding the back and some inserts and ticked that off my list!

slow cloth & practical pottery #4

2009-02-04T10:38:00.002+11:00

I decided to start numbering the embroidered pottery entries to keep track of them.

After beginning the lettering I thought it needed some colour, so I added a nest of pots using fabric crayons directly onto the material.
Another way of applying the crayons is to draw on paper then place the paper face down onto the fabric and iron, this transfers the reverse of your drawing onto the fabric - I've never had much luck with this method, maybe I haven't had enough crayon on the paper, but it always seems to be a very pale image.

I outlined the pots in stem stitch then filled in the colour with running stitch using matching thread.

then started the stitching on the background - I'm just using running stitch at the moment, similar to kantha style work.

Slow cloth and practical pottery

2009-02-01T09:45:00.004+11:00

"...and here we are, back with the gods,
whose thunder and whose thunderous tones
dwell in the plasticity of our clay"

I found this quotation scribbled in one of my clay notebooks but with no attribution.

A search came up with a book by Mary Caroline Richards called
"The Crossing Point - selected talks and writings".

Richards was a potter during the 1960's, she relates creating pottery to personal development. She speaks of 'a hunger deep in people all over the planet for coming into relationship with each other'....and isn't that just what we are all doing here as we visit each other's work.

This 'crossing point' she says is like the image of centering clay on the potter's wheel, we work the body of clay as we work the body of our mind, we make a big vessel of living water that we all need to drink, and we all need to help to make so that it will be big enough to hold us all.

In the chapter called 'Occupational Therapy' she connects clay and song "the inner ear and the moving hand"

She found that the German word for Sound is ton which means both tone and clay, and the common quality of tone and clay is their stretch, their plasticity.

Their ancient root is TA: to stretch. We hear it not only in tone, but in tendon, tension. The Latin word 'tono' means to resound, and 'tonens' is thunder, the thunderer, the thunderer God Jupiter - and here we are, back with the Gods!
Isn't that an interesting connection!

This was a fascinating book which I am still reading, you have to love the 'innernetz' without it this would have remained a nameless quotation.

And on to my slow cloth, which has me so obsessed it is not slow but progressing very quickly.
I cut a pattern from freezer paper which is supposed to represent the heat flowing around a kiln.

Using a piece of the fabric that I had dyed with rust and iron oxide, I ironed the paper to it then outlined the edges with a Shiva paintstik, This was worked into the fabric with an old toothbrush then ironed to set the paint.

After the colour has set, the freezer paper is peeled off. It can be used again.

Now on with some stitching.

What If Wednesday - melting moments

2009-01-28T14:11:00.002+11:00

Wow, Wednesday came around again so quickly!

I thought I'd stay with things that melt and show what happens when you iron cellophane paper.
This is the heavy type of cellophane used by florists to wrap flowers.
Place between two sheets of baking paper and iron, experiment with heat settings and length of time (usually only a matter of seconds)
Although it doesn't give off the fumes like tyvek I'd still advise a well ventilated room.
After the bubbles have formed on the paper you can brush over a metallic paint.
Whilst you get a similar appearance to tyvek, these papers are not as hard wearing but can be easily stitched to fabric by hand or machine.
Don't overdo the machine stitching as it could cause the paper to rip away easily.

The reverse side with the bubbles down also has a nice texture when brushed with a little paint.

The next piece was silver cellophane ironed then free machined onto a piece of tulle, the tulle was cut away in sections leaving open lacework of machined stitching.

Next was a cellophane Doritos packet, ironed, stitched and painted.

Finally,
not paper but tin, this was a piece of heavy aluminium foil, flattened and hammered to create texture. We held it over a flame which was supposed to give the metal an anodised look but mine just went black. Machine stitched to fabric. Probably not a good way to treat your sewing machine as it was very heavy going, if you try this, keep your blunt machine needles just for doing this.....if they weren't blunt before, they will be after!

The Whatiffers Movement

2009-01-21T13:20:00.009+11:00

There seems to be a growing movement of "WhatIffers" amongst my textile contacts.
Sara Lechner has started a new blog called Whatiffing Around and a Flickr group of the same name.

I was first introduced to the "what happens if" by Carol Wilkes, an Australian textile artist, can't remember how many years ago now, but it was at the now defunct "Camp Creative" which was a full week of playing at Katoomba, they had workshops in everything from textiles, drumming, art, blacksmithing, sculpture. Friends and I would rent a cottage in the main street and have the most amazing week.

A couple of years ago I started putting my "whats" experiments in a little notebook, (if you don't write it down, it is too easy to forget the secret ingredient), so I thought I might show it here.

It's a bit of a mixed bag but mostly textile related.
I'll start today with tyvek:

There are lots of web sites around with information on tyvek, enter the phrase "using tyvek for art" into google and you'll find loads of information so I won't repeat all of it here, but will say do it in a well ventilated space, there WILL be fumes, and when you paint it before melting you can add paint fumes as well - not a healthy mix.

There are also different weights and grades of tyvek, what you get depends whether you shop with an art supplier, hardware store or post office.
The first two pictures are the thin sheets bought from an art supply:

painted and stitched before applying heat with an iron (put it between two sheets of baking paper before ironing)

this was a thin sheet painted then cut before ironing

The next is a piece of tyvek from a pair of painters disposable overalls bought in a hardware store - much softer and pliable fabric but didn't appear to melt as much.

Next is a FedEx bag received in the mail from the US - I haven't checked the Australian Post Office but I'm pretty sure we don't have tyvek bags here.

The first piece at the top of this next page was brushed with puff paint, which puffs up on heating - don't ask where to get it! I've had a bottle for about 15 years! (Part of my "Use It and Don't Buy Anything New" programme for this year)
Heated with a heat gun.

the piece in the centre of page was coloured with metallic oil pastels and ironed.

next was painted with Lumiere paint, then melted and sewn in place with free machining - be very careful doing this - you can see the little opaque white bits, they have turned into pure plastic blobs and will break needles. Of all the different grades I tried, the FedEx bag seemed to have the hardest surface when melted.

Next is I think my all time favourite piece of tyvek - without any help it seemed to form a goddess shape:

It is thick puff paint on a piece of Fed Ex bag, heated with a heat gun, then dark blue acrylic paint with highlights of gold Lumiere paint, hand sewn after I broke a machine needle on it. Isn't it yummy!

And here's a few more:

then if you are wondering what to do with all these little pieces, you could work it into your embroidery:

phew!
If you want to see any of these larger, click to go to Flickr, I've made them all small to fit in my new 3 columns template.

I have lots more What Ifs but I think this was the biggest - I might make it a regular What If Wednesday, which should get me working!

Lilly Pilly with needlefelt

2009-01-19T22:32:00.003+11:00

I've been playing with my needlefelt machine, took a break in the garden and found my Lilly Pilly is flowering, they are similar to a gum nut flower but much smaller and delicate

new blog template

2009-01-15T12:57:00.013+11:00

It is SO HOT, this is our third day of temperatures in the very high 30's (Centigrade)
I haven't resorted to the air conditioner yet today but it won't be long.

my pumpkins are melting in the heat...

I found a tutorial on changing the blogger template to 3 columns so have been having a fiddle around with it - easier than I thought it would be, even though he recommends starting with the Minima template and I was using the Minima stretch, but it was very easy.
Some of the pictures on earlier posts might run into the side columns, I'm not sure, I will have to go back and check...another day

Is anyone else using Twitter - I just started but finding it very hard to follow, and who wants to know what we are doing every minute - you'd have to be a real twit!!

Off to clear some space in my sewing room - one of my friends just bought an embellishing machine which reminds me that I promised myself to experiment more with mine, first have to find a permanent space - it's really off putting when you have to move something to make room for something else.

Summertime!!

2009-01-05T17:05:00.003+11:00

I've swapped a husband for a grandchild for two days - they are doing father/son bonding/fishing - we are swimming (well one of us is!)

Slow Cloth and Practical Pottery

2009-01-03T16:59:00.004+11:00

The problem is going to be narrowing a very wide field - I've found enough ideas to make this a lifetime work.

Also have a title - how is this LOL:

"The Handbuilders Approach to Soft Pottery and Slow Cloth: including Kiln Building and Low-fired Stitchery"

I tried some fabric dyeing with iron oxide yesterday, but the results were disappointing, the very vivid looking red on the wet fabric washed out to a pale pink.
I'll do some more and try setting it in the micro-wave before washing.

The iron oxide seemed to have a reaction to the vinegar I had soaked the cloth with, and gave off an irridescent sheen which looked really good while it was still wet.

Embroidered pottery

2009-01-01T21:03:00.003+11:00

I need a project for 2009 – slow cloth – something to pick up and put down with no pressure and no deadline.

This week I sorted through my old TAFE college notes from the ceramic certificate I completed in...1980 something...

I knew even as I dumped notes in the recycle bin that I would find a need for molecular formula (I can’t even believe I once knew how to do it!)
One of my potter friends keeps her notes just to prove to herself that she once had a brain.

Threads started running around my head..

Memories – digging pits for blackfiring – pulling glowing red hot pots from raku –

...building a bourry box kiln in the grounds of the college and sharing salt firings with the class mates who became my friends for the next 30 years (plates of food and a flagon or two set the tone for firings to come)

...staying up til 3am cursing the cone that took forever to bend.

...the excitement of cracking the door of a still hot kiln because I just couldn’t wait any longer for it to cool

...the oohs of a good firing and the aargh of a bad pot (always the one pot already spoken for)

...and I recalled saying as I stacked yet another kiln –
“If this was sewn it would be finished now, I don’t have to fire fabric!!”

and that is when IT came to me – I could embroider my pottery – well, not the *actual* pottery, images of it, not sure how but ideas are flowing and it WILL come together - (and who is to say NOT the *actual* pottery, who knows yet)

I’m going through my ceramic textbooks and sketching and photographing, and wondering about staining cloth with oxides (thought of this when I was rust dyeing but didn’t get around to testing it)

I think this will be a good year.

"Tale of How" by the Black Heart Gang

2008-12-31T20:45:00.003+11:00

Spending new years eve protecting a very nervous dog from noisy fireworks so I've been exploring web sites bookmarked for months that I haven't had time to visit and found this: oh my, this is such a beautiful, surreal little movie

The Tale of How from Shy the Sun on Vimeo.

produced by the Black Heart Gang - do go and explore their website and have a happy new year!

Reindeer Poo

2008-12-30T17:06:00.006+11:00

I'm not sure if I've mentioned this before - but I REALLY don't like cooking, I don't enjoy whipping up little concoctions that will disappear in no time flat, so I'm not sure what came over me when I decided on christmas eve to COOK THINGS, it must have been the fact that son was bringing his girlfriend and her parents to spend Christmas day with us.

Not wanted to scare them away, I decided on a scene of domestic bliss instead of the usual ...strangeness.... I even took the vampire bat from the top of the christmas tree.

Anyways..amongst the pile of recipe clippings labelled "looks easy" were Chocolate Christmas Trees.
ingredients:
250g pkt plain sweet biscuits, crushed (I used Marie)
1 cup desiccated coconut
2 tablespoons baking cocoa
1 tablespoon honey (optional)
395g can sweetened condensed milk
1 cup of white or dark chocolate melts
coconut, or sprinkles for decoration
method:
combine all in large bowl, mix well, shape into cones, drizzle melted white chocolate and refrigerate until firm.

how hard can that be....

except I didn't have white chocolate so I drizzled dark chocolate...

which took away the snowy christmas tree look.....

and prompted the family to re-name them Reindeer Poo

I can see Reindeer Poo becoming regular holiday fare, as you can see from the plate, they went down well.

how I spent the nights before Christmas....

2008-12-27T14:48:00.004+11:00

net casting spider (Family Deinopidae), originally uploaded by gramarye.

After all the bugs and beasties and spiders I've photographed in my yard, you'd think I'd have more sense than to plunge my bare hands into a pile of leaves to plop in the compost bin, or even to move a chair on friends webby verandah without looking under it - because somewhere between compost and verandah something bit me.

It didn't hurt straight away, not til that night when my finger swelled to small balloon size and woke me at 4 am throbbing with pain...spent the day with it in ice water then went to the medical centre where doc thought I'd probably stuck something in it - (yeah, where?? no marks, no entry point, no red dots)

After a week on antibiotics and not being able to touch finger (which had to be the right index of course) and probing with a needle (just to see what I could find) my skin went numb.

Two days before Christmas, too busy to go back to doc, Christmas day the skin split and started to peel, not a good sight when dishing out the pudding. This is when we decided it must have been a bite, not a thorn.

Now I have an almost completely peeled top off my finger, and a rash from the antibiotics.

If you are really brave and haven't had lunch yet, you can see my very gross peeling finger here
(if I've linked correctly - if not, then it's probably just as well you can't see it VBG)

Fabric journal pages

2008-12-09T09:01:00.002+11:00

Technorati tags:
textiles

Some pages from my fabric book

2008-11-19T13:52:00.004+11:00

and now for something different

2008-11-08T11:11:00.005+11:00

For the last month I've been at this computer solid, (so solid I've injured my mouse thumb and have to have it x-rayed LOL - no kidding!!)
For years I've been collecting names and dates and snippets about my genealogy and decided it was time to write it all up and be DONE (not as easy as it sounds because people keep popping out of the woodwork)

But this week I was doing searches on some local data bases and found that one of my ancestors was on a public health committee in 1875 "To inquire into the state of crowded dwellings and areas in the city of Sydney and suburbs, so far as it affects public health"

I've just read through some of the reports and looked at the photos on the NSW State Library web site. It's so sad to read of the conditions and the poverty that existed in Sydney back then.

Here is one part of the report and the accompanying photo:

"The next place we went to was Brisbane-place, in Kent Street (owner, J.J. Parker). It consists of three two-roomed houses, about 8 ft. square and 5 ft. 6 in. high each room, and rented at 6s. These are wretched filthy hovels, having no opening in the back walls, with one small water-closet of the worst description - narrow and dirty. A deep drain has been made under the centre of the gateway, which no doubt was intended to carry off the storm waters. This property should be pulled down, as it is quite unfit for human beings to live in."

Do you know what I find really poignant - the dog kennel! no matter their own living conditions these people still thought enough of their animal to build it a kennel!

and this one:
" ... we inspected a row of cottages, which, in a sanitary point of view, are quite unfit for human habitations.
The front doors were open, and we could see that the lower rooms were not more than 6 or 8 ft. wide. We could also perceive a ladder leading to a very small apartment above; but the window upstairs does not open, and there can be no ventilation of any kind.
Some light may enter from the small panes of glass in front, but there is no sash to raise or let down, and the ingress of fresh air is impossible.
Just in front of the doors and running parallel with the row of cottages, of which there are six, is an open drain which discharges into a large hole in the wall enclosing the yard, direct into the Tank Stream.
When this sewer is full a regurgitation takes place, so that the inmates of these hovels have in front of their doors, within 3 ft. of them, a sort of tidal stream of filthy drainage, polluting the atmosphere and inviting pestilence and disease.
These cottages should be pulled down at once and should not be replaced by any others. The closets used by the inmates are beyond description. This was our second visit to this place, which, it must be remembered, is in the centre of the business part of the city, not more than fifty or sixty yards from the Exchange, and some attempt had been made to give it a cleaner appearance. The above description may therefore be taken to represent the place at its best."

but despite all - someone is growing plants in a window box....

The full set of photos is on the State Library picman data base here

It's an interesting insight to an aspect of early Sydney that I think most people would like to forget.

...so between my current obsession with history and my sore mouse thumb, there's been no sewing happening.

animation on YouTube

2008-11-05T11:27:00.002+11:00

another piece from YouTube, a clever animation by Evelien Lohbeck which won her the best NOFF-film 2008 at the Netherlands Film Festival - the computer keyboard and screen are hand drawn.

I haven't been doing much in the way of textile work, I have been updating my family tree, I'm determined to write it all up and toss all the notes and scraps of paper before the end of this year.... but I do have some more photos of the fabric book pages so will post a few of them shortly, (just so you don't all wander off somewhere else VBG and leave me)

street art from plastic bags

2008-10-02T16:16:00.002+10:00

I just came across this on Susan Lomuto's Daily Art Muse and just had to show it here - how brilliant!!

three fat fairies

2008-10-02T14:27:00.001+10:00

#272/366 three fat fairies, originally uploaded by gramarye.

This was one of my photo a day snaps - taken at a friends place, I have my friends well trained now after nearly a year of daily photos, when I go visiting they all delight in finding something for the photo.

This photo a day project has been an interesting record of the year but there have been many days when it's been a chore - it's distracted me from a lot of other things I should have been doing, I've spent far too much time looking for things and places to photograph.

It's been interesting to see how others in the group have tackled the project, some are really good photographers and must also spend hours on this - others just snap whatever, some live in interestingly photogenic places and some even seem to have LIVES!!
...and far too many of them have cats.....

It's also taken my photo stream here a long way from what I intended it to be when I joined Flickr, it was just to be a showcase for things I liked making, but now it's also things I like to photograph.

End of this year I'll have a big clean up of my photostream and toss the trash...just wish it was that easy in my sewing room

Sewing machines and clutter

2008-09-28T09:47:00.003+10:00

I've been neglecting this blog - since finishing the charm swap and my fabric book, I've gone into a bit of a creative slump.

From my long time reading of other blogs I know I'm not alone, I'm really surprised sometimes at the people who write about losing their inspiration because they are usually people who I consider to be up in the top of the creative crowd.
It passes for them and I know it will pass for me.

Meantime we have been clearing out my in-laws house, both have now passed away and the family is getting ready to put the house on the market. Months worth of weekends have been spent sorting and sorting, sis-in-law has handled much of the house part but it's fallen to my husband to clear his fathers workshop.

If there was ever a lesson to be learned about not hoarding clutter then we should have learnt it well and truly by now....but of course, who ever learns....we have boxes and boxes piling up at our house, and I've been squirrelling away rusty tools and interesting metal bits for future assemblage - which husband says I'll never get around to doing, maybe he knows me better than I think he does.

I've also decided that the family tree has to be written up once and for all - I've worked on this blasted tree for about 20 years accumulating more dead people than Rookwood cemetery, it's time to put it all in writing and give it to the family (who of course will be just rivetted to receive it !!)

That's my plan for the end of this year - then bring on 2009!

We visited an historic house recently which has been putting together a nice little collection of sewing machines:

Bebarfald's Blue Bird
Bebarfalds was a retailer of home furnishings and manufacturer of furniture, trading for many years from their landmark location opposite the Sydney Town Hall on the corner of George and Park Street. Established about 1852 and best remembered for their Bebarfald-BlueBird sewing machines, introduced in 1927.
Elegant timber cabinets made at Bebarfalds' furniture factory concealed British-made Vickers sewing machines, giving the impression of a substantial piece of furniture that would sit in harmony with other home furnishings. Bebarfalds offered customers free dress making courses.

Barkly sewing machine
I haven't been able to find out anything about the Barkly - if anyone has information please leave a comment

Usha sewing machine
from what I've been able to find - USHA is an Indian company started in 1957 and is still making hand operated machines very similar in shape and design to the one in this picture.
There is not enough background on their web site to pin down exactly when this machine was made.

charm necklace at ATASDA

2008-08-24T10:37:00.002+10:00

charm necklace at ATASDA

I dragged poor sick husband coughing from his sick bed (read lounge chair in front of ENDLESS olympic telecasts) so he could come with me to the ATASDA textile exhibition and see what REAL talent is all about (as opposed to a bunch of sweaty little athletes flopping around in a pool or running pointlessly around a track - sport....BLECCHHH)

Here is my finished charm necklace with all the charms I received in the ATASDA round robin.
It is on exhibition with all the other necklaces and textile works at the Palm House gallery in the Botanic Gardens, Sydney, as part of the ATASDA "Out of the Blue" exhibition.

The Palm House was erected in 1876 and is the oldest glasshouse in New South Wales. It is a beautiful space full of natural light (even though a bit draughty)

No photos allowed but I persuaded them to let me take my own 'in situ' so I have a record of it on show.

The work on display was superb.
I really wish I could have photographed more of it to show you. I'm not sure just how much of the exhibition will be shown on the ATASDA web site, but here is their galley page if you'd like to see previous shows.

Then we had a nice walk around the gardens where I made up for depriving him of sport by allowing him to ogle a solar powered cruiser on the harbour.

Stella and scarf

2008-08-17T10:19:00.001+10:00

#225/366 Stella and scarf, originally uploaded by gramarye.

I was walking around the yard draping my latest scarf over bare winter trees when I suddenly remembered Stella.

My daughter bought her from Reverse Garbage years ago. She has been stashed away in the conglomeration that was once my pottery studio and then daughters' darkroom. Stella has lived quietly there amongst bags of dried clay, pottery wheels, old enlargers and developing tanks.
She seemed happy to see daylight again, I think I will be using her for future photos - she is pretty 'armless and drapes well!

The scarf was inspired from my coral reef crochet and looks far better on Stella than it does on me

the finished book

2008-07-31T21:24:00.002+10:00

I was trying to be smart and schedule these posts a day apart but messed it up and who wants to wait anyway!!

Here's my finished book - standing about 7 inches high -

Over the next week or two I'll post some of the pages

....reading it through I've just realised how many times "lunch" appears...strange that...

putting my fabric book together - part 2

2008-07-31T21:00:00.000+10:00

Somehow I had to bind all those pages - 52 weeks in a year equates to 26 pages plus a cover, say I make two buttonholes in each page - that's 54 buttonholes! No way!!

I opted for rivets which proved just as much a pain as buttonholes, some folded over smoothly, some just went Blat! the blat ones I hope will remain hidden.

I then needed some small separation between the pages so they didn't pack down tightly together. I had some nylon macrame cord and thought of tying a knot in it between pages

I got half way through - pull the cord, tie a knot, pull the cord through some more - tie another knot - and decided it looked tacky

so it was - undo knot, pull cord through, undo another knot....

then I spied these almost flat wooden beads, I fallen for the colour at a bead show.

I scrapped the stiff macrame cord in favour of some bright blue Russian braid, I was reaching the home straight til I found the holes in the beads were just a tad small to feed the braid through smoothly, so it became - snip the end to a point, feed through the bead and snip the now ragged end to a point again -

you can see what I mean about a whopping big book!

I'll take a photo of the finished book tomorrow.

putting my fabric book together - part 1

2008-07-31T08:00:00.002+10:00

Last year I was inspired by an article in Quilting Arts magazine featuring Frances Holliday Alford. Creating one square a week, Frances made a journal art quilt for her 57th year. My next birthday was going to be a BIGGIE so I decided to celebrate it with a similar project.

I started what was to be my quilt on my birthday in March 2007, but after about two months of weekly squares, it was obvious that this was going to be one whopping big quilt...I didn't really want it to be a bed quilt and I'd long since run out of wall space.
So the plan changed to creating a fabric journal of the squares.
(now instead of a whopping big quilt, I have a whopping big book!)

Of course the year passed before I'd finished stitching, March turned into May before the pages were finished, then the problem was how to put them all together.

Because of the quilt idea, I'd started with squares which were to be joined together, with the change of plan I needed to place them back to back to form book pages.
The squares were made from hand painted cotton with quilting fibre backing.

I decided to attached them to fabric backing - which meant more hand stitching on top of the work I'd already done:

The fabric was folded wrong side out, so the two pages were facing each other inside, then stitched top and bottom to make a pocket:

The pocket was then turned right sides out:

I made a border to cover the raw edge

This was turned and the raw edge of the pocket placed inside and stitched

I still had no firm idea of how all this was going to be joined together...
to be continued...

Charm swap

2008-07-30T17:43:00.003+10:00

Message in a Bottle

Imagine a deserted tropical island.

The clear blue water laps at your feet as
you watch silver crests of waves breaking.

The fish you caught is slowly cooking on the
golden sand and you quench your thirst with
coconut milk.

You write a help note on handmade paper and
seal it in a bottle decorated with silver wire and
beads that tone with the cool sea.

(Well after all, who would want to be
shipwrecked without their stash!)

You cast the bottle into the sea and hope
for rescue
.......or do you?

The last of the charm swap organised by the ATASDA textiles group.
This was Claire's necklace and as you can see she asked that we be inspired by the blues and greens of the sea - as it was the last I had to work on I thought I'd have some fun and imagine being marooned with my stash on a desert island (my husband would say I already am - my island being my sewing room - he makes sure I have a steady supply of coffee instead of coconut milk)

The charm swap has been a challenge and although I've enjoyed it, I'm really glad we've finished!

All of the work from the swap will be included in the ATASDA display at the Palm House Gallery, Royal Botanic Gardens, Sydney, 14 - 26 August 2008.
There were several groups involved, not just the 8 people in my swap, so it will be a great display.

decor

2008-07-22T10:38:00.005+10:00

I've been unwell, it seems to be winter lurgy time in Sydney, so haven't felt like doing much but cruise blogs.

Since the tiles fell off the kitchen wall (oh about a month ago now...) I've been thinking new kitchen/renovations... and have become totally hooked on decorating blogs.

I think it's just the natural sticky beak in me - I love looking at other people's houses, driving at night I peer into uncurtained windows, not wanting to catch anyone 'in flagrante' as it were, but just to look at their rooms, keeping in mind that apart from distracting the driver, you can be probably be arrested for things like that, I should just stick to the decor blogs.

One of my favourites is Desire to Inspire a joint effort between Jo in Australia and Kim in Canada (I hope I've got that right) They are very prolific posters and there is always something new to see, as well as their links list.

At the moment I'm torn between basic white (check out the white tag on their blog)

which is all very clean and fresh and nordic looking (not at all like my own cross between Victorian clutter and objet d'craft)

or colour

wild coloured upholstery from Squint

or white and colour

or maybe just all colour

Le Temps des Gitans a flickr find from eclectic gipsyland.

and the little girl in me wants this from Kidsfactory

decisions...decisions

2008-07-11T11:57:00.001+10:00

#190/366 decisions...decisions, originally uploaded by gramarye.

a clear fresh winter day
the sun is shining
the sky is blue
do I sew or do I garden?
....or maybe just take photos...

.....

2008-07-07T15:53:00.001+10:00

#187/366, originally uploaded by gramarye.

"...so tell me again, why did you want me to stand in the frypan ???"

a spare hand

2008-06-28T22:07:00.001+10:00

#176/366 spare hand, originally uploaded by gramarye.

would be handy sometimes....

Winter Magic Festival, Katoomba 2008

2008-06-23T10:41:00.002+10:00

Winter Magic Festival, Katoomba 2008, originally uploaded by gramarye.

We went to the winter solstice festival at Katoomba on Saturday.

It was a wonderful day, after a solid week of rain and drizzle, the sun came out for a clear day, a wee bit nippy but not uncomfortable.
We had a good spot for the parade and I took lots of short movies that I'm trying to edit into one I can put on flickr but bit limited with the space allowed.

This pic is the puppetmaster, they spent the whole day in character, his arm must have been so sore next day.

There's more photos from the festival on my Winter Magic set on flickr

charm swap

2008-06-23T10:33:00.001+10:00

#172/366 charm swap, originally uploaded by gramarye.

another piece I've just finished for our textile group's charm swap.

This is quite large compared to the previous pieces, it is for the 14 year old son of one of our members, not sure what he has planned for the finished pieces.

It was quite different making something for a young man, I'd planned on using several large felt balls, til my daughter said "you're making dangling felt balls....for a boy???"

so I settled on one felt ball and lots of wire....

in a fog

2008-06-17T13:13:00.003+10:00

I’ve been in a fog the last few months, deep heavy fog – I’ve emerged now and then to do what needed doing but not long enough to get anything really good happening.

This year I’ve been trying to take part in the 366 group on Flickr, taking a photo a day for the whole year – that’s not been easy, wasting so much time setting up still life things, then downloading and I hate the photos, they are fuzzy, blurry, out of focus, wrong light wrong everything.

So then I set up yet another blog just for the daily photos, problems happen
when I post a week of photos together and blogger puts them all under the one day, then I have to log in and separate them, anal I know, but I have to have them ‘right’ then that’s all too hard, so I scrub that blog.

I wander the halls of Flickr, peering into doors which lead me to other doors and other halls and everyone is SO smart, so artistic, so creative. I spend so much time there that I have no time for anything else.

Flickr leads me to blogs where I spend more time….and they lead me to groups that I join, which means more internet, more more more.

I leave my real life groups because their days come around so fast and I can’t rouse myself to make the effort to leave the house and go to them.

My days are counted now not by what I’ve achieved but by how many hours I sit in front of the computer

My friend says I’ve caught her depression, maybe, don’t know, I’ve never had it before.

I know about the Blogging without Obligation thing, but I do feel an obligation (The Blog has been a small part of my life since I started on LJ in 2002) and I feel a need to apologise when I disappear.
Especially when I come back and find that Annica and Paula have both been to visit and have very sweetly given me the Sweet Home blogger award - thank you both.

So I'll give myself a good shake, stop whining, brush out some cobwebs (or maybe spray them silver) and try to get moving again

May Gibbs exhibition

2008-02-18T10:55:00.004+11:00

#48/366 May Gibbs exhibition, originally uploaded by gramarye.

We went for a drive across Sydney to visit the "Inspired by May" exhibition at North Sydney Library by the members of the Australian Textile Arts and Surface Design Association (ATASDA)

I submitted two little pieces of work (my earth spirits) for the exhibition and also took part in the collaborative banner, 25 sections worked by 25 members of ATASDA.

My square in the banner is on the top row, 2nd from left.
If you remember my banner it started off
here like this:

There's another photo of the banner on the ATASDA website where you can click on each square to see an enlarged picture
Inspired by May banner

The photos are not great as I took them through glass without the flash:

photographing lunch

2008-02-13T16:42:00.002+11:00

lunch, originally uploaded by gramarye.

Serendipity

2008-02-13T08:59:00.000+11:00

There are still lovely moments on the internet - this morning I found one.

There I was in Sydney, Australia reading an American knitting site (knitty.com) and found a link to an Irish knitting blog so away I went to look.

The blog is A simple Yarn written by Cheryl Marling, an American living in Dublin, it's a good read and I will be back to spend more time there, but the thing that caught my eye this morning was MY granny's sewing box...yep, alive and well and living in Dublin!

Cheryl's box was found dumped in a skip and she describes it as a writing desk, not sure of the measurements of it so although it looks the same, it could be larger than mine.

This is Cheryl's: (apologies Cheryl, I hope you don't mind that I'm using this photo from your blog, but I really wanted to show the two boxes together)

and this is my granny's:

Granny left it to my mother and now it's come to me - the inside of the box is still in the original, very used, worn out state - I've often thought about restoring it but didn't want to touch the fine worn blue silk, so have just left it.

I was always told it was a sewing box, I really think it would be too small to use as a writing desk as Cheryl describes.

Now the strange part is that my great grandmother, Margaret Reilly, was Irish and came to Australia about 1847 from County Cavan. She was about seventeen years old when she arrived here - we've been unable to find out very much about her and she died when my grandmother was only three years old.

I've often wondered about the worn out condition of the box as Granny really took good care of the other things I've inherited so now I'm wondering if this originally belonged to *her* mother -

Would a poor young Irish girl have brought a box like this with her from Ireland?

I guess now I will always wonder, but never know

what's been happening

2008-02-13T08:26:00.001+11:00

Has it really been that long since I made an entry?
I've wasted so much time this last month, not content with joining just one photo a day group on flickr, I've also joined a monthly scavenger hunt group.
I've spent weeks wandering around with camera in hand, looking at everything as a photo opportunity, then downloading the 50 photos I've taken of the one thing and worrying which I should post.....it's all getting out of hand.

here's one from my scavenger hunt - we had to find onion photos - do you know how hard it is to stand in the supermarket, whip out the camera and take a photo of the onions.....I'm fast becoming the eccentric old lady I always wanted to be.
I'm also trying to teach myself to use photoshop, so I've added some layers to this.

What's been happening in sunny Sydney these past couple of weeks....rain, that's what, this is our driveway, with the water nicely dammed (damned!) by our neighbours lawn.

Your father I am not, young Luke

2008-01-26T19:06:00.001+11:00

Your father I am not, young Luke, originally uploaded by gramarye.

you can tell I've been having a lazy afternoon,
playing with my toys and special effects

photography - the cup & the cat

2008-01-25T15:43:00.002+11:00

#25/366 a photo a day - the cup & the cat, originally uploaded by gramarye.

you can call me all you like - I am NOT turning around to look at your silly cup, I KNOW it's not a real frog - and anyway, I have a nice profile....

photography - holidays

2008-01-25T11:24:00.002+11:00

#24/366 A photo a day - holidays, originally uploaded by gramarye.

My big camera has gone on holidays to Vietnam without me or its little friend here. (just hope it comes home with some great photos or it will be in trouble!)

I think my little camera is jealous, I caught it dressing up and taking self portraits in the mirror.

the kitchen dresser

2008-01-25T11:22:00.002+11:00

#23/366 A photo a day - kitchen dresser, originally uploaded by gramarye.

I've finally managed to rub back and varnish the doors on the old kitchen dresser I'm using for storage in my sewing room.

I started this little restoration project right in the middle of moving into my new sewing room back here
Still need to rub back the drawers, but at least for now all the mess is hidden.
whoops, did I say mess.....meant to say Vital Craft Supplies

I inherited this from my aunt.
It holds some very special memories of staying at her house as a child in the summer holidays, and setting the table for lunch with dishes from here.

photography - textile closeup

2008-01-21T18:58:00.002+11:00

#20/366 A photo a day - textiles, originally uploaded by gramarye.

Getting back to textiles - this is a close up of a wall hanging I made last year.

I'm not even through January and this photo a day project is becoming harder - I think I need to work out a plan for monthly themes

photography - the Dutch shop

2008-01-21T18:56:00.002+11:00

#19/366 A photo a day - the dutch shop, originally uploaded by gramarye.

We took our Dutch friend to Sydney's Dutch shop, where there was (predictably) an abundance of blue and white delft china and wooden clogs

and lots of yummy Dutch food

photography - jungle scene

2008-01-21T18:52:00.002+11:00

#18/366 A photo a day - jungle, originally uploaded by gramarye.

Grand daughter made a jungle scene which involved much chopping up of green crepe paper and frequent visits to the loo to empty the toilet rolls.

the hippo tried to warn the cows (in the jungle??)
but did they listen.....??

Camping out indoors

2008-01-17T20:54:00.002+11:00

#17/366 for Project 365+1, originally uploaded by gramarye.

Camping out in the living room.
We made a tent over a card table, the small person decorated the side and added the welcome sign - her intention was to sleep in it last night, but decided the living room was far too dark and spooky once the lights were out (even with the dog for company)