Week 24 - The Jubilee Dragon

Once again my very talented friend Alison left me speechless with her gift of the Jubilee Dragon.
Not that I'm a Royalist but my roots are in the UK - particularly the top bit known as Scotland (big smile)  and I will always have a soft spot for the red, white and blue..... colours I hope will never disappear from our Australian flag.

Alison, you are wonderful, how do I ever thank such a generous friend?

Week 21 - Ali's glass dragon

My friend Alison makes glass flamework beads.

I started learning glass beadmaking about the same time as Ali.
After burning a hole in the kitchen table and producing a collection of blobby little beads, my remaining glass still sits as pristine glass rods, whilst the talented Ali has risen to amazing heights with her glass making.

She makes wonderful beads and I was quite stunned and over the moon when she gave me her first glass dragon.
I've had it for a couple of months now attempting to take photos that would do it justice, glass is so hard to photograph.

I hope you enjoy seeing the work of a lovely lady and good friend.

charm necklace at ATASDA

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.

Charm swap

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.

charm swap

#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....

Charm swap

OK, enough griping about politics and the filthy rich, let's get back to what this blog was supposed to be about.

I'm taking part in a charm round robin with ATASDA, a textile group I belong to.
We've been divided into groups of nine, we each make a bracelet or necklace which will be circulated around our group, each of us adding a charm, so the completed piece will come back to us with nine charms attached.

It doesn't have to be a necklace, it's been suggested that the charms could go onto a windcatcher or candlesticks, whatever we like.

I've made a necklace foundation from beaded wire woven into a tube on a knitting dolly, it didn't turn out as smooth as I hoped because the beads were not easy to pull though the hole of the dolly.
Then I fed a ribbon necklace with clasps already attached, through the centre of the tube.
My charm is a small bottle with lace, beads and threads inside.



I'm feeling a tad inadequate after I saw a couple of the other necklaces that have been posted to the groups yahoo site.....
hmmmm....I still have four days to come up with something else....