Hats and Nudes etc.

An interesting day.... First a visit to the Brisbane Art Gallery where a couple of friends and myself took in the exhibition  'Hats -an anthology by Stephen Jones'

 Here is Joan and Alison as we are ready to enter this wonderful exhibition.  The exhibition was very well set out and we spent a long time checking out all the different types of hats made from an enormous variety of materials.  Some of the hats belong to the V & A, some were from the collection of Stephen Jones and others.  All in all well worth the drive to Brisbane.

 Following 'Hats", we visited  the Gallery of Modern Art to see the Ron Mueck exhibition.  A little confronting (okay a lot) but quite awesome.

 Some of the sculptures were very very big like this baby,

and then some were quite small like these little old ladies.

 But all were in beautiful proportion and the features all so very realistic.

My Poor Neglected Blog

Dear Blog,
I am so sorry for neglecting you.  Life has been pretty darned boring around here.  All work and no 'play'.
When I do have some spare time I have been two-timing you over on Stitchin Fingers.  It is so inspiring over there and I have made some lovely SF friends too.  From now on, I will try and give you a little more of my time.


Last Tuesday a group of us went down the mountain range to Gatton and enjoyed the Queensland Quilters picnic with around 400 other quilters from all over South East Queensland.

The picnic was held in the grounds of the Gatton Historical Village and these are just a couple of the buildings we were able to explore.

Look at this dandy chair.  It had hidden secrets.

It was made out of old wooden crates.  The perfect place to store your chamber pot!
This chair was inside an old slab hut.  Our early settlers built these types of houses and one can only imagine how cold they were in winter with all their cracks in the floor and walls.

This hexagon quilt on an old iron bed would have kept a little of the cold out. (See that big opening between the wall slats?  Brrrrrr)

And look at this for ingenuity.  A chest of drawers made out of old kerosene tins.  Three cheers for recycling.

One of the highlights of the day was seeing this attempt at the World's Largest Hexagon quilt.  It was quite something.  I did a couple of flowerettes, but alas did not have all day and night to look for them......


I  am not one for statistics.  My brain likes to just sketch over things and move on to the next thing, but Judie Bellingham over at bellaonline.com has all the stats on this amazing quilt. Here  is the link.


You can also see a little about the construction of the quilt etc. on the Sew Creative Gatton website.

A very nice social day out and a break away from the office work.

Crazy Block - Brisbane

This blog post is dedicated to my dear friend Shirley who has endeavoured  to teach me some ribbon embroidery.  These rosebuds were done by instructions via an email from Shirley as we live some 1 3/4 hours away from each other.  Shirley always gives so freely to me and is a wealth of knowledge on anything embroidery.  She is quite the 'star' on Stitchin Fingers as she shows her work from present times and times past.  She kicked off the current frenzy to show your needlecase over on SF.  Anyway, Shirl, I know you will read this and hope these little rosebuds don't disappoint you too much.  Some turned out better than others!
 
 
This is the Brisbane Block and represents that part of our life spent in our very first home.  We were there from 1981 to 1992 and they were truly fun times.  We still keep in touch with our old neighbours.  Both our daughters were born while we lived here and  the memories evoked while stitching and looking at this block are very special.
 
Blackberries, done as per the instructions in Robyn Ginn's embroidery book.  We lived in Blackberry Street.

Childers Trip - ANZAC Weekend

 Mango Orchard and chook shed - view from the deck
We headed north for the 3 day ANZAC weekend and visited my cousin and her husband who live just outside of Childers on a sugar cane farm (and other things).  It is about a 4 hour drive from where we live.
'We' is my darling sister (younger by 3 years) and her husband.  Unfortunately due to a death in my husband's family he wasn't able to go.  
We had a fabulous time and got spoiled rotten by our cousin.  She fed us copious amounts of good home cooking, and some of the produce coming straight from their farm.  



Red Claw Crayfish - before

Red Claw Crayfish - After













If you haven't tried Red Claw yet - do yourself a favour!  It is so delicious and my cousin and her husband farm these right on their property.  YUMMY>

 Banana plantation














A whole bunch of em

Yes they had some bananas.  We brought a few of these home with us plus some avocados. 

Childers and surrounding area is a great place to visit and we look forward heading up that way again soon. (Got to lose some weight first!!!!) LOL

Crafty Card and Vintage goodness

 
A friend was after batiks for her birthday so I got some from fabric.com.  There is also a khaki type colour fabric under this red one and it is really cool because it goes from very very light to quite dark.  They are so nice and now I would like to start getting a few of the same for my stash.
I made her a little co-ordinating card.  It is the size of an ATC and is made from off cuts from a book cover I made with scraps and bits and pieces a little while ago.  The buttons are all small orange coloured ones and I used the same organza ribbon and just ruched it as I sewed it on.  The fabric piece was sewn onto recycled card with a zigzag stitch around the edge.  She loved it.






This is a vintage throw my Aunty used on the weekend on our picnic (the flies were very bad).  It was crocheted by her late sister.  Isn't it cute?  It served its purpose too.  

I Love Autumn

 

In my opinion, there is no better time in Toowoomba than the month of April.  I so love Autumn and today is one of those perfect Autumn days.  Clear sunny sky with a slight nippy breeze.  Perfect for getting out into the garden, so that is what I did for a short time.  Dead headed the roses and took a photo of this wonderful deep red dahlia that never disappoints and always springs up year after year.It is a much darker deep red than what this picture shows.

Last year I did this small quilt for an Autumn Challenge my quilt group was having.  It shows the birds watching their arboreal homes change colours.  I used a few techniques in this one - crazy patchwork of scraps, hand applique and lots and lots of hand quilting done with DMC floss and in about 1/4 inch channels.  It was fun to make and I love those challenges.  They make you think outside the square.

Flower post card

 

I did this postcard on Sunday.  It was lovely to get into the sanctuary of my sewing room and leave the rest of the house out of my mind.


Firstly I picked out some scrap fabrics and fused them to a piece of sturdy fabric (I used a denim scrap).
 Then I free sewed wiggly lines all over that and then fused the flower applique onto this.
Then the fun started and I dropped the feed dogs (left the ordinary foot on the machine) and added some texture to the petals and stamen area in embroidery threads.

To give the stamen more texture I picked up some of the yellow bits with a lazy daisy stitch and also hand embroidered a little chain stitch around the large leaf area.


It was so much fun to make and I have another one ready to go as soon as I can sneak off again.