A mixture of sewing projects

 Embroidery of Chance 

I started with a velvet square in a dusky pink colour.

 Added random wool tops with needle-felting just to add a bit of colour to start with.

Then, using the TAST stitches and a dice roll #5 for which box of threads I will use.

A coin toss gives me Regular or Irregular stitching.

Other rolls of the dice give me - Design Shape, Line Design, and Decoration or Embellishments for the whole piece.

Knotted Feather Stitch - Irregular, curved

Inverted Feather Stitch - Regular, haphazard

Raised Herringbone Band - Regular, triangle, vertical

The CHANCE part is working out fine so far. I think I might change the way the threads are randomly chosen though as I wasn't too pleased with the bright green on the back of the raised herringbone band. The best way to get a cohesive colourway would probably be to choose perhaps a dozen or so threads that would actually look good on the background, and then have the dice choose which one to use next.

I will PLAY with that idea on the next roll of the dice.

 Ear Ear Project 

The soft spongy ear-pads on my headphones disintegrated two weeks ago and it's a bit painful trying to use them without the soft pad, so here is my solution to that problem.

I am very pleased with the result. Rather snazzy I think.

 My Mum's Steam Engine Cross Stitch 

Here are the photo's of the large cross-stitch project that my mum started but had to give up on due to failing eye-sight.

As mentioned on a previous post, I shall be finishing the last 3 carriages in her memory.

The whole thing when finished is 1.6 metres long (yes, over one and a half metres) and about 200mm high.

That is quite a large cross stitch panel.

I'm not sure when I will have time this year, but it is on my TO-DO list.

 Learning Lace Making 

This is the treasured lace-making equipment I have.

All of this was my mums, and I have inherited quite a few of her books on the subject as well.

The domed cushion for pinning the projects.

Her best bobbins in her custom made case for them.

A collection of her other bobbins in another case she made.

A few of her special pyrography bobbins.

And a pair of very special bobbins in a box.

Well that's it for this week's show-and-tell.

Hope you enjoyed the eye-candy.

Happy Stitching

My Car Blew Up

My car blew up ...... well, it was just the engine really. 

But scary at the time.

Smoke pouring out of the exhaust, and steam and smoke billowing out from under the bonnet.

I got some pretty funny looks from people in the supermarket carpark as I chugged like a steam train into the nearest available double parking spot.

As I got out and walked ran a discrete distance from the car, I could hear loud rumblings, hissings and screechings coming from under the bonnet. And yes, before you ask, I had turned the ignition off already.

Once the noise had subsided a bit, I tentatively went to lift the bonnet. 

With a smug look on my face I was thinking .....Oh yeah, I can screw the radiator cap back on all by myself, it's not too difficult to do that, is it..... 

But how do you open this xxxxxxxx bonnet?

It's something I've never had to do before. Yes, I know there's a lever inside the car, that bit's easy enough.

But somewhere just under the front edge of the bonnet is a catch that I cannot find. 

Ouch....that was hot    

 "%#$$X*&" .... was what I really said.

I've seen Tony lift the bonnet many times. It looks easy enough. 

I eventually push on the 'right' thing, and up goes the lid. 

Phew!!! see, I CAN do it, oh ye of little faith.

Now to find the radiator cap. Oh, why is all this steam still here, and I'm sure the engine bits were not that colour when I last saw Tony working on it.

(the closest that I usually get to an engine is when I hand Tony a cuppa coffee while he's working on one)

Actually I don't think the problem is the radiator cap at all.

I'll just go and do my shopping and when I get back all will be cooled and good to go again.

Hah!!!

One and three-quarter hours later I'm on the phone to him who knows 'my darling' to ask him how to start an engine when it doesn't want to be started.

Twenty minutes later he is at my side, or rather, at the cars side.

Two hours later we are both home having a well-needed cuppa tea.

We are ok, but my car is dead in the paddock by our barn.

A phone call consultation to our local car repair company confirms that to make my car work again we will need to part with around $3,000.

Gulp.

Now, Tony is a handy man to know. 

He can fix umpteen broken things all at the same time, and get them working better than they were before they broke.

He decides that he will change the camshaft, head-gasket, head-cylinder, brandylever, counterlever, radiator, belts, pants, pulleys, squiggley-do's, valves, pistols  crankshaft, middleshaft, hosiery, chain-mail, tutus, bridgets, bradgets, and everything else that needs replacing.

~ You have probably gathered that I have no idea what I am talking about here, so just insert whatever technical terms you know for all the stuff under the bonnet of a car ~

So now my car has all THAT stuff in various containers scattered around the floor of the barn and around the vacant space where the engine of my dead car used to be.

I have a weird feeling that I may be without my car for some time yet.