Creatively Inspired Mixture

I have had a gloriously creative week.

It started with little bits of needle felting ....... like this.......

and this .................

All just for some fun coloured backgrounds that I can use for some other stitching projects later on. Not planned what projects they are yet, but my creative muse is thinking on it.

Then for a couple of days I stitched crochet motifs to add to my collection for the Free Form Coffee & Cream Bolero.

These are fun to do. Mostly just created from my imagination, or from inspiration pics on Pinterest etc. and creating something similar, or from adapting patterns to suit my needs. 

And then...... what bright spark let me loose in the yarn shop?

.......which just so happens to be the fabric shop as well......

which had an inspirational Christmas quilt hanging in the window.

Hence......

And........

And......... I just HAD to have this........

Isn't it beautiful.

I can hear a Rhapsody Quilt .........  Can you?

Happy Stitching

Hexagon Quilt and Crochet Along

Sorry I missed doing a blog last week.

 After visiting our solicitor about the land we are about to purchase he informed us about a possible problem with the land titles. So we put the site visit on hold while we researched and contacted people 'in the know' about it.

It all boils down to one word "interim". 

I'll not bore you with the details, but the outcome is that the original land titles records were lost in the 1930/40's when Napier was hit with an earthquake.

The outcome is good though. All is well with our titles, and we can continue with our land purchase. Phew.....for a moment there I thought I had lost my dream home.

Anyway, back on topic now.

Hexagon Quilt

The week before last I was making more hexagons to add to my hexagon quilt. This seems to be a favourite with one of my boys but it was meant to be for my bed in our new home. We'll have to wait till it's finished and fight it out then, lol.

Here are the hexagons I did last this week

And here they are added to the hexagons I did last month.

I still have rather a lot more hexagons to put together yet. This is the pile waiting to be done.

Crochet Along

I have run out of the pastel coloured yarns for the crochet along squares I was doing. So until I can manage a visit to the yarn shop I have started a new project with the crochet cottons that I have in abundance here. If I were to crochet for 12 hours a day every day I probably wouldn't run out of crochet cotton until about the year 2050.

 You will notice I am back to Free Form mode again with this. It's going to be a freeform bolero/waistcoat type of thing. If you can see inside my head you will see the picture of it. hahaha.

So this is what I have created this week. 

Coffee and Cream Bolero.

That's me done for this week. 

Wayhay...... back to the freeform crocheting and the hexagon quilting. 

Oh, by the way, just thought you might like to see what else I have done this week purely for pleasure.

Picking oranges from our orchard to add thick slices to my glass of Southern Comfort.

(that bottle is now almost empty)

It has been a fantastic week.

Happy Stitching

Crochet Along - Squares

I'm averaging one crochet square a day at the moment, but that will all change from tomorrow as I am back into 'busy-as-a-bee' mode with finalizing the deal with our new property (solicitor appointments, real estate agents etc.) and we will be taking yet another 6 hour journey to the property for some more site visitor appointments. 

This time next year we will have our dream home (I hope).  Exciting stuff!

Here are the new crochet squares for this week.

Some I have taken from the book - 200 Crochet Blocks by Jan Eaton - and some I made up as I went along because I need a challenge every now and then.

Photos are taken while I have them pinned out for blocking.

And two half-squares just to use up the left-over ends.

I may be missing next week while we are away, but I'll be here in spirit.

Happy Stitching

Crazy Mandala Quilt and the Crochet-Along Project

 The Crazy Mandala Quilt 

This week I have returned to stitching a little bit more on my Mandala Quilt to give these guys their black coats.

I only managed to get two of the twelve done, but any progress on it is good progress and closer to finishing it.

 Crochet Along (CAL) 

I am taking part in a Crochet Along with a lovely group of ladies over 

on Tuesday Stitchers blog.

We are all stitching different projects and a couple of us are crocheting squares to make into afghans or something else.

I wanted to do something different from the 3D 'flowers' that I have been making a lot of recently, so I opted for squares with a geometric pattern.

I'm not sure if the final item will be an afghan, a bag, a wrap or jacket yet. I'll decide later on when I have made a few more squares. 

At the moment I am just enjoying the relaxing crocheting without having to 'think' too much about the stitching.

I must admit though..... I'm not sure about how many more squares I can make before my FREE-FORM brain decides its had enough of regular, methodical, formal crochet. 

I have only made 5 squares and 2 half-squares so far, and I'm already feeling the restriction of the project.

I have a sneaking feeling that I am about to 'break free' of my CHAINS........... hahahaha

(pun intended, lol)

Anyway, here are my squares so far.

Bobble Arrows

Cluster Cross

A Battenburg Half-Square

A Battenburg Half-Square Stripe

Pastel Windows

Corner Stone Square 

Geometric - yes

Pastel - yes

Easy - yes

Relaxing - yes

Stash Busting - yes

Happy Stitching

"Take a Chance" Embroidery & TAST

I have had another very productive long weekend away at our proposed new home site, and my sofa currently looks like this with loads of different house plans and ideas that we are "trying on" for size. I've got to make sure I can fit everyone and everything in. 

It's a very exciting time (but I'm sure it will get more stressful the closer we get to the actual build). At the moment we are in designing mode, and I'm in my element there.

Wahooo......... I have actually managed to get some TAST stitches done on my 

CHANCE Embroidery this week.

The pale pink at the bottom is the Bullion Buttonhole Stitch.

(sorry the pic is a bit blurred)

Some Buttonhole Wheels in a variegated pink/green thread.

This next one is a funny little stitch called the Crested Chain Stitch.

It is meant to have a nice braided effect when worked evenly, but my 'roll of the DICE' called for "irregular stitch", and so I ended up with a happy frilly looking thing. I love how I don't have control over what I stitch on this project. I get so many lovely surprises along the way.

And here is another TAST stitch called Slipped Detached Chain Stitch.

(I think it looks like a row of palm trees on a desert island)

And a photo of the whole of this Chance piece so far, with "roll of the dice" telling me to use: lace, wool, braiding, irregular stitch, couching, and some other things as well that are yet to be applied to this piece.

Ok, back to the drawing board for me now.

Happy Stitching

My Free Form Embroidery of CHANCE Project Update

Just a little bit more stitching (and playing) done on my CHANCE project.

Random choices made by the throw of the dice.

You may have seen the purple stitched circle before, as that was a previous CHANCE stitching. This weeks throws of the dice asked for "circle", "applique", "zig-zag", "ribbon embellishment", and "the number 3" amongst other things. 

This is what has randomly happened so far:

This is not finished yet. Lots more randome 'stuff' to happen yet.

If you missed how this project started I will recap a little bit here (to remind myself too).

____________

(Recap)

This project is called: "An Embroidery of CHANCE"

My 2013 TAST EMBROIDERY project commences with 3 DICE and a coin-toss

(or is 'die' the correct plural for dice?) 

It will be a true Embroidery of Chance and I am expecting to have a lot of fun along the way.

And to quote my previous post about this project -

CHANCE will determine every aspect of embroidery.
I will take whatever TAST stitch occurs each week - that is the first RANDOM aspect to happen that I have no control over.
And then.......every placement, every thread, every fiber, every stitch, every characteristic, every style - will be taken by chance, and will be innovative, fresh and contemporary.

This project will be FREE FORM embroidery. No plan, no design, no barriers, no idea what is coming up next.

There is also NO finished item planned. The stitching IS the project. '

______________

(end of recap)

Hope everyone is having a great week.

Happy Stitching

International FreeForm Fiberart Guild Challenge 2013

 The International FreeForm Fiberart Guild 

.

 2013 Challenge Exhibition has 

.

 GONE LIVE 

I have created the exhibition book for this year's challenge.

Fun or what!!!

This year our challenge was to create a FreeForm Fiberart work on the theme of

MOTHER EARTH.

46 participants from the Yahoo group IFFFG took part and their fiberart work is included in the book and the online gallery.

Once again, I have thoroughly enjoyed working with this very talented group of fiber artists.

Here is the link to the book MOTHER EARTH.

ALL profits from the sale of the book go the charity (or charities) voted by the members of the Guild. This years charity has not been decided yet. I'll let you know as soon as we have made a decision.

Here are some photos of my fiberart piece for the challenge.

And my description for this piece in the exhibition is as follows:

__________________________

Beltane - a Gaelic May Day Festival, celebrates Mother Earth in full bloom.

It is a time when Mother Earth is fertile and abundant, half way between the Spring Equinox and the Summer Solstice.

My free form piece applauds the flowers that Mother Earth brings forth. The fiery reds and oranges that I have used are symbolic of the fires that were lit in the rituals of the Celtic festival. The fires were deemed to have protective powers and were used to protect the cattle and crops, and also to encourage new growth from Mother Earth.

  

Techniques used: Free form crochet, hyperbolic crochet, stitching, plaiting, needle-felting, and fused felting.

__________________________

Happy Stitching

Retirement Plans (but not much stitching)

Well, it seems like it's been absolutely ages since I've posted, but it has only been about two weeks.

Things are getting a bit frantic here as we explore all the options available to us in doing a 'new build' home in the Central Hawkes Bay area (with a view of the Ruahine Mountain Range).

We spent most of last week there again. It's about a six hour journey to get there, so we try to get as much as possible sorted while we are there.

Bare block site visits take priority, as we need to get the land in our possession first, but we also need to know what prices everything else will be so that we can get everything we want on our block within our budget.

The bare block, or blocks, we are looking at don't even have a formed road, so that is an extra cost that we weren't originally budgeting for, and then we need water tanks etc. and there is some buried waste that we have to get a bio survey done for. It all adds extra $$$.

The site itself is gorgeous, and I would really like to live there.

So you will, I hope, forgive me for not getting much stitching done at the moment.

U.F.O. & Black Hole Discoveries

Well it's ALL GO here at Lewis Acres.

Tony and I have decided to sell our farm and retire to Hawkes Bay.

I have oodles of cupboards here packed to the brim with MY *stuff*, and I need to empty them all before we can put the house on the market. 

So this week I have been slowly working my way through ONE cupboard, lol. (I think it's going to be a long job).

Anyway, I have discovered so many *treasures* in just this one cupboard.

It has been so much fun coming across these U.F.O.'s that were relegated to the dark depths of  the black hole that appeared in the cupboard.

As I have't done ANY stitching at all this week (because of sorting and packing) I thought I had better share 'something' with you, so here are some of the treasures from my "black hole".

I can vaguely remember starting this x-stitch for mum and dad about 15 or more years ago. It was supposed to be an anniversary card, but it didn't get finished. Shame on me.

And this stitch sampler  never got past the letter 'L'. 

I think it was meant to be my own name there, and I started in the middle of my name to get the spacing right for the other letters.

And this, rather creased, 4-panel embroidery, was meant to be a cushion.

It seems I was reasonably ok with stitching satin stitch and French Knots all those years ago, but not so good with the other stitches. I've practiced a LOT since then, lol.

The Vintage Crinoline Lady embroidered table cloth was started by my mum and her sister Doris when Aunt Doris was living with us for a few years when I was just a little girl. They never finished it. There is a crinoline lady in each corner, and only this one is stitched (minus her head, arm and flowers).

One of the un-stitched corner designs.

The next pic is my own hand dyed fabric, quilted with a gold metallic thread meandering pattern.

And then, in the cupboard black hole, I found this paper-foundation-pieced mini quilt that I made about 12 years ago. It's good to let it see the light of day again. I may put it to good use now as a bedside table mat or coffee table mat.

Love the backing fabric. Wish I had some more of that.

It was fun to "re-discover" these things.

I wonder what else is hiding in the black hole.