A lucky find

My condo building saves up stuff all year and has a giant yard sale in October. There's a lot of seniors in the building (including me) and there's a few each year that give up their home for one reason or another. Well, this must have been in someone's stash for years....and I bought it all for $1.00! Lucky me!

Some more details - #64, 65b, 65c and 73

I seem to be playing catch-up these days! I'm a bit behind again, and not only that, I've run out of seams to embelish as both sides of this blue tea cosy are almost full up! This first photo is Detail 64 and seemed to go on forever! This is detail 65b And this is 65c. Those beautiful little irridescent beads I bought at the CreativFestival. They came on a strange stiff necklace at $1.00!I jumped to Detail 73 for some reason, but it is pretty I have to say.

Favourite Things Round Robin

I've been working on Toni's Geisha block this last while and I love how it's looking. There's some lovely stitching from the ladies before me and it was a pleasure to add to that. This is the whole block with everyone's work. I added the cream dress and the red and black flowers beside it. For the dress I used two strands of a shiny cream rayon thread and did very small chain stitch close together. Check out her shoes! I used some very small bamboo beads that were perfect. The flowers are large bullions with an orange thread with gold going through it, surrounded by black jet beads.For the white flower I used silk ribbon and black beads.

I was going to stop after the white flower, but because there's only one person left in the rotation, I tackled the bottom pale orange section and stacked fan shapes in chain stitch. I decorated a few and left some for Sandi and Toni to do. It's in the mail on it's way to Sandi in California.

CreativFestival

I had a great time at the CreativFestival. The fabric postcard workshop was fun, our instructor was originally a painter so she gave a different view on things. In the end it was all hand sewing, so of course, no one actually finished a card, but rather got a general idea of construction and shared our knowledge of different stitches. After that it was time to look and shop. There were a couple of items that caught my attention. Something called Matt Medium. that is brushed on to a natural fabric (cotton, linen) and then a laser copy of a photo is put face down onto the fabric and rubbed firmly. Then the paper is peeled off and you have a permanent print on the fabric. The other item was a water soluble stabilizer sheet called Ultra Solvy, that you can arrange pieces of lace, threads, wool, etc, then sew to join all pieces together. After that when the piece is immersed in warm water the stabilizer sheet dissolves and leaves the lacy piece. There were some pretty examples. One of the fabric postcards that I started at the CreativFestival

East End Cake Decorating Club - October 19th Meeting

Shoes were the subject of Sunday's EECD meeting. Members had a lot of fun under Diane K's instruction and despite having only two hours, most of us managed to finish with a decent little heeled shoe, as you can see from the group shoe shot. Shoes in various stages of construction.

Seated is one of our most respected members, Cynthia Lewis, teacher, author, judge, chatting with another member.

Just some of the shoes members made at the meeting.

The interesting texture on the fronts of these shoes came from specially patterned rolling pins.

This display was provided by Katies Cakes ( www.katiescakes.com)

NEXT MEETING:

The next meeting will our Cookie Decorating for Charity event, on Sunday, November 16th, 2008 at St. Margaret in the Pines.

Anyone who wishes to will bring a few dozen cookies – they can be gingerbread, sugar, or shortbread – any flat cookie that can be decorated will do. Bags and ribbon will be provided for packaging. Last year we had a lot of cookies that were not dry enough to bag. So please make small decorations ahead of time to be glued on to the cookies with royal icing. Also cookies decorated with royal icing at the meeting could be sprinkled with coloured sugar crystals as that quickly becomes hard enough to bag.

Fabric Postcard

I'm going to learn how to do one of these at the Creativ Show in Toronto on Friday. It's a 3 hour workshop, 9am to 12 noon so I have to get up early to be there on time. The description mentioned using a Janome sewing machine to do embroidery, so that will be good to learn too as I have a lovely machine, but haven't mastered the embroidery yet. Vendors at the show include everything to do with quilting, scrapbooking and cardmaking, beading, and lots of other crafts. It will be fun, especially this year as it is the first time I've been at this show with crazy quilting on my mind, so I will be heading for the beads in particular.

Details 63, 65a, 66 to 69

A few more details done! I'm really enjoying working on these blues. I have a bunch of new threads too which I am trying out. It's 15th Oct. and detail 69 is due today (which I have done, but I missed out Detail 64 and 65 b & c, and I will do those soon).

Detail 63

Detail 65a

Detail 66 Detail 67 - The aqua and blue thread is silk. It's lovely to work with.

Detail 68 Detail 69

100 details in 200 days - Details 56 to 62

I realized I hadn't posted any details for a while because I was busy with other things. I was also pretty bored with working on the maroon wall hanging. So....I am making a blue tea cosy, for practical reasons because I do need a tea cosy, and for motivational reasons to get my interest going again.

Detail 56

Detail 57 - My first attempt at a spider and web. More practice needed on the web for sure. But I was quite pleased with the spider, even though his head is off to the side a bit.

Detail 58 - I just love this one because I got to use some new thread. The chain is one of NeedleNecessities overdyed perle#5. I love variegated thread, and this one variegates quickly, some almost take a whole row to change colour.

Detail 59a and b

Detail 60 - I don't know how many times I had both the bullion and the cast on stitches unpicked. In the end I used a perle #8 instead of a thicker cotton or a shiny rayon.

Detail 61 - This was another of my new threads.

Detail 62 - The row of stitching above the lace is called "Pekinese Stitch". It's made up of a row of back stitches (white), laced with a second thread (dark green).

I'm still behind on the details, tomorrow, October 11, Detail 67 is due!

East End Cake Decorating Club - October 19th, 2pm to 4pm

As mentioned in a previous post, October's EECD meeting will be a workshop on making a high heel shoe run by Diane K. The meeting is from 2pm to 4pm at St. Margaret's in the Pines Church. Here is the list of things you will need to bring: Non-stick rolling pin..... Textured rolling pin or mat..... Cutting board..... Small amount of shortening.....Dusting puff ..... Practice board or other to keep cut gum paste pieces from drying out ..... Gum paste..... Spatula or gum paste spatula ..... Exacto knife ..... Fondant cutter-embosser ..... Scissors ..... Water (or gum paste glue)..... Paintbrush..... Plastic wrap ..... Something to bring the finished project home in .....

A template for the shoe and a support for each participant to dry their piece on, and can take home will be provided by Diane K. She will also be demonstrating the small purse. It’s a very simple thing and you will be able to use it as a starting place and come up with variations on the theme. Gum paste will be available at a nominal fee. There will be paste colours available. Don't forget if you have anything to donate to the Raffle, or you have items to sell for yourself (10% goes to EECD), on the "Lovingly Used" table, please bring them along. We will also be asking for YOUR ideas for future workshops/demos that you would like to take part in. See you at the meeting.

Round Robin - Daphne's block

This has been a really fun block to work on. Daphne has done a great job on the design using fabric that gives lots of options. Nicki Lee and Cathy had the block before me and I love what they did to it. My contribution was the scrolly bit at the side and the bottom left boot. I could have worked on it more, but there are two ladies still to do their bit on this RR.

One more off the list.

I made this block for my sister's yoga studio, so it needed a really nice frame. I stretched it around a piece of foam core and finally took it to Michael's. Because I had done the stretching myself, and I didn't want glass and there was a sale on, it cost $35 instead of over $100. The frame colour is a very subdued taupe-gold and matched some of the silk fabrics perfectly. I'm really pleased with how it turned out and can't wait to give it to my sister. Click on the picture and the colours look much nicer.

A great weekend

Just a small glimpse of the breathtaking colours in the Laurentians. I love travelling on the train. Mum and I went from Oshawa station (just east of Toronto) to Dorval (just west of Montreal) on Friday morning. It was such a comfortable ride and all the time I was on the train as it was speeding towards Quebec I was thinking, I don't have to drive and I have 4 1/2 hours each way to sew! Lee-Ann my daughter in law picked us up and we had a great time with them in Morin Heights. The colours were beautiful, probably the best weekend for viewing, and my dear little grandson Caleb was gorgeous. And "gorgeous" was a new word I taught him. He is at the stage where he's putting two words together - want it......find it..... eat it......touch it.... He'll be two in November and is a good little soul. My son Neil, Lee-Ann and Caleb. Mum with her great grandson Caleb.

Silk ribbon embroidery on dupione silk for greeting cards that kept me busy on the train.