Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Home at last


Back to my own bed and a lovely shower! (The caravan is comfortable but there's nothing like being home.)
Also back to our beautiful beach and my morning walks. A few treasures this morning - the white thing looks like a bone but is soft like cartilage. From a shark or a stingray perhaps?
After doing loads of washing and sorting and tidying I am ready to get back into the sewing room. Our next 12 x 9 inch challenge "Time" is due at the end of this week! I have an idea but haven't started yet!

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Blown away!

Lovely sunshine but the wind is blowing a gale, so no fishing or sitting outdoors. The seagulls seem quite happy.

I have finished another two feathers - one for Jude and one for a friend who is going through a very hard time at the moment. I hope she likes it. The white feather is made from the pin tucked shirt front I bought at the op shop, on fabric I dyed with passionfruit skins. It reminds me of a seagull feather. The other one is cotton threads leftover from a project I brought with me on this trip, on some of the recycled shirt fabric.

I am finding these feathers quite addictive!!

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Six days on the road......




We've been six days on the road, virtually driving from the top of Australia to the bottom! We are now in Port Vincent for a few days catching up with friends before driving the rest of the way home. This is certainly an amazing country with diverse scenery all the way. And it's cold!! Have had to dig out the socks and woolly slippers.


This is what we saw after we backed our van into a site in one country town!

(Don't worry he's just asleep!)

Should have time for a bit of stitching tomorrow. Would love to stitch in the car but most of the roads are far too bumpy.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Another shirt and some more dyeing




I've bought another white cotton shirt from the op shop. This one has some fine pin tucks on the front which should make a nice striped feather. I have cut the shirt up and now have another lovely stash of good quality fine white cotton.
I cut up the skin of a passion fruit, popped it in my dye pot (coffee mug!), poured boiling water over it and put in a piece of my new shirt fabric. After leaving to soak over night it produced a wonderful purple!


A couple of nasty creatures who live in the waters up here - saltwater and freshwater crocodiles! These were photographed from behind a fence at the bird sanctuary, not in the wild!!

We have to leave this wonderful tropical place and head home - back to the cold weather! Hopefully we will return again next year.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Feathers and another visitor!

I've finished another feather for Jude's feather project. The background is tea dyed, the feather is appliqued and another feather has been stitched over the top. The fabric has all come from the op shop shirt I bought. I've now made five feathers and have some more fabric left, so it was a good buy for $3!
I found a beautiful gift card today which I just had to buy! It depicts the male and female tail feathers  of the Red Tailed Black Cockatoo. They are only found in certain areas of Australia. The artwork is by Jo Lane. She has also done some other beautiful drawings of feathers.
Another visitor to the caravan today! Hard to believe this is a spider. He's not very big but a very strange shape! Quite alien!

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Visitor


This tiny fellow came for a visit yesterday. He had very long antennae!
Not much stitching going on - it's very humid at the moment.