Searching for Roy G Biv - RED

I have joined the search for Roy G Biv! (For those that don't know this is a way to remember the colours of the rainbow, usually learnt when you were in primary school. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet.) There is a small challenge put out by Julie B Booth and Jennifer Coyne Qudeen to post 5 photos per month of each colour. This month we are looking for RED. A quick whiz around the house and I found I had quite a few red things.

 A fun mug bought in USA many years ago.

 A red supermarket carry bag.

 A mug from one of my daughters.

 The only piece of red seaglass in my vast collection of blues, greens and whites. 

 A print of my granddaughter's feet when she was born. 

Next month I will look further afield in my search for orange.

Busy, having fun!

Busy, busy, busy drawing and painting giraffes!  Thought I'd be getting sick of giraffes by now but I'm not. In fact I'm a bit obsessed. Can't wait to try something new each day. It's fun to stick to one subject and see how many ways you can interpret it. I've even done a bit of paper collage. Lots of fun but certainly not up to the standard of Amanda White on a blog I follow. Do go and have a look - amazing!

Our last challenge for Stitching Across the Ditch (12" x 9") was COLOURS. I found some photos on the internet and came up with my interpretation of a paint box. The background fabric was in my stash and comes from a range called Paintbox!

The weather has been beautiful lately so there has been a lot of this.....

under this.....

Bliss......

Giraffes

I have joined Carla Sonheim's 'Year of the Giraffe' class and have been very busy drawing LOTS of giraffes! I am definitely not an artist but having done one of Carla's workshops before I knew this would be a lot of fun and I thought it would be really interesting to concentrate on one subject for the whole year. Here is what I consider to be my best drawing so far, along with a couple of others I drew with my eyes closed!!

 

Then of course I had to have a go with my sewing machine. To me drawing on the machine is like patting your head and rubbing your stomach at the same time. Hard! You have to move the fabric while the needle stays still!

The stitching on my 'kantha' scarf is coming along slowly and the fabric is starting to pucker nicely.  Very relaxing and calming to work on this in the evenings.

And for a bit of local fauna - a group of yellow-tailed black cockatoos have been in the pine trees eating the new pine cones. They are absolutely beautiful birds but quite destructive, and noisy. The photo is a bit blurry because they are high up in the tree!

Finished alphabet

Before the year ended I finished the second alphabet for ALetteraWeek2012. All the letters were cut from an Ikea catalogue. I made an envelope/box for the letters from the catalogue cover and finished it of with a paper ribbon and pearl button. Not something I've done before but it was fun working it out.

 

Time flies!

It's been a month since my last post! Christmas, New Year, visitors, babysitting, gardening, extreme weather (45C the other day and more to come!) - it's amazing how the time flies! 
I have been making some little hexagon needle books as a gift for the participants in a workshop I'm teaching in March. Fussy cutting the front hexagon and choosing a matching fabric for the back was a lot of fun. You can find the pattern here. I modified the pattern slightly by making it a bit smaller (1 1/4 inch hexagon instead of 1 1/2 inches), using only one page for the needles and adding a ribbon loop. I also found it easier to stitch the front and back hexagons to a larger piece of felt and then trim them carefully. 

At the Quilt Show in November a friend and I bought some lovely fine cotton lawn(?) from the Material Obsession stall and we each made a scarf using four different pieces of fabric. Now we are going to stitch it to death Kantha style! I have made a start.

 And some exciting news (for me!) I am going to the USA in July with 5 friends. We are going to Eugene first to stay with one of my friend's sister, then to Black Butte to stay and attend the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show and then onto Seattle for a few days. Should be fun!!

Rainbow Layer Cake

The theme for our Stitching Across the Ditch challenge this time was Layers. I was very taken with the photos of layer cakes when I Googled the word. I've never made one but would like to give it a try one day. They look so impressive. I can just imagine the oohs and aahs when the cake is cut. I had fun making this little quilt, but those sprinkles were a bit of a challenge. Tweezers and some good magnifying glasses were needed! (I cut tiny pieces of fabric with Vliesofix on the back and then had to position them right side up on the cake!)

 Some interesting finds on the beach lately.

And I woke up yesterday to find this little fellow asleep in the garden! A very small, thin fox. It may have been just a pup. I felt quite sorry for it but they are a big menace here in Australia, killing wildlife and everybody's chooks. He ran off when I went outside.

Finished

I have finished my heavily stitched piece of linen. I have attached it to a piece of blue/green shot cotton and am trying to work out a way of framing it. It may come off the cotton if I find a better way to display it. I started from the middle point of the square and just kept adding stitches in a way that felt right to me. It is all straight stitches and a few thread 'beads' a la Jude. I did mark a few of the squares and circles as I went just to keep it neat. Probably too neat!! I used six different colours because that's what I had!

We have been having some very hot weather and these horses were enjoying a swim the other morning. If you click to enlarge the photo you may just be able to see a dolphin out to sea to the left of the man on the left.

And some trees on the beach!!