Sunday, October 30, 2005

My camera

FYI, I again apologize for the poor quality of the pictures. I'm using a rather archaic Sony Mavica, so what you see is what you get. If you want a more detailed look at anything I've published, let me know and I'll see what I can do based on the camera's temperment. I think I'm going to get a new camera with my next bonus....

Crazy for bags

It's Sunday and I've been hit hard this weekend with the sinus issues -- I should be used to it by now. Yesterday when I was still thinking I might possibly think about sewing a Halloween costume, I started sorting through one of my tubs looking for velvet and pulled out a bunch of velvets, brocades and silks. This morning when it became apparent I wasn't going to have much of anything to do with operating heavy machinery, I pulled these fabrics together for making a "crazy bag".


The brocade in the top left is something my grandmother had while the floral fabric on the right originally covered a Jacobean reproduction armchair. The other bits and pieces are fairly recent purchases of my own.








As I was checking out the usual blogs earlier today, I saw that Allison Aller has just scored big with a very nice purchase of lace. Coincidentally, she's got it displayed on a nice piece of green dupioni. As promised, here is what I was thinking of adding to this little number lace-wise:

Besides the lace, I think I'll use a bit of metallic thread and perhaps a very light touch with the beading.

Sunday, October 16, 2005

And so this morning I dragged out the iron

And did all the fiddly bits on my little garden wall hanging:



I want to embellish it with embroidery like that in one of Bella Dia's latest finds....

The Italian Job

A bit further on, I came to the Italian Garden which was in a riot of late summer/early fall colour. One of the pics I took was of some tall spiky flowers. Not sure what variety they are as they were so profuse they covered up the marker. They reminded me of one of the bits of fabric I paint-dyed the other evening. Now I'm really getting ideas....

Saturday, October 15, 2005

The bit where I got a sunburn on my nose

Yesterday I went to Maymont. I don't ever remember a time when I didn't thoroughly enjoy going there and when all is said and done, it's one of my favourite places in the world. I'm very glad it's here in Richmond. Anywho, I took my trusty little digital camera and got a few shots just for ideas.

Just above the hill where the black bears live, I found a ginko which was starting to turn. I played around with the leaves like so:

Sunday, October 09, 2005

What I did otherwise....

I've got a head cold so I skipped Joyce's hand dying class but since I had a nice little chunk of me time in my day, I hauled out some old fabric paint - the 99cent variety which Sonji says are the bee's knees - and did a bit of experimenting. So far, so good. They're not 100% dry yet, but I can envision creating a moon out of this one:




And perhaps a lovely little spring garden out of this one:


















As a side note, I'd like to let everyone know that Charlie the kitten is so pleased as Punch with all of this that he has fallen asleep with his little chin on my right hand. I guess I'm not going anywhere for a while....

Almost there


Remember this one from way back when? One big square and a pile of bits and pieces? I'm almost finished.... really. All that remains is for me to figure out how to set my sewing machine properly to do free-motion stiching and I'll have it quilted before you can say Malibu sunset. I'd practice doing it today, but I think I've had enough of the sewing room for now.