lazy but satisfying Sunday

After a dramatic start to Sat - at 4.30am the heavens opened and down came the rain and we had boxes stacked on the verandah on the wrong side waiting to go to our lock up. We were both out of bed in a shot to drag them clear and then we went back to bed all wet and cold. After that we had a very pleasant weekend luxuriating in the studio. It's all finished and Ian has made a temporary brick path which makes it feel like a real building. Having to negotiate planks kept making it feel like it was still a building site and we kept carting sand in on our shoes. Now we have a door mat! We have both been working up there - yes I am having to share some of my space! Where ever you are working gives a different view of the back garden looking back towards the house. We have been here since mid 1992 and it is interesting that we are seeing different things. We sit outside a lot but the studio is slightly higher. Today is one year since we lifted the old paving and I sawed the branch off the mulberry tree. We had no idea that it would take a whole year! I have cleared out well over half of the indoor studio (I know it doesn't look like it) but I threw out heaps of stuff today and on Friday I stacked a pile of mags outside the front door. All of the Somerset Studios have been taken but if anyone is living in Perth and wants Machine Embroidery, Textile Fibre Forum, Workbox or Threads mags, feel free to swing by and help yourself. There are even some watercolour pencils and crayons on the pile as well. I had a very good solid trolley with pullout containers which I popped out on the road - about 5 minutes later I saw a happy chappy rolling it down the road. Very easy to get rid of things around here. I have been discarding cane baskets and one lot goes before I can get the next lot out.


I have started lots of preparatory work for my vessels - sparying my Chinese newspaper with Moonshadow Mist - a change from distress inks and I love the mica on the surface. Then I have stitched it to felt which has webbing also sprayed with MM and scraped most of the residue away. I have also been testing a new fabric to take the place of nappy liners now that my stash is running low - and this fabric is fabulous. It comes 80cm wide. Gotta think of a name for it. I have done the usual of shiva rubbing and ironing it to panne velvet and to acrylic felt and sprayed the surface with MM and stitched some large patterns with gold thread. The gold thread doesn't show up but sinks more into the surface. Because I am also working away on things associated with my frangipani book, I stamped one surface with a flower stamp and stitched it and then hit it with the heat gun - what a lovely result - I have laid this on top and in between have popped a few flowers made with one of my new punches and painted with H2os - I will post some pics tomorrow.

Sat night I went to the Western Dollmakers 10th anniversary dinner - a very pleasant night apart from the fact that I had to give a talk. I felt a real fraud since I am no dollmaker! It is very interesting to see that they have been going for as long as we have. Some of the dolls made by the good folk in WA are absolutely fantastic (they haven't paid me to say that) - there are some very talented people here and I reckon I see the best of the dolls home grown. I have known quite a number of the dollmakers for a long time - Perth is a small town when all is said and done.

This pic is of a bag which I often have hanging on display at shows - people keep asking me for a kit. I made it from lots of left over hand threads - rayon and silk - and just knitted sections and crocheted them together. Looking at what I had used I figured it would cost well over $120 for the yarn for a kit so I haven't bothered. But - it is very important that people simply use their imagination. It's only garter stitch and a collection of threads in what must almost be my signature working colours. Time I changed I think. I don't knit scarves or jerseys these days but I like to use up my bits and pieces for little things. Princess H this year had a knitted waist piece.

This is a photo of my mother taken a long time ago - she is in a home now and feeling lonely and lost and my sister tells me she has lost her short term memory - mind you haven't many of us! Ian can't find his screwdrivers - last seen in the studio and that is still very tidy and organised. Anyway Bev has been printing off my blog and taking it to Mum to read. I hope she enjoys seeing this photo which I found in my notebook of writings about my family.

We finished our weekend off with a visit to San Marco - the restaurant of Martien and Luigi - where Ian had the best spag bol in town and I had the best Tripe - Luigi just happened to have some - yummy. Then home to watch the next episode of Bleak House and Grant phoned to catch up. He has sailed to La Rochelle and back and was lying on the beach in Cornwall resting from kite surfing. On Friday he is off San Francisco to sail in the 18ft skiffs. What a life. We are back to work tomorrow instead.

Thanks to all the people who write comments - I enjoy reading them. Ian's beanie was made for him by some of the girls at forum in Geelong - it has 3 antennae on the top so he can comminicate with the moon - apparently nothing coming in so far. He wears it all the time and even to bed when he has a cold. And no - I don't have one. I just have my possie gloves.