Sunday/Monday

Yesterday was a particularly non-event day. We decided to go to East/West in Fremantle to get some more chairs for outdoors but when we got there it was closed. Then Ian had a vision of someone lighting a match and throwing it into the front garden where there is the dry tree debris, so he did a fast U turn and came back home. On the way we encountered all the traffic coming back from their holidays in Mandurah, Rockingham, Margaret River and so on. Plus we didn't get to see a train running on the new train line so all in all, the outing was a dead loss. The good thing is that the front garden has all been cleaned up of debris and I made a curry for dinner which was very nice. From my point of view, I stitched a pile of colour charts in different combos without realising that I had orange and yellow the wrong way around and it really does affect the end result.

I have pulled out another favourite of mine - Machine Embroidery Stitched Techniques - Val C-H and Pam Watts. This was the first machine embroidery book I ever bought and I taught myself from it. I still think it is one of the most useful books I have. It's out of print but I am sure you can find it on Amazon. There is an exceptionally good chapter on colours and colour combos and I haven't really seen anyone else writing on colours before or since. The book works through stitches starting with running stitch and every time I pull it out I find a new piece of info. I haven't been further inspired yet with my velvet applique but it will come to me. In the meantime playing with colour never goes astray.



By the way, Frances, I managed to buy the dummie. I went there today to return it and she was closing down so there was chaos everywhere and in the extreme heat. The dummie lady is well over 70 and quite remarkable. It was going to be very expensive but I brought out some cash from my purse and she said 'DONE' so I brought her back home again....