nice to go away - nice to be home again

 It's always fabulous to go away but good to get home especially to your own bed. Here is a smart fat cat - aka Harley - captured by Kazuko last Saturday about to enter her wee door. It is amazing she squeezes in really and so funny to watch her go out. As you can see, she has her very own platform inside and outside. She was pleased to see us late last night but it really is related to her tummy rather than us - Aunty Patricia had filled her up with lots of yummy stuff during the week. Prior to Harley we have only ever had sleek pussy cats light to lift up!

 We flew back last night and spent most of the day at the pool but had a very nice late lunch at Zanders - spring rolls and calamari and a bottle of Chardonnay (well - we had been on holiday and it was about to end). We flew back business class because we were using out points and we could not come back economy. We were the only people in business - nice to stretch out but not worth it really for a 2 and half hour flight and you wouldn't want to have paid money for it. (well you have to be able to accumulate points but I am sureyou know what I mean)

 Grant is sailing in San Francisco in the 18ft skiff - if you enlarge the photos you will see a black swan on his sail - and if you are in San Fran the bridge to bridge is on today. He has been doing well - wouldn't we love to be there as groupies.

 On Wed they had 3 races and he had a 1st and 2nd and was leading in the third when they had a big you know what and you can see them on the right - by the time they got back up they were last and headed back to shore so they are running 3rd overall.

We have arrived back to a delivery of Quilting Arts Gifts which we will send out today. If you want a copy and haven't pre-ordered it, we do have a few over but I doubt if they will last long. There a few other parcels awaiting us at the post office - hoping one is what I am waiting for. I have set up a new facebook page for learning and sharing - and I will link it to the blog - just playing - that is what happens when I go on holiday - the brain cogs have even more time to whirl around. In the meantime - back to work or - off to work. I managed a wee bit of drawing while I was away but I also sketched and plotted new ideas for a new topic. Oh well - soon....

Time goes fast as when you are on holiday

This is our lovely threadfin salmon from the other night. As soon as we have got into good relaxation, it is time to go home with loads to do but we will not worry about that until Friday morning and then get into action
Tonight, instead, we are organizing ourselves another nice BBQ. The wether has been perfect and we have done lots of swimming and nothing....





Today we had the pool to ourselves. Last night we went to Cable Beach Resort restaurant with friends, for dinner. Wouldn't recommend it to anyone - expensive and nothing flash at all. Much nicer to cook up this great fresh fish here.




I am trying my hand at drawing my cutlery - very hard work getting the light and shade. More practice needed - try the knife next!

Haven't done much stitching though but I have been enjoying Emily Carr's autobiography - I was introduced to her in Canada.

Relaxing in Broome

Here we are in Broome - this is the frangipani tree by our room. Not so many flowers out at present but I love the leaves as well. We arrived yesterday and up to now, under Ian's instructions, have been doing very little. Swimming of course as it is hot.




We like staying here at the Bali Hai, and have been coming here for quite some time. We have our own outside area where we can eat, read etc and enjoy it. You will see the bedside lamp which, it would seem, was purchased for us and only we have used it. I do believe it is on our file! Can't read at night without it.....




The BBQ where we cooked our steak last night and will cook our threadfin salmon tonight. We went into town and bought some wine glasses because the ones here are not that good and if you like good wine you should have decent (not expensive though) glasses.




And our entree - very fresh local prawns and a Chardonnay

Life is good

saturday and off we go again for some r and r

 Great game of rugby this afternoon with the All Blacks having a great win and retaining the Bledisloe Cup
Then we had a curry and stuff with Kazuko and Bruce

Tomorrow we are off to Broome for a few days r and r - looking forward to swimming, relaxing, bbqing (lots of fresh fish cheaper than Perth), drawing, reading and maybe stitching. Back on Thursday night and not even packed. We intend being very early as we were not allowed to check in last time because of some obnoxious Qantas person even though we were in time and we had to hang around Perth airport (yikes) until the afternoon. not that we have packed or anything.

Thanks for all the emails about Harley and my abscess - it doesn't hurt but the tooth has to come out and i had avoided it becasue the dentist will talk about implants and stuff and I reckon I will live with a gap at the back...

I will post while I am away - be out looking for some different picies of Broome

Amazing - it is Friday already.

 One very happy Harley at Chez Rollerson - Harley knows she has everyone organised and is very happy and relaxed and FAT - she can just squeeze in and out of her door. She has supersonic ears though and can hear something which might sound like her biscuits (even when it is coffee beans) from anywhere on the property.

Last night we went to a fabulous restaurant - West End Deli - we have been before but it was fabulous - there are loads of restaurants around us but so many of them are not worth visiting - just as well we have our favourites.

We have had another busy week getting through some of our tasks - I had to go to the dentist and pretend that the abcess on my gums had only been there a wee while when in fact it has been there for 2 months. Have to go back and have things sorted. Not keen on dentisit visits.

at the end of the weekend

 I treated myself to two bunches of roses this weekend - I figure that they are always going to be cheaper than buying them in Paris. There were lots of tulips as well but they looked they would flop over once they hit the vase. In our garden we actually have freesias so it must be spring

 And to prepare for spring, I swept the decking and planted some new herbs (couldn't see any basil so must remember that) and also tried a tomato again. You never know - I might get lucky this year.

Yesterday we did lots of photographing for the Romeo book and started placing the photos in the layout. This is when I discover that I have misplaced some of my work and need to create some more for the gaps so guess what I will be doing tomorrow. I also cut and rolled about half of the new embossed kunin felt - some people may remember that I got a sample at CHA in January and have been waiting patiently for the shipment since then. There are 11 colours and they are all on the web - 3 different patterns - this one is Alligator which actually reminds me of bricks in the wall - at the top I have stitched some and then carved out with the Versa tool - the bottom one is using the heat gun. I like the more controlled effect and you could stitch some, not stitch some, burn out some and not burn out some and layer things up. I have plenty of ideas for using it in my work. The electric knife was not working that well yesterday and I ended up cutting most of the fabric by hand - quite calloused hands today.

We also watched the first of the Bledisloe Cup games yesterday and  happy that the ABs won but it was a bit of a dour game with both sides playing cautiously - be interesting to see what happens next weekend.

playing with this and that

 I am experimenting with hand dyed gauze although it could be not hand dyed but I happen to have some to play with. Plenty of ideas and a long list of what I might try but here I have printed on the surface - this is actually the stones on the outside shower where we stay in Broome and the background is Kimberley Dreaming. I have got various bits and pieces in stages as I am trying to create surfaces for stamping, stencilling etc and of course, stitch. Watch this space.

 Last night we went to the ACO - a fabulous concert as they always are - the Beethoven 9th Symphony. The concert hall was packed to the gunnels. Richard Tognetti is such an inspiration and no matter what they play you have to feel involved.

The wonderful Clare College Choir.

The week has continued busy - not sure what we do but Kazuko and Bruce came back last night after a lovely long holiday in Japan.

For all the lovely people in South Australia who are always asking - we have taken a stand at the Australian Machine Quilting Festival 28th Sept to 1st October so we hope to see lots of you there. We will have lots of our lovely goodies of course but we can't bring everything so if you have special desires, let me know.

All sorts of excitements have been arriving this week - the lynne Perella stamps from Paper Artsy http://www.thethreadstudio.com/catalogue/exp/paperartsy/lynne.htm

42 new stencils from The Crafters Workshop
http://www.thethreadstudio.com/catalogue/exp/crafters/text2.htm

and the first of our cotton sateen and hand dyed cotton thread in our Collection range - so far Rae has done Earth Elements and Illuminations
http://www.thethreadstudio.com/catalogue/hand/jacinta/finecotton.htm
I am really taken with the threads.

That is enough for tonight - back to play with my gauze

busy but relaxing weekend

We have had a busy but relaxing weekend. I am still counting, sorting and all those boring things but after the Perth show I see it as methodical time where I go through everything very thoroughly. Ian has been busy loading some of the new goodies to the website and updating stock etc. The magazines sold very well at the show but the latest QA and Studios are both here. Sometimes it is difficult to keep up with them. Anyway they have all been posted. I have worked my way through about half of the POMs (product of the months) so my apologies for being late. Plus the pick-a-pockets will start going off home tomorrow.

We have two beautiful new stamps - well I think they are - it takes me so very long to do these things so I am always very pleased with they are done. I am also preparing 2 submissions and writing an article and hoping we get a good day this week for photgraphy.

At the top is our bbq last night - it was a beautiful night and quite balmy. Today is wet and bleak. But I am sure there will be more of the former than the latter!

I have to laugh when I read what some people write about how much they do in a day. I think I cover a reasonable amount of stuff but I don't think I get that carried away. In fact I can be quite lazy. I cannot read at night becasue someone has pinched my light - looks like a trip to Ikea is in order for lightbulbs....

Peace and Tranquility

 When there is chaos all around you and you have to hop over boxes to get in and out of rooms and they don't feed you until you create chaos - well - at the end of it all you can find peace and tranquility

One of our 4 new old world map stencils - this is Paris - they are rather wonderful

I'm Still Here

 I haven't been anywhere just busy with the show here in Perth. We have been doing shows for 17 years amazing as that sounds and at one stage 13 shows in a year. The very first outing was at Fibre Forum in Alice Springs - I was doing a workshop with Celia Player and Ian was manning the shop - I think he was a wee bit dubious about this thread stuff but while he was there three ladies came in and one said - "Wow - this is better than sex" so when I returned he informed me we might be onto a good thing. The lovely thing about textile art stuff is that it feeds your soul. Believe me when I tell you and I know plenty of people who get so much pleasure just from looking at their goodies. Ideas can flow from what you see and bring you lots of joy. Won't make you fat or give you a hangover - might make you poor but it is only money.....

This the very large van we hired on Tuesday and filled on Tuesday and Wed.

 On Wed late we carted everything to the showgrounds and dropped it off - first time we have actually done that and it really did make life easier on Thursday when we went to set up.

 Our new big dump bins especially wonderful for all the fibres.
The first commercial show we did was at Rosehill - Stitches and Craft and I shared a stand with Sue from Sanshi - had no idea what to expect but very excited with the response. It seemed that if I needed stuff then so did many many others. So we have done lots of shows and forums and I have demonstrated stuff forever. I was definitely the first person to introduce loads of this stuff to the good people of Australia and New Zealand (remember Embroidery 2000?)

 More stuff coming in - of course Murphy was in action and it rained but we were spurred on by the thought of going out for dinner.

On Thursday we set everything up and got out by 7.30pm.

We were very lucky indeed to have Linda and Jacinta on our stand - they are both such creative people - Linda does much more than just get messy hands - she is a fab artist.

And Jacinta was wowing them with her felting including an i-phone holder for me.

I played with various things over the three days from silk paper making to embellisher stuff to sewing on Romeo and with the flower stitcher as well as the Gelli Plates - here is part of my messy table. Of course I sprayed everything as well and also played with the metallic flakes.

I used stencils and stamps and plastic spoons - you can do almost anything. If you look carefully you will see one of our two new stamps - they should be here tomorrow. I love them.

I have to show you this - naturally I forgot to take fabric - well I had Evolon and Qantas Club towels  - this is a paper towel and once I had monoprinted I sprayed it with a Flat Fabio - Rose Hibiscus - love that colour.

Part of my table - I also played around with the deColourant and Opulent paints - busy little me.

and embossed velvet. The metallic flake tray was pretty well empty by the end of the show.

Marion and Oliver helped us pack up and we were home in 2 hours - amazing. On Monday we had a wee sleep in and emptied the van (this was about the moment Ian became happy)  and returned it. Now I am sorting, counting, stacking, ordering and all those other boring things. We are nearly up to date with the orders except that the latest Quilting Arts and Studios have arrived so they will all go tomorrow. We also have lovely new stencils for the web - some have arrived and some about to arrive. it never stops.

We have really enjoyed the rowing - fabulous three gold medals to NZ - we recorded it all and watched it when we got home with matchsticks to hold our eyes open and fast forwarding through. Then on Sat we watched the Chiefs win the Super Rugby - knew they would and hope you had plenty of faith Ali!

So we had a wonderful three days or the show and eventually will allow ourselves a day off!