Sample experiments evolve...

After nearly a year of trying, I've finally got a knitting machine that does what I want it to do - fair isle!

Oh how I love it so much.

It didn't really take me that long to figure it out, but it did take that long to get a teacher, realise that the machine I was given wasn't capable of it, find another one, service it, work, go away for work and have a baby....

This is where I thought I'd be in March, starting experiments, making fabrics. I did feel a bit thwarted at every turn for a while, but now all is good.

These were fair isle samples that I turned into stuffed fishie creatures for the babies in my bump club. They've got a magnet in them so they can stick to things (my sewing table for example) or later on, they can go fishing for them with a magnet on a string (I loved those magnetic fish games..)

They are suggestive of fish, I think the last one looks like a speedy dog fish, and the second one looks like a fat slow whale fish. It's the only one with a stuffed tail, and I'm not sure about it. They're prototypes and are whatever shape I made the rectangular piece, but they're for babies, so I'm sure they won't mind that they are a bit wonky.

I used cotton from cones that I'd had stored somewhere, and I thought I'd give them a quick wash before wrapping, and since today was a stinking 39 C, I thought they'd dry quick as a flash, but unbeknownst to me, outside it was becoming muggy, and now it's kinda raining. Hence the fish on the fan.

The textured tails felt quite nice wet, and I was thinking they could be a bath sponge toy maybe. (if I did the whole thing in a tuck stitch). not sure...

What Happened To November?

I guess this did.....

Setting up the show in Sydney, traveling with the bub for the first time (three flights, no crying, fingers crossed for the next ones) meeting 20 relatives (the Sydney and Canberra mob).

Hanging out at the gallery, trying to occupy himself.

Here's a view of the show, Moore Is More, from the mezzanine. It's the same set up as the JamFactory show in February, with some different pieces, and less ponds and more roads.

I don't know what we were thinking when we believed that we could install that kind of exhibition with a 13 week old baby. We did it, but we didn't emerge that triumphant, more like shell shocked. Babysitters will definitely be invited next time!

Finally fixed

My parents got an Arabia dinner set as a wedding present some 38 years ago. Three years ago, I got this teapot as my wedding present. It'd survived because it hadn't been used on account of the dodgy repair job on the handle, and I have only used it twice because of said handle.

I wanted to make a handle myself, and finally decided on buttons. I got some packs of buttons at an op shop and fixed it with cable and two crimps. I didn't know how to end it flush, so I added on little dingle dangle accents. The handle's pretty floppy, so I don't know quite how it will work, will try it out tomorrow with a friend and some pikelets.

Ta da!

Getting into the garden

Since Xi likes to be outside, I've been spending time in the garden, which has been wonderful. I don't think I've ever spent this much time consecutively in it. It's always been a big flurry of gardening, and then work has interfered and I haven't been able to get back to it for ages.

So although I don't spend as long out there in one go, added up I spend more time out there per week, and it shows.

My friend SQ came over for morning tea, about two weeks ago, bought a fine spread of food over and then proceeded to do some weeding and pruning while I had a nap. Can't really get a nicer visit then that - although I didn't want to nap, but well...... I still get pretty knackered easily (and she refused to do anything while I was there). I'm much better now, but two weeks ago, not as good (though I still need plenty of snoozes!)

One thing she did was prune the lavender and then use the cuttings to strike more plants. I don't come from lavender country, so have always been a bit unsure when to prune and how much, consequently it looked like a big sprawling messy thing. It doesn't now, and I'll remember when to prune it again for next year.

I have a cunning plan for the lavender bushes, oh yes.

I shall make a hedge underneath the clothesline. I've got a space between the brick path and the fence, and I've tried quite a few things, iris's and mints, although at the moment, they're fighting for light with the nasturtiums that have taken up residence. But iris's don't really thicken up the space so that a lot of weeds get through, and in summer the heat from the fence burns the mint, and the nasturtiums sprawl everywhere so it's been a pretty unsuccessful patch.

That's where the lavender comes into play. I'm not really into the whole lavender products scene, but I do like the look of the plants, and I like the bees that they attract. And I'll be able to have a dense patch of hedge (that maybe will be shaped in a funny pattern eventually!).

Today I went to the nursery and bought myself a few treats (for being so brave at the surgeon check up appointment) including a pink lavender! Maybe it's the year for pink and purple :) I'd been eyeing off a lovely pink one on the way to the shops, and had taken to carrying a stanley knife in the pram to take some cuttings, but I don't think I did a good job of striking the bit I swiped, so thought I'd get a head start and buy one.

I've also got plans to make another path, like the rock one hitting the brick one above, linking the brick path under the clothesline back to the central cement path.

It might look something like this. Or maybe I just wanted to draw on a photo cause Christine does. On the left is the dying remains of the lovely sugar snap peas we grew. They're so tasty and delicious!

Frames

Another thing on the big list of things to finish was take down all the blue-tacked up photos etc and replace it with art that I finally framed up.

I'm getting there.

I've decided the easiest way to do things is to wait until I have a lot framed, and then figure out where they'll live, otherwise they'll go up willy nilly and just look probably as bad as the bluetacked hodgepodge. Is framing a sign of growing up? Or just being sick of photos falling off the walls in summer?

So I'm pretty happy about these two, since I swapped them for my prints in 2000. Finally I'll get to enjoy them everyday! Above is an etching called 'Knitted Planet' by a classmate (who is still printing strong, unlike distractable me!) and below is a wood engraving by a fabulous old Irishman, who while wasn't an official lecturer, was a great mentor.

This is a drawing that my dad started for me.....a long time ago, not as long ago as my embroidery started, but near there, we reckon around 1998. And he never finished it. Got a block, and we decided it was done. The paving stones and the left side are sketched out, and I think it's a nice contrast to the detailed work of the rest of it. It's a picture of my favourite comic character in her various guises, and I bet he rues the day that he ever asked me what I wanted a drawing of! My dad decides every couple of years to tackle a new medium and throws himself into the deep end - currently it's oil painting and a picture for mum.

I can't think of anything worse than taking up oil painting, but then I got a credit and a 'good effort' comment for my requisite painting subject at art college.

So I reckon I'm nearly there with the art, but I've got a few photos to frame, so............soon I might lay them all out to have a look at and figure out which nails go where!

Back!!

Yay! I finished something postbaby!

Well, I actually almost had this skirt done before Xi arrived, just had the hem and buttons to do, and then.......time twisted and flew. Luckily it is now finished and fitted and delivered to a fabulous artist who'll frock up for her exhibition opening soon.

Remember this fabric on the line way back when? Well, it became this:

It's a very bold skirt and I love it - I can't believe it's the first time I've done a scalloped hem - I've always loved them, but have just been too slack to do it for myself, but having now made one for someone else...I want to definitely have my own hem!

This skirt is a first for a number of things - it was requested that it was a multi size skirt, and I'd never made that kind of thing before either, so I developed this unit within the yoke section. I'm really happy with the result, because I've turned something that is usually hidden against the body (and is hard to get to and often awkward to use (I've had some 'travel' pants like that)) into a design feature on the band.

And it's also got a zippered pocket that follows the print. Again, pretty happy with that, especially since I can't see the pocket on the full photo of the skirt.

Darkcloud came around the other night and helped put my studio to rights after it'd been used (and abused) as a dumping room for crap while parents were visiting type of room. Which I'm extremely greatful for, since I had been trying for a fortnight to sneak in and tidy it up so I could have a few moments breathing in lovely (if neglected) studio air and looking at my stuff.

Xi's going to be in our room for the foreseeable future, so I'm going to use his room to go through my remaining boxes. And I will go through them!

I'm also looking forward to making something new to wear since most of my clothing now doesn't not fit due to a certain method of feeding babies..... I'm really sick of the four things that I've been rotating.....

finished another thing

pregnancy that is. This is my last maternity dress - my party frock! As it's chiffon it should fall nicely enough on a non pregnant frame. Haven't tried it out yet.

So I'm onto something else new and terrifying (and pretty cool and currently trying to stuff full of milk so I can have some sleep.)

this is at six days old. he's three weeks now, and tomorrow we're walking down to the shops instead of sending others out to get things!

This last month....

I have been mostly packing for Tom's next show. So I haven't really spent anytime in either of my studios or in the garden (but had a bit of a go at the weeds yesterday, and will again in about an hour). These are some of the boxes that are finished. I'm pretty happy, it's been going on for quite a while, at last count, 65 pieces of glass in 18 boxes, plus 5 ponds, lots of props (road, shrubs etc) and some drawings (still deciding how many to send). Crazy numbers!

We also did a 7am shoot (which was hard on Nigel and myself) to take some more footage to spice up the Autoganic movie (which we do need to upload to the website......) for the upcoming show. Live action - not CGI!

So as well as introducing the new pieces digitally and live action, a chook was brought into star with the robots......

It'll all make sense in the end, I'm sure.

Treat

This was a treat for me to have a henna, and a long awaited catch up with my friend Humna. We hadn't been able to hang out for ages, since one of us was always totally swamped in work when the other had some time spare. She does beautiful work at her Diya Studio.

The henna came out very dark on my palm, and I wish I'd taken a better photo than this one below, because I'd been out in the garden and the gardening gloves had started to rub certain sections of the design off - and I'd been so careful of it for days!

I like to get the tops of my feet painted in summer - so you don't have to wear shoes, but you're looking pretty spiffy!

Happy Birthday Mum, sorry it took so long.

This is a cross stitch that I started for my mother in 1996. Yes, that's right, 1996. She bought the pattern book, materials and notions because I promised her I'd do it for her. I've had it with me for the last couple of years, and have thought about dragging it out and finishing it for numerous birthdays and christmas' but to no avail.

This is me two weeks into the project, more than a month ago. Yes, you might wonder how long does it bloody take you to do a few leaves and flowers and the answer is -almost everynight for six weeks, or 13 years, depending on your maths.

I am a maker, but I am a one step removed maker. I am a printer rather than a painter, a drafter rather than a draper (in terms of patternmaking) and a machine sewer rather than a handsewer (same goes for knitting and embroidery). I love buttons, but don't like sewing them on. So that lack of patience, coupled with the fact that I had to figure out where I was up to when I stopped it all that time ago and figure out what mistakes I'd made, well, it was slow going.

But here is the finished piece: I started taking a bit of license at the end. I omitted the wheat stalks (since she picked it for the poppies and not the wheat) and added a bee character that I'd always drawn and printed on things for a bit of a personal touch. The actual finished piece is something like 15cm x 25cm.........like I said, not very impressive, but I finished it, and now am waiting to hear from mum to see if she even remembers it from all those years ago!

I also took the liberty of posting the pattern book of wildflowers to my Aunty Kathy, who I know has produced cross stitch before and also to save me from that crazy temptation in case I one day think, 'that wasn't too bad........ I could do another'

Yay! It's up!

Here is the roman blind/window blanket that I finished during the sewing day with darkcloud - only a little delay and it's up and usable! yay! Another project finished that got started oh so long ago!

It's funny, you'd think it'd be overwhelming and make your eyes hurt with the optical nature of the stripes mismatched into squares, but it kinda just blends in with the rest of the decor (which says something about our house)

Here it is half up, showing the lovely view of the lane between our house and our neighbours. We have been encouraging ivy to grow along the fence line, it's just not up to that point yet.

A backlit view, the internal work isn't as bad as I thought it'd be..............lucky!

Some set backs and knitting disasters......

Well, not much to show for the past two weeks. I've had things happen, and not happen, and then not finish, and then not work, so I feel like I haven't been that productive. But I have finished something that I'm pretty happy with, I just have to wait until my mother opens her birthday present before she sees it up here :)

I was so close to learning what I wanted to learn on the knitting machines, I'd pulled apart two machines they'd given me, and built one from the best parts. My teacher remembered to bring all the things she'd forgotten last time, and I was so excited, I thought that it was a case of third time lucky...............but I'm going to have to hope for fourth time lucky.

The machine jammed internally, so she spent the next two hours fiddling, and I spent it laughing helplessly and muttering about being cursed. She took the machines away to fiddle with again, and got back to me that she's not happy with them, and is finding me a new machine. This is when I mentioned that I'm more than happy to have someone service it, as I feel like most of what I've done so far is learn to oil parts. I still don't want to give it up, I like the zingy sound of the machine and I'm excited about the possibilities, I'm just not interested in servicing them myself - I want one that works! I just want to do more sample pieces before starting something big, and I want to learn multicolour patterning damnit!

So that fell through, I'll find out on Tuesday what the next step in the saga/drama is at the next guild meeting. One the plus side, I found a whole box full of cotton cones that I'd stashed in the cellar because they'd be handy one day, so I have a supply of yarn for a big project (when it eventually happens!)

I seem to like taking pictures of material on the line at the moment. These are bassinet and cot sheets. The baby so far has inherited a pile of mainly white clothes, and well, that's a bit....plain. And spotlight was having a sale, and the 100% quilting fabric (the nice thick stuff) that was normally $25/m was down to $2/m. So now the baby's going to be lying back on flowers, trains, spots and dots for a bit of variety!
This is another pic in the evolution of the room. Tom's been scraping back layers of paint for about 2 weeks now, I'm finding paint chips everywhere, as you can see the room has also been an orange and a pale green, not to mention about 5 other colours. As I'm typing this, he's doing the last coat of the walls *fingers crossed*

And this is the Almond tree flowering in the front yard, because I had to put up something that was pretty and happy with itself!

These became.....these!

So....here's some fabric. We've got plain black drill, ikea drill prints, and a crazy old curtain.

They became.....

these!

This is a favourite dress/tunic of mine that I've made a couple of times from one of my patterns in my collection. It's a Simplicity from 1976, and is such a handy dress - the pockets fit HEAPS of things and don't bulge out (I wear my tunic for installing shows, it fits a hammer, tape, nails etc and doesn't complain!)
I've never made it without the shoulder frills before, but I think the neckline is a winner here coupled with the slightly extended shoulder line. We decided to go contrast loco with this one.
These garments were both swaps with jewellers. I'm very happy with my swaps and will have to put up pictures of them. Swapping is great!! We're planning some earring trades soon :)

The other graphic fabric is........on it's way to getting made. Had to have a bit of a think about how to go about the construction of it. Hopefully will get it started this week.

This might possibly be the only time I get excited about this.

Yep, the title says it all. We're getting ready.

Below the washing line is my trusty brick seat and bucket for weeding.

Instructions: Sit on the brick, weed everything in arm range, fill up buckets, feed to chooks.

What's happened in the garden today.

Last year Darkcloud and I went halves in a gamblers choice bulb selection. So this is the second time they've come up, but probably the first good year for flowering (I think we put them in a bit too late last time) I still have all the packets somewhere, so will figure out what they are when they flower.

Today this one is in full weird bloom (I love the spotty bromeliad like tongue leaves) and in the background is possibly a hyacinth budding.

I actually have big plans for the bulbs for next spring, something along the lines of this:

yeah! Australia's biggest flower show - Floriade in Canberra (our nations capital, and home of questicon, cool hands-on science museum!) Okay, so maybe not this massive a planting, but I'd like to have strong clumps of bulbs, instead of one here, one there...... Got to have plans...!

Also, these were the eggs that greeted me this morning. Either those bloody pigeons that have been getting a free ride have decided to work, or one of the chooks has just decided small is beautiful.

I'm hoping for working pigeons..

They are sitting on my first crocheted beanie (and to date the only one actually finished!)

saturday sewing (another view)

Darkcloud got this up first, but then she's all about the organisation :)

This was such a fun day - I hadn't had a sewing day with her since November (way too long ago) and I really needed the company to have the strength to finish this project!

I was putting together an insulated roman blind for the living room window. I had the top finished earlier in this year, but I actually started it.....in 2003. I feel pretty sheepish about that. It was originally going to be a doona cover, so was going to be queen sized. A couple of things hampered the project, one, I cut all the triangles out without adding seam allowance on them, so instead of the three different sized squares forming perfect bigger rectangles....it was a hodge podge. I didn't realise this until I had cut hundreds of triangles and sewn together most of them into squares. That disheartened me enough to put it away for a couple of years. In my defence, it was quite a while ago, and I definitely put seam allowance on everything now!

It was from a Kaffe Fasset pattern, I can't remember which book, but mine actually is louder than his - if that's possible (if you know his work, you'll be amazed).

Another thing that stopped the project from finishing, is that I realised, well, it's fabric that has a white background, and if it's a doona cover, it will basically get really dirty and muddy looking really fast (on account of sootcovered glassblowing husband). So I needed to find a place for it where it wouldn't get feet on it - a window!

Hopefully it'll be up by next weekend *fingers crossed*.

Oh, and the insulation is a pure wool blanket I picked up from an op shop for $1!

Studio Workplay

This is a picture of my studio space that I share with a metalsmith/jeweller and a glass artist. I have my printing press, my silk screens and my knitting machines all vying for space and time. (I also have a sign up from my birthday party, but the happy birthday bit has fallen down along with the balloons and streamers).

I am making progress in my knitting, I took my first finished piece in last tuesday for the guild meeting, it's a scarf made from a thick ply variegated cotton that a friend gave me after realising she'd never finish her project. So this is getting sent to her this week. I started off doing every needle, and tried to do lace work, but the ply was too thick, so it didn't really like doing it, and then I went to every second needle for the majority of the scarf, coming back to make it even at the other end. So it's kind of got a ribbed body almost, and then more structured ends. I've told her she can pass it on if she wants!

This is what I've been doing with my sample pieces - making little pouches with them.

From top left: plain mohair -- terrible to work with, I'm handing over all my mohair/angora/fuzzy stuff to my hand knitting neighbour, it's really frustrating to put through the machine, you have to freeze it before hand, and then dislodge the tangled fibres every two passes, it takes a looooooong time to do anything with it. (The piece of kaki knitting on the machine in the photo above took a crazy amount of time, I was lace making with mohair, will have the finished piece of that up sooner or later)

:sock yarn (3 or 4 ply) 80% wool, 20% nylon, really fast to work with, playing with my cam lever. I also dyed this at an open day at the spinners and weavers guild in Hobart in january.

:working with a tuck stitch pattern (I can read the diagrams - yay!) and using a really nice 80%bamboo 20% wool 4/5ply (can't quite remember) it has a lovely sheen and a nice weight to it.

:stripes! the red is the bamboo mix, the black is a nubbly cotton. When I get two carriages, I'll be able to do stripes without knots, which will be fabulous.

: another tuck stitch pattern in the bamboo mix. The lilac one is the only one that I didn't sew wrong sides together and turn out, and I think it sits the best, so will probably redo the lime one to make it the same way.

I'm happy to have made something useful out of my samples, I've used one for carrying jewelry when travelling, they are good because they can be folded in half, I'm thinking of using one as a wallet..... got to figure it out.

I'm working on other things with the pieces, I just need to resolve them before putting up photos.

I'm also doing some lino cutting at the moment, just very slowly...