I'm not tired of these yet

It was my region's anniversary day today, so I didn't have to go to my day job. Instead I went to Timaru, the "big smoke" about an hour's drive north which is in Canterbury region so everything was open. And I bought an embellisher! But not home with me as they have to order it in. I'm getting a Janome Xpression. My big sewing machine is a Janome 6500P, which is a quilting machine. That means it has no free arm so does not darn jeans and the like! I do those on the Pfaff, which has gone to the same store I went to today to get its tension fixed. A girl's gotta have more than one sewing machine!

This afternoon, I made a few more of my little business card holders. I've never done this sort of little-item-with-embellishment before, and I'm surprised how much I'm enjoying it.

While in Timaru, I saw some cardigans and jerseys that had felted-like flowers and stuff on them for over $200. I can do that!

...And a bit more

Here's the other card/phone holders that I've made.

I'm really enjoying playing with these - I'm keeping them fairly simple, as I only want to charge a small amount for them. In my experience, people at markets want low-priced items, so these will only be around $12 to $15.

Would YOU buy this sort of thing? Leave me a comment.
Thanks!

A bit of fun

Today I'm making these Magic Card Holders, which can also be Magic Cellphone Holders.

Where's the magic, I hear you ask? The ribbon (or cord, or whatever), goes underneath the cards or phone and is fastened on the inside back. You just pull the ribbon upwards at the front, and the cards (or phone) slides up.

Click on the photo to see more detail - and me in my suit!

I'm making these for a stall I'm having soon at a market, where I need lots of small easily affordable hand crafted items.




Occasionally I even manage to photograph a sunset (all those other photos are sunrises).

This is looking up at my roof, with my cabbage tree on the left and the neigbour's large palm tree on the right. The thing that looks like a weather vane (I had to go outside to check on this!) is actually the side view of my TV receiving dish.

A new day

There was a magnificent sunrise this morning, and here's a few views of it. I love this time of day.

Before the Storm....

I sat down at my table, which faces south (this is the Southern hemisphere, so bad weather comes up from Antarctica) to address newsletters to my customers. Not one of my favourite jobs. I had barely started when I saw black clouds rolling in very quickly.

After rushing out to bring in the washing, for it'd been sunnyish before, a big wind sprang up, the temperature dropped by half, and now we have lightning, thunder and rain, after an initial bit of hail.

The town and sea looked so different with this cloud hanging over it, so I had to protograph them.

The End of Summer

Not that we HAD much of a summer this year..but now daylight saving has finished and there's a real autumn feel in the air.

Here's a sunrise shot I took a couple of days ago.














And here, in all its blurry wonder, is a finished garment! Those of you who have been reading my blog for some time (ie since the middle of last year) may recall that I was very excited when I hand painted my first yarn. I painted 7 skeins of a wool/alpaca blend in a large range of colours, each skein being different but having a number of colours in common. I may not have explained that very well. Let's say I used colours A, B, C, D and E on the first skein. On the second one, I used C, D, E, F and G. On the 3rd, maybe E, F, G, H and A. You get the idea. Then I knitted this jacket (omitting the buttons and buttonholes, as I seldom do these up) using a different skein for each piece, but with 2 fairly similar mainly-green skeins on the back.
Here's the front, with its rolled rib collar. This is large generously sized jacket that feels wonderful and warm on.


















And here, slightly more in focus, is the back.

Shirley on Broadway

Who could resist seeing themselves on Broadway? OK, so I'm a show-off.

You can put yourself on a billboard by going here.

Nothing much creative going on this week as I'm really busy at work (that's BOTH jobs).
However, I spoke to the local quilting group last night on "Fabric Makeovers" and showed them my latest fabric and some of my quilts.

Back home again...

...and you didn't even realise I'd been away. I've spent a long weekend in Wanaka in Central Otago, almost 4 hours' drive inland from the coast where I live. It's hot in summer -grapes and stone fruit are grown here; cold in winter - the main ski fields of New Zealand are here; very beautiful, and as expensive as Auckland. Dammit. I love the scenery in Central.

This is the view from the cottage that I rented. The land goes right down to the Hawea River. Not a river for swimming in.

The dogs outside the cottage at sunrise.


This is at Clyde, above where the dam is. A whole valley was flooded to allow the Clyde dam to operate.












The last shot was one of many I took while driving - you can see that traffic isn't a problem here, so it wasn't unsafe.

Five Seconds of Fame

A bit of a downgrade from 15 minutes, admittedly- aren't we all supposed to have that? But I guess 5 seconds is better than nothing! Bonnie Mccaffery, well-know American quilting tutor and author, was teaching at the Manawatu Quilt Symposium her in New Zealand that I also taught at. She's done a vidcast of quilts and people - including me - that any quilt and fabric lover will enjoy watching. Go here and click on one of the video options to watch her vidcast.

Give me back the mornings

Apparently 25% of people are morning types, 25% are night owls, and 50% are neither in particular. I am unashamedly a morning person.

We have daylight saving here in New Zealand that will end in 3 weeks. There is talk of extending it for a further 3 weeks but I'm against that. It's 7am and the sun is only just rising over the horizon.

Here's the harbour this morning before the sun gets up.

You put the orange in, you take the orange out...

Here's the other piece of my fabric that's been wandering around the world. It's been overdyed while wrapped on a pole, and had other images added to it. It's a sister piece to the earlier post - they looked very similar
when they were sent away. See how differently they've come out!









This is a folded piece I dyed yesterday when I was in a blue'n'orange mood.



























And this is the photo that the heading refers to. I've dyed up these fat quarter gradations to make a sample for Dye'n'Sew class I'm developing. The colours are (l to r) black, chocolate brown, coffee, rust orange, bright orange and tangerine.

I don't think the bright orange really fits into this group - tell me what YOU think.