Spring Has Sprung - finally

After officially recording the coldest August in 60 years, spring has finally arrived in Sydney. Currently we are on 25 degrees, the warmest day in quite some months. So to herald the sunshine & the warm weather, I thought I would share with you some of my garden.

"Seasons Of Change" - April TIF

" Seasons of Change" is my April TIF challenge complete. It began here & continued to this, which I wasn't entirely happy with. So I cut out my leaf & appliqued it onto a green background. I think it looks much better & has more life than before. I tried to portray the changes in colour & shapes that Mother Nature gives us as she changes the seasons. I have used digitizing, applique & machine embroidery to achieve the result.

April TIF - A start

I worked on my April TIF this morning. I had the idea to digitize a leaf to symbolize the change in seasons. I wanted one side to be one colour & the other side another colour, showing the changes in colour that a change in season will bring.

I found a leaf pic that I had scanned into my PC in an Autumn gone by, imported it into my digitizing program & off I went. I remembered that I had a colour blending tool & thought that would be good to try to see if I could get subtle changes in colour. It worked on one side of my leaf but not so well on the other. This was the first time I had used this tool & I learnt heaps. I found out that I could create many layers of colour using this tool, also edit the stitches & fills. On the final layer on the left, I edited the stitch to be a candlewick one, so giving me spots on my leaf, the type that appear as a leaf ages. What I didn't change however, was the colour. So consequently when I did the stitch-out, my spots are the same colour as the layer before, & are not as visible as I would have hoped.

I am not exactly happy with this but it certainly has been an interesting exercise. Now I have to decide whether to start again, or make something of what I have done. I think it will be the latter as I should really be doing wedding sewing instead of playing, and time is precious.

Deadlines, 2008 Personal Challeges Update & March TIF Thinking

Back in November I set my personal challenges for 2008. The year is ticking along, the deadlines are getting closer & my challenges are well & truely happening so I thought I would post an update.

The wedding is progressing. I have measured two bridesmaids & the bride, made the patterns for the bridesmaid's dress & made one toile. This has been fitted on one BM & changes have been put in order. This afternoon I will start the patterns for the wedding dress.

Quilt No 1 is nearly finished, just a little more quilting then the bind. Yippee! I am at the point that I am tired of working on it so I am glad the deadline is close. ( Only a few weeks.)

Quilt No 2 has fabric bought & washed ready for cutting but that is it. I have a design in mind but that may change. The recipient of the quilt knows how much work I have on & has gladly said it can wait untill the next big birthday. That would be in just over ten years time, so that will give me plenty of time to finish. Nothing like deadlines that move.

The piece of Reticella, yes well.......... we all know the story about that one. For those readers who don't, the story starts here. It has turned into a piece of counted thread work which is well on the way to being finished. It needs to be finished by April 14th for an exhibition. It may just make it.

The filet work has started. I have had a small play with the needleweaving, & linen stitch but that is all. I haven't really the time to play at the moment with so many other looming deadlines.

Then there is the TIF Challenge. I have managed to produce one for January & February. So far so good. I am not sure about March, other things that are higher priority are taking over. This month's challenge can be read here & I have managed to do a little thinking. At the moment I cannot get past the little things in my garden, like the grasshoppers, aphids, worms, spiders, ladybugs, butterflies, beetles, wasps, etc etc. Without these little things, the bigger picture of my garden would not function. They all play a part somehow, from airating the soil, to pollinating the plants, to eating predators.

The one thing that I have noticed about all these small creatures is that they all have spots in some way, shape or form. It might be spots for camouflage, spots for eyes, or spots for decoration. So maybe spots will be the theme for the March challenge.

March TIF Challenge

The March TIF challenge is out over on Sharon B's blog. The above colour scheme is it, and the theme is all about paying attention to the small details.

I have been paying attention to the small details of my garden of late, like the weeds that have over-run all the plants because of all the rain we have had. So maybe the small details of my garden will be my inspiration for this month. Time will tell.

Mother Nature's Architects

February in Sydney can be extremely hot, humid & sticky. This year has been a little different in that the extreme heat has not eventuated, however the humidity has been horrendeous. We have had rain nearly every day, sometimes in storms, sometimes in just little drizzles like this morning. The little fine shower early this morning was just enough to accentuate the spider webs in my garden.

My Favourite Flowers

Mother Nature at Work

Sydney, as has most of Australia, has been in the grip of drought over the last few years. This year has been a little different & we are starting to see more rain. This morning while I was on my walk it started raining again, just lightly, but the sun was also out. I knew there just had to be a rainbow somewhere, and it was when I turned around that I saw this beauty. It stretched the whole way across the sky & stayed visible for about 15 minutes, long enought to get this pic. Looking carefully in the top right hand corner, there is a second rainbow but it is nowhere near as bright as the first. Rainbows have been scarce over the last few years because of the drought, but we have seen a few this year. Maybe the pot of gold at the end will be the water in our dams & the flowers on our plants.