Hottie

FINISHED!!!!  At last!
These little guys are now preparing for their (hopefully quick) postal journey to Cam's at CurlyPops so they can participate in the Hottie Challenge next week.

Now for some shots of this hottie's process.....

planning and designing

more of the same

Thank goodness for linings

Ollie - boo, my little helper..

sleeping on/in (almost literally) the job

Lulu...not real mice?...........not interested!!!

getting there

lined and waiting...

New and exciting discovery.

 These photos below are OLD photos (I nearly fainted when I saw the year - 1990 printed in the corner of a couple of them - oh how time does fly!!!) that I dragged out of an album to see what I used to do in the 'dabbling with sewing' era of my life...which I must say was a fairly short era at the time.

I made this for a friend's little girl (who would be grown up now!) and when I look at it now I think 'how did I do that?'  The little dress lifted up and there were little undies and a tummy underneath and her hat was all puffy and 3 dimensional, and her plaits were made out of wool.

During the making of the last apron with the Koala and Cockatoo, and the trouble I had doing the applique stitch around curves and corners etc,  I had an urge to 'drop the feed dogs' and have a go at free motion machine embroidery...I didn't know anything about it or even know what it was called until a couple of weeks ago and when I tried it I couldn't work out exactly how to do it, or if I needed a special foot for it or none at all etc etc etc.

Next time I was in town and near our Sewing Machine Centre, I went in and inquired about machine embroidery and whether I needed a special foot etc and the very helpful lady there sold me a foot for the job and mentioned that it takes about 100 hours of practice to master the technique.  Undeterred, I couldn't wait until I was home so I could try it out for myself...(thinking 'no way' to the 100 hours). Sadly at that point, I couldn't even work out how to attach the foot ... let alone give the stitch a go!!!   At that time my machine was being very naughty during the making of the Cockatoo apron, so I had to go back to get my machine checked out and while I was there I asked to be shown how to put the foot on correctly.   
Yay, now I could play!!!   And OH what fun it is....like drawing with a sewing machine! 

 

finally finished!

Yay, finally I have finished this apron for my friend who wanted something Australian to take to her friends in England.

I

They (my friend and her husband, and their English pals) are 4 friends who, when they occasionally are able to get together, love sharing laughs  and a bottle of wine...hence the wine glasses....

Bon voyage Koala and Cockie, hope you enjoy your trip to England and hope your new English owners enjoy you!!!

Work in progress

I am working on this apron at the moment - I have ironed on my design and now need to sew around it all. 

Old and New

 I haven't had much of a chance to paint or indulge in anything overly creative lately due to other things needing attention at home, but I found a couple of 'old muck-arounds' so thought I would post them here for fun...mixed with a recent piece of work or two.

Autumn treasures of the fungal kind

Another reason I love Autumn is that this is the time when nature presents us with a wonderful array of fungal treasures here on our very own little piece of land.  This season, for some reason, there hasn't been quite the spectacular quantity as in the previous years...but I still love exploring and discovering them in all their little places around our property.

Yummy Autumn

Mother Nature is truly the most amazing artist!!!  The colors, patterns,  magical creatures etc, etc, etc that 'she' presents to us every moment of every day all are a part of a delicious feast for our senses constantly.  

Autumn is my most favorite season of all as the colors of nature become even more stunning than ever. The light changes and becomes more gentle and golden and the misty, damp mornings and afternoons remind us that cosy, snuggly times are ahead.

School holidays and dabbling

When school holidays come along, down go the paint-brushes, inks, sewing projects etc because with little people around during the day, there are places to go, people to visit, together fun to have and all the normal day to day things to get done...  A painting project of the wall kind commences in preparation for girl-bear's own bedroom - finally...but which color will she choose???  (must pass mum approval though..Mum who couldn't quite do the lollie pink!!!...yes I know it is her room but....).

When little people sleep though I still try to play and are having fun learning how to do little crochet flowers and leaves, thanks to Mum and her friend and this gorgeous blog.

UFOs

While cleaning out and preparing our room for painting (walls this time) I have come across some UFOs (un-finished objects) leaning against my wall in a pile and have lined them up committing to finishing them soon.

Fairies in the kitchen???

Working on another design for an apron...this time for a real little person...rather than just one at heart.

Homework

Then I worked some more the next week, working on loosening up more and more and just getting used to playing as the process and quelling those naughty, bad inner voices....

Then in the same morning at class I was given another exercise where I  had to paint a picture as a child would - not worrying about the outcome or what other people thought and include a number of things...and do it really quickly.......oh such a hard thing to just let go and enjoy the process and not worry what other people though and especially not listen to those wicked internal voices that said 'oh cack' etc etc ETC ETC ETC, to everything I did on the paper.

Added rough maggies at home, then in class had to change things, paint over things, move things etc (also something I have struggled with  as I tend to get too precious with things in my painting being too scared  to make any changes incase I muck things up more).

I wanted to put 2 big magpies in the foreground so mucked around in my journal trying to get out of my head what a magpie looked like.  I must say...I did watch more closely the magenpies (Gerald Durrell called them that when he was a child in 'My Family and other Animals' and the name has kind of stuck in our household!) on the side of roads etc when I was driving into town etc.

This was the homework I worked on after my yummy art class (a couple of weeks ago now cos I am so slow still with this blogging) where I had to paint a landscape with 4 mountains, 3 birds, 4 trees, 3 clouds etc, etc,etc.  Another requirement being that I wasn't to reference anything...it had to be completely out of my head! EEEEEEK- definitely something I really struggle with in my art!