This is what my studio or cave as I affectionately call it used to look like. The reason it is called 'The Cave' is pretty obvious really - it is 11 metres long and only 2.5 metres wide. There is a little shower room at one end, a sink, a sewing bench with space for 3 machines and as you can see quite a bit of shelf space. Sadly it doesn't look quite like this these days. For one, the chairs for relaxing (yikes! what's that?) are gone, replaced by a desk for drawing and painting. For another, in accordance with well-accepted principles, the stash has grown .... and grown ... and been culled ... and grown .... and you get the picture. There has been a major tidying up campaign under way for the past few weeks, but it still doesn't look this good. I guess the message is try harder.

I have decided to continue with the City and Guilds course at Distant Stitch with Siân Martin, but I am going to change my reseach topic or theme, and go with something to do with architecture. This is a subject that I feel comfortable with - 5 years of study might have something to do with that, as well as a lifetime passion. At the moment I am still reading through the revised Module, but my brain is ticking over with ideas.

Lutradur and Lace

This was made in response to a challenge issued by a new e-zine 'Fibre&Stitch' - to make something out of Lutradur, lace and scrim. This is my response, using black Lutradur, various black laces and nappy/diaper liners which I painted gold and heat distressed. I added little gold highlights, plus some embroidery and beading.

I took too long to get the photo up to take part in the judging, but since I don't really care for peer judging that's no big deal for me.

Not sure yet what this will become - maybe part of a book/journal cover.

My studio is now reasonably tidy - at least enough that I can see my way around and do something. Waiting for me, with the clock ticking inexorably, are my Distant Stitch C&G work, plus an outfit to wear to my son's wedding on 1 December. My Dearly Beloved bought me a burgundy-with-gold-thread-embroidery sari a few months ago on one of his forays into the big city, and last week he went again with instructions to come home with something to match for pants and a longish tunic. The sari will then become a loose kimono-style jacket. He did exceptionally well (as usual), and I now have some burgundy French crepe. And I can't put the sewing off much longer.

I haven't yet worked out how to load more than one photo per post on this blog, so the other stuff will have to wait.

The Comfort Dolls are done, and gone off to New Zealand for distribution. I would like to think that someone in one of our major (Australian) cities would have picked this up and run with it. Alas it was not to be.

My studio has been allowed to fall into a state of chaos. There is no other word for it. It's not dirty, just very untidy. I am not disciplined enough to put things away as soon as I have finished with it, so benchtops are absolutely covered with bits and pieces. I also accumulate rather more stash than I have storage capacity for. I guess this is a familiar lament to everyone, and I am very lucky to have a dedicated studio, yada, yada. Anyway I have been trying desperately over the past week to tidy up some - and I am beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Given that I can only work for at the most a couple of hours a day, you can understand why it is taking so long.

Next week hopefully will see me back at real work. I have just started a piece based on an image I saw on TV of the Canning Stock Route, but further work on it will be my reward for finishing the tidying operation.

COMFORT DOLLS

A few weeks ago, I saw that someone - I believe it was Pat Winter - had begun a project in which people would make small textile dolls to be given to women in refuges and shelters. As it is usually the children who are thought of first in such situations, I was immediately inspired to make some dolls.

This one is 'Candy' and she is a Dotee Doll - thanks to Dot for designing such and expressive and easy to make little creature. I used some bright pink fleece, like you use for sweatshirts, felted the dark red heart and surrounded it with some interesting fibres. I used some long thin triangular offcuts of the fleece plus some more interesting fibres for her hair and white felt for her face which I embroidered and painted. Candy is finished with a couple of bead dangles instead of legs. I hope the recipient gets some comfort from her. I know I would have been over the moon had I even known that I wasn't the only one in this position, much less that I had sympathetic and empathetic sisters all over the world.

This one is Fauna - for some reason I felt compelled to give these little creatures names. She is based on a little Bendi doll. I painted her all over with peach/pink acrylic paint and followed up with a light sponging with gold paint. The skirt fabric I found in our local store (the one and only) and thought it was perfect if not quite the colour I had in mind. Nevermind, its prettiness won. When I got home I discovered that where it had been cut the stitching that holds it all together was coming undone and that several of the ribbons were hanging loose. Not to worry, I fixed the stitching so no more unravelling would happen and used some of the shed ribbon for her bodice. Making hair was problematic, but rose petals from joggles.com solved the problem and she started to look like a woodland maiden. An Artchix face charm seemed to me to reinforce that women tend to put a mask on and cover up the unhappiness and violence in their lives and it looked better than the original face. A couple of fabric flowers 'gussied' her up a tad, and now I think she looks good.

The third doll is based on a pattern I have for a 'DamnIt Doll'. The originals of these were made rather crudely, without faces, hair or any other embellishments. The idea of them is summed up thus:

When your day has started wrong
And things go from bad to worse
Here is a Damn-it doll
To help lift the curse.

Take it gently by the leg
And find a place to slam it,
And as you knock the stuffing out
Shout damn it! Damn it!! DAMN IT!!!

I wouldn't actually recommend doing that with this one, but at least the sentiment is there. 'Lavender' is a soft little doll, made from four complementary pieces of fabric joined together diagonally. The back is plain. She has a purple glass heart - sparkling and beautiful but fragile too. You will also notice that her face - made of air-dry clay - has wrinkles and chips. These are deliberate, no-one has a perfect face!

There will undoubtedly be some more of these creatures emerging from my 'house', and I really hope that the recipients like them, and that they understand that a great deal of love and sympathy comes with them.

It appears that I haven't yet cottoned on to loading more than one image per post, so that will mean multiple posts until I learn.

This is another vessel, again one that I made after reading Janet Edmonds' book. This time I hand-stitched pleats in the fabric, which was an awkward shape to begin with but I left it on the basis that it would tell me what to do. The pleats run vertically, and I stitched over them to flatten them in alternate directions. Then I lined the piece and made it into a cylinder. The odd shape that I started with ended up as this rather elegant vessel.

Between the pleats are small blue-dyed pearl discs.

Again it has been stitched to a black-painted base.

This vessel is one that I made after reading Janet E's book, but I don't think it looks much like any of hers. I hope not anyway. Unfortunately the colour isn't perfect in this shot, nor in any of the others that we took; in real life it is more scarlet.

I hand-stitched channels in the fabric and threaded narrow rope through them. Because of the hand-stitching the channels aren't perfect - in fact that was deliberate as I wanted them to go up and down and even have gaps between them sometimes. In the gaps I added some beads which gives it just a bit of sparkle, or should that be bling?

I sewed the two ends together to make a cylinder, lined it with something silky in a matching colour, and sewed the bottom edge to a circle of black-painted MDF that my Dearly Beloved (hereinafter DB) drilled for me.

I quite like this little vessel. It is about 10cm in diameter and 15cm high.

One of the people on the C&G list has told us of her new blog, and also that she is reading Janet Edmonds' book on 3D embroidery. As I have read this book, and made some 3d pieces, mostly vessels, I thought I would start off this blog with some of them.

The first is a box that I made quite a long time ago, before I read the book. I have used machine stitching and embroidery with metallic silver thread. The box is made from a base of pelmet vilene (same as Timtex), covered with medium blue fabric and embellished with black felt with strips of organza and silver-thread covered flat washers stitched on with variegated metallic blue thread. I quite like this style of box and would like to do more, especially now that I know the pitfalls.

I seem to be unable to add any more photos to this post, so the rest will have to wait.