Goldfinches moving ahead apace!

I've really got myself on a roll with the Goldfinches piece, look at all this progress in just two days! I'm really pleased that it's coming on so well and I expect I'll be able to put in all the rest of the plant life over the next few days. Being home with yet another pesky virus helps a lot to get on with stuff like this!! It has it's advantages, although I really ought to be in bed....=( It's 'my' exam on Friday too, (i.e. the class that I take as part of a whole module has its exam - an hour long Chinese listening test), so I'll have to do as I did yesterday and go out when I ought to be home resting, but at least then that's it for this academic year, (save about an hour helping to mark any resit papers in August). It's been a really awful year too, so I'll be glad to see the back of it!

One good thing about having to be out and about yesterday was that I was able to go to Taylors and get a few things needed for the Ornamental Pool cushion. I got the backing fabric and stocked up on iron-on interfacing (needed for anything other than the lightest of embroidery on relatively delicate fabric, so anything thin or silky) in both black and white as well as got a zip for the finished product and some fabric that may do to back COS, although I'm not sure about that yet. Can't seem to find something I'm happy with! Perhaps I should root around in the market on Friday after work.

Anyway, here's the 'floss toss' for the Pool design (an expression I learned from Veronica's blog) -> As you can see, I've selected mostly Anchor stranded cottons, but there are 4 each of Anchor Marlitt (for the foreground damselfly and fish, to make them really glow) and Pearl Cotton #12 (for the 'rougher' looking parts) plus 2 Kreinik cords. The next move on this piece will be, after getting the fabric pressed and backed, to get the pattern transferred on. This is always a bit of a pain, but this one promises to be a bit challenging as I'm going to gave to stretch it vertically a bit. I need it to be square, and it's ever so slightly wider than it is high. So, I'll elongate the leaves at the side or something. Will probably have to use two pieces of tracing paper put together as well, which will be tricky too. Don't like this bit!

It feels good to be back stitching and really enjoying it again. I can't think why I just lost momentum for a while, but I guess it happens to most of us at some point. I've read other stitchers lamenting about their lack of umph at times!!

The weekend's stitching

Haven't had a lot of stitching time this weekend, but I have made the most of what I did have and here are the results, i.e. progress on Goldfinches. The last post I made that showed this one had much less on the bird's wing and only some of the white stitches on the thistle head, so I have done quite a bit.

So yes, I decided to go with the Helen Stevens 'Ornamental Pool' design and have got the threads out already as well. Just need to get some suitable fabric now as I don't like the polycottons I've got in and there isn't enough of the black anyway. So, I must go and get something new. I fancy a silk effect fabric that's fully washable and that I can also with make a piping for for the edges, or can get something to match easily. Will show that and the threads when I have it to show.

Finished the bluetits - AT LAST!

Just when you thought I was never going to stitch anything again, I finished the bluetits piece! I just need to wash it now as there are a couple of marks on it, one of which would definitely show.

After laundering it can join the Chaffinches, awaiting completion of the Goldfinches and they can all be framed together. The remains of the kit is now in my 'For Sale or Trade' album on my Webshots

I hope to get the backing fabric for the CoS cushion/pillow this coming week and get that finished up and finally done too. Look out for that by the end of this month, all being well.

Back to stitching. It's now time to begin on the first of the 4 big annivesary pressies that I plan to stitch for this July - Sept. I'm thinking of doing this Helen M Stevens design on either black or v dark blue poly-cotton and stitching it in stranded cottons etc and not silks, then making it up as a cushion/pillow cover for DH's mum and step-father for their 20th this July. I could do it as a picture, in which case the sky's the limit with thread types, but they have so many up already that, every time I go to their place, I just can't imagine where they'd fit anything new in!! So, I think an item of soft-furnishing would be best. What do you all think of it? It's from 'Embroidered Gardens' and probably wouldn't take as long it looks like it would. Freestyle is often much faster than cross stitch anyway.=)

Ribbon work 'framed'

I finally made the rose arch ribbon work into a card just a few minutes ago. It's the nearest to stitching I've done in FAR too long, I can tell you! Hope everyone likes it!

Nothing else to show or tell, beyond that I'm in the process of re-creating the Fine Embroidery web-ring elsewhere as Ringsurf have changed their entire system without any notification to members at all and the new stuff seems to be no improvement whatsoever.

High School Art

Not been up to much worth reporting of late. I have been shopping a lot though, so here are some of the things I've been treating myself to.

First off, 3 vegan cookery books. I want to get started on making some of the goodies from the small baking one at the front and will have to get a couple of specialist ingredients from shops in town later on today first. Yesterday's Tesco trip was mostly for baking goodies!! There are 2 excuses to bake as well (normally I can't much as Sir is weight conscious and I tend to get blebbier than I'd like too.....), so I'm looking forward to trying out the coconut lime cakes and the chocolate mint ones as well as some strawberry and/or mandarin orange tarts. Yum!

Been getting art things too. Here are the colour swatches from the pastel/drawing paper pads I've been coveting for a while!! I got the cool shades (blues) a little while ago, before Taiwan, and managed to get the warms and neutrals over the last few days on E-bay. A £5 voucher from E-bay Extra helped get one!=) I've also bought some new paints, but I'll show those off when the last lot arrive.

I got this landscapes book out of the library and loved it, so spent part of a 25% off at Borders voucher on that, (and the vegan cupcake book). The flowers one is a library book, but I know I want that one too. I love her style and the fact that she uses the same media and brands as me, so here are some tips etc on using all those fab pencils I got a few months ago, esp the Inktense and Graphitints, which are relatively new on the art scene and so material on using them is quite scarce.

Looking through old art pads I found some art from high school. Here are the Garfield characters, which I copied from a Garfield book, but didn't trace:

This is a cartoon collection of some of my high school chums:

And this is an old pencil case that I drew. I love this 'flash of colour' idea and the 'Landscapes' book has a couple of pieces in the same style. I'll be having more of a go at that soon. You can see my old name here in the signature and the date - 1987!! More than 20 years ago - eeek!

Here are some sketches that I did in the Department of East Asian studies 3 years ago - you might be able to make out the date there too. I did the pen sketch first and that seemed to work well for me as my pencil sketches are often very hesitant indeed, but with pen you have to 'commit' to your mark-making and that seemed to do me good as I did a decent pencil drawing immediately afterwards!

So, what does this tell me? That I probably can do well with art if I only get on with it. When I was 16, I'd been doing art classes at least once a week since I'd been about 5, so I was in better practise. I think, somewhere in my mum's attic, I may have my display pieces from my GCSE, the art exam I did when I was 16. If I find them when we clear her attic out for her this summer, then I'll showcase a few pieces and start to make a scrapbook out of them. And the post's just arrived with more stuff in: A rotary cutter for when I can start the C&G level 1 Patchwork and Quilting course and some watercolour paints. Will post pics tomorrow or so, this is enough for now!!!

My Blog is Boring!

Ooooof! How dull my blog has been of late! I never seem to have any decent stitching to show these days - dunno what's up with me. Distractions of one sort or another, I suppose. Anyway, thought I'd make a bit of an effort today at least.

Here's the current state of play with the birds. You can see that I've done all the silver seed-heads and just have the thicker, cream ones to do. Then I must wash it as there are two marks on it - a natural consequence of having been hanging around in the frame, poorly protected for about 10 months already!

This is something I picked up in Taiwan last month. As soon as I saw it, I saw needlecraft potential in it. It's just a ruler, but an extendable one with a mini protractor in the middle with each 15 degrees marked. I thought that it had real possibilities and, at only NT$23 (about 40p UK, and maybe US$0.70), a real bargain too.

Sunday Updates

So, I've finally got something to show that looks like I've been doing something needlecrafts-wise!!!

Here's what the 'Child of Spring' cushion/pillow looks like just now. As you can see, I've moved the side fabric so that there's more white showing than there was on the original spacing. It looks better like this, doesn't it? It was only pinned at that stage, so I didn't have to do any un=picking for a change!!! It's rather badly put together, (although that doesn't show to much - whew!), as I didn't think it out properly first, that the first seams needed pressing open before putting on the next pieces etc. I'll probably still be putting some white trim around the central part and the red won;t be this wide anyway as a third to a half of the it will be taken up in the seams when the backing and zip are fixed. Just need to get some trim and some backing fabric now. Might even finish this one soon......

Did some more of the silverwork on the bluetits last night too, namely the silver veins on all 3 leaves (just one shown here though for detailed viewing), and some more of the distant seedheads next to the lower bird, which you can see here, I hope! Might get this one done soon too!!!

Mum has offered me her sewing machine, but I'm not sure I'll be taking her up on the offer as I've seen the Janome model that I want and I need a drop feed facility for free machine embroidery. I'll have a good look at her manual first though and see if I can make it do.

Another Post-it Tuesday!

Hmm, seems that I like to post on Tuesdays, huh? Well, here I am again. The other day I put an 'About the author' page up, which some of you have seen already, (link on the left, above the Webshots one). As Blogger doesn't allow separate pages like Wordpress does etc, I had to create a whole new blog, but no probs as the end result is the same and I'm not up for moving blog providers. Too much fuss!

Borders sent me a '40% of one book' voucher last week, so I got this one to help me make up the small bags and purses I'm interested in once my box of stuff comes from Taiwan. The patchwork bags book is excellent too, but this copy is borrowed from the library pending the next Borders offer voucher!!

This is the current status on the bluetits and is all the stitching I've done in the last week. Here you can see the half stitch background is complete and I've done both the top-stitching on the birds and made a brief start with the silver seedheads, (at the bottom, just next to the bottom bird). I've just had so much to do over the last week, esp obscene amounts of laundry and ironing, plus getting over jet-lag etc, that I just haven't got to my stitching. I really need to get on though as there are a lot of gifts needed for between early July and late September and I want to get at least the bluetits and the Child of Spring cushion finished before starting the first hardanger/counted thread cushion/pillow design.

Been thinking about other stuff to do over the next few years too and have decided that, now the shock of the teaching disaster has more or less worn off and my health has improved a lot already, I'm feeling bored and ready for some more intellectually challenging stuff. So, first up for consideration is actually (and finally) finishing that MA programme I was doing several years ago when I became ill with CFS/ME. See what comes after that when the time comes, but I have some ideas - most of which are probably stupid!!!!=)

DH has put all the Taiwan photos on a CD-Rom, so I'll have a look through those later on (on the 12th of Never, no doubt!!) and add them to the new Webshots album I've created for our travel pix. Will post the link as and when, but it's not on my regular album - it's a totally new user name.

Ahhhh, home again. How nice!

Mmmm, how lovely it is to be home. I'm jet-lagged to high heaven, wrecked from the yacky 25 hour-door-to-door journey and haven't got my land legs back yet, but I'm happy to be home. Whilst typing this, I'm also in the process of making the first meal I've made (other than putting together a few fruit salads) since Sunday 23 March! As the taxi driver on the way home from the aiport rightly said yesterday morning - I won't be wanting any Chinese food for a while!!!

So, here are some more photos that I took a day or so before leaving Taiwan which, while of nothing special, give some more idea of what city life is like over there (and also why it's nice to be back in quiet and relatively well spaced out northern England!). The bottom floor (ground floor for Europeans, 1st floor for others) is usually a shop of some sort. Often above that are a few floors of offices and other businesses, (training places, hairdressers etc), then come several floors of homes.

<-This is an art shop. It hasn't come out as well as I'd hoped as I really wanted to convey the crampedness of many Taiwanese shops. From the guy standing there, you get an idea of the width of the whole enterprise and you can just see the displays either side of the narrow passage from the door. There's more behind each display!!

Onto stitching topics and here's all I managed to do on the Goldfinches during the journey over to Taiwan:

Rotten photo taken in bad light in our room over there. Taiwanese apartments can be so dark as everything is so cramped together!










I think I did another 3 or 4 sessions on it whilst there and this is the current status as I did nothing stitch-wise on the way back. I just felt ugh from start to finish and watched 1½ in-flight movies and tried to get some sleep instead!! Last night whilst not letting myself go to bed too early, (although I think I could have gone anytime from 8pm really, we went about 9.30pm), I put in the top-stitching on the Blue-tits and am looking forward to getting them finally done. They've got 2 marks on them thanks to having been in progress and not well looked after for at least 9 months now, so I will need to wash that one before it can be framed.

This is some of the stash I bought whilst out there. Here you can see a large piece of light green satin fabric, (much larger than you can see here, it's folded several times), which I paid only NT$45 for (about 75p or US$1.50) and more than a dozen Taiwanese made embroidery ribbons. All but one are 5mm width (the other is a 7mm one) and they are made of nylon, not silk, but I think they're lovely and should wash and last well. They were NTS70 each (the 7mm one being NT$90), which is only about £1.20. You have to pay about £3 for most things of ribbon here and I thought they would be nice as trimmings on the bags I plan to make. I'll showcase all the fabrics I got for those when they come - we sent them back sea mail last Friday or so, so they won't be here until late May at the earliest.=(

This is the shop I bought the ribbons at, which was a 15 minute walk from where we were staying. It's a quilting shop really, who also sell sewing machines and a few other things and run quilting classes etc. One of the ladies there helped me to learn the Chinese for various needlcrafts!!=)

Here are the Chinese nick-nacks I brought back for a few friends and colleagues. Most of my friends have got so many Chinese things that I didn't think it was worth getting loads for everyone, but I did promise things to one or two and also to former Language Centre colleagues as Chinese things are more of a novelty to them.=)

Hi from Taiwan!

Well, hello from the Far East! Haven't had much time for posting or chance to deal with photo until today, but we're having a slow day today - running low on funds and my stomach's gone potty...=( so we thought we'd save train and food expenses and stay in - near the bathroom!!!!!

So, what is Taiwan like, other than hot and noisy? It's about 33 degrees centigrade here, (something like 90+ in farenheit, I should think), with high humidity and a building work-in-progress somewhere in this neighbourhood. Still, that's just like when I was living here as they were building a government place for training etc next door to my old block!! I went to see it last week.=) On the left is a street in Taichung, where we visited an old friend during the first weekend we were here and on the right in the pool in the centre of the very traditional teahouse she took us to, also in Taichung. It's quite well known and has it's own website: Wu Wei Teahouse, where you can see more.

I'm not sure where this left hand photo was taken, whether it was here in Taipei, down in Kaohsiung, or again in Taichung, but this is actually a food stand, where you can pick what you want from what's on display and it's all freshly cooked up for you. On the right here is one of the displays from the Kaohsiung Museum of History.

This last shot will be of interest to most of you. These are some handcrafts that were on display in the Taichung teahouse. I've since bought a load of oriental fabrics - both patterned and plain to have a go at making something like these to sell on Etsy, as well as trimming things to add to the zips and so on. Yesterday I found a quilting shop in the area we've been staying in here in Taipei and am told that there are some great embroidery shops near my old home area, so I plan to go and look. Not thinking of buying anything as I have more than enough stash for the next 25 years, but I want to know what kinds of work ladies do here. I daresay they haven't r heard of hardanger, ribbonwork or stumpwork, so there may be a market here for some pieces of those if and when we get chane to come back for a while. DH is trying to get some Taiwan etc related work so we can spend some time here as well as us both looking into further language training at the centres out here. Bloomin' expensive thus far!!

Haven't done much stitching, just a few hours on my new birds cross stitch. Will show photos of that next time, (probably when I get home next week), but I had some trouble getting on with it en route as the tapestry needle was broken and so I made a start with the little beading needle they provided (rather thin and delicate, as you can imagine!), which later disappeared and I couldn't find any to buy! I had put some in one of our cases, but instead of putting that one on the Taiwan plane, it ended up in Pakistan instead!!!! Thankfully, I'd divided our stuff into halves for packing so, should a case go astray, we could manage, and we at least got the larger one with the washing things in! So, what with delays in Europe thanks to the snow, (when we got an unexpected day in Amsterdam - thanks to to dh who put in 100 Euros 'just in case'!!!), part of our luggage going astray for 5 days, loads of travelling around and the weather here being cold and rainy for a few days, (it feels cold owing to the very high humidity, even though it's almost 20C/late 60sF), and now a bad tummy, it's been quite a trip so far! Caught up with lots of old friends and been to lots of old haunts.

More next time!