Today's round up

I am at the end of a very busy day, here's a readers digest version.

I'm participating in a scarf swap on a felter's list that I'm on, this is my needle felted scarf that I packed up and posted off today, wonder what fab piece I'll get back.

I put the finishing touches to this piece titled "Ocean Rocks" to be entered into Thirroul's Seaside Art and Craft show miniature section 10x10x10cm.
They are 3 beaded silk paper pieces over Timtex mounted on a painted canvas.

Over the past week or so I've been finishing off a quilt project for a magazine, of course I can't show you the finished quilt but I can show you the fabrics, yesterday was spent writing the instructions, this morning I was making samples to acompany the instruction.

I also manged to get 2 loads of towels on the line whilst doing this and make a sand bag to rest my lump of soapstone on for carving in class.
Talking of towels......Mackenzie had been complaining on the weekend that there were no towels in the cupboard so I said "go into your room and find me all of the towels hiding in there - there must be at least 20 in there", he came out about 10 mins later and said "Mum, you exaggerated - there were only 17"!!!!!!!!!!!!!
one wonders what else is lurking in there............ what else have I lost lately?

So after my busy morning at home, off to school I go to play in the Sculpture studio for the afternoon, one of the great finds I had at the markets a week ago was a bag full of old window catches, this is what I did with them today.


After class I hot footed it up to Thirroul to drop of my little piece then finally home to a good cup of tea........

Scatterdays X

I'm getting in early this week with my Scatterdays, this weeks letter is "X" but no categories jut 3 photos starting with X, be warned with last photo if a bit sqeamish....

this for me was real easy as last Sunday when I went to our local Trash 'n Treasure market I picked up a 1964 wooden Fisher Price Xylophone which no doubt will find it's way into a sculpture somewhere down the track,
I'm looking for any old kids wooden blocks, domino's or wooden game pieces of any sort, any one got any lurking in the shed?


I'm lucky enough to have a niece called Xandri, she is married to my only nephew Gerry and here I am with Xandri and their little boy Liam when I caught up with them in Melbourne before the SCQ'ers Bendigo retreat last year, isn't he cute.

Do I win with this one ------- Xray of my new hips

Scatterdays N

Life gets way to complicated sometimes, MIL is still in hospital but on the mend and then my mother goes and has a fall and has broken her wrist and hip, she has had surgery and is also on the mend thought a little slower than Tim's mum.

Our computer hasn't been happy with very intermittent coverage since the thunderstorm a few weeks ago but we finally now have a new wireless router installed that Mackenzie (15) got organised for us yesterday, so here is this weeks Scatterdays, better late than never.....

This weeks letter is "N" and the categories are, Little Things, Human and Mineral.
So I hijacked Mackenzies Nerds before they quickly disappeared.

Here is the "Human" Nana Noeline last xmas (MIL)

Now for Mineral we need to do a little searching, in there somewhere in the Multi Vitamins is a mineral starting with N, trust me it's there

this week

sorry, the wheels fell off my wagon this week, here's an update, there was no Scatterdays this week as we had to put MIL into hospital on the weekend with pneumonia, she's OK and on the mend, so I've been slightly distracted, I'll do my best for the next one.
I've also been tagged by Susan and will eventually get to that, as I need time to put every ones links onto my blog.

This is my "official" second painting (haven't finished the first one yet) that I've been working on in painting class over the past couple of weeks, I think it's finished but the teacher wants to double check this week before we declare it finished then I can get back to finishing the first one, I'm behind as I slotted into this class after I came back from working in Melbourne.

I must have a great back verandah cause I've had another little friend come to live with us, my Sydney Swans Gnome (Australian Rules Football) now I have to work out which player to name him after...... hey Erica, who has short fat legs and big feet in our team?????

At the Australian Quilt Convention (Melb) that I worked at recently they showcased the works of the ladies from the "Kopanang Project" I bought this piece from the wonderful display of work by ladies from a small town in South Africa, do a search for the project and see the wonderful work that these ladies are doing in empowering themselves to be able to support their families in tough times.
There were 2 ladies sitting there demonstrating how they work and I felt privileged to be able to purchase a piece and help a family.

Last week

Where has the week gone........
I had photos lined up to give you a round up of last week but this is the first chance I've had to try and string more than 3 words together.

I had a very productive week at Art School last week, I've been working on a series of pieces with cut up chair legs and blocks, I had bought these 3 great old frames at a trash n treasure market and a series was born.
I've shown you the first piece "No Leg to Stand On" a few posts ago but I've put a touch of colour on a few of the pieces, so I am happier with it now.

The second piece is called "Doing my Block"
Now this is aptly named as the 2 pieces are hanging in the gallery at Art School in the International Woman's Exhibition but the powers that be..... hung this one the wrong way, it was worked as a horizontal piece, now I'm not going to go into all the boring details but there were a few obvious signs of which way it should have been hung etc etc
so, this is the way I worked it, just imagine the dangly bits hanging down

and this is the 2 pieces hanging in the gallery

opinions please, the way I worked it OR the way it was hung.......

the 3rd piece is almost finished and I will be able to show you next week when I'm back in the Sculpture studio, it is a combination of the first 2 pieces.

Friday I was up in Sydney teaching a regular monthly class, the ladies are working on a mystery quilt - I can't show you any photos cause it's a mystery............
actually the photo blogger wouldn't accept for some reason, and Gladys was in it too

Saturday saw me teaching my monthly Fun with Fibre Techniques class, actually I don't think I showed the photo from the first class where the ladies made a piece of silk paper then made a bowl from the piece, hopefully they will bring them next time so I can photograph them, but this week they were doing needle felting with their domestic machines.
Dorothy made the bright blue long scarf and Chris made the 2 pink pieces that have since been made into a cute vest with purple velvet for her 2 yo grand daughter, hopefully I'll have a photo of that soon, the pink scarf was mine that I made while demonstrating the technique.

Scaterdays V

I've had a very busy week but had all of my photos sorted by Thursday but the computer has been not cooperating, so here I am a day late but getting there.
This weeks Scatterdays is the letter "V" and the categories are -
PINK -
and here is my favorite Pink Variegated King Tut thread

next is BIG -
while in the sculpture studio this week one of the other students was doing some plaster casting and here is her "Venus" with the big boobies and belly

and also on the end of my work bench in the studio is the Big Vice

next category is SIGNS -
if only I'd know I needed a V sign while at the airport recently and I could have taken a Virgin Airlines sign and I saw a Volvo Sign while driving on Friday and not able to stop to take it, so I went searching through my photo album and found these 2.
This is a Very Impressive Sign, not sure if Callan took this when he was in Korea or Tim took it in Japan, unfortunately I wasn't there to be impressed.

and this is just to show that the look on Mackenzies face is a SIGN that sometimes a piece of mud cake CAN be to big

New boots

LOOK WHAT I'VE GOT........
these are my steel capped work boots, needed for working in the Sculpture studio at school - aren't' they fabo

here are a couple of photos from the storm we had last week that fried our computer router, look at the build up of hail on the sail outside the window and the neighbours lawn is white with a carpet of hail

look at the size of this hailstone, MIL and I were standing next to each other at the back door looking out and could not hear each other, even when yelling, the noise was so loud, I really thought the skylights on the back verandah were going to shatter, I unfortunately got a few dents in my car from the pounding