White Threads

Back to school

The last of my family members returns to school today for the new school year, so the house will be quiet again.

Apart from spending a lot of time with the family, particularly dressmaking with The Reader, I’ve been working solidly on embroidery for the book during the school holidays. I’ve written an article for a magazine, and am currently working on another one.

I don’t think I actually ever updated you to let you know that happily my sewing machine was fixed soon after Christmas. It is lovely to have it back in working order again. I was so pleased that I didn’t have to buy a new one – I would have tried to get a second hand one, anyway, as I believe the older ones are better.

Over the next few months I’ll be working hard to finish the book I am currently working on, so that it is hopefully ready for publication during the middle of the year. And then the plan is to get stuck into the next book – whatever that might be!

Today I need to get my head back into “work” gear, and start putting working routines back in place. Not sure that is going to go so well just yet. 🙂

I need to get some more photography done for the book over the next few weeks, so I’ll also need to get my brain into a photography space and starting “seeing” again. I find that it takes time to get back to the place where good photographic composition happens. I always find that photographing small things is much easier than photographing large things, and the things I need to photograph next are large ones.

I hope your week is going well, and is filled with creativity.

holidays continue

I’ve been neglecting you. I’m sorry.

The office purge has been continuing here. The bins went out absolutely choc-a-block last week, and I still need to refill them for this week. I’ve finished the embroidery panel for the bottom of the dress I am making, and started on my next project. I’ve been doing stuff with the family, seeing it is school holidays. I’ve been writing some articles for magazines, and feeling guilty about the things on my To Do list that I haven’t gotten to yet.

I accepted a delivery of 1.4 tonnes of books, all of which had to be moved from their place of delivery to their storage spot. All 96 cartons, each weighing about 15kg had to be removed from their pallet, put on the industrial sized trolley, pushed to their resting place and removed from the trolley. Yes, I moved all 1.4 tonnes myself. I expected to have dreadful aches and pains the next day, but surprisingly I was fine!

One of the fun activities I did with my girls was a “Rockpool Ramble” with a marine biologist from the Central Coast Marine Discovery Centre. It was at Bateau Bay, about an hour from Sydney. The bay has two rock platforms, which at low tide are exposed. It was a really wonderful time of discovery, learning about the sea creatures that we were seeing and the environment in which they live.

I think the highlight for me was seeing a really ugly sea slug, which apparently aren’t common in the area. It looked like a big thick oozy black thing. Not the most attractive of creatures…

Here the girls are experimenting with the cunjevoi, or sea squirts. I remember doing that when I was little; pressing the cunjevoi and seeing which way it squirted!

The rockpools were beautiful, and if I was that way inclined, I thought they would make a wonderful embroidery subject. I’m not that way inclined though, because I am too busy wrapped up in traditional whitework!

I feel like I’ve had a good mix of relaxation and work during these holidays. School starts back next week, so I should be able to resume my normal routine a little more. And probably get less work done than I’ve managed to in the holidays!

Post-Christmas purge

On Saturday we began a massive clean out. The girls needed to go through their clothes and remove the items that no longer fitted. They needed to organise and throw out stuff.

I needed to attack my office. And I mean ATTACK. I’m dreadful at keeping my office organised. Typically, there are boxes of books, piles of fabric, bits of paper, thread etc everywhere.

I never know where to start, so The Husband has to come and direct, as he’s very good at organising, chucking stuff out, and generally knowing what to attack next.

Between all four of us, we must have come up with about 15 bags of stuff to throw away. The girls had several boxes of toys, books and other things to give away, and several bags of clothes to pass on to others.

We filled our bin early in the day. And the recycling bin quickly became too heavy to add anything more. Fortunately we have neighbours who are not using their bins at the moment, so we’ve filled one, and will top up any others that are available on the night that the bins go out. (This is why we do this during holiday time. My sister used our bin last week when we were away. She was happy to accept the challenge to fill it completely!)

The Gymnast is a very maths-minded girl. She loves to sort things, categorise them, and group like things together. Then she likes to put things into a sensible order. And she loves rainbows. So who better to organise my threads into the new boxes I bought to put them in?!

Some time ago I outgrew the boxes I had for my threads, so they have just been taking over my office a bit. There were some new ranges of threads that were stuck in a bag. It made it difficult to see what was actually there, and therefore to use them. So I hopped on the internet and found some clear plastic boxes with dividers that will be just perfect. My local shop didn’t have them in stock, but as we were further afield yesterday, I managed to pick two of them up from another store. I’ll still need more, but it is a start!

When we picked up The Gymnast from gymnastics training yesterday, I told her I had a job for her. I explained that I wanted her to sort my threads into groups for storing in my new boxes. Once she realised that she could do it quietly sitting on the lounge (yesterday was her first day back at gym in two weeks, so she was tired and expecting to be quite sore!), she eagerly accepted the challenge.

She’s done a great job of organising all my Dinky Dyes threads, and all my balls of pearl cotton – well, all the ones I could find!

There’s still heaps more purging and organising to be done in my office, but I am somewhat limited until the bins are emptied!

escape to Canberra

Happy New Year! Yes, I realise that I’m a few days late, but just yesterday we arrived home from a family break in Canberra. We drove down on the day after Christmas (known as Boxing Day here in Australia), much to the chagrin of my sister in law who thought that we were mad heading out of Sydney on the morning after Christmas. We left at about 9am, and the roads were SO quiet. My SIL always heads north the day after Christmas, and I think that’s the difference – everyone goes to the coast making the roads absolutely full with awful traffic, whereas no-one goes to Canberra between Christmas and New Year. Accordingly, we had a smooth, quick trip down there.

We had rented an apartment through AirBnb, which we also used on our Italy trip last year. We have found all our bookings through AirBnb to be just wonderful, and this was no different. We stayed in Kingston, which is quite close to the centre of Canberra, and it was deathly quiet. We soon decided that Canberra was empty. Practically no-one was there!

Last year, Canberra celebrated its 100th anniversary. It is Australia’s capital city, but was only “created” 100 years ago. A location was chosen for the capital, the city designed, and then just *put* there. Because of this, very few people actually grew up there, or have roots there. Its population is very transient, and most people go “home” to their families for Christmas – elsewhere! So, really, Canberra was pretty empty!

We took advantage of this to go to the Gold of the Incas exhibition at the National Gallery, and Mapping our World at the National Library. Both were wonderful for different reasons.

Among the treasures shown at the Gold of the Incas exhibition, there were quite a number of textiles. This was a complete surprise to me, but given the climatic conditions in Peru, the textiles had been amazingly well preserved, though hundreds or thousands of years old.

There were four main types of textiles shown in the exhibition: woven and embroidered textiles, printed textiles, woven lace openwork, and incredible feather textiles (they’re hard to know what to call them!).

Not surprisingly, I particularly enjoyed the woven and embroidered textiles. The ground fabric was woven, often using really highly skilled weaving techniques, from camelid fibre – alpaca wool – and then embroidered with cotton or alpaca wool. All the embroidery appeared to be done in stem stitch, both as an outline and as a filling. The threads were Z twist, rather than the S twist threads that most of us usually use. I had a discussion about this with another woman standing by the same exhibit as me. We pondered whether this was a cultural thing, or whether the people of the Paracas culture might have been predominantly left-handed and therefore more likely to twist their threads the opposite way. We don’t know the reason, but it was interesting to ponder.

The example that I have linked to above (with photo and supporting information, so do follow the link!) was quite beautiful. That it was done in the period between 100BC and 200AD means that at approximately 2000 years old, it was incredibly well preserved. There were small patches where the fabric was missing – perhaps it had fallen apart or been eaten – but the colours were vibrant and really, it looked like contemporary work. Quite amazing.

The openwork lace examples were stunning. They seemed to be a combination of netting and woven lacework techniques. They were all white, and again, in amazingly good condition.

The feather textiles were a real surprise. There were probably three different examples of this style of work in the exhibition. They had a woven fabric base. Then feathers were knotted onto string/thread, which was sewn onto the surface of the fabric, creating a feathered textile. The feathers were brightly coloured and in their natural state, from brightly coloured birds, rather than dyed. They were like nothing I’d ever seen before, so therefore very interesting.

There were also many other gold, ceramic and other artefacts in the exhibition, and overall, it was very worthwhile. However, I’m a textile person, so that’s what I’ve chosen to focus on here.

“Mapping our World” at the National Library of Australia featured another one of my loves. If I ever had to change my profession, I could very happily become a cartographer. Before I started my own business, I used to work for a publisher as a book designer, and one of the books I worked on, for about a year, was a map book. I LOVED it!

The exhibition had maps which showed how mapping has changed throughout the centuries, and then how Australia was slowly added to the world map. We had a guided tour with a wonderful volunteer guide, Colleen, and she was fascinating. You could tell she loved maps, loved history, and loved sharing these with others. The maps were beautiful, and the prized piece of the exhibition was certainly Fra Mauro’s “Map of the world” from the 1400s, on loan from Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice. It truly is an amazing treasure. The story goes that a British museum wanted to borrow it for an exhibition, but were not given permission. The National Library of Australia was given permission though, and it made the perilous journey all the way from Venice to Australia. Why was Australia allowed to borrow it, but not the UK? The reason given was that anyone in Europe can pop over to Venice to see it, but making the journey from Australia is much harder. We are very fortunate to have it here!

You can see a video of the installation of the Fra Mauro map – it was a difficult process that involved removing a wall! (The video is embedded into the post on my website, however, if you’re reading the emailed version of this post, you can see the video here.

As we were in Canberra for New Year’s Eve, we decided to take the kids to see the 9pm fireworks. Fireworks in Sydney for New Year’s Eve are a Really Big Deal, involving finding a position on the Sydney Harbour foreshore (near the Harbour Bridge which usually forms the focal point) at some time, usually early, in the day, and then waiting (staking out your plot so that no-one else nicks any of your space) until 9pm, or if you’re really brave, midnight. Then you have to battle public transport to get home. For young kids, it’s just not really practical, as it ends up being an EXTREMELY late night.

Canberra, however, is a different story! We learned that the fireworks in Canberra are based in Civic, and as long as you’re anywhere near Civic, or between the bridges on Lake Burley Griffin, you’ll get a fine view. As we were staying in Kingston, right near the waterfront, we were only about 1/2 hour’s walk away. So we set off to see them at about 8:30pm, arriving at a suitable place at 8:59pm. With one minute to go until they started, we had our pick of the places to sit, and enjoyed the (admittedly, not terribly exciting, but our girls had never seen live fireworks before, only on telly, so it was exciting for them) fireworks with very few people anywhere near us. Contrasting this with the last time that we braved the Sydney fireworks (maybe 15-20 years ago), it was a very different experience!

We did a lot of nothing while we were away, just enjoying the chance to relax. I did a lot of embroidery, which while it was actually work, it is still relaxing, so doesn’t feel like work. There are lots of things to do in Canberra, especially for families, but as we go down to Canberra every year or two, when there is an interesting exhibition on, we’ve done most of those things before. We don’t feel the need to go to them all, each time we’re down there!

This year at Vetty Creations is going to be a year of book writing. I’ve deliberately planned to have very few classes, so that I can focus on getting my current book done, and hopefully get stuck into the next one as well. I hope you’ll enjoy it with me via my blog and Facebook this year, and contributing to the conversation when you’re able. Thanks for your support of Vetty Creations!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from all of us here at Vetty Creations! (Really, there’s just me at Vetty Creations, but for the sake of sounding extra friendly, let’s include The Husband, The Reader and The Gymnast in that!)

We’ve just been to church for the Christmas Eve service to celebrate Christ, my saviour’s birth, with The Gymnast bring the star in the pageant. No, not Mary or Jesus, the actual star! 🙂

The Reader and I both wore our new dresses, which were finished this afternoon, just in the nick of time!

Tomorrow we will celebrate Christmas with various family members throughout the day.

After Christmas, like many other people around here, I’ll be taking a week off to spend time with my family. I’ll be back in the office on 3rd January. Any orders, enquiries, emails, phone messages etc will be attended to on my return. I apologise for any inconvenience.

I wish you and your family a very happy Christmas. I pray that you will know the Good News that through Jesus, we can be saved.

A little bit sad

I think my sewing machine has died. My lovely mechanical Bernina bought when I was about 15 and doing Textiles and Design at school. It’s a bit sad. It has lasted me nearly 25 years, but I don’t think it’s under warranty any more. 😉

Yesterday morning I realised that my daughter and I were probably going to spend the day each wanting to use my sewing machine. So I borrowed my sister’s, which is exactly the same machine, so that we could each sew. We never actually needed to use a machine concurrently during the day, so my sister’s machine is still waiting to be used.

We each did quite a bit of sewing on our dresses, though I held The Reader up a bit by having to finally finish off re-drafting/altering the skirt part of hers.

Last night I was sitting on the lounge thinking, “I really should sew that seam,” but I couldn’t be bothered – it was extremely hot yesterday! My husband and I were each sitting on the other side of the room from the sewing machine. It was plugged in and turned on, but not being used.

Suddenly, we heard sparking, sputtering noises from the machine. There was a horrible electric-y smell and smoke started coming out of the machine. I raced over to it, and unplugged it. I hurriedly took it outside so that if it was going to catch on fire, it wouldn’t do it in the house. When it had cooled and the smoke dissipated, I brought it back inside.

I’m sad. It’s my wonderful Bernina 1030 machine. Hopefully it will be able to be fixed, though I’m not particularly hopeful. I’ll ring the machine-servicing fellow this morning, and hopefully he’ll be still able to take a look at it before Christmas – something I also doubt!

I have already chosen the machine I’d like to replace it with, if I need to, simply because I had already chosen the machine I’d like to buy The Reader, further down the track. It’s the Bernina 1008, which is the current mechanical model. I don’t want any of this computerised stuff. I just want a good, serviceable, workhorse machine that will last me a lifetime. Like this one was supposed to. 🙁

Public schools in Australia generally have Bernina sewing machines (maybe private schools too, but I wouldn’t know!), so moving between the machine at home and the one at school was seamless (sorry!) for me when I was at school, and has been for The Reader as well. And it says a great deal about the quality of a machine for it to be the one chosen for use in schools, which is what the Bernina 1008 model is generally used for.

Hopefully I’ll have an answer on the health of my machine before the end of the year, so that I can order a new one if I have to, at this year’s prices, rather than next year’s.

This was me using my beloved Bernina machine a few weeks ago at the gym. I had to adjust the tensioning straps of the new sprung floor as it was being installed, because we’d made some changes and they were now too long. By sewing them rather than cutting them, they would be completely recoverable when the gym wants to upgrade to a new floor one day, and sell the old one. Because the straps were already attached to one side of the floor, I had to position a table with my machine on the sprung floor to do the adjusting. I’ve never sewn on a sprung floor before – it was very bouncy! I’m glad to have a photo of me using my machine.

My husband did point out to me that I’ve had many good years of service from my machine, which is quite true, but I did hope that it would last me forever. And you never know, it may still be able to be fixed. I’m glad I have my sister’s machine to use so we can keep sewing, but I don’t want to kill it as well!

Holiday assignments

We are about to start summer school holidays here. For us, Christmas is not only the end of the year, but also the end of the school year. This means that public schools get at least six weeks holiday over the summer, and private schools often get a little more. Our girls go to public schools, so they’re about to start six lovely long weeks of holidays.

As you’ll know, The Reader (12 years old) has been doing the pattern making class with me. We’ve both learned a lot, but for The Reader it has been a little harder as she doesn’t yet have a good understanding of garment construction.

These holidays we’re going to work on that a bit. I’ve set her some homework. Ideally, I think she should have a good understanding of the construction of pants (trousers), a skirt, a lined dress, and a button up blouse. She has already made a pair of elastic waisted shorts at school, though her teacher is a food tech teacher, not a sewer, so didn’t teach them very well, but it’s a start! She also made a six gore skirt with yoke, earlier in the year, from a pattern she drafted, so that has been accomplished.

Now we need to move on to some more difficult things. Yesterday, The Reader was dismissed early after school Presentation Day (when all the academic, citizenship, and sports award are handed out – she was very well rewarded for all her hard work this year) so we took the opportunity and went shopping to The Remnant Warehouse in Alexandria, as they had a sale on fabric.

For the holiday homework, although she can draft her own patterns, I want her to use bought patterns as they have step by step instructions to follow for the garment construction. I think seeing and reading the instructions for herself (with me to help her understand them) is a more concrete way for her to learn, rather than me just telling her what to do next.

If I tell her what to do next, she’s more likely to blindly do what she’s told, whereas following written instructions will hopefully help her to actually understand the process.

In choosing suitable garments, I had certain criteria for her. The dress had to be sleeveless and either partially or fully lined, with a full bodice, rather than a bodice with separate straps that went over the shoulder. From this she will learn about lining bodices, understitching at the arm and neck holes, the order in which sew to seams, inserting a zip, etc.

I also wanted her to make a button up blouse, preferably with a collar, and definitely with sleeves (while long sleeves would be good to learn, it’s summer here, so short sleeves means she’ll be able to wear it sooner).

She chose two very nice patterns, both by Vogue: 8667 (dress A) and 8747 (blouse A). I’ve read through the instructions and she’ll learn heaps from these! Both have princess line seams, which will test her easing skills! The dress skirt has a couple of pleats, and the blouse has some gathers at the bust. She’s never done buttonholes, so that will be something very new and challenging!

Because she is very petite in both size and height, I’ll have to draft them down to her size (size 2, if you extrapolate Vogue’s sizing downwards). But we had to choose women’s patterns rather than children’s ones as she has more “shape” than a child, even though she is still physically that size. A little job for me before she starts making!

She’s chosen a pretty red polycotton for the dress, and a lovely lavender blue poplin for the blouse. She desperately wants to wear the dress on Christmas day, so we’ve got a bit of work ahead of us, especially because I’ll want her to make a toile of the bodice, seeing I have to alter the pattern so much!

The red fabric has been washed and dried, ready to start, so today being Saturday, we’re all systems go. (And I’d better get going on drafting down the pattern!) I don’t think she’s going to be pleased when I tell her we’re starting with a toile, and I can understand that, as I’d be wanting to get going in the real thing too!

I’m looking forward to seeing all that she learns from this process, and she’s really excited about it too. Her current desire is to be a fashion designer when she finishes school, so why not start learning for that now? And even if she never ends up pursuing that as a career, dressmaking skills are extremely worthwhile to have!

various sewing exploits

I thought you might like to know that I have finally completed the embroidery on my tablecloth! YAY! I still have the hem to do, which will be properly (and laboriously) hemstitched, so that will be a few more months work probably.

I have also been making scrunchies (hair tie thingys) for a gym fundraiser. I’ve finished one leotard for The Gymnast for Christmas, and have one more on the go. There’s currently colourful and sparkly lycra fabric all over the dining room!

Today, my Florence Broadhurst fabric for my new dress should be turning up (I’ve received a tracking notification that it is on board with the delivery driver), so then I will feel compelled to make that dress. Must exercise self control!

I have Christmas presents to make for various lovely people. Usually I make Christmas tree decorations for each of my husband’s staff and for school teachers and extra curricular tutors/coaches. This year I’m doing something different though, and making necklace pendants. (I hope none of the people who are going to receive one are reading this!)

I’ve finished drafting The Reader’s wool coat, but that can be on hold until after Christmas as it’s definitely not winter here! I’ve got a pair of pants to finish for CIAM, but as our classes have finished for the year, there’s no hurry with that either.

I think that is all I have actively on the go. That’s enough, isn’t it?! Are you working on Christmas presents or other things under a deadline at the moment?

Cynthia’s Christmas star

This is extremely decadent: a post just for the sake of one person. 🙂 (Everyone else is welcome to read it too, though!)

Cynthia, I thought you might like to see what ended up on top of our Christmas tree this year.

Each year, on the first weekend in December, The Husband, The Reader and The Gymnast put up the Christmas tree together. That usually means I have to search through my office for my box of Christmas decorations that I have made, and that I have received in Christmas ornament exchanges. It often takes me a little while to find them, as many of the ones I’ve made go off to the June craft show each year, as stitched models.

Each year the girls alternate between who gets to choose the thing (star or angel, usually) to go on top of the tree. Usually the one who chooses chooses a decoration that they made at school either some time in the past or that year. This year, the ornament chosen to go on top was an ornament that I received from Cynthia in an ornament swap a number of years ago. If I remember correctly, it was through the now defunct Country Bumpkin message boards.

I was in the kitchen doing foody sorts of things when they decorated the tree. When I came out and noticed what had been placed on top, I was so delighted to see what had been chosen, and I knew that Cynthia would be thrilled too!

Vetty Creations on Facebook

Have you visited Vetty Creations on Facebook yet? I have a page on Facebook specifically for Vetty Creations. I post on it quite regularly, usually little snippets of what I’m doing, what I’m working on etc. It’s a little like White Threads “Lite”.

I sometimes put links there to things I’ve been reading or products I’ve seen that I’ve liked. It’s also a great way for me to ask for opinions, and for you to give them to me really easily. You’ll often see things on the Vetty Creations Facebook page that I don’t post here on the blog, so it is worthwhile to “Like” it.

When you like us on Facebook, make sure you do it properly. 🙂 After clicking on the Like button, then hover your cursor over the button. The following panel should show up (after thinking for a little bit).

Select the “settings” option by clicking on it.

The following screen should now turn up.

Select the “all updates” option. This will mean that you won’t miss a thing. Whenever you see something on my Facebook page, you can easily share it with all your friends, so that they can enjoy it too.

Thanks for visiting us on Facebook!