White Threads

seeing how others live

Yesterday at church we participated in a slum life simulation game facilitated by Tear Australia. In the game our family had to make paper bags to a good standard and sell them to shopkeepers in order to earn money to live off.

During the course of the game our house burnt down and we had to move to a new house. One of our children contracted measles and we had to pay for her to go to the doctor in order to survive.

We needed to make enough money to pay our rent, buy our food etc. It was expected that by the end of the game we should have earned enough money to send a daughter to school, which we were able to do. We did manage to survive, and managed to stay out of “under the bridge” which is where you had to go if you were evicted or didn’t have enough money to purchase food. We finished the game with only a pittance left over.

Through the game, I felt panicky. We needed to keep making bags in order to earn enough money to live off. In the first round, we did very well, making many more bags than the other families (those fine motor skills coming to the fore!). However, in subsequent rounds, when tragedies visited us, I kept wondering if we would be able to earn enough. Would our house burn down again? Would one or both of our children get sick? It was a constant struggle to keep our heads above water.

We debriefed at dinner last night, talking about how we felt during the game. My children are ages where they were really able to engage with the game. We discussed the sacrifice of sending a child who could be earning money, to school. While the game was set in an Indian slum, we remembered seeing such children when we lived in Ethiopia; children out earning money to support their families. Having lived in a “third world” country really helped us to see how yesterday’s game for us, is real life for some people.

Rural marketplace in Ethiopia

It was a really valuable experience and one I would highly recommend to anyone. If you are in Australia, and would like to learn more about Tear Australia’s simulation games, they have a listing of all available games on their website.

Whitework biscornu class

In a few weekends’ time (28-29th September) I will be teaching a new project at A Stitch in Time in Hobart. I teach in Hobart once a year, each time doing something different. So far I have taught Mountmellick embroidery and Portuguese Whitework. I love teaching down there, as the students are always so lovely (and accomplished!) and it is a gorgeous shop. Usually we get students coming from all over Tasmania, because Tasmania really isn’t a very large place!

This year’s class uses a highly textured counted whitework technique to make a pretty biscornu. It is worked on 28 count linen, with pearl cotton. The embroidery will be started in class, but finished in the student’s own time.

The counted whitework and the buttonholed lace edging will be taught in class, and there will be an explanation of the construction of the biscornu.

It would be advantageous for students to have experience with counted embroidery for this class, though the technique itself will be new to all students.

The class still has spaces available, so if you would like to be one of the first in Australia to learn this technique, please contact Mary-Anne at A Stitch in Time. Phone: (03) 6223 3871. A kit is supplied, so you will have no preparation prior to the class, and just need to turn up! I’d love you to join us.

class submissions complete

Yesterday morning I finished the stitching on the last of my very large batch of class submissions. Yay! I then had to photograph it and write up the notes to go with it. There was a class description, kit contents, my classroom requirements etc.

I’m not sure when I’ll be able to show you some of the class projects that I’ve submitted. Hopefully I can show you some of them in the next few weeks, when they go public, but others might be a few months longer yet. I’m just itching to show you all!

Now I can get on with writing my next book. Finally. Well, sort of. I have another class in a few weeks, and the class notes for that need to be written.

However, I feel like I’ve finally come out of the end of a very long tunnel. Yesterday afternoon and evening I treated myself to reading a book. I’ve been meaning to read “To Kill a Mockingbird” again for some time, so after starting it on the weekend, yesterday I finished it off. It felt quite decadent to be reading a book!

Canberra class

Last weekend I spend the weekend in Canberra with a lovely group of women, teaching a Portuguese Whitework class for the ACT embroiderers’ guild. They were a delightful group of women, and highly accomplished stitchers. They made excellent progress with their hand towels, and worked to a very high standard. Thank you to everyone who made me feel so very welcome!

I tried a new method of starting the class. Previously I have had difficulty getting everyone started in a timely manner for the Portuguese whitework technique, because it is extremely precise, and attention is required.

It is my practice to show the stitchers and techniques to the students in groups of two or three. It means that they get to see everything very close up, and really get my attention to make sure it is in the right place, and that they’re doing the right thing. However, this means that I can’t be everywhere at once, and some people have had to wait a bit for my attention. It has been a problem, and it needed to be solved.

So this time I prepared a page of notes with large pictures, to help them get started. Everyone had a copy of this, and were able to refer to it. It showed and stated very clearly where they needed to start and how they needed to start. Of course, I still moved around the class providing assistance, but it meant that I didn’t have to be everywhere at once. It meant that everyone could get going much faster, and I was pleased that it worked very well. I’m always trying to improve my teaching, to give students a better experience in my classes.

This week I have been madly working on class submissions for no less than three large needlework events! They were all due imminently, until yesterday afternoon when all teachers were given a week’s extension on submissions for one of the events. What a relief! The pressure was off immediately!

Today I’ll be photographing needlework for my submissions to one of the events, then just getting on with more stitching. While it has been extremely busy, with much to be done, I can’t complain about the amount of enjoyable stitching I’ve been doing!

Expressions of interest

From time to time I receive emails from organisations asking me to submit class proposals for their upcoming event. Usually these are greeted by me with great excitement as I think of all the possibilities.

Well, this morning I received a more unusual request for an expression of interest. It was on behalf of “the Libya Government”. 🙂

Following the successful transition of a new Libya Government and the announcement of investments in several infrastructure and construction projects, Libya has become a desirable country to invest in. Kindly advise if your company has the license or capability to execute a mutil million contract supply project for the Government of Libya. If your answer is yes, kindly furnish me your response. Thank you and treat very urgent. Due to numerous emails received in my official email, Please for my quick response to your email, send your reply to both private email: (email address removed) and Official email: (email address removed) for my urgent attention

Ali

My family and I have been dreaming up ideas I could submit to them. The Reader suggested an embroidered train. The Husband suggested I could knit them a road. The Gymnast suggested a knitted and embroidered bus. I think they’re not thinking big enough.

I think that we could applique a whole network of roads across the whole country. We could build bus stops and train stations from needlelace. I’m thinking libraries, schools and hospitals, decorated with colourful embroidery and crochet, and hand woven curtains instead of doors.

What else do you think I should put in my proposal? It’s worth millions of dollars, so it is definitely worth me putting in a submission, don’t you think?! 😉

eyestrain headaches

Since coming home from our trip to Italy, I have been extremely busy with sewing. I got stuck straight into a big new project, and then after the recent retreat I taught at, I’ve been stuck into stitching the new projects for next year’s retreat.

In all, I’ve been suddenly spending a lot more time on close up work than I was before we went away. Not surprisingly, my body has been saying, “Stop!” I’ve developed headaches centred around my eyes, which seem to be there most of the time.

Yesterday I had my eyes tested by the optometrist, and yes, my prescription has changed – the old one is now too strong. (I am short sighted, so don’t actually need my glasses for my stitching.) Because it is too strong, my eyes are over focusing when I do so much close up work, and that seems to be causing my headaches.

New glasses are on their way with correct prescription. Hopefully that will help. In the mean time, I have to remember to take my glasses off when I stitch.

One of my embroidery applique projects is going extremely well. I’m really pleased with the look of the piece, and how the embroidery works with it. I still have yet to start the other one.

Next weekend I’ll be off to Canberra to teach a workshop for the ACT guild in Portuguese Whitework. I’m looking forward to that, and hopefully Canberra will put some slightly warm weather on for me. 🙂 Next week will probably mostly be class preparation, but hopefully I’ll be able to continue with some of my own stitching.

Happy Left-Handers Day!

Apparently today is International Left-Handers Day. I have no idea who decrees these things, but this being the home of left-handed embroidery, why not celebrate it?!

As you probably know, I am left-handed (to misquote from “The Princess Bride”!). I wrote The Left-Handed Embroiderer’s Companion because I realised how much left-handed embroidery students loved having a left-handed teacher, and I thought that if I packaged myself up into a book, then they could take me everywhere with them!

And it seems that lefties love the book. I regularly get people telling me how much they love seeing the needle pointing in the direction that makes sense to them. I’ve also had many right-handed grandmas so pleased to be able to give the book to their left-handed grandchildren, to help them teach their grandchildren to do embroidery. I’m pleased to have helped so many people!

As well as our left-handed stitch dictionary, we also stock left-handed embroidery scissors. These scissors have the blades mounted the opposite way to regular scissors. With regular scissors, when you open the blades, the left blade goes down and the right blade goes up. With left-handed scissors, the left blade comes up, and the right blade goes down. This makes it easier for a left-hander to see what they are cutting.

We also stock left-handed thread, which is spun in a particular way, just for left-handers, and left-handed fabric which is woven the opposite direction to regular fabric. No, I’m kidding! There is no such thing as left-handed thread or fabric! 🙂

So, to all the left-handed embroiderers out there, happy Left-Handers Day!

Southern Highlands jaunt

Yesterday, after going to the earlier service at our church we drove down to the Southern Highlands. Arriving about lunch time, we decided that Bowral might be the best place to have some lunch.

You may know that some in our family have food issues, primarily dairy allergy and gluten intolerance. There are other foods that make life really uncomfortable as well, but they’re the main things. One of them by themselves can be hard, but put the two together, and eating out can become quite difficult, especially at lunch time when many cafes serve stuff on various guises of bread.

We wandered up and down the main street, trying to find somewhere where we could eat something. One cafe said plainly on their menu that dishes could not be changed as it would slow down lunch service. Well, that sounded wonderfully inflexible. We moved on.

Eventually, I hit on the idea that there was a wholefoods store with a cafe, that might have suitable food. Often people move to a diet based around whole foods and organic foods because they have food issues, the idea being that when you’re (for example) gluten-free, it is easier to prepare your own food from good quality “real” foods, because you know you can trust it.

Imagine our delight when the staff member immediately went out to the kitchen to find out what would suit our diet. She came back and suggested no less than 4 dishes on the menu. We found a table! We enjoyed an absolutely delicious lunch at Raw and Wild on Bong Bong Street (yes, that seriously is the street’s name!) in Bowral. Each member of the family enjoyed a completely suitable and extremely yummy meal.

The menu stated that you should inform the waiter if you had special dietary requirements and that they would do what they could to accommodate. We sincerely thanked the staff for their flexibility and willingness to serve people with special dietary requirements. We were so impressed, and so grateful!

Then we went on to Berrima, so that I could go to Berrima Patchwork to choose my fabrics for next year’s projects for “Quilting in the Highlands”. I like to use their fabrics because then they can put aside enough for the classes, and they won’t have to go searching for something to match a fabric that I might have bought locally to me.

While we looked at fabrics, The Husband and The Reader went off to Berkelouw Books just out of Berrima, to the large store they have in a barn there. I’m sure they enjoyed their time there.

The Gymnast and I enjoyed spending some time with Tamsin and Sue, and choosing fabrics. If you’ve been reading White Threads for a while, you’ll remember that The Gymnast’s moniker used to be Rainbow Girl. She loves colour, so it was great to have her input!

As for this year, I’ll be teaching two classes again at Quilting in the Highlands next year. That meant choosing two lots of fabrics for two different classes. Again I will be focusing on embroidery for applique, but this time the two classes will have slightly different foci. I’ll leave it at that for now, and explain the two classes in time, after Tamsin has publically released the details of the retreat.

As I was standing at the counter, while Tamsin cut my desired portions of fabric, two people came in through the door. I first recognised the young girl, and then realised that it was Sylvia Kennedy, a past editor of Embroidery and Cross Stitch Magazine, and her granddaughter. Sylvia had introduced her granddaughter to me at the Sydney craft show back in June. It was lovely to see them both again. As with us, they were a long way from home too! It’s funny who you meet in unexpected places!

(That does tell you how good the selection of fabric at Berrima Patchwork is, though. I feel they have a much better selection of fabrics and quality patchwork and quilting products than anywhere local to me, and we had to drive about 1.5 hours to get there.)

When we got back home, late in the afternoon, I washed all the fabrics, ironed them, and hung them out to dry. Today I’ll get stuck into working with them.

On Saturday I did a little bit of work on my website and on this blog. I fixed up the header on both, so that they now match (they didn’t previously!) and show the current Vetty Creations logo. I also changed my spam protector on the blog. I’m hoping that you all are still able to comment. It would be lovely if some of you could try, so that I know whether it is working or not! Perhaps you could comment to tell me what enjoyable needleworky things you did on your weekend?

Quilting in the Highlands through other eyes

A couple of day ago I received Sandra Leichner’s online newsletter update, an account of her time in Australia at Quilting in the Highlands. Sandra was one of the US teachers who joined us. You might enjoy reading her account.

Michele Hill (of William Morris quilting fame) was one of the students in my class, and has written a blog post about her time in my class. You can read it on Michele’s blog. There were of course many other lovely students in my class, but I don’t know if any of them have written accounts of their time in my class. I’m not just singling Michele out because she is a “name”! 🙂

Tamsin, from Berrima Patchwork, has posted many many pictures of the whole Quilting in the Highlands retreat on their Facebook page.
Quilting in the Highlands Day 1
Quilting in the Highlands Day 2
Quilting in the Highlands Day 3
Quilting in the Highlands Day 4
Unfortunately, if you are not a member of Facebook, I am not sure that you will be able to view these photos.

The whole experience was very enjoyable. Thanks again to Tamsin and Sue for such a wonderful retreat for both teachers and students alike!

my local environment

I shared this picture yesterday on the Vetty Creations Facebook page. Most mornings I go for a walk through this bushland park before I get stuck into my work for the day. I find that it helps to clear my mind and get the blood circulating through my body. The days when I do not do it, I find that it does make a difference to how I feel.

These past few days I have been continuing with working on my tablecloth, and also thinking through ideas and processes for my possible classes for next year’s Quilting in the Highlands Retreat. I have been putting needle to fabric, and testing things out.

Yesterday I went into town to purchase peacock feathers. Peacock feathers?! Yep, peacock feathers! I need them as visual reference for something I am working on. They are SO so so so beautiful! The colours are simply incredible!

My journey into the CBD involved train trips over the Sydney Harbour Bridge, and it was such a beautiful day to be near the harbour. The sun was shining in its lovely winter way, the sky was blue and the harbour looked gorgeous.

Whenever I take a train trip, I always take something with me to work on. I feel a bit lost sitting on the train with nothing in my hands. Yesterday I took my tablecloth, and got quite a bit done. When you take public transport, do you take something to keep your hands and time occupied?