White Threads

Friday relief!

On Friday I finally finished all five projects, their associated paperwork and photographs, and sent them off to Country Bumpkin as submissions for Beating Around the Bush 2014. I have no idea when I might hear back from them. My guess is that it could be some months.

They will have a lot to do, assessing the range of projects that have been submitted from all the many tutors, making sure there are no large overlaps, but a good spread of styles and projects. Then they will get back to tutors and let them know which ones have been selected.

By the time the actual conference rolls around next September, it will be a loooong time since I conceived of these projects!

This week I will be working on more illustrations for a training manual for Traumaid International, and preparing for two classes in Victoria this weekend. I’ll be teaching two Portuguese whitework projects; one at the Mornington Peninsular group of the Victorian embroiderers guild, and the other at the Melbourne HQ of the guild.

It is quite some years since I taught in Melbourne, and I can’t even remember what I last taught there. Perhaps it was Mountmellick or merezhka…?

We are also preparing for next week’s Crazy Hair Day at The Gymnast’s school. As you will remember from previous years we are ultra competitive about Crazy Hair Day! This year we have another creative solution in mind. 🙂

little embroidery snippets

I’m moving along with my five class submission projects. I have now completed four of them and am well into the fifth. I am very pleased with my progress and feel sure that it will all be submitted in time.

I’ve been enjoying stitching each day, and think it would be lovely to be that creative all the time! However, running my business isn’t always just creative!

I thought that you might find it tantalising to see little snippets of a couple of the projects that I have been working on. In time, when the actual classes have been selected from my submissions, and I have permission to spill the beans, I will show you more. It could be some time before this information is able to be released though, so you’ll just have to be happy with these little snippets for now.

Project three done

After having a week of feeling like I was achieving not very much except driving my kids everywhere (how many of us know that feeling, whether now or in the dim dark past?!) yesterday I had a big win, completing yet another of my five projects.

This one is an Elizabethan style embroidery, with beautiful silks in gorgeous colours, and lovely sparkly gold metallic threads. Yesterday morning I said that I really wanted to finish it by the end of the day. I didn’t think it was likely, but The Gymnast thought I could. In her ignorance she had no idea how much work was still involved, though she turned out to be correct!

I’m now moving on to all the little embroideries for my proposed finishing techniques class. The plan for this class (which may or may not get chosen) is that students will complete some simple cross stitched motifs before class and then in class we’ll make them up into a set of needlework accessories using lots of different construction techniques. Finishing techniques are really scary to some people, and I’d like to be able to give them the confidence to know they can do it themselves, and do it well.

I’m really looking forward to showing you photos of all the embroideries for these proposed classes, but unfortunately they’ll have to remain under wraps for quite some time yet.

Another project complete

On Friday night I finished the second of my five projects which I am working on as class submissions. I damp stretched it (instructions for this can be found in my book Portuguese Whitework) and it came up looking so lovely and crisp. I love damp stretching!

I then continued with the other project which I have already started. It is the one I think the powers that be are least likely to choose, but I’m enjoying stitching it.

Yesterday we were supposed to go to a baby shower, however it was cancelled because the baby arrived 4 weeks early the day before! I think that was rather a surprise for all of us, but particularly the parents! It meant we had a quiet afternoon at home with one of the girls’ friends coming over.

I spent the afternoon resizing a pair of leggings for The Gymnast. The National Head Coach is visiting her gym today, and they’ve been told they must be neatly attired with very neat hair. I realised that The Gymnast’s old leggings which she’s worn so thin that they now have a great big hole in the knee were not going to be acceptable! I already had purchased a new pair, but because she is so skinny, in order to get the right length, they were a little big around the waist. So I had to take them in at the waist and the ankles (because they’re not allowed to be baggy there, either!)

The national coach is not coming to see the girls in The Gymnast’s squad. She’s actually coming to see the elite girls who will be age eligible for the 2016 Olympics. The Gymnast fits into the 2020 group. However, The Gymnast’s coach has asked that all her squad wear Australian colours today (and particularly requested The Gymnast’s fake Australian team leotard that I made her for wearing during last year’s Olympic period) because she wants her girls to be noticed! She’s extremely proud of the girls she has in her squad and wants to make sure that the national coach sees the talent they have coming up in the ranks.

I think it is all a bit of a storm in a teacup, as the likelihood of the same person being in the national head coach job by the time the 2020 girls are ready for the Olympics is very low! But it is all very exciting for them, and I’m sure they’ll be on their best behaviour today. After school The Gymnast wants her hair redone from school hair to “competition hair”!

Despite all the excitement, I’ll be having a lovely calm day mostly at home, stitching away. 🙂

stitching hard

I spent much of the day yesterday stitching, stitching, stitching. I am madly working on class submissions. I have five to do. Two are partially done, one is finished and the other are still in the thought process. Some are styles I have taught before, and others are new to me as class subjects.

It is lovely to stitch all day and feel justified in doing so, because it HAS to be done!

What are you working on at the moment?

class submissions

Now that I’m back home, around all the other work I have to do and personal commitments, I’m squeezing in working on my submissions for next year’s Beating Around the Bush needlework conference in Adelaide.

I have lots of varied ideas, and I’d love for them all to go ahead, but unfortunately they won’t because there just aren’t enough teaching days to fit them all in!

In the meantime though, I’m enjoying coming up with new ideas and actually doing some embroidery. Lots of thread, fabric and ideas…

Final part of cruise travelogue

The last two days of classes were Portuguese whitework classes for me. Each day I was teaching two single day classes concurrently. Because the projects were so similar for me, it was not too hard to do, though other teachers had a harder time because their two single day projects were very different to each other. We were teaching two classes concurrently as this offered the students a MUCH wider range of classes that they could choose from.

A few of the students finished off their projects completely. It was lovely to see how much everyone learned, because Portuguese whitework is a new technique for practically everyone who does one of my Portuguese classes.

I had warned all the students that we would be working on 38 count linen, and that if they were at all concerned about the fabric count, they should bring appropriate magnification and lighting. Many found that my warning was very helpful, and true!

On the Thursday and Saturday nights of the cruise we had a sale night where the tutors with extra kits, supplies and books to sell all set up in one room, and we opened up to sell our wares. On the Thursday night, I arrived just before opening time because my dinner had been served to me quite late. I had to battle my way through the throngs to get into the room! Gary Clarke, one of the other tutors, was extremely kind in letting me share his table.

When they let the shoppers in, it was absolute bedlam, with people crammed into every single centimetre of space! Some reported coming to the door, walking in, and walking straight out again, because they just didn’t want to have to deal with the crush! The evening went well for us tutors though, so I was glad that I suggested the idea to the organisers the week before the cruise. As with many other instances, the organisers were very opening to listening to us tutors and making things happen for us.

The last full day of the cruise was pretty much my only full day off. And I felt a bit lost – not really knowing how to spend my time! I took the opportunity to go iceskating, as my daughters had said that I had to. My first few laps of the rink were a little wobbly, and I held onto the wall around the edge of the rink rather grimly. However, I regained my skating confidence (it must be 20 years since I last iceskated!) soon and was off and around much more happily.

In the morning I made a little bookmark for the waitress, Julieta, at our dinner table. She was so helpful and accommodating in making sure all my dietary requirements were catered for, and I was extremely grateful. Because of her and the kitchen staff, I remained well for the entire cruise.

My lovely dining companions.

Each evening, we were seated in the same dining room at the same table, with the same people. All the ladies at my table were just lovely, and it was great to get to know them a little better. My new friends came from around New South Wales and Victoria. Some knew each other already and were travelling as a group, and others, like me, didn’t know anyone else. They became the familiar faces I looked forward to seeing each night, and each day around the ship. Because I didn’t have my family with me, it was lovely to have those familiar faces.

On the final morning, of the cruise, we slipped quietly into Sydney Harbour before dawn, docking at about 6am. I alighted from the ship at 6:30am and raced home on the train. I was pleased to be able to see The Gymnast before she went off to school that morning. My husband and The Reader had already gone on their way for the day.

My dad picked me up from the train station and drove me home. We knocked on the back door. The Gymnast opened it. Her eyes went wide, she screamed and rushed to give me a great big hug. It had been particularly hard for her while I was away, as she’s a little younger and found it quite difficult with Mummy away.

It was lovely to be back home and reunited with all of them!

Would I do it again? Next year’s cruise brochure has already been released and all the tutors are a completely new set, so that no-one could be miffed by not being invited back. However, the following year – 2015 – they will start to invite tutors back. IF I am one who is invited back, then I would definitely accept the invitation! I did find it lonely being without my family, but the people I was with were lovely. And maybe next time my husband might be able to come with me. (Not sure whether the girls would be able to get time off school and gymnastics. We’ll cross that bridge if and when we come to it!)

In terms of the needlework conference organisers, as tutors we found them excellent to work with. It was a risk for most of us as we were not previously acquainted with them, and did not know what they were like as conference organisers. However, it all went very smoothly. They always had listening ears, taking into account our thoughts, needs and desires as tutors. They did an excellent job of keeping us tutors happy, and that in turn helped to keep the participants happy! I have great respect for them and would happily work with them again.

Many thanks therefore to Simon and Maureen Laughlin, and Clare McGee. It was very pleasurable working with you, and I was thrilled to have the opportunity and honour to teach on your inaugural needlework cruise.

Thank you to all the students who chose my classes from amongst the many on offer! I enjoyed my time with you, and I hope you were happy with what you learned (especially how to thread a needle with a piece of paper!). As I told you in your classes, please feel free to email or phone me if you have any questions as you are finishing off your projects. And I’d love to see photos of the finished projects!

Needlework cruise travelogue part 3

Shipped docked in Noumea. You can see a tiny little container ship behind. The Voyager of the Seas is just HUGE!

Following our first day in Noumea, I arose early the next morning for my usual walk, and realised that if there is ever a good time to take photos of a container terminal, it is definitely around dawn. (Actually, around dawn and dusk are the best times to take any outdoor photos, as the light is particularly lovely at both those times of day.)

To the right of our ship was the delightfully industrial container terminal.

To the left of our ship was the equally delightfully industrial nickel plant. Nickel is a big industry for New Caledonia. I was pleased with this photo, which turned an ugly nickel plant into a reasonably attractive landscape photo!

Looking further up the harbour in the soft early morning light.

Following the disappointing announcement that we would be staying in port at Noumea for another day, and not going to Fiji, the ship’s captain told us that they had organised for an extra day of onshore excursions if people wanted to take advantage of them.

However, for all us needleworkers, that wasn’t particularly useful or helpful as our next day was a scheduled class day. All our class days were scheduled for “at sea” days, and as we were supposed to be on our way to Fiji that day, it was supposed to be an “at sea” day.

So we sat in port with the lovely backdrop of the container terminal and did more Mountmellick embroidery. It did mean that I had a day of not leaning over people to help them and suddenly lurching sideways!

We left Noumea at 4pm that afternoon, in lovely sunshine. As we had to be out of the class area (a dining room) by 4pm so that the staff could set up for dinner, I took my stuff straight back to my room and then went up on deck to enjoy the view.

Leaving Noumea.

Farewell Noumea!

The following day we were supposed to be in Fiji, so therefore we would have been enjoying onshore excursions. However, because we were at sea, as a bonus to our students, we offered them an extra half day of class time. Most of my students turned up and as I had already finished instructing them the day before, I sat with them and worked on my own embroidery, while they continued working on their Mountmellick.

I made sure all my students knew that I was completely interruptible, and throughout the morning they continued to ask my advice and for help. Many used the time to really get knitting the fringe under control. It was an enjoyable, relaxing morning.

That afternoon I went to the ship library, found a book and took it up on deck to enjoy the fresh air and read. I didn’t get much reading done… though I did get a lot of snoozing done! Obviously I needed some sleep!

Needlework cruise travelogue part 2

The day after our first class day, we were in Noumea. We arrived early in the morning, docking around 8am. I was up very early, as usual, watching the dawn and our approach to New Caledonia.

Sunrise. Isn’t the light on those clouds simply amazing?!

Sunrise

Approaching New Caledonia

The sky was again gorgeous, with a lot of lovely clouds making it so interesting. As we approached the islands, they were shrouded in grey, but as the sun came up, the light caught on parts of the highlands, and then on the lower parts too.

A small islet.

Waves breaking as we passed through a small gap in the reef.

We passed between a gap in a reef of some sort to enter the harbour. To me it looked like a large sand bar.

Coming in to dock.

Polynesian welcoming party.

I went downstairs for breakfast and my shower and when I came back out on deck again, I could hear far off singing. We were quite close to the dock, and when I looked, I could see a little group of specks on the dock. As we came closer, those specks turned out to be a singing, dancing, drumming, Polynesian cultural group. They were singing, dancing and drumming to welcome us! It was wonderful!

I had booked to go kayaking for my onshore excursion, but that tour didn’t leave until about 11am. However, I wanted to catch the shuttle bus into the city centre so go souvenir shopping for my family.

Dominique selling her beautiful jewellery.

Just before 9am, I caught the shuttle bus which deposited me and many others at the tourist information centre in town. Upstairs was a souvenir market. A lot of the goods were not the sort of quality I was interested in, but there was one stall that really caught my eye. A lovely girl called Dominique Subileau was selling jewellery from clay that she makes herself, and I thought it was beautiful. I stocked up on some necklaces, a brooch and some earrings for various family members. She tested out her English on all of us, her customers. She had a lovely French accent!

Back to the ship for some morning tea – I knew I would be having lunch very late, because my tour was over lunch time – of delicious fresh pineapple. Yum! (How they kept serving us fresh pineapple throughout the cruise when they took on no fresh food in port, I don’t know!)

And then down to the dock for boarding my bus. There were about 20 of us going kayaking in that timeslot. Another group had gone earlier. We were driven to Dumbea River, outside of the city of Noumea. The river was slow flowing and gentle. It was practically clear, so you could see quite well to the stones on the river floor.

Kayaking on the Dumbea River

As I did not have a companion, I was paired up with one of the instructors, Julien. We headed off, leading the group. In the first five minutes, my arms went jelly-like and I thought I had made a terrible mistake in choosing to go kayaking! I knew I was pretty fit, but most of my exercise is walking which tends to focus on the lower body, rather than the arms. However, as Julien and I were at the head of the group, and there were some stragglers, we stopped to let them catch up. This gave my arms the chance to rest, and I was fine after that.

Because some of the others were struggling, I was re-paired up with the wife of a husband and wife team. Dianne and I were not very good! Julien actually strapped our kayak to the back of his so that we could keep paddling, but go a bit straighter! After some time he unclipped us and we continued more successfully.

Stopping for a swim.

We were paddling upstream for about 1.5 kilometres, to a small beach at the side of the river. There were pulled off to the side, beached our kayaks and went swimming. The water was an extremely pleasant temperature (rather Goldilocks-like – not too hot, not too cold) and it was very relaxing and enjoyable.

On the way back Dianne and I did much better, managing to make good progress and keep our kayak reasonably straight. I was the person on the back of the kayak, which made me the “captain” and able to control the direction we were going. At the end of our kayaking jaunt, Dianne and I voted ourselves the “most improved”! 🙂

When I got back to the ship, I immediately had a shower, being a little cold and wet, because I’d gotten saturated during the kayaking. That made me feel much more comfortable!

I took some embroidery up to Cloud Nine, which was a room overlooking much of the ship, where a lot of us went to do our embroidery in the afternoons and evenings. (It was also where the knitting-needle-less Knit and Nag was supposed to happen!) I sat with some others and enjoyed the view and the embroidery.

We were supposed to leave port at 4pm. 4pm came and went and we supposed that someone very important, or perhaps a whole tour group was running late and they were waiting for them.

At about 5pm, an announcement came over the PA system. “Hello, this is Captain Ryan, your ship’s captain.” (Imagine this in a Norwegian accent!) There was an electrical fault with the ship that meant we were unable to leave port, and therefore would be staying docked in Noumea until 4pm the following day, giving them time to fix it, rather than just going back to sea and having a worse failure. This in turn meant that we would lose too much time to go to Fiji, and therefore would instead just slowly be returning to Sydney.

It was a disappointment. Some people on the cruise were extremely upset and demanding all sorts of things, but really, these things just sometimes happen. I was disappointed that I wouldn’t get to go snorkelling in Fiji, but the reason I’d gone on the cruise was for the needlework, and that was all happening, so I was happy. And, at the same time as our cruise, there was another cruiseship drifting in the Caribbean, without working plumbing, without electricity, so we were infinitely better off!

I’ll continue my story tomorrow.

Wonderful needlework cruise

I’m back from the Needlework Cruise! It was an enjoyable experience, though I really missed my family at times. I met some delightful people, and did some new things.

The Voyager of the Seas docked in Sydney

Docked right near the Sydney Harbour Bridge

Me and my ship

When I boarded the ship on the Sunday, I wandered around feeling quite overwhelmed. It was opulent and absolutely huge! There was so much to see and explore. In the evening, we left Sydney in the rain, with a thunderstorm periodically lighting up the sky.

Before going through customs and boarding we had to hand over our “sharps” packages (needles, scissors, knitting needles etc) to the needlework conference organisers. They were all scanned separately by security and then returned to us the next day. The organisers had had to negotiate hard for the sharps situation to work for us. At first during the negotiations, the cruise company had demanded that they all be taken off us at the end of each day. What a ridiculous situation! If we wanted to hurt people, we’d be able to do it just as easily with a kitchen or dining room knife as with a tiny pair of embroidery scissors. Honestly, sometimes bureaucracy is just so ridiculous!

Our magnificent classroom!

The next day was a settling in day, and the only activity I was involved with was a tutor meeting. We went to our teaching space (one of the dining rooms) and divvied it up between all the tutors. There were some limitations that we had to work with, such as that most of the tables were bolted down, so we couldn’t rearrange the space to suit us. And the lighting wasn’t the best in some places, so we had to make use of the natural light coming in through the windows. Apart from that, it was a very beautiful space to have a class!

Some of the lovely ladies in my Mountmellick class

My first class was a two day Mountmellick class. I had about 13 in the class, and they did really well. Some of the ladies had not really done any embroidery since school, but this was not obvious until they told me! Our classes went from 9am until 4pm, with a break for lunch somewhere in the middle.

Blue, blue, blue and so calm!

The backdrop of the sea behind us was so lovely! I actually expected the water to be blue black, but instead it was a vibrant purple blue (about DMC 796 or 797!). I knew it wouldn’t show up that colour in my photos, but that didn’t stop me from taking photos!

Amazing sky in the very early morning

A glorious sunrise

Most days I got up quite early as I found it difficult to sleep. Maybe it was the rocking of the ship and the creaking of the room fittings that meant I didn’t sleep so well. But I usually was up on deck before dawn to do a walk of about 2km per day around the walking track while watching the sun rise. All the sunrises were my favourite part of the trip. Each morning I marvelled at the beauty that God has created.

I’ll continue my story tomorrow!