White Threads

Mountmellick workshop

I’m back from Singleton. We had a great Mountmellick workshop, over two days. It was lovely to see the ladies learning new things and enjoying that. As always, they were very lovely ladies.

I’m very tired, given that on both days I needed to travel 3.5 hours (either getting there or getting home). Added on top of a full day of teaching, that can make you very tired! However, I took my Portuguese embroidery with me, and got quite a lot done on the train.

When I pulled it out of my bag on the way up, I immediately realised that I’d forgotten something. Something rather important. I forgot to put in the stand for my embroidery hoop. So I had the hoop with its stick, but no stand to put it into! I ended up just balancing it on the stick and stabilising it a bit against my stomach, which was certainly less than ideal, but at least it sufficed!

This week I plan to get back onto writing the book, though seeing its school holidays, that may or may not happen as much as I like!

on a train to Mountmellick

Well, not quite. At the time I normally post, I’ll be on a train from Sydney to Singleton to visit the Singleton Embroiderers for a two day Mountmellick class. I’m not taking a computer with me, so I won’t be posting while I’m away.

Its only quick. You won’t miss me. 🙂 And I’m sure I’ll have a lovely time teaching Mountmellick embroidery to another lovely group of embroiderers.

While I think of it, if anyone is planning to visit the Sydney Royal Easter Show on Tuesday 26th April, I’ll be there with the Embroiderers’ Guild, demonstrating needlework of some type. I haven’t decided what I’ll show, just yet. Any suggestions of something you’d like to see me working on? Is anyone likely to come and say hello?

crazy hair day 2011

Great news to report on Crazy Hair Day! Elder daughter was indeed one of the winners with her Easter egg ferris wheel hair.

Yes, the ferris wheel does turn. Just a little touch and it goes around!

It was great fun to hear all the comments when we walked in the school gate yesterday morning: “Wow! That’s going to win!” “Is that her real hair?” “Look at that!”

The competition amongst her classmates was stiff, as by the end of their run of four years, some are very practiced at creating the most amazing hair creations!

The parade itself was later in the day, and thankfully, she did not have a head-ache from the wire frame (we had bubble wrap padding around it this year to try to counteract any head-aches), and it was all still quite stable. Its a great, fun day for the kids, and also for the parents!

Rainbow Girl graduates to Crazy Hair Day next year, so I’d better start planning now…

a quick present

We found out yesterday that one of our favourite teachers at the girls’ school is leaving at the end of this term (tomorrow!). Both our girls have had her, and had a great time in her class. She’s a very dynamic teacher, who creates a fun and interesting learning experience.

As parents, we found her to be wonderful to work with. She was generous with her time when we needed to discuss things with her. Last year when we (as in us and her) knew something was up with Rainbow Girl, but couldn’t figure it out, she regularly gave us updates. Eventually together we decided it was time to take Rainbow Girl off to a behavioural optometrist who diagnosed long-sightedness and prescribed glasses – a course of action that has made the *world* of difference!

To say thank you for the impact that she has had on our girls’ lives and at the school in general, I wanted to make her a gift. As bookmarks seem to be my thing at the moment (and she’s been the school librarian this year), that was the gift of choice!
To go with her bright personality, I selected some of the brightest Cosmo Seasons threads and showed them to the girls and asked them to choose which one. They chose 8080. In a skein, it looks a bit garish: orange, pink, blue and green. But stitched up, it looks *gorgeous*! I never expected it to look so fantastic.

Thank you, Nicole, for being a wonderful, wonderful teacher. Thanks for the impact you have had on all our lives, with your bright and happy nature. We wish you all the best for a long, happy and healthy future. 🙂

crazy hair

I’m sorry for my silence yesterday. I have been busy this week getting ready for a Mountmellick class in the Hunter Valley next week. Its nearly all done, which is great, so that I can post it all off to them today so that it is all there for me when I arrive next week.

This week is the last week of school before the Easter school holidays. That means that on the Thursday we have the Easter Hat Parade for the younger kids at school, and Crazy Hair Day for the older kids. This will be my elder daughter’s 4th and last year of crazy hair day. Of the three that she has gone in previously, she has won two. So we have a pretty good record to uphold. We figured out that the year she didn’t win, was because there wasn’t enough colour.

We have something pretty spectacular planned for this year. Some of the kids at school have been asking what she’s going to have this year – given her excellent track record – but we are staying completely mum about it. Suffice to say that we began planning for it straight after last year’s win.Last year she had the Eiffel Tower in hair.
The previous year was a spiral of hair up above her head.
Our first entry was spokes of hair extending from her head with little pompom chickens hanging off the ends. You can probably guess that we make great use of wire coathangers!

Tomorrow is this year’s crazy hair day, which means I’ll have to do a fair bit of preparation for it today. There won’t be time tomorrow morning to get photos up on the blog, so you may have to be patient until Friday. I hope that our crazy idea comes off! 🙂

Cosmo threads arrived

Some time back I wrote to the distributors of Cosmo threads here in Australia and asked where I could see their Seasons threads in real life, close to me here in Sydney. Their answer arrived on Friday (several weeks later…) that I can see them at *one* shop WAY over the other side of the city, or in a country town about 3 hours drive from here! Wow, isn’t that close?! 😉

Very happily, all my Cosmo Seasons threads arrived on the weekend. I now have the complete set, and feel fully justified in purchasing it, if it is indeed going to be so hard for me to see them in person round here.

The full set of Cosmo Seasons threads

If you are a needlework or patchwork shop owner here in Sydney, may I make a suggestion? How about investing in the full range of Cosmo Seasons threads for the sake of all the Sydney stitchers who would love to see them and use them? I reckon you’d pretty much corner the market! If I had a physical shop, I’d do it myself!

Walk for Women

On Thursday I received the latest newsletter from the Hamlin Fistula Relief and Aid Fund. I love receiving their newsletters. They are always full of such hope and love. I’ve mentioned before how we visited the Addis Ababa Fistula Hospital, which is supported by the fund, when we were in Ethiopia last year. It was the most amazing place.

In the newsletter they told of the Walk For Women, which is a 50km walk on June 11th here in Sydney, to raise money for and awareness of Hamlin Fistula Fund. I immediately thought, “I could do that!” I walk everywhere, and am very fit, so its reasonable to think that I might be able to do it, though its a LOT longer than anything I’ve ever walked before!

So I put it on Facebook that I was considering doing it, and asked if any of my friends would care to join me or sponsor me, if I did it. Wow, the response was amazing. Within a couple of hours I had offers of people who would do it with me, and others who would sponsor me.

And so I’m going to do it. I have no idea if I’ll do the whole 50km yet (you can do just a bit). 50km is a lot! But I’m seriously considering it.

If you’d be interested in joining me us, please let me know. If you’d like to sponsor me, I’d love to hear from you. If you’d like some more information about the Hamlin Fistula Fund, you can take a look at their website, or I can send you the PDF brochure that the walk organisers sent me, which explains about the walk, fistulae, and the work of the hospital.

I’ve never done anything like this before. I think I did the 40 Hour Famine (raising money for World Vision) once during secondary school, but since then, nothing. Sometimes you just know that you’re meant to do something. I know that I’m meant to do this. I just hope my body agrees!

How exciting!

Rainbow happiness!

Here’s the completed dress, modelled by big sister who is in on the secret!

Rainbow still going

I spent yesterday still working on the rainbow dress. I’m not really sure why it took so long, but I think it was to do with the fact that I had to nut out how to attach the lining at the neck and armholes. If I’d just sewn them with right sides together, I wouldn’t have been able to turn it right side out. In the end I decided to bind the edge with bias binding, in the same manner as is shown here. It worked well and gave a neat finish to the edge.

Today I will be finishing sewing the lining to the zip, and then doing the hem. I can’t try it on Rainbow Girl to see about the hem length (its a birthday surprise), so I think I’ll take a surreptitious look at how her school uniform length is on her this morning, and then when she’s gone to school I’ll use one of the spares as a length gauge. Its not ideal, but it will have to do.

the front and back panels of the rainbow dress. The centre back has an invisible zip inserted, stopping at the seam of the red and orange swashes. (Colour is NOT accurate!)

ready for hemming

rainbow sewing

With a young girl’s birthday and the school holidays inching ever closer, it has been time to get the rainbow dress made. I won’t be able to do any work on it during the school holidays as it is to be a surprise, so it needs to be completed before the holidays arrive.

Yesterday I spent the day sewing together the colourful swashes that make up the dress. It was fun and very satisfying – because it worked! As Jenny suggested, I started each seam at the bottom of the dress because that’s where more of it was bias cut. She advised that this would give a better chance of the seams working. And they worked very well! (Thanks Jenny!)

The dress isn’t finished yet – I still have most of the back and all of the lining to do. But hopefully today or tomorrow I’ll get it done, and some photos taken to share with you. I feel like you’ve all been involved from very early on in this dress, with so many of you having voted for your preferred design and giving tips on its construction.

I have learnt something very useful from this dress and the pants that I made recently, and that is that you do not need a special presser foot for sewing invisible zips. On the zip itself it says that you do, but I disagree! I have now managed to successfully insert two invisible zips using just a normal zipper foot. Sure it might be a little easier with a special foot, but it still works ok without. So if you’ve believed the zipper instructions and haven’t ever used one because it says you need a special foot – ignore those instructions and get in there and give it a go!