Say hello to my little friend

Sorry about the Al Pacino/Scarface reference but my 8yo son heard it once and now he says it constantly. (Just so you know he hasn't watched the movie... but saw a tiny extract on a 20 to 1 Famous Movie Quote Show)

I have a little reptilian friend that comes to visit me from time to time. He (maybe She) lives in our side garden near our vegetable patch. This area is fenced off so it is a perfect oasis for this little creature... safe from our dogs who probably would have tried to eat it long ago if they could.

My office window opens out to this area and, while I can't see the ground level due to a leadlight section being propped against the window, the little scratches on the glass alert me to this little guest's arrival.  Who is it? Let me show you...

A little blue tongue lizard sitting on the outer window sill. I must admit I used to freak out when I saw it scratching and flicking it's tongue at me through the glass, but now I am OK with seeing it... so long as we are on opposite sides of the glass. It is about 20-30cms long cute in the true sense of the word... ugly but interesting.


Now something nice to look at....

Here is a bouquet of flower pins stuck into the last pincushion I made.  I think they are adorable. There are 14 flowers in this bunch... not bad for a pincushion with a 2.2cm diameter.

It took a little trial and error, some stuck fingers to thumb (and trousers stuck to my leg) to get the right glue technique but now I've got it working nicely.  Thank goodness I use to be a nail technician and had plenty of Acetone on hand... or I might still be making the OK sign and wearing the same trousers 2 days later.

I'm a Flickr winner!!!

Wow! I was randomly selected to win the May thimble giveaway from Chloe Patricia's share your thimbles group. How lucky am I? I am so looking forward to receiving it and will treasure it always. 

Here is a link to the pic of the thimble from Chloe Patricia's blog.

Time for the happy dance...
those readers in the know, know what this means.... ;-)

I am not usually blessed with such good fortune. In fact the last time I won something was in the early nineties when I won a huge (I mean massively huge) gift basket at my Christmas work function. We got lots of confused and slightly panicked looks from other motorists on the way home as I tried to balance it and myself on the back of my future DH's Harley Davidson. Actually I am surprised we were not booked for being a wide load.

Trumpet fanfare! Here is the first Yubinuki

OK brace for something scary! Yes it is time to share the first thimble that I tried making more than 12 months ago.  But before I do that I will show number 14 and 15.

It is getting really cool here now and so I thought stitching in oranges and reds would help me warm up... of course it didn't warm me up but the thick socks and blanket I had over my knee did. Here is number 14.

This one was made as usual on a 6cm form which was divided into 12... but when I realised 4 colours wouldn't work on 12 division as I wanted, I divided each section which resulted in my first 24. I quite like the result. Also I hardly stabbed myself at all because I wised up and stuffed the inside with padding which allowed me better grip on the thimble. It is still a bit gappy but I think that is down to not marking out divisions until the first row was stitched so the stitching wasn't as even as it should have been.

And here is number 15. Don't you love the little flower pins? I made them because... because I just had to have some super cute pins. The thimbles are so cute but it is sad to stick boring old pins into them when they are converted into pin cushions. I made about 30 pins after dinner last night.   My hubby and his/our best friend both thought I was nuts... but they just don't get 'it'.

This one is my regular 6cm size divided in 10. I started out following Debi's recent Thimble Thursday post but when I got to the 5th row of blue I thought "hey, how would stripes look?" So that's what I did. I filled one section with the fuchsia then stitched 5 blue, 3 fuchsia and so on... Now I know it takes me about 21 stitches to fill my sections. As usual I didn't measure after removing the form I just eyed the distance. I'm getting a little better at this I think.

OK so here it is... as promised... the nastiest little thimble I ever saw!!!     Disclaimer: I cannot be held responsible of any injury caused by viewing the following images. You may experience temporary blindness, stomach upset or some other sudden malaise.  You view these images at your own risk.

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Here is the run down of errors made with my 1st thimble attempt:

I had used the wrong thread (believe it or not I used multiple strands of floss)

I the needle I used was too big (thickness)

My base was not wrapped thickly enough (and I think it was done in computer paper not card stock)

My base was also too tall so the proportions look weird

My bias binding was sewn together and created loads of lumps

I don't even remember knowing that I had to pad it so it is flat flat flat

I had never seen anything in English about thimble stitching apart from a page on temarikai so I pretty much made up what to do after seeing thimble stitching on a temari ball.

So the moral of the story??? If at first you don't succeed, try try again. And then put it aside, do some more research, find some fantastic mentors and try again.

Thanks to all the members of Yahoo's thimble ring group for helping me find my way.  Without all your hard work, support and guidance I would have stopped at making Thimble #1.

Now go and have a cuppa, a bit of chocolate and zone out... you earned it!

Bassendean Community Craft Workshop II

Miho and I went another craft day on Thursday.  It was really fun and the project we made were dily bags. A dily bag is a bag usually made from woven reeds or grasses and is used for transporting foods such as berries and the like by the traditional Australian Aborigines. I made mine with a red single ply raw natural fibre that felt a little rough in my hands especially seeing as I usually stitch with perle cotton, rayon or silk. The little bag was about credit card size... my niece and I thought we should take it to the river and try to catch some little fish or prawns with it because it looks like a cute little fishing net. 

I was surprised how much fun (and how easy) it was to make.  We made the top by wrapping the thread around the template twice and securing with a knot.  Then it was a simple process if making blanket stitches all the way around the thread line and then continuing with rows around the template stitching into the loops from the previous row. I am not going to master this technique anytime soon but it was certainly an eye opener.

Phew! Too busy!

Thimble 12 and 13 are finished, and number 14 should be done any time now... which means 1 more to go until I hit 15 and can confidently show my original thimble failure.  One interesting thing with the last thimble: I have noticed is that by keeping the thimble stuffed with some firm padding I have better grip on it and stab myself less often. My moulds are too long to stitch on and I don't use marking paper on the base so after the first round on each path is stitched I slide the ring off the mould.

I don't actually use a thimble when I stitch, which shows fairly poor judgement as I am constantly stabbing my finger tips with the needle (either the point or the eye end as I push the needle through the base).  I don't own a finger tip thimble but it is probably a wise investment. It seems ironic to need to wear a thimble whilst making a thimble. (A bit like the argument over the chicken or the egg coming first... I need to have a thimble to make a thimble but I need to make the thimble to have a thimble...) 

Thimble 12 and Thimble 13

I have been busy this week. Still working on my current C10 ball and about to mark up a 32 ball to stitch a NanaAkua pattern with Jane C.  Then there is a C10 project that is still sitting as a post in draft mode (in Blogger) since May 6th that has just become an item of discussion on TC (from memory it is Pattern 84 from the TK pattern listing - a stain glass ball). I have also been following along with Terry's C10 Tutorials on TK. I can mark a C10 but I am always eager to compare my method with those of other temari makers to see if tweak my technique. Goodness me so many projects...  Also this week it is my DH's birthday so I'll be cake baking tomorrow and working on my very long chore list. Thursday I hope to go with Miho to the last session of the Bassendean workshop. Next Monday I am doing a final class with the Yr10 Japanese students, and on the 6th my new round of temari classes begin. Then on June 17th I am doing a one day Temari workshop with a local lace makers guild to prepare them for their big trip to Japan in July where they will be taking Temari and Kumihimo classes. I think I need to take a few deep breaths....