Nice People, Nice Things

I bought a kit of Helen Stubbings' "Nice People Nice Things" quilt, nearly 2 years ago in Adelaide at Patchwork By Sea. I love all the little stitcheries and I especially love that it is a quilt as you go project. I enjoy being able to quilt an item myself and not have to pay someone to do it or have to try to manoeuvre a huge quilt underneath my domestic machine.

As I was reading Kelly's blog recently she said that she and some other ladies, Vickie, Gabriella, Carol and Claudia would all be joining in a "stich a long" of this quilt. I decided to join too. Isn't it amazing that people in America, Italy and Australia can be working on a project together. I love the internet.

So, once a week, usually a Wednesday we will each post about one block that we have stitched that week. This is supposed to be a Block of the Week quilt but as there are 63 blocks on the front and 63 blocks on the back (mostly stitcheries) I will try to do more than one a week.

Here is what I have been working on this week. The stitched saying to go on the back is "Always face the sunshine and the shadows will fall behind."

And I cheated a bit by doing this one because there wasn't much work. It is hard to believe the difference in the colours of these photos because the backgrounds are exactly the same fabric.

I would have liked to have gotten more done but I was busy with the storm damage on the weekend and I had a little surprise: my newest nephew was born nearly 3 weeks early on Tuesday. His name is Jonathan and he was 6 lbs, 2 oz. He is the first child for my brother Christopher and his wife Danka. Isn't he gawjus. Makes me clucky....lol.

Talk again soon,

Jeanette

Storm damage

Yesterday a massive thunderstorm came through topped off with a nice spot of hail. The gutters on the house didn't cope very well and I got a lot of water in my craft room. Luckily I was home and I was able to ferry  everything that was in danger out of the way. Most of my supplies are stored in two large metal chests and a metal cabinet. Everything in these is dry. Unluckily, the water has gotten into my power outlet so I won't be doing any sewing in there for a while.

Most luckily of all, my most prized possession, a latch hook rug, only got a little damp because I grabbed it in time. It is irreplaceable because I bought the kit in 1983 and that company isn't in Australia anymore. It is from Readicut in the UK. The design is called "Richmond" and I just love the colours - Country, Autumn.

There is actually a funny story surrounding the making of this rug. As I said before I bought it in 1983 when I was with my first boyfriend. I took it home and started to work on it but lost interest. It was rolled up and moved with me when I moved in to my first flat in 1985. It then moved with me again to Melbourne when I went to live with my second boyfriend. It moved back to Bendigo with me when things didn't work out, 1986. It moved again when I got married, to the third man in my life, 1992. I then dug it out and actually did a bit more work but only finished about two thirds. My marriage ended in 2000 and it moved with me again to a flat, a house and another house where it was finally dug out again and finished. That was in 2009. I know, I know.........that means it took me 26 years, three relationships and I don't know how many moves to complete. I think I hold the record for the longest time to complete an article of work. But let me give you a bit of perspective - the rug measures three feet by six feet ( the size of a single bed), each row took half an hour to complete (and I mean latching constantly without a break) and there are 240 rows. That is 120 hours of work and a lot of memories tied up in it. (The wool is pure wool and so nice to walk on in bare feet.) As I said, irreplaceable, and now has pride of place at the foot of my bed in front of the camphor wood chest that I mentioned in an earlier post.

And for those of you paying attention, yes my bedroom and sewing room are the same room but at four and a bit metres by seven metres there is plenty of room for every thing. It is actually the sun room which means I get plenty of light for crafting and wake up at sunrise every day, hop out of bed and can do some work before the kids get up. Speaking of sun, it  is now streaming in the room and I better get back to airing out my carpet.

Talk again soon.

Handcrafted Cards

I thought I would share some cards with you that I have created over the last few years. I made these four cards in some classes at a local craft store in 2006. At each session you make two cards. One that takes a bit of time and the other a little easier. Luckily I scanned them before I gave them away.

 This one is quite simple. The darker card has the corners punched with the floral design. It is then layered on the lighter card so that it shows through the punched shapes. The hydrangeas, writing and "ric rac" edging are just stickers and you may be able to see some dots in the middle of the flowers, these are also stickers.





 This one has machine embroidery thread wrapped around the two white shapes. They are then embellished with the silver stickers and mounted on the checkered paper which is mounted on a white card. The butterfly and flower are also just stickers and more silver stickers in the top right corner.

 This card had the floral paper glued to the left side, then a piece of pink vellum layered to the right of that. Some prairie points were made from vellum and glued to the right side and then the preprinted and embellished (with pearls) strip was glued over the top to cover any problem areas. A vellum label with a heart sticker and wording finishes it off.

This one does not show up well here. It is 3-dimensional, the white frame stands away from the card. The scene is glued to the card then the frame which has also been embossed a little. The frame is then embellished with the butterfly stickers and the potted plant cut out. A silver sticker again for the wording.

I will come back again tomorrow with some more of my cardmaking projects.

Talk again soon.

Hard Crafts

What do I mean by hard crafts? It does not mean that they are particularly difficult. To me it means that you are working with products that are not "soft". e.g. wood, paper, paints.

Here is my one and only attempt at folk art painting. It was a class I did back in the early '90's with my friend Chris. We both completed the same item but then I never did anything else after that. Of course, Chris went on to bigger and better things. She is a true inspiration.

 Here is an item from another class we did together. Once again it is the only decoupage I have done but Chris did do a few more afterwards. I could not be bothered doing all those layers of varnish, first in one direction and then the other. If you look closely you will see that I did not quite finish all of the layers so the paper is still a bit raised. Maybe one day.

Never the less, they both have pride of place at the foot of my bed on a camphor wood chest.

Past project

I have been crafting for as long as I can remember, since the 80's, but most of my work has been given away as presents and I did not keep a photographic record or the photographs are buried in a box somewhere. Here is a project that I did for my father's birthday four years ago. It is a combination of counted cross stitch, patchwork and quilting. The cross stitch design is Australian gum blossoms and leaves; the border was a fabric from my stash with gum leaves. I thought this would be a good design for Dad because he now lives in Germany and it would remind him of Australia.

What's in a name?

Hello World and welcome to my blog. I have been reading other people's blogs for about a year and I thought it was about time that I gave it a go. It will be a bit of a learning process but I think it will be fun. 


I am sure that some of you will be wondering about the title of my blog "One Woman's Work". It refers to the local Agricultural Show. There is a craft section that you can enter your items to be judged and possibly win a few dollars first prize. Within the craft section there is a sub-section called "One Woman's Work" referring to someone who enters 3 articles from different crafts to showcase their work. I have never entered this section but it has always intrigued me.


Hopefully I haven't bored you for my first post but I look forward to posting at least once a week and including photos of my finished projects. This will hopefully keep you interested in coming back and keep me on my toes. I am the Queen of Procrastination so when I get slack give me a nudge.