Also Seen in Edinburgh.

                                   A wonderfully vibrant display of tulips in a city park.

Spotted in Edinburgh.

 I had never seen this particular illusion before, the headless man. Obviously the shoulders of the suit conceal the person's head, but at first glance when he lowers the newspaper it's just like the invisible man. Very Clever!

Piano Moving Rural Style.

Having offered our piano free to a good home, it was wonderful to see it heading off to a small girl in Canberra.  Here her Grandad and a couple of helpers move it out and on its way.  As an old German iron frame piano it was immensely heavy, so these 3 fellows had to really work hard to lift it down one step and along the veranda and onto the trailer.

Footpath Photos.

                     I have no idea what could have made these marks on a local footpath.

  Interesting contrast between the hard granular footpath and the soft pale dropped Camellia flower.

Getting There!

                                    A bit more along the way with the footsteps and doors etc.

Ready for Roasting.

This is a really easy way to use peppers/capsicums to make a delicious accompaniment for almost anything.
Each pepper half is filled with sliced tomato, pieces of garlic and anchovies, then black pepper is ground over it all and a spoonful of olive oil added to each half pepper. It's all baked in the oven for an hour. Fantastic!

After the Storm.

Now We have Words.

          You might need to click on the image to enlarge it so you can actually see the words.

The Next Stage.

           A lot more footsteps now, and some stitching from the reverse side in heavier thread.

My Version.

Here is my version of the Chinese embroidery;  I actually already had the braid which I think works in very well and is quite close to the original. The framing is a bit off kilter too, just like the original!

Monthly Challenge.

 Having been away for 4 weeks recently, I missed out on getting the files for the next monthly textile challenge. We have based this year's work on the textiles from different cultures, having worked on pieces from Guatemala, the America Indian culture, from Turkey and India so far. The one I missed was China, so here is the original banner and the section that I want to work from. 

I have decided that all my pieces will be made using my Bernina software and embroidery unit, as I don't use it enough to really justify the expense these days! So I will digitize one of these flowers I think.

Stamp Cutting.

Not only have I been needle felting and dyeing recently, I have also got back to my rubber stamp cutting. These tiny feet are only 3 cm long, so trying to get some texture marks to the bottoms of the shoe soles was quite demanding.

Dyeing and Photoshop.

I've been doing a little bit of Procion dyeing lately too, though not in this colour. This is actually a blue dye that I have used, but the 'aliens'  or 'ghosts' show up much better if I invert the colours with Photoshop.

Needle Felting

I'm really getting to explore the potential of a needle felting machine, though it is early days yet.
The piece above is a sample of strips of fabric applied to a backing with cut out printed cotton flowers and yarn for the stems. I've added a lot of simple machine stitching too.
The lower one is just a piece of hand made wet felt applied to commercial felt with cut out acrylic flowers added, needle felted and I will further stitch this with my sewing machine.

Melbourne.

I had occasion to be on the other side of Port Phillip Bay today which gave me an opportunity to photograph the city from the 'other side'.

A Bit of Fun.

 I think this sculpture outside our new library is fun, do you recognise the old typewriter keys?