Oldie but Goodie.

On a clearing purge recently I took out my original trusty 1960s Singer sewing machine from the bottom of the wardrobe. I bought it in about 1962s as a demonstration model from a city shop, so I saved a bit of money from my meagre pay packet.

 It was a very innovative machine for its day, being (I think) the very first free-arm sewing machine made. It could do all sorts of amazing stitch patterns with the addition of plastic cams to the front of the machine. You can see the black disc behind the fly wheel in the photo below.

 

The machine can do free- motion stitching with the addition of a covered throat plate to eliminate the drag of the feed-dogs, and as with most of the old Singer machines it came with a ruffler and various other specialised feet.

 With the cams added it could so many decorative patterns as evidenced by the pages of patterns shown in the booklet. This is just one page spread of many!

 This is the box of cams, all present and correct, a shame that one corner of the original box has been broken.

I had thought to sell this machine, but I really don't think that I can part with it.  So many memories of things sewn with it, from my wedding dress, childrens' clothes and household items such as curtains, cushions and bedspreads to butterfly nets and shade cloths.

Flower for September.

If you have looked into my Blog from time to time over the year you will have seen a picture of a textile flower each month taken from a garden that I have visited during that month. Below are 2 strikingly marked Hellebore flowers from the Garden of St Erth that I visited last week.

Below you can see that I chose to work on a flower that has already formed seed cases in the centre, rather than the more complex stamens etc shown in the flowers above.

52 Years in the Making!

I started this woollen quilt in 1965, having had no experience whatever of patchworking. I did make all my own clothes, so I had a lot of left over fabric which I carefully stored away. For whatever reason I decided to use some of the warmer types of fabric remnants to make into a quilt, without any idea of how to proceed apart from cutting triangles. As you can see, the triangles aren't accurately cut to size, so that the whole thing is decidedly oddly shaped!

 

 

I was recently persuaded to add a backing to the 'quilt' to at least make it usable as a knee rug perhaps. Today I did that, but it really was rather difficult with the odd shape of the item. Having made a fair attempt, I'll leave it at that, knowing that the Quilt Police will never get to see it to pass judgement! It's fun remembering what bits of fabric came from what garment made all those years ago.

Yellow.

 This is the garden at St Erth, Here which we visited in glorious sunshine today. Quite a contrast to our visit to Coombe Cottage earlier in the week. The daffodils here in the sunshine are all out and looking magnificent.

               However, these in the shade have a week or 2 to go before being all at their best and providing a wonderful sight.

                                  I've never seen a yellow violet before and it's quite charming.

Being in a frosty area the gardeners can grow the English Primrose which wouldn't grow well down lower in the Melbourne area. These at St Erth in a shady corner were doing very well.

Although not really yellow, these Gunnera shoots caught my eye. The plants had been cut down for winter and these prehistoric looking shoots were well on their way out in the spring sunshine.

Dame Nellie Melba.

It was a very cold and windy day yesterday for our visit to Coombe Cottage, the home of Dame Nellie Melba. http://thedesignfiles.net/2015/12/coombe-estate-the-garden-of-dame-nellie-melba/

We did manage a walk around the garden, but the chilly wind soon sent us indoors.

 

As the original house that Dame Melba lived in is still used by the family, her great grandsons, the Lords Vestey, we were unable to see inside, but I thought these 'peacock' chairs on the porch and bought by Dame Nellie were fantastic!

Not far from the chairs is a huge and over a century old oak tree the branches of which spread over 25 metres. To help support such a length of branch, gardeners have spliced one branch onto another as a brace. You can see the smaller branch coming off the trunk and growing across to the left and joining onto a lower and heavier branch. Very clever!

Gazanias.

 Right now my garden is looking lovely in the early Spring sunshine. I'm particularly pleased with these Gazanias as I grew them all from seed, and it's taken 2 years for them to flower well.

                          The variations in colour and form are amazing as you can see.

 This one isn't quite fully out yet, but it will only take a few hours for the petals to completely unfurl.

     This one is a little smaller than most of the others, but it's double array of petals is lovely.

        This one has rounded petal tips rather than the pointed ones of the other colours.

 These 3 stitched images were done quite some time ago, but are based on the usual yellow form of the Gazania with the black central markings.

                I used many shades of yellow thread and lots of black and yellow beads.

All the small embroideries were mounted in a single frame with a black background and individual windows for each one. Unfortunately at this stage I can't locate a photo of the final presentation.

I Only Want 7!

I had a blitz on the final printing of my little 15 x 15 cm image and managed to make 12 from which to choose the 7 that I need, 5 plus 2 artists proofs. Even so, I'm not all that sure that I have 7 without faults, but that's the nature of hand made items, there are minor faults to be expected.

Almost There.

 This is almost what the final version will be, although I don't think that I will spray the printing paper with soft silver as I have here, and I think that the butterfly is perhaps one item too many.

Here is the image with all the component stamps that I have carved and used. I think that I will have to raise the base pattern a little too, in order to leave a space for the print number, title and name.