HELLO THERE!!.....

Yes I am being brave and showing you my good self in a snap taken by my daughter. I was quite proud of this pinny type dress as I had drafted it from an old dress that had seen better days. I quite liked that dress so I took it apart and used it as a pattern to make another.
The fabric is a Denyse Schmidt feedsack type. Unfortunately it has not photographed well in the bright winter sun. I kid you not we do get bright winter sun at times. I also dont think it the most flattering on me as I do actually have a shape! These floaty dresses do well when you have thin arms and legs....but I love it because behind a desk in my office its damn compfy....yes compfy!...i just made that word up and I like it.

 Hahhahaha this is me trying to look serious model like...and that is not my hair but a concrete lion framed just behind my head...sigh you just cannot get good paparazzi these days.

 So I called a stop to all this madness and stomped off.... to complain to my agent....

 These were some recent purchases from a market called "Finders Keepers" that my daughter persuaded me to accompany her to. Luck we got there early, it was way more crowded that a regular craft show, full of hipsters and fashionable young folk, and I must say I was impressed by some of the stalls there. Needless to say I gravitated to the vintage stalls and these precious pieces just had to come home. My daughter was a little surprised that I paid over the odds for them. But sometimes you know you will be hard pushed to source these things yourself so you pay premium to someone who works hard to pick these things out. 

 They look so good together dont they?

 And in the interests of keeping it real.....this is a behind the scenes look at how I set up my backdrop.....ahhh the glamorous world I live in.

And some more little op shop treasures just to show you I too can source little imexpensive vintage too.

This is my latest tiny crochet that I am working on, following on from the previous scarf I had just finished.
It uses DMC 8 perle cotton and a ripple stitch pattern. 
I am loving how this is turning out.

1.5 mm hook

This monster project is one I have set my daughter to continue. She was always nagging coaxing me to make her a granny square blanket, and well my concentration waxes and wanes a lot so I wasnt going to get it done anytime soon. So I saw and purchased this kit from Better Homes and Gardens, its acrylic yarn, inexpensive and might colourful. I sat down one evening and taught her the basics and AWAY SHE WENT!!!!!!

She has her own basket of colourful yarn and she is loving it. We have been watching the Commonwealth Games most evenings and she is storming along with the project. I will assist when and if she needs me, but I think she will be so proud if she sticks it out and completes it all by herself. She always was a girl who would stick it out until she could master a skill. I think I may be assisting with all those sewing in of ends though......I personally dont think she has left enough of a tail to sew in but she thinks otherwise......time will tell and like a good mum I will resist the retort..."I told you so"...(wont stop me thinking it but I wont say it )

I am finishing this, just appliqueing on the last hexagons. Its from Rosalie Quinlan and her book "A stitch in Time"

Made this up from a kit from the latest Mollie Makes...wearing it now..love it.

Got heaps more to tell you but I will stop it there so you can go make a cuppa tea and have a rest. And I can go and join the family to watch Australia trounce New Zealand in the Netball final at the Commonwealth Games....because New Zealand always beat us in the rugby.

Talk soon dear blog friends

COMPARISON.........is the thief of joy.  (Theodore Roosevelt)

I came upon this quote and accompanying article in my latest copy of Mollie Makes and it made me ponder some what.

Written by Jessica Bateman she talks about the "dissatisfaction we feel after seeing other peoples achievements and adventures plastered over social media" 

Now I must confess to a little bit of this happening in my life, thus I have withdrawn from the dreaded Facebook so I didn't have to keep on liking my friends Bali adventure as I was housebound with ill children and husband. Now I love my friend dearly and I hope she did have a great holiday, she deserves it a lot but sometimes I don't want to be found comparing her current wonderful times with my current hard times.

But do I feel this way about my blogging life? Did comparing my crafty attempts with others leave me feeling flat? Sometimes, I will confess in the early days it did, but then you find that little tribe of like minded souls that INSPIRE and bring out the best in you. I am so lucky I hung on in there blagging and blogging away and meeting  others and being inspired to go onwards.

These are some quick snaps I took when I went out without my camera. Taken on my little phone. They don't stand up to great scrutiny and they are not sharp and crisp but they do show you some of the wonderful sights at The Cranbourne Botanical Gardens. (PS. I post things like this on Instagram should you be interested under susanc269)

Any way as I was saying people often do inspire me, especially if they are really happy with what they do. It doesn't have to be at a professional level, just the excitement and passion that is created will get me going along. Again my friend Joy (joyjinks) has prompted me to post a few of my phone photos and just enjoy what I have discovered.

  

Isn't this landscape so photogenic? You couldn't fail to frame up a good shot. This garden represents the soil and colours of the centre of Australia.

The contrasts were all there. 

Pretty flowers. The top one are banksias and I have no idea what the others were other than they were pretty and spilled over the path.

 The reason I had made it to these gardens was a little quilt show put on by the "Friends of the Gardens" and these are details of the most amazing quilts. They look a lot like the works of an artist called Margaret Preston

 But these have been created in cloth with that same bold black interspersed with strong colour. The details in these quilts are amazing. Now there is something that could quite intimidate but why would I be? I am happy to stand back and just admire this woman's artistry and passion.
Check out her gallery of quilts on the Internet you will be in awe...

Now see, if I wasn't inspired to go back and see what was sitting in my phone then I would not have shared these wonderful memories of such beautiful days.

Till next time dear friends......

GOOD MORNING BEAUTIFUL PEOPLE.....

I am slowly finding a new rhythmn in my life....are you kidding, there is NO rhythmn just organised chaos?!?!
Yep just when you think there is order, life has a way of showing you otherwise. Lol. The only order in my life is the end of the day when I make a date with myself to sit in my chair and stop and sew. Thank the Lord for my hobby, it is a gift and so are the people I have met with the understanding of why I do this "stuff".

So although I dont get here too often I still create along the way, now is the time to share my deeds. (Thank you Joy, your gentle way is my muse) 

Now a little errrr long time ago I bought this gorgeous kit at a craft show. Dont know what I was thinking as that stage could not really crochet. But what the heck I was assured it was quite simple, so off I headed.
It was simple but teeny tiny and did I mention didnt really know how to crochet? 2.25mm hook and 8ply DMC perle cotton.

Yes folks I am the one who skips the basics, gets bored with simple stages and goes directly to the back of the book to attempt the advanced. Strangely not a huge risk taker in life but when it comes to craft I loose my head. One never learns if one doesnt make mistakes and for some strange reason when it comes to creativity I am a little fearless. I did have an awesome art teacher in my early years at high school and I was often left to my own devises by my parents, so didnt suffer anyone telling me it was wrong.

Ta dah...... I do love it. It has taken years of stop start to achieve this. I did set it aside and learnt how to crochet a little better. I may attempt difficult stuff but not too stupid to realise that going back to learn the basics would be beneficial.

Realised that I had also made up my own stitch and this caused a bit of angst as the later little teeny tiny squares had a different tension and look. 
So unpicked the sewing, discarded a few really wonky pieces and reassembled the whole thing. The older wonky made up stitch squares I placed in the centre and used the newer better tensioned squares at each end. 

  I think I got away with it.

Ohhh look at me getting all arty now. The little bird was an opshop treasure that just had to come home. Love my little opshop treasures, so inexpensive, so much fun. My mother disdains all this frippery...just "dust collectors" in her eyes...dont know where I get my love of little treasures from.....sorry drifted off there...

 Now the other thing I purchased lately was this amazing piece of fabric at the latest craft show. It was a limited hand printed design, directly from artists in our aboriginal community.
I was drawn by its simple graphics and simpy fell in love with it. A lot of "Australiana" is an interpretation of indigioneous art by Europeans and down in southern states of Australia we do not find a lot of this art being affordable. Often the art is purchased cheaply from the artists and sold at huge margins by art galleries. This is changing in these modern times.

 This is the artist who created this design and it is a traditional one, depicting fishing nets.

This is the centre that protects these artists and their work ensuring a fair trade.

This is the distributor and the lovely lady I met at the craft show. In case you were interested there are many more fabrics to see.

And I purchased this pattern and will use the abovementioned fabric to sew a skirt. 
The skirt design is pure genius, it uses basically two squares of fabric that when sewn according to the instructions gives you a wrap skirt that DOES NOT gape and expose you. Love it!!
I can see a few more summer skirts using a great feature fabric coming my way.




So that dear friends is a little of what I have been up to in life.

Will be back in the chair tonight...pure bliss.

PRACTICE,PRACTICE,PRACTICE.......

Remember I was having a little trouble with my photography? 
Well I got back on that horse and went out into the garden one fine winters afternoon to snap and see what happened.

This is one of snow pea crop, the sun was shining through the pod and the colours were luminous.

Snow pea flower, really pretty.

This series of snaps I am very proud of, I couldnt focus as the bees never stay still so it was point and shoot real quick.
I really didnt know what I had until I downloaded it here.


This is the power of a very good lens. I bought a mid range camera and my husband bought me an expensive lens. If you want to take your photography to that extra level the lens is where you should invest all the dollars.

 I am and always will be facsinated with the macro world, so I got the macro lens. This allows you to focus down to the pixie level and see miniture beauty. These are water droplets on my pea plants. 

Dont forget to play with your shots, just take them and try to remember about depth of field. The F stop setting allows you to have a deeper area in focus, as you can see between the pea leaves and the photo of the gum leaf. All I know is the larger the f stop number the deeper the field of focus.....so google the tutorials for your model camera and have a play.

This is what I saw as I walked along the shore we have had no winter storms here yet and little rain so the bay I live near has been as clear and clean as I have ever seen it. I didnt even need to get my feet wet, this was right on the tide line.

 Taking photos of such delicate things underwater was a bit tricky, in fact the original shots were pale and wishy washy. So I photoshopped them, bringing down the brightness and altering sharpness and clarity. There are many shots that dont come out exactly the way you invisaged but these little tricks can bring it back a little.

My daughter was actually a little shocked and now is beginning to realise how easy it is to manipulate an image. So dont believe everything you see!!!



I also regularily crop an image it is the best way to bring into focus the one thing you want to showcase. Most images can be improved just by cutting away distractions and not so great areas.

 How gorgeous is that rock pool? But if you saw how ordinary this suburban beach was, where there are many dog walkers and a busy road nearby you may not think to stop and see the little world at your feet. That is what photography has always done for me. It makes me stop and look for interesting things to frame up in my lens. And the small world is very interesting. The slimy bit of seaweed looks like jade in the light.

This intrigued me with its textures and colours.

Colours and patterns, again these shells were sitting under water, it was so clear.

Finally I lifted my head and saw other sights to behold.

Like two puppies that were getting a little borrrrrred. 

So under a painterly sky we set off home again. Once more to practise and take the camera out and about. 
I am falling in love with my old hobby again. 

And must remind myself that unlike a certain celebrity who was not happy with her wedding photos that art is not perfection......she took FOUR DAYS to get an image where she was happy with the colour of her flowers!!!! I mean I love an artist and sometimes perfection gets us to a great end.......but I bet she would not tell you how altered her image is ...compared to reality.....

So I hope this debunks some of the mystery and gets you out snapping because those great shots will come with practice and a little photoshopping...........:-)