Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Saturday Night

We had dinner here:



Then went to The Best of the Fest and saw:



Asher Treleaven and Maeve Higgins were great, but Stephen K Amos stole the show - he was just fantastic.

Then we went to a house party - I tell you, it was like I was 20 again and out on the town, not what this Nanna is used to! Usually we'd either go out for tea and see a show, or go to a friend's place - but all three in one night - what the hell? : )

Friday Night

Friday we went to see this:



We all really enjoyed it. The only thing was in a couple of instances I wasn't sure how to respond. There were a few sad moments, that with the subtitles seemed sad, but we had some Korean guys sitting behind us who laughed through most of these scenes - I'm wondering if there was some hints of sarcasm or something that the subtitles didn't quite pick up on? Anyway, I would highly recommend it to any creature feature fans.

Monday, March 19, 2007

What to do with leather scraps?

I've had a bag full of leather scraps for awhile now, left over from studying shoemaking (I haven't made a pair for over two years now - arrgh - must find the time!).

I cut some up like this:



Glued them like this:




Painted them white, and attached some copper birds which I sprayed red:






My Nan gave these to me. She was given them by a lady whose husband had passed away. Apparently he was incredibly prolific and she had too many around the house. I've also got a geometric one I've yet to do anything with.

These made for a relaxing weekend, with mindless cutting, glueing and painting. Yay!

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Mail - Yay!

Yesterday was THE day for receiving mail. In the morning before work the postie delivered this package from Jessica:



This was as part of the Born in 1977 swap. I've admired the Sublime Stitches website for a few years and haven't seen this kit in Australia, looking forward to having a crack!

Then when I got home from work, I received three more swaps.

For the Spring Paper Doll Swap, this lovely lady from Cindy:



Envelopes from Handmade Envies Swap from Sharon:



And some beautiful prints from Liv over at Restless Things. Oh Yay, I can't wait to frame them - we are moving house (AGAIN) in June, so might wait to find the perfect spot!



Monday, March 12, 2007

Ta Da

I finished the enormous craft bag last night - hurrah for long weekends (not that I agree with horse racing, I do however love an extra day off!).



It took a few hours to finish up the binding around the base by hand, I probably could have done it on the machine and it probably would have been fine, but I like the hand sewn look. Now it's all ready to fill up!

Yesterday was quite the crafting day, I finished up a couple of items for swaps, one of which a sneek peak can be seen here:



It will be on its way across the seas tomorrow....

Hot Fuzz Friday

D and I went to see Hot Fuzz on Friday night. I saw the trailer earlier in the week, and being a huge fan of Shaun of the Dead I just had to see it.



And, hilarious it was! What a clever team. There are several styles throughout both of these films which interest me visually, most particularly the quick cutting used to show the passage of time, mainly during mundane tasks ie. getting ready for work etc.

Simon Pegg and Nick Frost are just magic!

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Craft Bag

My quilted craft bag is still in production, I've been working on and off on it for awhile. I'm currently quilting the sides, then when they are done I'll just sew in a bottom.



I got caught up with trying to do a tricky quilted bottom also, but because I didn't plan the design too well I didn't have the right number of pieces etc... it became a logistical nightmare. So for this one, it will have a plain base.

This bag will hold all of my current* projects so that I can cart them around the house and out of the house and have access to whatever I feel like at the time. Consequently it needs to be HUGE as I have three million projects on at one time - I'm really good at starting things, it's the finishing that I problems with.

* The most recent current projects (ie the one's I've touched in the last two weeks!!)

Basket Weaving Hippies

That's what my sister jokingly called my mum and myself when she heard we were attending a workshop run by Fabric of Life as part of the Adelaide Fringe Festival. My mother-in-law invited us and I am so glad I went.

The workshop was exhibiting the basket and sculptural weaving talents of the women from Ernabella Arts Inc and hail from the Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands in northern South Australia.

Despite the predictions for the weather being 37 deg C for the day, it was lovely in the Women's Memorial Garden on King William Street. We sat under the shade of some beautiful trees and observed and put into practice some weaving. The language barrier made actual verbal instruction impossible, but we seemed to learn by watching fairly well.





This is what I came up with over three hours, took longer than I expected to get this far:



Some of the Ernabella Arts Inc baskets:



All in all it was a lovely morning. We all took some supplies home to keep going with our projects, but I'm wondering if I might leave my piece, maybe just finish off by poking the grass in. I think it would look good framed...hmmm.