Treasures of Handmade and Homemade

I was thrilled to be asked by my director to create a farewell book for the university librarian when she left early in June. The university librarian, CHR was my favourite director. CHR appreciated and supported my artistic projects. She had been to all of my exhibitions over the years. Apart from the official farewell book I made from all of us, I also made her a journal as a gift from me. We had her farewell party on her last day and I got to present both books to her myself. 

After making books for CHR I got so inspired and made a few more books to use for textile samples. I have been thinking about making sample books for sometime now. I'm glad I finally got around to making them. 

My stitching project on this post is the jacket I patched with eco-dye silk and adding boro style stitching all over it. Slow stitch is ideal for a winter project. I have way more stitching to do on it yet!

I have been bottling my homegrown olives and make my own red and green curry paste as well. What are you doing this winter/summer? 

Textile sample books

This one for vintage indigo

End paper and title page

The 1880 antique sample book from Paris

Another 1880 antique sample book from Paris

CHR's gift journal made from
recycled bookcloths

End paper and title page

CHR's farewell book

End paper and title page

One of my recent projects is this designer linen jacket sourced from an op-shop and patched all over with eco-dyed silk and slow stitch. I never use any pre-planed designs or patterns to stitch over. I just let the fabric and textures guide my stitch. I've completed one side of the jacket. I have put it away for the moment to take up a crochet rug during the cool winter evenings.

Almost done with the right side. 

Round circles just happened!

Motif

A couple of weeks ago I came across a Kaffir lime tree full of limes. I remembered my mother made her own curry paste. Kaffir lime rind is one of the main ingredients for curry paste. In season my mother used to peel the rind and dry it to use in the off season. I think I will do the same too. There are lot of them at the moment. No one here knows what to do with them and they just go to waste otherwise. With that I made both red and green curry pastes to keep. I'm happy I did that and made enough to give away to DD and her partner who love cooking.

Red curry paste

Green curry paste

Preserved green olives

Before and after photos  of 12 WKC team

I just finished my 12 week challenge training at the end of May. We love it so much that we are still doing exercise just like we did in the 12 wkc. My gym is so caring that they are shutting down for 2 weeks to give us a break. Exercise is like other sports; we need to have a break after the major event. In the next 2 weeks we are supposed to do nothing. I think I'm going to miss it. I am also taking up running so I will keep that up! How is everyone? I hope you put some physical activities into your daily routine as well.

Until next time

Nat 

My Birthday

I had a birthday last week. I did not go out of my way to do anything special on my birthday but friends, colleagues and family had other ideas. I went out to 2 lunches, many morning teas and dinner. Not bad for celebrating being a year older! I received birthday presents and some e-cards from distant family and friends. Thanks everyone!

I have been busy as usual. Only 3 more weeks till we leave on our around the world trip. I'm starting to get a bit excited now! 

I did a few batches of dyeing these last weeks. The results are getting better and better, and I don't do anything different from what I did in the past. I'm so thrilled to get rich colours and patterns from my dyed fabric. 

Below are some photos from my birthday, and dyeing results. 

Birthday dinner at Steak Ministry

A selection of art journal supplies from Mel Tan

Knitted cowl-neck and other gifts from my colleagues

Bolgatanga African market baskets from DD Kitiya

Some gorgeous gifts from Myra and Cynthia.
They know I love blue!

One of a kind birthday gifts. Rusty objects from
Geo's daily walks on her farm.

Since Jacky's Create Journal Workshop at my Treehouse Studio, I reshuffled some furniture to make more space in the Treehouse. I can now have up to 6-7 people in a workshop at the Treehouse. I recently acquired a vintage silk houry/kimono from Kazari/Ziguzagu. I have the right spot to display it in the Treehouse, the only wall space available being the wall the BORO cloth was hanging. I took the BORO cloth down and hanged the houry/kimono in its place.

It looks beautiful on the wall. The designs
on this kimono was individually woven.
Finely silk woven. It's so beautiful. 

These two chairs are now replacing the long vintage
bench that was there since I moved into the Treehouse.

Baskets are now overflowing over the bookshelves,
but I love them!

Below are some results from a couple of batches of dyes I did in the last couple of weeks. Some of them are better than others. I can use all of these in stitching projects by varying colours and textures. What I need now is time to stitch! 

Jacky called them eco-roses. Collections of dyed silks

Great result dyeing with vintage Japanese wool and eucalyptus

Cotton thread I dyed a couple of weeks ago by wrapping
it around rusty tin

A tint of yellow from wattle flowers and eucalyptus

I made this gorgeous piece of milky merino into a cowl-neck

When opened this piece I thought I wouldn't be able to
do better than this!

Only half of the leaves were removed in this piece

When I opened this bundle, I thought yes, I could!

I also got domesticated last weekend. The olive tree we have in our garden produced a lot of olives this year. I was too busy to do anything about them until last weekend when I had some free time. I started by soaking them in water for a week. Even though the olives are quite small, they are the tastiest olives I have ever tasted. 

I got all necessary ingredients and was ready to bottle
them after a week of soaking. 

Using all jars available I packed and filled the jars
with brine water and a little olive oil. 

It doesn't seem like I have been doing much stitching lately, but I always have a hand stitching project or projects nearby. I keep forgetting to photograph them. I will try to remember to do that soon.

Until next time

Nat

Mid of March 2015

You all know without me saying how fast time is flying by this year! Mid March already? It has been a good year for me so far! I have been busy doing everything from work stuff, creative stuff, physical stuff, planning stuff and all the life stuff! Life is beautiful (some of us says booful)! 

So with the colourful expression in my life at the moment. I'm going to post something lively and colourful for you here! 

My colourful stuff!

Colourful vintage Japanese silk I have stashed away.

A bit of creative blue stuff I have been working on lately is this Furoshiki cloth for my bag. I posted about here. It's not much closer to being finished, but I do pick it up and add a few stitches every so often. I've also bound a handmade book for a colleague who's leaving us this week. During the week Mr Notjustnat and I went to see Richard Thomson in concert at the Recital Centre in Melbourne.

Three red hearts and indigo moon for
Furoshiki cloth.

Stash of vintage indigo cotton. 

Coptic stitch binding.

Recycled book covers and cords.

Melbourne city

Also this week I finished another Scallop basket. I used the canes I dyed with coffee that I posted in February.

I finished it with a coat of vanish. 

Attaching the handle 

Last Saturday I helped my friends moving house. I didn't have to do much except driving back and forth between the old and the new house 6 times! He is a collector of vinyl records and he had so many of them to be moved. For a treat we had a lovely coffee at Market Lane Coffee, Prahran Market, Melbourne. 

Single estate Costa Rican 'rapadura' sugar
is best for coffee

The end of the move treat was green tea and cake

I found a wild fig growing at my Campus. It has plenty of figs if you get there before the birds. I was lucky to walk past it when the figs were just ready to pick. I got enough for a batch of jam.

Chopped, soaked in sugar and sat overnight

Next day boiled and bottled

An interesting ending for this post is this handsome vintage vehicle. Don't ask me what make it is. I stopped at the traffic next to this gorgeous looking red truck. I had my camera right by me so I took a shot of it. The driver was so happy that I took notice of his vehicle.

I have been working on many projects, but none is finished enough to blog about yet. I even got inspired lately by The Civil War Quilts newsletter that I subscribe to. The result was that I dug out the Civil War blocks I did many years ago and posted here. I hope to finish and put together a quilt top before we leave on our trip. I wanted to get it machine quilted in New Zealand by Donna while I'm away and to collect it on my way back. It's exciting to think that I will get a new quilt in 2015! I always need an incentive to complete a project! 

Until next time

Nat

Homemade and a Happy New Year

I have been a quilter for over 20 years. I went off quilting for a bit lately to take up other textile interests. I still love quilting and try to finish at least one quilt a year around Christmas time. I also like to start a new quilt during this time. This Christmas I completed this quilt I started years ago with my friend Geo. It's a quilt made from recycled fabric either from clothing or fabric that we found in thrift stores. Both Geo and I have shared all the fabric we found. I got the quilt machine quilted a couple years ago, but it was only this Christmas that I decided to add the binding. So I can say I completed at least one quilt this year.

After I finished piecing the top I decided to add a border with some writing. I called it 'Rags to Riches' and I put that around the borders.

Geo and I choose the fabric randomly except the "F" (feature) fabric which we each bought at the beginning. It might look like a total scrap quilt without patterns, but there really is a pattern throughout the quilt. The pattern is called Trail Mixed. If you look carefully, you will see the pattern right through it. I really had fun piecing it, but it took me a long time to finish. 

A close up of the quilt top. I even put fabric from a Hawaii shirt in there and also some 1950s fabric. The blue fabric you can see there was from Geo's mother's dress. Another homemade activity this year is preserving.

Every summer around Christmas time our only apricot tree gives us plenty of apricots. This year we have more than we can eat. I started preserving them the weekend before Christmas knowing that I would get busy once Christmas came. I was glad I picked them then because soon after that our dear friends - flocks of birds started to visit and picked what was left on the tree.

I bottled two batches of them and also made two batches of jam and one batch of chutney. I did them in time to give them away for Christmas. I also took them to DS's family. Everyone greatly appreciates the homemade goodies.

It was a lot of preparation getting the fruit ready for bottling, but I have to say I love doing them and seeing the end result of jars and jars of bottled fruit to be used in the off season.

Jars were packed in the boiler and boiled in a slow cooker for an hour. I had to do that a few times because my preserving pot only holds 9 jars at a time. I think I worked until midnight that day.

The beautifully stacked fruit was well packed. Even after steaming the fruit didn't rise to the top as had happened in the previous year when my helper was in a hurry to get them done quickly. Nothing is more pleasing than seeing them stack in the cupboard ready to be consumed. 

We are away at the moment to visit DS and our DGC. We took a quick trip to see our block of land on the South Coast of NSW. It was such a lovely day that day that we went in for a swim at our local beach. I will share some photos with you on my next post. 

I hope everyone had a great Christmas with your loved ones and a Happy New Year to you all. 

Until next time

Nat