Thursday, October 25, 2012

A Visitor and more Exhibition photo's


This week I had a visit from Robin M from Queensland with her husband and sister---it is always nice to meet up with blog friends and especially ones who have become very good friends.
Robin and I have met on 3 other occasions because her son and his wife live in Canberra so we get together whenever they come down to visit him.
Below I have some more photos from the exhibition mainly from the challenge.
One of my Guild friends Evelyn noticed on my blog that I didn't have anymore so she e-mailed me to say she had some and sent them to me.
These are the ones that I chose--the first one is Evelyn's who dressed a Barbie doll in the blue-white and gold colours--now there is an outfit that Barbie never had before.


 

Next is a selection where you can again see Barbie plus a cake which had the threads stitched in writing on the top and also twined around the bottom.



This is the other end of the table and there is another cake and a doll plus several Cross Stitch pictures.



I thought this one was clever because it is a replica of our ACT flag with the number 50 on either side of the sheild.
On the official flag there is a black swan on the left side and a white swan on the right side which has been replaced here by the 50.
The shield normally has crossed swords at the top-a medieval castle in the centre and a rose at the bottom.
The person who did this has used the stork scissors in place of the crossed swords-and 3 white thimbles represent the Medieval castle and the rose has been embroidered at the bottom.
The blue section on the left has the Southern Cross embroidered in white.
Very clever indeed.

 

This one is a bouquet of flowers which are heads of wheat and Bluebells.
The scissors are used here to depict cutting the ribbon which is forming the bow around the flowers.



This one created a great deal of interest.
I am not sure if you will be able to read what is embroidered on it as I said before sometimes you can enlarge them and  sometimes you can't.
Along the top it says "My 50 years of stitching"---and on the hands it says "with these hands".
Down the bottom left hand side it says "Mondays-create-chat and cuppa" which means that we meet on Mondays to create ou embroideries and we chat and have a cuppa.
On the bottom right side is a birthday cake and in the centre at the bottom it says "ACT Embroiderers Guild 1962-2012"
Above the fingers on the right hand are embroidered the numbers 60's-70's-80's-90's-2000.
There are lots of charms and flowers and the scissors are there as well.
I do not know how long this took to finish but I imagine it was a lot of hours.




Here is another section containing small art quilts all using different techniques.




And I had to show you these dolls-these were in the general exhibition.
It was titled "Teddy Bears Picnic"
Now I can hear all you dyed in the wool guild members all around the world saying "but they aren't embroidered".
True--- but if you look at what they are standing on---an embroidered blanket/rug.
These dolls are no more than 15cm tall-their clothes are all hand crochet including nickers and each has a bag and a hand made teddy bear.
How could they not be included-they are perfect.



I hope that you have enjoyed these photo's and I hope you are impressed with the talents of our members.



Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Some Exhibition Photo's

As I said yesterday I only took two photo's of the exhibition but I will try to get some others of one of our other members.
The first one is of one of the entries in the Challenge.
The were more than 50 entries and the subject matter was amazing.
We were each given three 1 metre length of DMC Perle thread and the same of DMC floss in dark blue-white and gold plus a small stork scissors charm.
We had to use at least half of the thread but everyone use a lot more than that and we were also allowed to use shades of the same colours which meant we could use say a pale blue as well.
The fabric was to be white and there was a size limit which if I can remember was 40cm square and 10 cm deep.
There were some amazing pieces done in varying themes but I only too one photo which ended up being the eventual winner.
It was incredible---a minature embroidery in a frame of which the inside measured 20cm x 15cm.
 There was an embroidery on a frame -the fabric on the frame was 7cm x 11cm visible with more wrapped around the ends..
Then there were some hanks of floss which measured 4cm and included a tiny DMC wrapper around them.
There were spools of thread that measured 1 cm long (one is down the bottom of the left hand corner and the others are in the sewing box up in the top right hand corner.
There is also a tiny chatelaine consisting of a needlecase and a pincushion and a scissor keeper which contains the stork scissor charm.
You can just see the top of the scissors poking out-so you can tell how small it is if you know how small those charms are.
Truly this was a worthy winner.
Sorry about the flash on the frame.



This is a view of the hall during the set up-please excuse the rubbish up the front of the photo.
The hall where we hold the exhibition is the Albert Hall which is heritage listed and has recently been restored to all it original glory including plush burgundy velvet curtains.
It is a magnificent building which costs us an arm and a leg to hire but is worth every penny of it to show off our members beautiful work.




It is a lot of hard work to set it all up and I would say at a guess there would be around 40-50 members and a handfull of men working all day on the Thursday from 7.30 am until about 4.30pm to make it ready for the official opening on the Thursday night.
And it all went off like clockwork.
But I am really glad that it is all over until we do it all again next year.
I am sorry that the photo's cannot be enlarged and I don't know why it happens this way--only doing this since the new blogger set up grrr.



Tuesday, October 23, 2012

The Exhibition

I am pleased to say that the exhibition was a fabulous success with attendances well up on previous years and although we don't have the financial figures I thing we should be happy about that as well.
I took my camera and I took a few photos on set up day mainly of the floral  arrangements which were outstanding and then I forgot to take anymore.
We are very lucky to have several members who belong to the local floral art group (or whatever they are called) and they do all the flower arranging along with other members of the group.
They then return each morning before the exhibition opens and water the flowers and pick off any dead bits so the displays are always fresh looking.
So I have a few photos of some of the arrangements for you to see.









As you can see they are truly beautiful.


Wednesday, October 17, 2012

OK the time is here----

---for the Guild exhibition for 2012.
I have all my pieces that I entered in the exhibition finished and I have made lots of things for the Sales Table-- oops they have re-named it "The Gift Shop" and I have cleaned out all the stuff that I no longer need and it is ready to sell on the Recycle Table.
I have made some heart shaped lavender bags with lace and little flowers for embellishments (sorry I forgot to take a photo but I may get one when they set up the shop)
I made about 30 cards and I have tassels and some of the cotton reel tassel thingies that I made last year, plus my egg cup pin cushions.
All together I have 66 items to sell in the Gift Shop and too many to even admit to on my Recycle Table so hopefully there will be lots of people with bulging purses to buy it all.
Thursday is the set up day and then the official opening is Thursday evening and then Friday-Saturday and Sunday it will be full on.
I think I will need a holiday after that.

Sunday, October 7, 2012

It's Finished-----

Finally I have finished my little white art quilt that I started back at the beginning of the year in Karen Ruane's class.
All I had to do was back it and bind it but I had it hanging on a piece of book board and covered up so that it wouldn't get dirty.
I was going to put a border on it as well as the binding but the border did nothing for the finished product so I took it off.
I wanted to do something to keep the backing and the front together and I finally came up with the idea of using buttons.
I have some tiny little pink heart shaped buttons--very, very small buttons in fact and I used them on the front and then added another one on the back in the same spot.
See if you can spot them on the quilt-there are six alltogether.
Hopefully the picture will enlarge when you click on it--sometimes they do and sometimes they don't and I don't know why that happens.






I am really pleased with how it has all worked out---it will be entered in the Guild exhibition and then Susan can have it for her birthday.





Monday, October 1, 2012

All is well---------

Just swinging by to let you know that all is well ---I am just busy getting everything ready for the exhibition in 2 weeks time.
I am still finishing off things that are going into the exhibition--just little things--you know me --the last minute queen.
I have also been flat out at the Guild --sorting out and pricing stuff that is to go on the Recycle Table.
Just when I thought that is was nearly complete I have had three donations of embroidery items from people who are downsizing.
One lady who was one of the original members of the Guild (she is in her early 90'snow) has donated 4 big boxes of embroidery books.
I haven't had a look in the boxes yet but I imaging there will be some treasures because she was one of our great teachers in times gone by.
Anyway I am up very early this morning because even though it is a public holiday here today I am still going into the Guild to try and get on top of all.
Sorry that there are no photos but you can admire my signature if you like.