Felting all weekend!

I seem to get very busy during the week these days. After I come home from my part-time job , it's lunch then another load of washing , some household chores , some days I run an errant, and before you know it the girls are home from school and it is time to make coffee and  to have a sit down with my hubby. Then take the washing down and start dinner. While they do dishes , I usually fold the clothes and put them away. This week I had an order to fill for some Bushbabies so I then stitch all evening. Somewhere along the line I need to get more studio time in. Preferably in the afternoon. Which means I have to just leave some of the chores to later in the day. Which makes me feel kinda guilty. At the moment I pay my eldest to vacuum clean. My youngest is now helping with the dusting , since she complained of not enough spending money. This really helps ! But I have these self made rules ; I should have my chores done before I get to play. But as everyone knows ; a woman's work is never done. I've kinda set myself up for failure there... 

So last weekend I was asked to give a workshop in a felting technique by the extension group of the local embroidery guild. I taught about 15 talented stitchers how to make 3-d felted flowers. We all had a fun day.
          All these busy hands! Kneading and shaping and rubbing.
            And they all had success ! And these lovely flowers lend themselves so beautifully for embellishing and embroidering and beading. I'd love to see them after these ladies are completely finished with them.
                  Quite a few ladies bought my little wool kits and were not scared at all in trying my black and white and red colour mix. As a matter of fact , you could really notice that they were the extension group , not panicked by mistakes; instead they either tried to fix the mistakes by themselves, having already worked out how you can adhere wool to other wool , or they creatively used the mistake as part of their design. But there were not many mistakes made. 
        The felting class was held in our local Rudolph Steiner school . A wonderful building with a lovely feeling.  On a gorgeous spring day too.

On Sunday there was the HB Felting group at Keirunga , which I run. A lovely lively informal group of felters, who like to come together to work on their own projects , and help each other and inspire each other. This time there were no beginners that needed tutoring , which was really nice actually , this way I could work on my own thing and socialize. 

Last week of school term and then we go to Christchurch for a family visit. Looking forward to it. I shall take some stitching with me. 

Threads and Dewdrops.

My lovely bloke put some absent bids on a few things in a local auction. He likes to tinker with bicycles and sound equipment. And we saw these bobbins of thread on a fairly unclear photo on the auction house's website. So he put in a bid on them too.  And won them. It was an astounding amount of new sewing thread; 78 bobbins still in their wrappers! For $20. All swedish molnlycke.  My Dutch bargain brain is trying to work out how much money I have saved.....! Not that I had it in the first place of course.  I love it when people don't want their stuff anymore.  This week at school, where I work part-time, I left my merino cardigan in another classroom . When I returned to collect it, 2 teachers said to me  , "oh was that yours. We were looking at the label and thinking that we couldn't afford that on our wages." So I said "neither can I , I got it at an opshop , they provide my labeled clothing."  lol!

Some other beautiful threads in our garden on a misty morning this week. Sparkling and shaking in the morning breeze. In the background are the yellow star flowers of the forsythia , which is just brimming over this year.
And I have finished the first kowhai pixie this spring. I just love the boots on my bushbabies ; I think it gives them a bit of attitude , as if it really is quite possible they are rummaging about at the bottom of my garden. 
This is the poppie plant coming up by my washing line. There had been some spring showers that morning . What the picture doesn't translate is how each droplet shimmered with a rainbow of colours when I moved my head ever so slightly.  Just a bit of everyday magic. 

Bonus for last weekend.

     Last friday I had to be in my neighbouring town , Napier , which is only 20 minutes away. I picked up a book for my spinning club and bought myself one too. Not a fibre book this time , but a book I need to read for the book club I belong to.  While I was there I decided to try my luck in a few little opshops.  Another tablecloth with pink fruit , an aqua-blue gingham fabric ,a neat floral fabric with the same aqua colour in it , and a cute flannel piece with white teddies on a swing. Cute teapot doilie , but you should see the back : huge knots and long strings left on!

In case you are wondering ; no, none of my finds came this lovely looking. I have already soaked and washed and ironed them in the picture , they were all yellow with age and quite a few stains.
     And a handful of embroidered serviettes and cloths. It was a colour coordinated shopping spree. I might make some more bracelets out of these.
   And some vintage patterns. I just love the pictures. That red apron is totally adorable.
The drawing style of the old patterns was so different . You will need to wear some foundation garments if you want to actually make these lovely frocks fit.  Love the gloves. I can remember wearing little white gloves to church when I was a very small girl in the 60's. It meant you had to sit quietly , because otherwise they'd be black in an instant and mum would be cross.

  Well I had a great weekend with a big party to go to , it was a dress up with the theme being 70's t.v. show.  Everyone was really into it , my man went as a gumby from the Monty Python's flying circus , and he had me laughing all night. I went as Sapphire from that weird sci-fi show Sapphire and Steel. I found the perfect blue nylon dress in an oppshop of course , it was quite sexy , and I danced a great deal. The party was held in a 100 + year old house, which actually has a ballroom , and it was filled with people. Sometimes you just need to let your hair down.

  I didn't drink , since I'd be driving , and also on Sunday I was looking after my nephew , who is 1 yr old . You need to be clearheaded for that sort of job! 

Spring has sprung!

      The apricot tree in our backyard is blossoming. A bit iffy , because we can still get some frosts here , and we sure aren't going to order a helicopter to fly over our garden early in the morning ,  like the big orchardists do around here . Some years we get a few dozen and some years we get absolutely hundreds of apricots on our 2 trees. Time will tell. 

     I finished a blossom pixie on the weekend. I have started making my BushBabies with embroidered faces lately . This way I don't have to worry if their faces are smudged ( don't actually know if they do) . The next pixie is half finished , and then I'll make some Kowhai flower pixies. 

  Don't you just love that fragile pink blossom against the pale blue sky? Gorgeous.