sleeping beauty

Next Creative Fibre Area meeting will be helt in Kerikeri mid June and the challenge this time is 'Baby'. Jenny Poore had asked my to do a felted baby and finally I finished it. Well lets say it is finished for now, I just don't have more time to work on, because we are leaving on Wednesday for our trip to Germany.  I didn't have the right 'flesh' colour wool and I would like to work more on the surface to make it nice and smooth, but it will do for the moment.

I also would like to make a felted dress for her, but for the moment, she wears just some op-shop bargains

another painting lesson

Just realizing that I haven't done any fibre work last week, shame on me.
I have finished the wingspan scarf, but I am not really happy with it and I haven't taken a photo yet.
Anyway, today was another painting lesson with Mike Nettman at Cherry Park House, the subject was Czesanne.  We didn't have as much time as usual because of the AGM, so we talked a bit about the artist's palette and his style to paint and then started to copy a painting of our own choice.

I chose this one

and this is what I did in 2 hours

it is not exactly the same, but I am quite happy with the result. It was great fun and I like this kind of style to paint

Give away

I was just reading the newest Creative Fibre message digest: Margaret Gibson from Christchurch is still collecting beanies, fingerless gloves and other goodies for people in the Eastern Suburbs.
Well I have still lots of things left from the Origin time, which nobody wants, felted and knitted  fingerless gloves, knitted and felted slippers, some beanies, socks. I think  I could send them to Margaret instead of bombarding friends and family with it. I remember how I felt when I was young and my father brought always things along for us to keep. I have to remind myself not to do this. At least this knitted leftovers would be of help to poor people hopefully.
So I will go through everything the next days and sort out, what to send, quite exciting :)

the painting

I am working on at the moment

was hard to photograph. It is still not finished, but the light is now not good any more.
I started painting some weeks ago again after a break of several years. I am doing more exercises and challenges at the moment rather than painting for pleasure. Perspective and buildings were never my thing and so this one is a big challenge ;)

Top

My friend Dagmar gave me a nice blue dress last November. She is making them:  not only is she sewing it but also dyeing the silk.

it is a long dress and it was hanging in the wardrobe for some  time

I made a little top to go with. I dyed silk chiffon green and wool in a matching blue.

I kept it very light for summer

it is only a rectangle with a hole in the middle for the neck

After felting I discovered some small holes in the front. They looked like there has been a tag attached before. I was so disappointed and the top ended up in my UFO basket.
I remembered it when I packed my stuff for last week's felters meeting and took it with me. The subject of the day was making a similar top, so I used the moment and finally felted some flowers over the holes. They are done by putting a layer of wool on the silk, then a resist on top with a hole in the middle, and then I made the normal flower I usually do, so that everything was already attached to the fabric, but the flower is still in 3 D.

The mannequin is a size 8, so it looks a bit funny - I am a big girl ;)
and yes that's our firewood in the background left, not stacked

the impatiens in the background are considered a weed!

Yesterday I put a little green glass bead in the middle of each flower, not sure if I should have used a different colour....

would white have been better?

I think I will only attach some ties at the side and not make a seam.

I will felt blue ties and sew them on

I am looking forward to take it with me to Germany and hopefully I find an opportunity to wear it.

Anita did at the felters meeting a children's top with cheese cloth in a similar style, I think I could do something similar for Storm?

Well I'll better finish now, we are going to see friends in Waimamaku!

raining

Its raining today, heavy rain is expected. I am supposed to go to the Felters of the North meeting to Whangarei, that will be a horrible drive. I'd rather not going but I haven't been since October and I have to take fabric Lindsay asked to do. And I don't want the others to think, I am not coming anymore since I had the big commission.
I'd rather not going away for the winter too, even I so want to see my son. But it is always such a hassle. We were happy not to need house sitters this year, but now it has suddenly changed and we need to prepare the house for a family with a 3 year old in less than 3 weeks. I have no idea how to manage this, where to put all my things, the loom, the spinning wheel, the knitting machines and all the boxes of wool, then the painting gear and so on. The house sitters are richer people than us and they are used to a better lifestyle, but they want to have time to look for a house to buy here in Kerikeri, fair enough. At least we don't need to worry about not paid powerbills this time, as he is a new employee of friends. And we don't need to be a burden to the kids, that's probably the main reason.
It's probably just me. I cannot handle this and it is all too much at the moment, I feel that my art/craft work is not welcome,  I should just do proper house work and watch tv and not mess up the house with all this unnecessary things which nobody wants beside of me. Its all too much, the money worries, the organizing of the trip, well the whole life probably. But what does a good women do instead of running away. Just carry on somehow.
So I will organize my felting gear now and hop in the car and drive to the meeting. On the way home I will do the shopping to have the right food for Storm tomorrow,I need bread and milk at least, and back home cleaning and so on, not to forget to book finally the flight to Auckland to catch the plane to Germany on the 30th, $133 each bug....
Enough complaining for now, need to get dressed and organized....

coiled yarn

Did my first attempt to spin a coiled yarn today. After watching several movies about it on YouTube I gave it a go. But it is not as easy as it looks first. I was struggling not to spin to fast to keep up with everything.
This is now the first result, it will take me some more practise to get it perfect.

Buena Vista Social Club

was the movie I just finished watching on Maori Channel. A great movie, which I have seen before of course and which always brings me back lots of memories. I do love cuban music and I love the spanish language. Not much is left of the language now, I am glad, that I still can remember some phrases. Before circumstances drew our focus to New Zealand, we planned to retire at the Canarian Islands and were looking for a property at El Hierro. So long ago, the last time I was there was 1996. I would love to go there again to show Alex the extremes of this island.
It was in June 2000 that Ruben Gonzalez and Ibrahim Ferrer played open-air in the 'Dresdener Zwinger', I will never forget that. My late husband and I spent since 1992 every year some days in Dresden during the music festival until 2001. The year 2000 had the theme Baroque and Jazz, an interesting combination. I love Baroque music, Jazz is always a bit challenging. To listen to the music now in this movie and to see again the people, most of them will be long gone now, made me realize how much I love music and how much of it I lost the last 10 years. Life was just to busy with other things, time to return to listen to more music again, definitely.