Today is my daughters birthday, her brother cooked a cake for her and when I picked my niece up from school we decided to do a decorative icing…we had to work with what I had which was some tubes of icing for doing the writing, a bottle of icing flower shapes and a bag of mini M&Ms…It is hard to think of Jessie without thinking of the raiders so we picked out the team colours, the football is a button and to go with them I did a google image search for the flag, printed it and glued it to a skewer and a short time later we had a fun birthday cake for her.
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 This one is for my daughter, a Couple of days before I embroidered it she asked me if I was going to record that her boys, The Canberra Raiders rugby league team, were in the top 8, She is a true fan and delighted when I showed her the sketch of my design.
I got the shape of the ball by tracing around the one on the photo of the Raiders Quilt that I made her a few years ago. I stitched the 2 fabrics together and embroidered the detail and then appliqued it in place with a little padding.
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 The first line is Threaded Arrowhead Stitch.
The second line is also Threaded Arrowhead Stitch but using a smaller stitch which doesn’t look as different from the first line as I thought it would…this is the last line of Arrowhead..
The Third Line is the Start of Back Stitch…and no I haven’t flipped the image by mistake, it just appealed to my sense of humour to stitch back stitch backwards.
The 4th line is Whipped Back Stitch…the first have of the line shows the bigger back stitches that I did, the second half of the line shows how whipping the back stitch with the same colour makes a more solid line.
The 5th line is back stitch whipped with a contrasting thread, I have also done a couple of different lengths of backstitch along the line to show how the shorter stitches alter the look of the whipped backstitch.
The 4th line is also the finish of my Take it Further July colours (I am stitching a foot on my sampler with each of the take it further colours)
and the 5th row is also the start of my Take it Further August colours…Sharon has made the thread selection of threads for the August colours very easy for me, on the last wed of July she gave me some of the threads that she had recently bought, the next week I found out that she had used those threads for the August colours.
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My visiting family have returned home after a wonderful visit, their time here flew by all to quickly…The house seems very quite without them here.
I particularly enjoyed the company of my nearly 10 year old nephew, he worked with me in the garden and helped us build the castle And when he showed an interest in my sampler I asked him if he would like to learn some stitching, I got an enthusiastic yes and he has started his own sampler, he is a delight to teach, he has a keen eye and good focus, I only had to show him once how to thread his own needle and knot the thread and he quickly mastered running stitch and backstitch…
 It was then time to teach his little brother how to do running stitch, I don’t think little brother was understanding what he was doing but the instructions he was giving were good and it was a delight to see him wanting to share his new found knowledge.
Later that evening I was showing my brother the basics so that he could assist with the sampler when they get home, brother asked if he could have a strip of fabric to do his own sampler and a little later sister in law asked if she could have one too, I sent them home with their strips of fabric, needles and threads to get them started and we will correspond by email as to where on the net they can find instructions and may write the occassional post as a lesson for something that they want to learn.
As I said my nephew is nearly ten, his birthday is next week and we decided to have an early birthday party for him…having enjoyed his company while working in the garden I was inspired to make him a special cake that would remind him of his holiday in Canberra, and what better reminder than a castle cake…well it was really a castle ruin, I didn’t have much time to think it through so it really is a wonky castle but the overall effect still looked great.
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My Mission is going well, on Tuesday Greg my tutor and the ABC 666 producer came out to my place, as it turns out my mortar is fine but there is a few extra things which Greg talked me through that will make sure that the upper part of my castle walls will be strong and safe…the edited pre recorded segment went to air this afternoon and it sounded great.
Greg also showed me how to split a brick using a bolster and hammer…I was pretty happy with my first attempt.
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My life seems to go from the sublime to the ridiculous, after being sick for so many weeks I am now just about recovered and hoping that I havn’t taken on more than I can handle as I have a buzy week coming up…I have my brother and family (3 young children) visiting and in the mean time My Mission has been accepted.
you can read about the Mission at abc 666 radio afternoons.
My Mission is to learn basic bricklaying and how to mix strong mortar so that I can finish building the Castle in my front garden…When I heard the mission challenge on the radio I thought what a great opportunity that would be to learn the basics of bricklaying so that I could be sure that the upper part of my castle walls would be strong and safe and even though I was still sick at the time I felt compelled to reach for the phone to call in my mission and to have my mission accepted is very exciting.
I am not the only one that is excited my niece, who has helped me building the castle is also very excited and is having the day of school so that she can come into the radio studio with me when our Mission is introduced live on air.
To Listen in via live streaming…Log onto ABC canberra local radio (the live streaming button is 3/4 of the way down the left hand side of the page) at 1.30pm Australian Eastern Standard Time on Friday 4th July 2008…Use this time Date Converter to work out what time that is where you live (Select Australia -Australian Capital Territory – CAnberra from the convert from drop down Menu and your own location from the convert to drop down menu)
There will be a pre recorded progress report at 1.30pm on Wednesday 9th of July.
And a live to air wrap up of my mission at 1.30pm Friday 11th July.
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Hi everyone, Thank you to all that have sent me get well comments, they are much appreciated and I will try and get personal replies sent as I have the energy to do so….whatever the bug that hit me it hit me hard and now more than 2 weeks later I am still recovering but at least in the last few days my head has started to clear a little.
 A few nights back my son suggested that I should put something on my sampler to record how sick I have been, I thought about it and decided as I have spent so much time in bed I would embroider my Bedhead which is a reproduction (1980) Brass Bedhead modified to fit a waterbed base…I have always loved this bedhead that has posts enameled in burgundy and pretty pink china pots and embroidering its likeness on my sampler gives me something nice from an otherwise awful couple of weeks.
I used stem stitch for the posts, Satin stitch and colonial knots for the trimmings and beads for the china pots, my son painted tiny roses on the beads.
Today also marks the change of season as we click over into winter down under.
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The last few days are a bit of a blur, with out warning a virus struck me down, made me ache all over and sapped my energy, sicker than I have been for many a year, today I am still feeling weak but am much improved on the last couple of days and hoping to better tomorrow.
When I sat down to write the above I saw that it was the 19th May which is my blogging anniverary, my 4th as My first post was 19 may 2004.
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Detail 620 kept jumping out and telling me that those big spaces should have something in the centres, so I have added beaded flowers to the detail.
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School Holidays and my neice came over to help lay the bricks for our castle…first you spread the mortor and then put the brick on…we are not very good brickies but we are having fun.
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