Not much time

I recently joined an online group which has only been going for a short while.
We have a challenge for the month of June. I only joined in the last 3 or 4 days. So not much time to be making and doing.

However, I have found that the theme proposed and the timeframe have come together reasonably well - so far.

The theme is Collections (or Collections, I can't actually remember at the moment). Being in a hurry, I just thought, what have I collected in the past? The first thing that came to mind was - swap cards.

So, being a person who hasn't thrown out a lot along the way, I found a small collection that I have kept. I do remember getting rid of some, many years ago, but had some that I just couldn't bear to part with.

I went through the ones I had, keeping in mind that I need a fairly simple image to work with in a short period of time.  I came up with some fish cards. I decided to use them as they also are a collection of fish.

Not being person who chooses to draw, I decided to play around with them in Photoshop.

I had thought to use them at actual size and make the images. Then I realised that that might be a bit fiddly, so I enlarged the images and printed them out in black and white. I have some cards that have the same image but in different colours, so I thought I could play around with different fabrics and see if I could come up with something along those lines.

The background was going to be a bit of a problem, especially if I used the cards in an upright way, it was going to look rather regular and any mistakes would stand out. And I am sure I would make mistakes.

Bright idea - use the backs. The cards are often from playing card sets and have the usual playing card images on them. I photographed some and played around with them in Photoshop too.

That is as far as I have got, so far. I am hoping to use the above cards as the background, then lay the fish cards over the top.

Coo-ee and old embroideries

When browsing the Embroiderers' Guild newsletter, we noticed that there is an exhibition on at Bundoora Homestead.  It is Early Australian Linens (this is a blog about the exhibition with lots of photos).
My friend and I went along today (6/9/12) to have a look.  We were able to reminisce about the embroideries we did in our younger days, and the ones that we remember our mothers doing.  I will have to go through the cupboards and see what we still have - not that I could bear to part with them, I'll just remember doing them.  Maybe we'll use them again.

Of interest to me was this apron. It reminded me that Coo-ee (you can read about it here) has been around for quite a while - there was even a written record of it at the Napoleon exhibition at the National Gallery Victoria.

There were some lovely other pieces too.

This was lovely.  Apparently it was done by an 83 year old lady, not all that long ago. 

I remember seeing these sets, all ready to be embroidered and crocheted.

You can read more about the collection at Patra's Place of Linens.  And she has other blogs too - I have just discovered her swap card collection - will have to dig out mine now.