Can I ride?

I’m entering this layout in the Stuck?! Sketches October 15th Sketch Challenge.

Here is the sketch we were given to follow.

I pulled out my hexagon quilting template and went to town.

Gosh it’s hard to get purples to photograph accurately. Unusually for me 90% of the paper on this page came from a single line of paper: Kaisercraft Violet Crush.

Photo was taken at the second wedding that Gorgeous Girl was in last year. She was very taken with the vintage car and was most disappointed that the only the Bride and the Bride’s father got to ride in it to the church and not the flower girls as well.

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Simple Joys

I’m entering this page in the Let’s Get Sketchy Team B October Week 2 Challenge.

Here is the sketch we were given.

I thought this would be a great sketch for scrapping up a sequence of photos I have. They are not the clearest photos, but they tell a story.

Gorgeous Girl received this pool for Christmas last year while we were in Australia, but we couldn’t set it up until we arrived back in PNG as we needed it to stay in the box so we could take it on the plane. These photos capture her much anticipated first use of the pool.

I used the frame of a wood veneer I had used in a previous sketch to stencil the orange circle. I used water colour pencils and chalk pastels to colour it in and some glitter stickers for the title.

Then I did another page using the sketch so that I could use all the photos in this series.

And the two of them together…

There’s a few things I’d do differently next time to make the two pages more cohesive, but hey it’s all a learning experience. I’m thankful for a sketch that encouraged me to use up four photos in a layout!

Thanks for looking

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Getting organised

So, the conference paper for Hong Kong is written, and the shortened presentation is worked out.

My presentation for university is done.

Travel documentation has been printed and the suitcase is packed except for the last minute things. Handbag has been cleaned out and purse will have Australian money, bank cards and ID transferred across shorty. Hotel for the first night in Hong Kong is booked and transport to the conference location is sorted thanks to the excellent maps of the MTR available online. I’ve also gotten the travelling crafty things ready.

Two knitting and three crochet projects. That should be enough to keep me going for 9 days, right? The blue yarn is one I dyed with Kool Aid. I’m excited to see how that is going to crochet up.

I finally got around to sewing the ears onto Happy Hippo.

It ended up taking much less time than I anticipated, though one ear did get sewn on twice. Now I just need to source eyes for the little fellow, but that will happen when we are in Australia over the year end. I learned a lot with this one and I’m sure that the one I’m currently making motifs for will be even better.

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Baking scrapbook pages

I’m entering these pages in the Let’s Get Sketchy Challenge.

I really liked the sketch when I saw it, lots of white space and simple lines.

The colour scheme for this was inspired by the butterfly I used for the embellishment. I was given a 6.5 inch Violet Crush pad from Kaisercraft for my birthday last week and I wanted to break into it.

I edged each paper element with stripes and dots.

Here’s the page.

I then flipped the sketch for the second photo.

I’ve digitally erased the names of the kids in the journalling. This was a great way to use photos of different orientations. These photos were taken when Gorgeous Girl was staying with her cousins in Australia last year. You can see her DIY haircut very clearly in these photos…

Here’s the two layouts together.

Thanks for looking.

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Seaglass

This yarn’s been off the wheel for a few days quietly languishing waiting for a wash. It’s the result of two evenings of spinning.

I’m calling it sea glass because the soft gentle green reminds me of the glass you can occasionally find washed up on the beach. The colour is really hard to capture, this is the best I could manage.

It’s superfine South African merino that I dyed myself a few several years ago. 19 wraps per inch and 310 metres.

It’s not plied as tightly or as evenly as I would like, but the spinning wheel needs a new drive band. I’ve ordered one and had it sent to a friend’s place in the USA, they will be attending the same conference as me in Hong Kong and I’ll pick it up off them then. Hopefully that will make a difference, right now my ladybug doesn’t like going counter-clockwise to ply.

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Busy

There’s not much crafting going on here at Ruth’s Place. I’m spending my days writing, rewriting, reading and editing. Yesterday I sent off a draft of the second chapter of my thesis to my university and in a few weeks time I have to go to Australia and do an oral presentation to a panel and then attend an interview.This is to monitor my progress and get the whole thing ready for submission at the end of the year.

The day after that I’m flying to Hong Kong to present a paper at a conference. I’ve been very lucky in that my university provided me with a travel scholarship so that I could attend. Without it I doubt I’d be able to go.

I have pulled yarn from the stash in anticipation of plane crocheting. I’m hoping to get 2 Christmas presents 90% done on the plane rides so that all I have to do on my return is stuff them and sew them up. I haven’t printed the patterns yet because our printer decided to stop working.

Anyway, for your entertainment, here is a picture I did recently. Gorgeous Girl and I sat down and did some drawing and playing with ink one day after school for a few minutes. It was a good way to transition from school to home and I think I’m going to try and do this more often.

I’m hoping to get some ears sewn on to a hippopotamus tonight. Eyes will probably have to wait until the end of the year when we are back in Australia. I haven’t seen any for sale here in PNG.

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Autumn

One of the things that I miss, living in the tropics, is Autumn. I miss watching the colours of the leaves change and the anticipation of wearing snuggly hand knits and lighting a fire. We have two seasons: hot and wet and hot and dry. Anyway, the October challenge at Berry71Bleu was an autumn themed mood board.

I had no autumn photos, but I did have some papers that matched the board and so scrapped up this page of Gorgeous Girl on safari in Zambia in 2011. It’s hard to believe how much she has grown! She had just turned 4 in this picture.

I used my hexagon templates from quilting and wrote the journalling in a plain one.

The other solid hexagon was cut from a piece of embossed card my SMIL sent me as part of a care package a while ago.

I used some barbed wire from Molossi.

This page took me much loner than it usually takes me to make a page (and I’m not a fast scrapper to start with), but I’m happy with how it turned out, and it’s one more photo out of the box and onto a page…

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Small Minutes

This album was completed during the small minutes. You know those minutes you have here and there? I left it out on my table and while I was waiting for a pot to boil or for Gorgeous Girl to get out of the shower I’d trim a few photos, ink some edges, that sort of thing. It’s very plain, there’s not a lot of embellishment, but I like it.

It’s a book celebrating her time as a bridesmaid last year for Gorgeous Man’s cousin’s wedding.

I think this is my favourite photo of Gorgeous Girl from the wedding, the photographer used a mirror to frame each of the bridal party.

and these last two photos are just amazing.

The last photo is of the wedding venue. I figured that the photos were so stunning that lots of embellishments would detract from them. (Also I didn’t have a lot of classy wedding embellishments in the stash and my nearest scrapbooking store is a plane ride away).

I tried something new with Gorgeous Girl today. After picking her up from school and driving home we both sat down and did some drawing and painting to ease into the afternoon routine. I’ll get photos of both our masterpieces tomorrow.

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Around the World Blog Post Part 2

Cristina at Little Wilds graciously offered to be tagged for the Around the World Blog Post. She is another expat (I’m sensing a theme) but lives in South Africa. I was lucky enough to meet up with her in person a few times when our schedules allowed.

Cristina does amazing things with felt. How she works on such a tiny scale always amazes me. If you are looking for your daily dose of cute then Little Wilds is a place you should visit.

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The World Blog Tour makes its way to Papua New Guinea

In recent weeks both Elzaan and Kate have tagged me to take part in the World Blog Tour. Elzaan is an expat and blogs at Huisvlyt.  She blogs in English and Afrikaans and lives in Mauritus. She makes lovely quilts and I always try to read the Afrikaans portion of her blog first to try and see how much I can work out. Kate is also an expat and blogs at Kate’s Quilting. She does much more than quilt, making wonderful Artist Trading cards and cross stitch as well. Kate is a blog reader who has become a good friend and I’m hoping that one day we’ll get to meet in person.

On to the questions.

1. What am I working on?

The short answer to this is: A thesis…(due for submission at the beginning of December so I’m currently a little bit obsessed with it).

Craft wise I’m working on another crocheted hippo like this one. This one still needs ears and eyes…

There is also a hand-pieced hexagon quilt which is a slow ongoing project.

There is also a strip quilt waiting to be basted (my least favourite part of quilting)

and there’s the Very Hungry Caterpillar quilt.

I also scrapbook

and lately I’ve been dabbling in the shiny new world of art journalling.

Weirdly for me, there is no knitting WIPs at present.

I also spin.

2. How does my work differ from others of its genre?

I’m not sure that it does. My friend Kerin, who no longer blogs, but should 🙂 tells me that I have my own distinct scrapbooking style that she can now recognise. Living away from craft stores forces me to work from stash, so there is a lot of handwritten titles and journalling on my pages and I’m starting to incorporate more doodling as well.

As far as knitting and crocheting go I tend to follow patterns pretty closely. Quilting I’m starting to make up my own patterns, but because maths is not my strong point they are pretty loose and free.

I guess my blog is different because I live in a place where most craft bloggers don’t and so I get to share pictures like this with you from time to time.

(This was Independence Day celebrations at Gorgeous Girl’s school a few years ago).

3. Why do I write/create what I do?

I like to make things. I enjoy the process of being creative. Being an isolated crafter I cherish the connections I’ve made through this blog as it allows me to feel part of a broader community of makers.

4. How does my writing/creating process work?

When I have free time I make things. Then I write about them so that I don’t accost random strangers to show them what I’ve made. I usually do different crafts on set days as it helps me not to have to decide what to work on during the spare minutes. Though lately I’ve just been obsessing on the crochet animals…

At this point I’m supposed to nominate three other bloggers to host the Tour on their blogs. However, nearly all of the blogs I read have already played along. So, if you have a blog and you haven’t played along and would like to, please let me know in the comments and I’ll give you a shout out in my next blog post.

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