The Golly Girls - where it all began :)

The Golly Girls - where it all began :)
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

While I am rounding up the dolly story I should show you the swap which began Belle and my friendship :) The golly/Mammy swap. Belle made me these gorgeous girls. I still love them, they are so different from anything I had ever seen before. She put so much time into making them and like all her dolls they just sing 'quality', now when someone makes something this carefully and with this attention to detail you just have to admire their work and befriend them immediately. I have certainly learnt loads this year. One thing is that friendships are made by shareing, so this duo were very portentious, quilting friends indeed!

Forum Doll Swap

Forum Doll Swap
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

Looking back through my blog I realise I didn't show you a phot of the doll I received from jenkay for the Christmas Angel Doll Swap - so here she is :) In't she great - the kind of prim I like - I don't like those raggedy Anne types with triangles for noses - what is that all about? Anyway, this one I do like - she is very dainty and delicate and quite subdude (sp?) so I could keep her out all year if I wanted to :) She also has a couple of unusual features her legs are made by dividing one leg into two with a running stitch - very clever and not a little tricky I imagine. and her nose is slightly conoured by having a running stitch down each side and being 'pulled in' for want of a better description. :)

Christmas Bag 2

Christmas Bag 2
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

To show the inset zip. I was very pleased with myself to have worked this out in my head and to have got the length of the 'gusset' exactly right! Maybe I can do this sewing thing after all :)

Christmas Bag

Christmas Bag
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

My first bag made without a pattern. Fabric is fossil fern and despite looking a little lopsided in this photo I am pleased with the result. The pattern I designed was drawn up on the back of an envelope :) and I made it large enough to fit an A4 folder into so my niece can take it to school if she wants to. She is suitable pleased with it which is gratifying :) There is a pocket between the handles on each side. Now I am going to transfer the pattern, drawing and instructions to my journal so i can do this one again. I think That's probably the 'wrong' way round to do things but that's me for you!

Christmas Angels in a row.

Christmas Angels in a row.
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

From the left these angels were made by Jenkay for this years christmas angel swap, by Belle for a private angel swap and as a swap for last year's (2004) angel swap. They are now a regular part of our christmas decorations and will take pride of place every year.

My newest and loveliest :)

My newest and loveliest :)
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

Unfortunately the colours are a little washed out in this photograph because of the flash - but you get an idea of the beauty of the angel Belle made for me :) She has christmassy words, love, joy, peace, etc. embroidered on her skirt and lovely ribbon roses on her top, her halo has littele purple flowers interwoven through it. She also has on, which you can't see in the photo, lace edged bloomers. Very lovely and quite my favourite doll, this is saying something for me as until I started doing swaps on the forum I would not have said I was a 'doll person' :)

Christmas Doll face

Christmas Doll face
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

A closer view to show face. Pattern called colonial angel, I also changed the cloves for beads as I wasn't sure cloves would get through customs.

christmas angel private swap

christmas angel 2
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

Now that christmas is over I can reveal the doll I made for Belle. I was very pleased with how she turned out as this was my first attempt at tea dying and at adapting a pattern, with all those buttons.

Art Quilt Challenge

Art Quilt Challenge
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

Starting in January I will be taking part in an art quilt challenge, more new ground but great pactice for designing things. The organiser, Jane, has sent me this photo which is to be my inspiration for the challenge.

Mutant Doll!

Mutant Doll!
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

The dress should have been fuller to make it easier for chubby 5 year old hands to turn her upsdie down. The hair was made by winding the yarn around a place mat and sewing a seam down the strip of yarn strands. Then cut off the yarn up the middle of the other side of the mat. Attach to the head with the seam running down the back of the head. Plat the ends and tie off before trimming to desired length. I originally made the plats longer but had to trim them to fit them into the skirt when she's upside down. Lastly draw faces on with fabric pens. Now she needs to be wrapped and posted or she wont arrive in time for Christmas :)

Wide awake doll

Wide awake doll
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

She was made by drawing a pattern (draw round the base of a coffee cup for the head - the body by eye. On reflection the body could have been a little longer but the doll herself seems in proportion. The sewing of the seams was a little wonky (DD helped!) but the hair (ordinary mohair yarn) covers a multitude of wavey lopsided head shapes :)

Sleepy Doll

Sleepy Doll
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

Here is the dol I was sewing whilst having my reflective moments the other day :) She doesn't look too bad considering I wasn't really oncentrating VBG She also reminds me of the dolls I used to make as gifts when I was a teenager.

Looking back

Today I have been doing a little last minute present making for my niece, but whilst I was sewing my mind took a wander over the past year and how things have changed.

The progress little X has made since she arrived as an emergency placement last christmas eve has been wonderful to watch and we all love her dearly. She is now a very valued member of our family. We still don't know how long she will be here, and that is very hard, so I don't go there.

My daughter said the other day we have to make this christmas very special for her as she might not be here next year. Again, I don't want to think about that. Instead I concentrate on the bright, funny, confident, happy child she has become and the way she sings around the house. Her favourite at the moment is old McDonald :)

Makes me glad I decided to get us all into this fostering stuff. Probably the best decision I ever made. Not without it's complications and disappointments but these are not directly related to X, more to the system within which we now find ourselves and the bureaucracy which grinds so exceedingly slow, and makes such incomprehensible decisions.

I have met some wonderful, strong, generous women this year and I have been surprised and delighted to find myself among them as an equal. I have made a friend I think I will have for the rest of my life, although we will most likely never meet face to face. I have started this blog and begun the painful process of a visual journal - still to learn the 'visual' bit :) I have watched my birth children mature and display huge openness to new experiences and demands, and cope with them with care and compassion. My boys are nearly men and my DD is almost a woman and continues to be a challenge to parent in new and rewarding ways. I work hard to be a good mum to her, but she repays every ounce of concern and anxiety. My DS' are still a joy and a blessing and I think myself a very lucky woman to be here to watch them grow. DH and I have had some difficult moments around X and her future but we have had them together and he continues to amaze me with what he is capable of, the quiet gentle and loving man that he is, is a continual joy and to know the support he gives me when I remember to include him and ask for his help is humbling. I need to practice this asking and not to try to be so self sufficient, otherwise I overlook his undoubted abilities. 'Parenting' in an equal partnership has been a new experience for me and it took some adjusting to back in the spring when we were learning how to do this fostering thing. I have wondered many times what would my life have been like if he had been around when my big kids were little? I am grateful everyday that I met him and that I feel even more in love eight years after I met him than I did when I first fell head over heels for him. I must remember to tell him more often how much I value his being here with me.

SO 2005 has been an amazing year and has brought me riches I never imagined or predicted. I am sad to see it go, but roll on 2006 :) And all of that doesn't even begin to cover the things I have learnt about sewing :)

allthatjazz crinoline lady

allthatjazz
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

Here is that chart :) Thank you again, Linda, I think that element of my block is the most successful. I am already having ideas about how I can combine my wise woman (from the bags of fun challenge) and blackwork with waste canvas.

My seam treatments were taken from these books
and


and my thread choices and the fabrics for the block itself were all from my stash and entirely arbitrary. I just chose everything in my stash that fitted the colours on my mind map and then weeded them out by discarding those which didn't fit well together.

Whatever I have arrived at, was arrived at more by chance and what institct I possess, than by careful thought or planning. It just felt right at the time.

What would I change? Firstly, to use the hoop less tightly so that it does not crush the velvet. Secondly, to remember that my block is slightly bigger than the finished size and to move everything in by a fraction. Thirdly, more flowers on the wisteria. Finally, to get some of the notifs moving out of their boxes and across more of the block.

allthatjazz visual journal (2)

allthatjazz visual journal (2)
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

This is the other page.

I went through the posts on the group page and pulled together the ideas and themes mentioned by the other participants. I grouped these into themes, music, colours, etc.

Then I pulled out my books and began to look for images than fitted these themes. Many of my resources are cross stitch related. Linda had introduced me to the idea of using waste canvas for cross stitch on cq and I chose to use this technique because it is so familiar to me, comfortable therefore.

I have been looking for stitch styles/techniques I could adopt to use with the waste canvas other than cross stitch and I remembered the crinoline lady pictures Linda put on her blog, Chloe's Place. Blackwork seemed the ideal thing. I have always admired the simplicity of this stitching and the beauty of it's patterns but I have never done any before. I talked a few weeks ago about how I went about converting the original cross stitch chart into a blackwork version of the crinoline lady. This was the most successful element of my block.

allthatjazz visual journal

allthatjazz visual journal
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

Now that I have finished my block and it is on it's way to Aus I thought I would record some more titbits about the process. I wasn't going to show my visual journal because it's not very 'visual' but I read an interesting piece on SharonB's blog inaminuteago tonight which has made me reconsider.

I am not a very visual person. I am only newly come to cq and to putting ideas together for myself rather than using other people's designs. I wanted a record of the block as the block it's self was not to be kept, so I decided I would have a go at making a journal. The 'all that jazz' project was the first thing to go into my journal.

I don't think in pictures. When people talk about 'visualising' things I really don't know what they mean. I can write a scenario in my head but it is a narative , not a picture. So my journal for the all that jazz block is more of a mind map a la Buzzan than it is a sketch pad or even a place to doodle.

All my life (as long as I can remember) I have believed that I cannot draw. I have thought of trying to learn, bought books on 'drawing on the right side of the brain' and so forth but never been able to draw. It is something I leave to other people who will make a better job of it than me. This is not an emotional statement, although i have morned the lack of any artistic ability in the past, it is true. But I am resigned to it being so. And truely it does not bother me any longer.

This, then, is the beauty of sewing. As fewer people can/want to sew, my ability with a needle has been my art. I can do something that other people do not think they can (the truth for me is that they could if they wanted, but don't know it). In the past I have been happy to cross stitch, which I see as sewing by numbers. I have discussed this before in this blog.

When I came to think about ideas for my block I needed/wanted a way to record and to stimulate visual concepts and images, but I did it in a way which is comfortable for me - I did it in words.

In order that the words were clear I took two photos of the double page I used to 'think' on paper about my block.

allthatjazz

allthatjazz
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

beaded flowers

allthatjazz

allthatjazz
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

I think I'm finished - could go on adding more here there and everywhere but as I am already well over the deadline I think it's time to get it in the post now :)

allthatjazz

allthatjazz
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

This 'wisteria' is the bit I am least happy with and I am still tempted to add more flowers to it - as it is so close to the edge and my block is a bit large some of it will be lost in the seams anyway. May give in to temptation and give it a little more, may not!

allthatjazz

allthatjazz
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

Here's a closer view of that fleur d'Lyon. I was going to do this in a satin stitch but I am trying to get as much done as quickly as I can, so I returned to the cross stitch over waste canvas - just because it is a technique I am familiar with, and I haven't done much satin stitch. Ho hum. Need more hours and less responsibilities - anyone want 4 kids for a couple for weeks while I get this finishe?

However, I am still enjoying the process and will be reluctant to say goodbye to my block - I have become quite attached to it :) Now there's an idea, that would certainly fill up some space ;)

allthatjazz

allthatjazz
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

Here's a picture of where I'm up to today. I added a fleur d'Lyon on the madly bright block bottom left - it doesn't show too well in thsi photo - the fabric is shouting for all the attention :) I know I am way over the deadline but I don't want to spoil things now as I am pleased with how it has gone so far. I am concentration on some seam treatments for the next session tomorrow night and then I need something for the tartan fabric, someway to hide the damage my hoop has done to the green velvet ans soething for the purple below the trumpet. All these somethings need to be quick :)

If anyone has any hints or tips on how not to crush your velet other than by not putting the hoops on so tightly next time , Jacqui! (Doh!) then I would welcome the advice.

doll

doll
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

I am posting this picture of a christmas angel doll which I made for a swap which opened Nov. 30th. The real reason I am posting it now is that I have just finished another doll for Belle for Christmas and I REALLY want to show you a picture of that one, but I can't, because she doesn't get it until christmas, and I don't want her peeking :) But I am fighting very hard with myself not to show you.

This one doesn't look like the new one either, in case you are wondering :) Completely different. okay, clue numer one - tea dyeing. I'm not saying any more ... no, I'm not, don't tempt me.

christmas Ornie swap

christmas Ornie swap
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

Here are the 4 ornaments I received in the swap :) Merry Christmas everyone. They are from Hope (snowman) Jan (colourful heart) Maureen (white heart) and pinup (bell) Thank you everyone for making this an enjoyable swap and Maureen for organising it :)

To respond to Sylvia's comment - the pattern was in the first issue of the Simply Knitting mag - lovely and easy and look good plus I now know it by heart the yarns are differnt arans from my stash and the multicoloured one is a Noro yarn.

OOps put this in the wrong post so just imagine it goes on the one bellow about scarves ;)

Knitting for Christmas

Knitting for Christmas
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

Deadline approaches and one of the christmas scarves is still OTN!

allthatjazz8

allthatjazz8
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

Here's a closer view of tonights work. The stave is in metallic lime green which doesn't photograph well. The notes are single thread stranded floss in red, light purple and yellow, satin stitch and a long back stitch, couched in places.

allthatjazz9

allthatjazz9
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

Here's a wider view to show the whole block so far including tonights stitching of the misical stave and treble clef plus notes. i was originally going to use the lines printed on the fabric but decided I wanted the music to 'move' rather tahn lie flat and rigid. My dilema at this point is what on earth to put in the metalic gold fabric top right in thsi photo and how to cover the 'miss' in my seams below the lady and above the trumpet. Hmmm, that's tomorow's job :)

allthatjazz8

allthatjazz8
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

Here's another picture - just because I can and because I am pleased with how she turned out. Shame about those flowers below tho ;)

allthatjazz6

allthatjazz6
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

Using the crinoline lady design posted by Linda here I drew the outline and main features onto a piece of waste canvas (14 count). The waste canvas was then tacked in place over the all that jazz block which was stretched over an embroidery hoop. Then I backstitched the outlines with black stranded embroidery floss. At this stage I decided to omit a couple of the lined across the centre of her skirt in order to leave larger areas to fill with the patterns. Once this was complete using the patterns from my book and a couple of simple patterns I made up as I went along I filled in the areas inside the outlines.

Once all the backstitch was finished I dampened the waste canvas with a wrung out cloth and the pulled the guide threads to leave the embroidery behind. The threads of the waste canvas are held to gether with starch and when you moisten then the 'glue' disolves and they pull out from between the stitches easily.

I look forward to doing some more blackwork on other projects and feel it makes good use of all those years I spent cross stitching before I found cq :)

allthatjazz7

allthatjazz7
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

Thanks to LindaB for the design of the crinolin lady. Linda's blog is Chloe's Place and she offered the crinoline lady for others to use a couple of months ago. I adapted it to blackwork and using a book I bought on eBay I filled in the outline that I had stitched over waste canvas.

all that jazz - next steps

allthatjazz5
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

Boy does it take a long time to fill a space with french knots, maybe I don't knot fast enough :) Close up of my chick.

All french knots in two or three strands with two or three wraps round the needle. Need to go back and redefine the beak. The seeds are various beads, not very clear in the photo. New life, birth, easter, rising again and mardi gras season (I hope) :)

This photo is a little washed out by the flash so picture the colours stronger.

Accidental excellence!

Cnv0247
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

I love this photo - the camera never lies, eh? Well, in this one it does but aren't they great. If you photograph my ornies in low level artificial light with no flash (to show the stitches better without the sheen from the fabrics glaring) then these beauties are what you get! Maybe one day I will revisit this project in gold :)

cq ornies

cq ornies
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

Here are the other two ornaments, I still have enough of the original block to make 2 more ornaments for our tree, whether I will get the time or not is a different matter. I think you can tell which one was my last one, that's right I was rushing to finish and the bottom bell is a little barer than the others :(

cq ornies

cq ornies
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

Now that the ornaments have been shown on the CQCrazy blog I can reveal them here too :) The spiders web came out well, despite being squashed into such a small space - the photos are actually larger than the finished ornaments :) I found working with such a limited thread palette a very difficult challenge especially at the beginning, but I am glad I did it this way. Another time I think I would use fewer colours for the naked block so that I could have a little more gold in the threads themselves.

All that Jazz 1

All that Jazz 1
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

If you look above the trumpet you can see my mistake in assembling the block! I need to find something to cover this seam jojn where the seams didn't join :) In the meantime I press on but it took a whole evenings work to do this one little picture so I think any hope I had of meetig Sharon's Dec. 8th deadline is now gone. I will continue anyway and hope that she will be able to add the block to the others that don't make it into the main quilt to be used for other fundraising projects.

I want to be able to add some blackwork to this block too but I haven't worked out how yet, although as I type this an idea is forming :) isn't it great when that happens! Could always be sleep deprivation of course :) better go to bed before I meet myself coming back!

All that Jazz 2

All that Jazz 2
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

Just a closer photo to show a little more detail. Since photographig this I have added my first motif.

All that Jazz Progress so far

All that Jazz 3
Originally uploaded by Jam_mam.

Here is the block after some of the seam treatments are complete. Various stitches used include, threaded running stitch, french knots , blanket stitch , feather stitch and lazy daisy stitch. I found that the finished effect is neater if I use one strand of embroidery thread rather than two. The colours for this piece are nice and bold which is a pleasant change after the christmas ornaments :)