Happy Mothers Day

Mothers Day is being celebrated here in Australia today – I think other places in the world celebrate it I have not actually had time to check out online if this is so but I seem to rember that in the UK it is celebrated on a different day.

I received a lovely surprise. I have just unwrapped a desk lamp produced by daylightcompany . I now have 3 of their lamps a floor standing version next to my chair in the lounge, a compact portable hand held lamp which I was using on my desk in my workroom and now the desk lamp. The hand held is ideal for visual journal work and the like but not really designed for needlework. Now the desk lamp will go in my workroom instead of the portable hand held. The portable hand held is ideal for travelling with by the way so no more nights stuck in hotel rooms with not enough light to stitch by! The hand held is also ideal to use to add an extra light when trying to photograph something as it can open up vertically and disperses the light into the room but lights the object just enough.

Using Daylight lights to stitch by means that you can see the true colour of threads and beads etc when stitching under an artificial light. I am not associated with the company in any way, I just love these lights as I mainly stitch night after work so good light is a must. Also both the floor stand and the desk come with a great magnifier that is easy on the eyes to use so much so that a few months ago I also treated myself to one of their clip on flexi lens which can be clipped to a needle work frame and I even clipped it on to an 8 inch hoop as I was working the butterfly on my last block . This was worked in single stand DMC cotton and the shading is fine. I did not think the magnifier would be practical on such a small hoop but it is light enough to be no bother at all.

Now I have a confession to make in order to get the lamp on the desk I have to clear it – and in order to clear that I have to do some tidying in my workroom. Jerry is also making me a new storage system for my beads so things are being reorganized a bit and apart from stitching up a storm because I have been working samples for my next workshop I am in total chaos. So I am off to potter about and get it back into order before a huge bead sort is going to take place.

I have not found any links to today but fortunately thanks to abeautifulcraft a huge list of links to vintage postcards and collage materials is online.

Ribbonwiz over at Camille’s Place has written a tutorial on using press and seal to transfer embroidery designs on to a crazy quilt block.

Bhavani of Needlework has written a tutorial on lesson in Kutchwork. In Europe this stitch is known as a Maltese Cross and complex designs and repeat patterns can be built up using it.

Quilting arts has a blog now and has announced an ATC (artist trading card) swap

I am sure these links will keep people busy as I am off to sort out, tidy up, and re-organise my work room and no I am not going to take a ‘before’ photo as its too shameful.

There are some things that should remain in the privacy of ones workroom …