Wings 'n' things

Drawing 766

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Drawing 768

Drawing 769

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Fish 'n' fowl

Drawing 761

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Drawing 765 

Come into my parlour...

There's a Golden Orb spider resident in my front garden. Every day (or night, I think they're nocturnal) she spins a new web, attaching the anchor strands between the house and a tree, or my car and the tree. The web is not quite as huge as it appears here - this looks like it should belong to a people eating arachnid! - but is a good two to three feet across. The silk is incredibly strong if you walk into it.

A couple of weeks ago, an unfortunate door-to-door salesman had a very close encounter with Ms Orb. I'm not sure how he missed it on his way to the door (maybe cut across the lawn), but as he left he ran face first into the massive spider web. Poor man emitted a very high pitched, girly shriek. It was getting toward twilight and the spider was active: I saw her run across his hair, down his back and make her escape via his trouser leg into the grass, so at least |I could reassure him that he was spider-free (I didn't go into detail about how she escaped). He spent a good ten minutes sitting on my front fence, shaking, muttering under his breath and wiping spider silk from his person. I'll bet he has nightmares.

I quite like my spider neighbour. And yes, she has trapped me, more than once and scampered across my head. She's beautiful, and I like looking at her creations. They're small miracles of design and function.

Flowering fish

Drawing 756

Drawing757

Drawing 758

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Drawing 760

Mirror Mirror

Drawing 751

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Drawing 755

One sheet to the wind

An unexpected op shop visit to the Red Cross Shop in the mall in Oakleigh yielded this pretty floral sheet for $5. I'm going to use it for fabric - I've already created a lined wrap skirt for my Etsy shop, and there's still quite a bit left to make something else.




Vinnies in Crewe Street, Oakleigh, is great for books. Au Revoir by Mary Moody (once a presenter on Gardening Australia) made me want to run away to France, too (mind you, I'd run away to almost anywhere I'm so keen to go travelling again!). The red book is a great basic guide to knitting, in the Pelham Craft Series (I have another of these on soft toy making) and published in 1973. It might actually encourage me to learn a couple of new stitches and make something other than socks and scarves! Each of these was a mere $1.

It's a Wrap

I've gone a bit mad on wrap skirts. These are all made from stash fabric, mostly op shopped - I think the Miss Piggy one was from Ebay. All four are now on offer in my Etsy shop. I just adore the red and yellow floral, it's so in-your-face. I've made myself skirts from both the Miss Piggy and the green op art pieces, too. Miss Piggy features as a showgirl with Kermit appearing in multiples as the chorus boy - gorgeous!

In the spirit of Slow Stitching, I've taken care over the construction with french seams and enclosing all raw edges either within a hem or using bias binding - all the waists and hems are finished with toning bias binding, from my embarrassingly large stash of the stuff. They each fasten with vintage buttons and a press-stud (metal snap). I'm still trying to go the "use what I have" route, and all these garments fit that bill with fabric, thread, buttons, and bias binding on hand. I probably have enough of each of these fabrics to make something else, though perhaps not enough for another skirt - perhaps a tote bag.