Guest Post from Australia

Seeing that we are off wandering around Australia, I thought it would be good idea to ask one of my favourite Aussie bloggers to do a guest post about... Australia.

I asked her to share with us how being Australian and/or living in Australia has influenced her creative thinking and design process.

She told me " I am not influenced by being Australian, I just AM Australian!" 

 So, without further ado, here she is:  

Kathreen Ricketson is a mother, maker and blogger. She blogs at Whipup.net and lives in Australia with her husband Rob and two children. Kathreen has published six books (two on quilting and four on crafting with kids).

I am happy to be here to today guest posting about my country Australia and how the light and colour inspires me in my creativity and craft. Before settling down with children and work and mortgage I was lucky enough to have travelled to many different countries. I love to experience different cultures, foods, traditions and landscapes, but I think what I love most about traveling is experiencing peoples different sense of design and colour, from how they paint their houses, decorate their markets to their clothing and fabric designs. Every country and culture has a different way with colour that is influenced by their surroundings. 

In Australia we have the most wonderful light, blue skies, purple sunsets, yellow beaches, and red desert sands. The colours we are drawn to for our houses tend to be earth reds and browns, ochre yellows and eucalyptus greens and greys. But we also like to let the startlingly vivid colours of our flowers and birds shine amongst the earthy tones of our country. But we also like to let the startlingly vivid colours of our flowers and birds shine amongst the earthy tones of our country. 

My family and I love to go camping and recently we traveled inland to desert country to experience the amazing sunsets and red earth of our country. I have prepared some colour palettes based on images I took on our trip. Enjoy!  

Thank you Kathreen!

Playing with Colour

Just playing with a reflection...

Haberdashery Souk 1

The Haberdashery Souk is an area in Deira, Dubai, where the streets are lined with textile and haberdashery shops.  

The shops are filled from floor to ceiling with trimmings, lace, ribbon, buttons, beads and all sorts of add-ons a needlework lover would adore.

They also sell sewing tools, pins, needles, scissors and anything else you can think of.

They sell wholesale and retail, but the smallest you can go is a roll of trimmings or a bag of buttons/beads.  They don't sell by the yard or one-offs.

 Most items are imported from Asia:  India, China and Thailand seems to be the major sources.

 I cannot walk through this area without buying at least one several items without any plan or project in mind. Surely I will find the perfect use for a roll of trimming / a bag of buttons / a spool of ribbon?

Isn't this wonderful?

And this..

and this...

In the next post I'll show you what the shops themselves look like.

Nepal 3: Craft

Thamel is the tourist suburb of Katmandu. It is where you will find all the backpackers and budget accommodation, the trekking and adventure companies and of course the craft shops.



The narrow streets are lined with small shops selling everything from clothes to trekking gear. Buddist and Hindu statues, traditional crafts and other obvious touristy trinkets are everywhere.



I loved the clothes!



Felt made from yak-wool is very typical of Nepalese culture. Obviously it had to be adapted for the tourist trade.



Yak wool



Cotton yarn



Rayon from Bhutan. I always thought rayon was a synthetic material, but apparently not. Although it is a manufactured material it is made from natural fibres. I bought a piece from this shop to make into a tablecloth. I have since found out that the process of producing the material causes a lot of environmental pollution. I am now less impressed with my purchase.



Silk shop



Sari shop



A woven throw from a road-side stall



Crocheted truck-decorations sold next to the road. We never had a chance to stop at one of these stalls, so this is the best photo I could get. The women sat on the ground next to the road in small groups crocheting. The trucks coming from India are all heavily decorated inside and out.



This boy was working his pedal-powered Singer at high speed. He works in a shop that sells decorated t-shirts. He can make any design you want, even brands like Reebok and Hard Rock! He was wearing a school uniform so I assume he was the owners' son and not child labour (which is rife in Nepal).



Street art on the side of a delapidated building.



This man carried a tray with small bottles of coloured pigment. He had a range of minute little stamps with which he could make beautiful patterns on your body. He made one on my hand. It is really pretty but unfortunately it doesn't last very long.

Old t-shirts become new... what?

The boys are in that pre-teen phase of life where they grow so fast you can almost see them getting taller by the minute. It means their wardrobes needs adjusting on a regular basis.
During the summer I threw out loads of t-shirts which was to small, not worn enough to throw away, but not new enough to pass on either. So I had to find another use for them.

I decided to cut them into strips to make 'yarn'. I found a tutorial on Instructables (I really searched but I can't find the link anymore!) on how to cut a t-shirt into a continious strip.


Soon the pile of t-shirts turned into a pile of yarn-balls.


The balls sat around my work table for a month or so as I did not have a hook big enough for the thickness of the yarn.


But today I finally got around to trying out my new 10mm hook. Now I have a t-shirt-yarn hexagon. It feels thick and strong but also soft and plyable at the same time.


So what will it become? Any suggestions?

Tin Can Stars Update

It's 1 year and 4 months since I made the Tin Can Star hanging. It has been hanging outside our front door ever since. This is what it looked like new:



Now after a harsh desert summer it has faded and looks like this:



It never gets direct sunlight but obviously the glare of the sun off the white walls has done some damage. The aluminium doesn't rust but some of the metal beads and crimps does.

It's interesting to see how some colours are more fade resistant than others. The red has suffered the most. The greens and yellows are still fine...

Holiday update

We are 9 weeks into our 12 week school holiday. The outside temperature still averages at about 42C - the radio weather station is on repeat: "hot and sunny" everyday. The only change is in the humidity: moderate or high... We are also into the second week of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting, which in the UAE means no public eating, drinking or smoking during daylight hours. All of this means Dubai is not the most exciting place to be at the moment! Children has to be entertained indoors, and with most friends away ...



it looks like this most of the time..


The boys did get to spend two and a half weeks with their cousins in Western Australia, which they thoroughly enjoyed. They are both used to flying internationally but this was the first time they did it without parents, and it went very well! They consider themselves seasoned travellers now...

While they were away I repainted their bedrooms. This month marks the sixth year in Dubai and in this house - the longest we've ever been in one house - so some revamping is in order.

Blue for one room...



...and green for the other room.



The staircase also got a new coat of paint. It still needs some decorating which will hopefully happen in the next few weeks.



Look - there's an angel on the landing!