Colour Schemes

This afternoon's colour topic is Colour Schemes. I see "natural" on the list. I love to observe the colour combinations that nature comes up with. Often there's a surprise there and always the subtelties of variations. These little tomatoes are from my friend A's vegie patch.
The red-green complementary combination is a classic, but there's so much more to see in real life.

Detail

I've declared this particular bit of stitching homework "finished", even though there's always more I could do. I've got another couple of samples to do today and I've already worn a little hole in my finger tip where I push the needle through the cloth . . . I never could get used to using a thimble. Maybe I need to revisit that one. In other news, I assembled a TV cabinet and unpacked my TV yesterday morning. Both have been waiting for my attention for some months. Hopefully on the weekend I can get the electrical stuff connected and have it working. Then I need to work out what I'd like to watch. Any suggestions? Would you believe, I've never owned a TV before!

Warm and Cool

It's officially Autumn in Melbourne now. In reality that means that temperatures range from 30 degrees Celcius to less than half that in the space of a day or two. I'm continuing my Colour Theory homework. This week we're playing with warm and cool colours--apt really. Here's a close up of one of my homework pieces: We were told to make a background of warm coloured fabrics and arrange five cool-coloured shapes on it. The pieces are to be held down with running stitch. It all sounded rather constrained when I read the task sheet, but it turned out to be fun. I've got two more pieces of stitching homework to do today, so I'd better get away from the keyboard and pick up a needle and thread!

Access Angst

Where have I been the past 5 days? Well you may ask. My friend V called on the weekend to make sure I hadn't been struck down by some terrible catastrophe--it's so unusual for me to miss a day on my blog, let alone several days in a row. I've had internet issues. I've had service and communication issues. I've had conversations with three different companies in I don't know how many locations. Today I've had workmen coming and going from my house. Just when the last technician was starting up his van, having given up on the problem, I clicked on the computer and just like magic, there was my web page. I was so excited that I ran to the door and shouted to call him back. He came in--again--and observed the transformation for himself. The best he could manage was, "whadayano!" (for those of you who speak a different strain of English, that's , "what do you know?") I know I have internet access again and that's a good thing. I'll keep you posted!

Fruit

When I dropped in to the Neighbourhood House the other day, my friend L had this waiting for me on her desk:

How cute is that! I found myself reaching for it with an embracing gesture before I even knew where it came from. Then she told me it's from one of the miniature apple trees which were moved to her place last year. I last featured it in a post when it was at blossom stage. When I queried its size--I expected full-sized apples from those trees--she reminded me that it's in a very restricted environment. I guess so. Nevertheless it's a real red apple. I brought it home as a treasure. I really should eat it, though it seems a pity, really. It's just so cute.

By Design

Yesterday I tried to get caught up on some of the chores and maintenance issues that are cluttering my life--figuratively and practically speaking. One of these tasks was to set up a wireless router. I got myself a laptop computer recently. I plan to use it in the studio and internet access was high on my list of priorities. I'm OK with technology, but the intricacies of the process don't give me any joy. I just want things to work straight up. I did not get my wish on this one. It took several hours and an almost incomprehensible call to the Technical Support people before everything was connected and working happily. Thankfully I also had the phone support of a technologically savvy friend. That spared me the added complication of feeling like an idiot--always a risk in these situations.

On the other hand the packaging did bring me joy:
Some-one, somewhere gets to design these natty little containers to keep all the bits and pieces neatly and safely organised in their box. Oh, what fun! If only the whole experience could be so orderly, simple and functional.

Egg again

Our Colour Theory subject has two strands--no pun intended:)--one is mixing colours with paint, the other with embroidery threads. It seems that the sub-text is to make sure that we all have some basic skills in hand-stitching. We're tackling a couple of different stitches each week: seed and running stitch the first week, chain and blanket stitch this week. I'm not finding colour blending with six-stranded embroidery cotton very satisfying--especially not on such small samples. It difficult to get a real blend given the limitations of the medium. I keep thinking about how I could blend the colours using my spinning techniques or my dye pots, but that's not on the agenda just yet. Meanwhile, making a small, quick design using variations of only one embroidery stitch is an interesting challenge in itself.