My Country

The 2012 Australian Lace Guild Triennial Awards carried the theme from Dorothea McKellar's poem

 'My Australia'

Here is the beginning of my entry as worked at the beginning of August...

 It is due to the persistence of my students more than my own conviction that the collar was finished.

It even made the trip to Sydney, despite my better judgement.

 I took my inspiration from the second stanza of the poem:

I love a sunburned country

A land of sweeping plains,  (orange roseground, torchon ground)

Of rugged mountain ranges  (purple fans)

Of droughts and flooding rains.  (wide red trail, narrow blue trails)

I love her wide horizons,  (depth of the back of the collar)

I love her jeweled sea.  (blue fans)

Her beauty and her terror  (gum leaves and lizards)

A wide brown land for me.

Here is the front up close

I am still coming to terms with the fact that this piece of lace won the bobbin lace section of the Triennials!!

For the quilter's, I will have another post by the end of the week, just for you.

Hugs to all...keep lacemaking alive my friends :)

tatting for a cause

On the 15th of August my world fell apart when my partner was diagnosed with eosophagus cancer.

I have made very little lace, although I have a collar to show when I get around to downloading the camera and the doll length is slowly growing.

In the meantime, while waiting for treatments at the hospital, I tried tatting.  At first I tried to continue a doily I was working on when this all started, but although the pattern was simple enough, the task was just too much.

I dug out this stumpy pattern...I will have to find the link for you as it is not my design. It is quick and simple and I can manage almost a full bookmark at each treatment session.  I have found that each time a patient, carer or staff member smiles in grateful thanks, I feel just that little bit better and can return the smile.  I have already given away a full ball of verigated yellow stumpies.

Tomorrow is the last chemo treatment, but in a little over 3 weeks, Colin has to undergo a major surgery.  I have asked if I can continue to make the bookmarks and the reception ladies will distribute the bookmarks for me.  They think it is a great idea!