Winners will be warm.......

Usually on Saturday mornings members of local community groups in this small town sit outside the Newsagent's shop at a card table, selling raffle tickets to raise funds for their club's activities. Depending on the season it can be very cold and windy, but it can also be a pleasant way to spend a morning, catching up with locals or visitors and engaging in friendly banter as you encourage them to buy and support whatever cause it might be. The deal is that any change left over from buying the papers is then spent on a ticket or two. I have done it for the committee of which I'm a member, when the prizes were four new car tyres, a car battery and some wine and we made nearly $1000. During the winter months, the Lions Club raffle a trailer load of red gum firewood every three weeks, and I have just had a phone call to tell me that I had won this weeks prize. As my only heating is a large slow combustion fire which currently burns all the time, I am absolutely delighted!

These are some experiments from this week's Embellish, Stitch and Enrich class. The focus was to make surfaces for further embroidery, or for them to be cut up and used in something else. For the first time we used metallic foils attached to the base felt with iron on webbing, painted webbing and fine chiffon which could be treated by a heat tool. I still have lots to learn as they run the risk of just looking .......messy!

This piece is felt with painted vlyesofix, silk and wool fibres, silk fabric and thread snippets, covered with chiffon, needled with the embellisher and then treated with a heat tool so the chiffon melts away in places. No further embroidery yet, or it may be cut up and included in something else.

The second piece is similar, but has gold foil applied to the base felt, and the chiffon was just worked with the embellisher. Embroidered with knots and some chain stitches.

This one is foiled felt, silk and wool fibres, silk fabric and thread snippets, covered with chiffon and embellished. Additonal made fabric attached with the embellisher, and then embroidered. I think this may become a book cover.