In which I start

For over a year now I have been binging on embroidery and smocking. After nearly 30 years of being in the paid workforce, I am on long service leave, unholding some of the things I have put on hold in that time. In the late 1970s I did a Craft Certificate course with TAFE. The first year was design and drawing and the second year a craft of choice. Unfortunately, my choice of embroidery wasn't available when I came to do it. I was not interested in the only available choice - ceramics - so I didn't complete the certificate.

I am now catching up, not through a course, but by undertaking projects of my own. I have joined the Embroiderers' Guild of SA, subscribed to several smocking and embroidery magazines, purchased some kits, constructed some kits of my own with projects I have conceived, and am well on my way.

These two dresses I made recently are adapted from a pattern called Spirit of Adventure, in Australian Smocking and Embroidery Issue 34. The print fabric came from One Small Room in Elizabeth St Croydon, South Australia.

 I used some tulip buttons provided as an 'extra' with some buttons I bought on eBay, from HongKong.

This one took a bit of ingenuity to create a smocking design to match the women on the material. The material came from Hetty's Patch on Port Rd Hindmarsh.