Pam Holland Designs and Productions

This is beautiful.

Enjoy

The Life of flowers (Жизнь цветов) from VOROBYOFF PRODUCTION on Vimeo.

 

Notebook series.

I've been working on another of the Notebook series quilts.

They're are a lot of fun to do.

This time I decided to use the Bottom Line by Superior for the black thread. It worked well, I could get a really fine line.

The flags are colored with Tsukineko inks.

The blue and red lines of the notebooks are stitched in.

How did you get to where you are.?

How did you get to where you are?

Someone asked me that recently in an interview.

You know you never really think of those things.. Life just happens.

So I had a little time to reflect.

In my 60's now, I'm a genuine baby boomer, I'll never wear a cardigan, or my slippers to the shops... or even a nylon frock. To be honest, I never wear a frock.

HOW DID I GET HERE? I really have no idea. Sheer hard work and enjoyment I think.

Age 20, Keith and I got married.

By age 30, we had 7 children.... Goodness gracious, how did we do that? Jamie, Rachael and Matthew, (3 in 3 years) and we had adopted Joshua (newborn), Suchada, (aged 11) Darrin aged 8 and Phat came from Vietnam aged 15.......What were we thinking of!!!!

But it was a wonderful time. I wouldn't swap it for the world. It was a fun time in our lives.

Age 40, we added a few more bedrooms....Callie, Michael and Sam arrived......Lori, Liseby, Benny from Mauritius, Jinda from Thailand. Lean lived with us for a year, Bo for two....

The exchange students arrived, 6 in all and they stayed for a year. (not all at once.) but when I think about it, we did have 3 at once.

During that time I met a young man in Thailand who was traveling, I said "if you ever come our way you're welcome to stay"
He did..... for a year. He is now almost 55, lives close by us with his wife and child and is very much part of the extended family.

We had our own bus and a caravan for holidays and life was sure hectic

In my 40's I began my fashion design business with partner Cynthia.... She's just a little younger than I. (by 10 days)  As two Librans, we are exact opposites but worked well for some 15 years.

50 was a turn around. I was a dedicated quilter. Gee you all know what happens to you then, I don't need to explain.

Friends that's about the end of it.... Now I quilt, write, make documentaries and take photos.... What a way to go....

What have the 60's offered me.

I know I can discount at Denny's fast food restaurant. !!!! Senior discount in the movies in the USA takes the price down to about $6.00 - and on the plane, I feel I can ask the nice young man in the aisle to put my hand luggage up for me....!!! and I have no problem enjoying my classical music along with new country. I play them very loud.

In life we have things that are moments in time and end up being significant to our future. I often think back to when I had 3 littlies under 3 at home.

I was incredibly shy and introvert.... Trust me it's true. I had really low self esteem.

A turning point for me was once when Keith, (my husband) an Accountant was negotiating a business partnership with another accountant and we were invited to dinner to negotiate.

He turned up with his snotty secretary with a plum in her mouth, little back dress, coifed hair and tottering on heels far too high.
Her enjoyment for the evening, was to put me down with comments. "Oh, I couldn't bear to be just a housewife"
How can you let yourself have 3 children so quickly. Etc, etc.
By the end of the evening. I was ready to snot her.

I loved being a mum. My children were gorgeous... I sewed their clothes on my hand cranked machine... Believe me .....!!

I cooked, cleaned and was a happy as a pig in straw.

But this gal really got up my nose. I decided to show her.....

Where are you now honey?

Where am I now, working harder than ever, but enjoying life to the full

Video Diary of the Bayeux Discipline No 3.

 

It's been a busy week as mentioned in the video, but I'm happy with my progress. Some of my other "things to do" have slipped behind though.

It will be a couple of weeks until I can catch up on the other projects.

I took some time out to photograph today and it was a refreshing break and the walk was super. Hopefully I have a full day to work tomorrow. It's hot and humid and I just love this weather. I just don't cope with dull and cold.

These are a few photos I took today.... the rest are in an album on facebook.

 

 

Bayeux Discipline.

It's Sunday and the day I do my video diary.

I filmed very early this morning, it's a hot day so I have other things to do before editing it, but I will put it up this afternoon or this evening...

The diary is basically for my own use, however, I'm sharing this journey. This is the second time I've been here in this project... however, this time it's different and I'm enjoying sharing the experience.

I guess you can always press the delete button if you don't like it.

 

Bayeux Discipline. Project No 2.

This is the second of the projects originating from the "Bayeux Tapestry to Quilt" project.

I've used white linen for this project and I dyed the three layers with the safety pins in it to achiever the color and effect I have now.

The images of the faces are taken directly from the tapestry... there are over 600 people in the Tapestry and each person has a different face. You know you often see a portrait class, and every sample looks the same. I just love these guys, and guys they are because there are only 3 women depicted in the whole piece.

Their faces and hands have so much character.

The men above are all British, the Normans didn't have mustaches and had the back of their head shaved with hair pulled forward on the front of their foreheads.

On the quilt, I am depicting the Norman soldier pointing to the British. They look at him with disdain and some even turn their backs on him.

The Holland Crew.

It's been a hectic week with grandies staying and special events all week.

We had an announcement of another baby joining our family this year, so that will be 3 new grandies and I think there just might be 4......(we hope).

I met a special person on Tuesday who is a wonderful addition to our family, his talent knows no bounds.

Australia day yesterday was great, I made a video last night and I took ages to get it launched.. but with a few tweaks this afternoon, here it is.

I've spent a lot of time following up on contracts etc today and I think I've decided on the quilting style for the next project.

 

SO

Here we are folk, Here we are.

 

 

whoow.

Despite working long hours today, I seem to have nothing physical that I can share with you tonight.

I've just returned home from giving a presentation to a very enthusiastic crowd and it was nice to be back in the entertainment format.

I'm embarrassed to share that I'm missing it.

I look longingly at the plane in the sky and advertisements of far away places on the TV.

Then again, I love my time working on the Bayeux. I love the research and I enjoy seeing the markers on the fabric that signify that I have done "another 10 feet"

I love the grandies and my kids and cooking bread and eating fresh tomatoes from the garden.

Tomorrow is Australia Day and most of the family will be breakfasting together at the park....the weather will be warm and I'm going to enjoy time to myself in the shed in the afternoon after the excitement has died down.

Tilly has been with me for the past 3 days and she's "crafted" she sits for hours with a box of stuff, "creating". Exciting events over the past two days have heightened the joy.

Thankyou.

 

How embarrassing.

11.15 pm and sleep is hard to find tonight so I decided to come out to my studio and work on a presentation I will be giving tomorrow night.

In fact, I have a regime when I leave my studio at night of switching everything off and taking my special projects into the house for safe keeping.

Somehow tonight, I forgot to lock it and in fact, even shut my studio.... !!! girl what were you thinking.

In the house I heard loud music and thought it was a party... but when I came out here 3 hours later, the door was open, the music loud and it was my studio having it's own party. How embarrassing.

I had been working on some music scores for the presentation and I tunes must have started up again or something.... Sorry Neighbors.

Thank goodness I couldn't sleep.!!!!

It's still hot and the hot weather will continue for another week or so. (around 40 deg, 110 deg ) That means a shift in the way we do things around here for the next week or so.

I'm still working on this project. I'm really not sure how to finish it, but I quite like it.

It's hard to imagine that these images were designed by the hand of a scribe some 946 years ago and we still appreciate them today.

In the Bayeux Tapestry, I think they possibly lost some of the detail in creating an image in wool. However with applique I can refine the details. In this small project piece I can accentuate the details in the images with thread. They are crisp and concise.

Today I created a group of 8 men. Their facial features were all so different, and their hands are exaggeratedly expressive. With such strong images there is  little doubt left to the viewer as to the meaning of the image.

 

Hanji Happenings: Circular lamp.......

I'm currently working on a new project and as you can see I have my trusty helper.

via hanjihappenings.blogspot.com

This is my sister Jans' blog, take alook.