Jade from a new place in Australia

This is the beginning of a new adventure: the ultimate goal is setting up a small jade mine in the New England area of NSW. A collegue at work is the driving force for this project - he has been a successful opal miner at Lightening Ridge and has been keen to source other semi-precious to precious stones. So with a bit of good quality geology research we came up with a mention of a jade occurrence near Tamworth that did not appear to have been ever followed up........so off we went to have a bit of a look.........
                          

  ......................and we found something!

and it looks good, doesn't it?

This was made by a carver in Lightening Ridge from a small block about 3cm long by 2cm by 2cm. Quite a small piece that she has cleverly used to its best!
(Still a very long way to go to really have the mine happening though, but it is good to dream)

Rhonda and Greta are back.....thanks to some blogging tuition by Ali!!!

Today we have been experimenting with dyeing fabrics from avocado and learning how to make a simple skirt!

guess who!....love these garage windows!

Some more from LaPerouse

Just another picture from time spent around Bare Island at LaPa.
shows interesting colours from the algae and slime growing in a drying-up pool above the tide line.

The pinky colour is quite lovely

 This one shows beautifully colour banded bedding in the sandstone. The layers are only a few sand grains thick.

 And this one i just like. it's located in an overhang and slightly protected. kind of looks like people.......

Random Photographs no.2 Iceland flowers

This is not a great macro/still life shot by any means, but what a COLOUR!

These are Himalaya Blue Poppies growing in Iceland, at the Botanic Garden in Akureyri. This was from the June trip in 2012 that i did with Philip & Nikki.
The gardens there are absolutely lovely, especially in summer when most things are still in flower. Remember that spring is late and summer is short there.....the gardens are on the hill towards the top of town with gorgeous views across the fjord.

This photo is from Dettifoss on the same trip:

Dettifoss is a MASSIVE waterfall and last year in autumn i was there as well and had a most amazing & exhilarating time - standing so close on the other side of the canyon it felt like my brain was being given a complete clean-out! The sound of the water and the feeling of standing on the edge of immense power and the wind blown spray.....see one of my shots on the flickr site mentioned in previous post to see the snowy rocks at the top of the canyon.

But in summer the flowers are doing their thing, and i loved these daisy types. These are featuring in part of the embroidery Project and i will post the piece when it is finished in its third version, soon i hope.

Stella and i had a lovely time at LaPerouse and then all over sydney

While Stella was visiting Sydney during Easter holidays, we went down to have some fun with our cameras at LaPerouse and Bare Island, but we didn't even get across the bridge as there were so many things to see and photograph on the rock platform under the bridge.....
we were there for at least an hour before we had breakfast at one of the cafes, then we went off to see Greta and Sienna and Eli & brand new Millie and THEN we went off to look at cakes and bread and Newtown and Surry Hills and then we met up with Rhonda for dinner......it was one busy day but soooooo good........

nice colours in the sandstone

Stella can post her pictures now that she knows how to use bintfaden

Some of my photos on flickr and cows

i did say i would put the link up to the site i've set up on flickr. Do visit and enjoy.

 https://www.flickr.com/photos/alicole-sydney/


 and now for something completely different.....

here are some lovely creatures i met while in a paddock north of Tamworth

at first they ran away, but when we stood still at the gate they came charging back in the crazy way that cows do, but stopped about 20m away to just look at us. Love the way the big ones hung around at the back. 

And right next door where these lovely ladies. They wandered up to us at the gate for a bit of a goss and a pat.

ali

The PROJECT

the aim of the project is to create a very long narrative embroidery piece by piece from my photos. it will be in 2 parts: pt1 will be the Senkenberg and Pt 2 Iceland. 
this is the 1st installment, but not actually the first one made. i have to get some better photos before i post.

this is a close-up. i'm still deciding if i should leave the washaway on or not.........i kind of like the layered look.

image was from models doing a show on an intersection in Reykjavik, 2011

more to come
i am trying to do 1 a week and see if the project evolves                                               ali