Bok Choy Printing

This is the bok choy stem from dinner the other night's dinner - isn't the shape interesting. I tried printing with it and got some nice 'light' prints - probably because of the moisture in the stems.

I'm going to try manipulating the image with photoshop (using my limited knowledge of photoshop) and see what happens. I'll keep you posted.

Grinning like a Cheshire Cat!!!

I had a comment from India Flint about this post where I gushed over her new book Eco Colour!! How cool is that - Hi India!!

Jeana and I were talking at the forum about how it's hard to think of the authors of all of those fabulous books that we pour over (see my library over there on the left) as "real people" and how amazing it would be to be in a class tought by someone who's work we'd admired in books. So imagine my suprise when I got home to see a comment from India.

Simarly I had another conversation (again at the forum) with another of the ladies who I'm exhibiting with at the moment who attended a class by June Dunnewold. She was telling me that one of our tutors from TAFE where we studied textiles, Tony Dyer also attended that class. Tony has works in the National Gallery of Victoria and the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney.

It seems that we never stop learning no matter how accomplished we might be.

I think it's also interesting that several artists whose work and books I admire also blog. Here are a couple...


India Flint (aka Tumbleweed) blogs at Not all those who wander are lost and Winterworks as well as being a team member for Tinctoria Australis and Window on White

Maggie Grey, author of whole list of books, blogs at Magstitch

Jane Dunnewold author of Complex Cloth and blogs at HeArtCloth Journal


Dale Rollerson, owner of the Thread Studio, teacher and author blogs at Downunderdale and Surface Tension Book


That's all that I can think of at the moment and I am sure that there are more that I haven't discovered yet. Have fun browsing these and let me know of others that I should add to my list.

Phew!......

The garage sale is done! just a trip to the op-shop required tomorrow to get rid of the last of it.

The Geelong Fibre Forum was fantastic and inspirational and I soooo want to go next year!!

The football is over (shhhh!! Geelong lost)

....and it's almost time to start a new week.

So about the forum....

I met up with Jeana and her daughter from Unbecoming Lily at the forum and had a great couple of hours chatting and admiring and drinking everything in. I also introduced Jeana to my 3 favourite places to shop for textile stuff:

1. Artisan Books - is it bad that the guy who owns the bookshop knows me by name?...
2. The Thread Studio - a Perth based mail order (web-order) business that "specialises in unusual and interesting embroidery threads and textile art requirements" run by Dale who blogs at Downunderdale ; and
3. Beautiful Silks - a supplier of fabulous silk fabrics of all types who encouraged us to "feel and touch" (probably knowing that we would be unable to resist if we did - she was sooo right!)

We had coffee by the Great wall of hats - a display of hats from the Blue Hat Project

We walked through the Big Knit - a giant knitting installation by Caroline Love.

I checked out the exhibition "After India" and saw the Mongolian Yurt and the inflatable sculptures by Evelyn Roth about the grounds.

And I browsed the works made by the lucky people who attended the forum for the week.

An overview of the room where samples of each groups work was on display.

Felting by Kitty Chung O'Kane's class - I've taken a class with Kitty and it was a lot of fun

Tthe Wire Jewellery class (I can't find the name of the teacher for this class)

Encrusted surfaces with Pauline Verrinder

(there are more pictures on my Flickr pages)

I know that I missed a few things but I enjoyed what I saw and again vow that I will find a way to be there next year (promises, promises...).

Ooops!!! - I've double booked...

The Geelong Fibre Forum Open Day has been in my diary for weeks as you would know from my post detailing the events of the day here.


A Garage Sale has also been on the agenda for our house since we moved back in June and has been put off for the past 4 weekends running primarly because we would leave it till the Friday before to think about and would decide 'next weekend'. As you might also know the need for a garage sale was ramped up this weekend after our friendly neighbourhood hooligans decided the shiny paint-job on our car could use some scratches (posted here)


Saturday is also dog training day for Tyler at the Werribee Obedience Dog Club

...as well as the biggest day on the AFL (Australian Rules Football) calander - Grand Final Day - in which the Geelong (the town I call home at the moment) Football Club's, The Geelong Cat's, is battling to keep their premiership title. Needless to say that Geelong is a sea of blue and white and most houses and shops are sporting shrines to their beloved Cats. Bryan and I aren't great footy fans but have jumped on the bandwagon with this one "Got Cats!!!". (that's not our house - just a random picture I found).




So Saturday 27th of September is a rather busy day but we have reached a compromise.


The garage sale starts is from 7am to 1pm(ish) but no doubt the early birds will be lined up outside before 7 - they came with torches to the last one we had and were waiting at 5am! I've learnt my lesson this time and have put a start time on the ad - for all the difference it will make.


At about 10am Bryan's agreed to hold the fort while I do my best effort to see all there is to see at the Forum Open Day for a couple of hours.


About 12.30 (I can never work out if it should be am or pm - I mean the midday one) Bryan will take Tyler and head to Werribee for Dog training.


2.30pm is game time. Bryan and Tyler will probably miss the first 30 minutes but as I said, we're not avid fans so we can cope with 30 minutes or so. If it were Bathurst (the V8 Supercar Bathurst 1000 on the other hand - well that's a completely different matter!!

Pictures of the forum to come...

Why Textiles Arts? - Part 2: Highschool

Part 2 of my exploration into the how I became into textiles... (the epic continues)

At highschool my two favourite subjects were Art and Home Economics. Of course I also chose some sensible subjects to give me options for University as I didn't really see how I could persue a career in art without being a 'struggling artist' and that didn't really appeal.

I loved Home Economics and whizzed through the sewing projects with ease – I had no problems with the sewing machines as they were Elna's just like Mum's. It was a similar story when we did knitting. My Nan had taught each of us to knit and we would sit beside her as shew flew through one jumper after the next and try to knit like she could. In Home Ec I ended up doing two projects because I finished the first one too quickly and had nothing to do in class (I was so keen I was knitting at home too).

I've always been interested in art and art materials. I used to dream of owning an arts supply shop so that I can be surrounded by all those wonderful paints and pencils and colour. A friend of the family gave me a box of watercolour pencils when I was in primary school and I remember treasuring them - sharpening them with a knife so that the colour lasted as long as possible.

Whilst I enjoyed art at school I do recall struggling with it as I had a teacher who was more interested in abstract art than realism as I was. Here is a sculpture that I did with wire and wax. It's modelled on my little brother – not so little anymore at 6 foot something – whilst he was laying on the floor watching television after school one day.

I recall two highschool assignments that now seem significant to my love of textiles. One was an art assignment where we chose and artist and had to critique their work. I chose Annemieke Mein. I don't know how I discovered her work but I do know that I've loved it ever since. I remember pouring over the book The Art of Annemieke Mein in awe and thinking how wonderful it would be to be able to create images such as those with a sewing machine - and now I create my own images with sewing machine. I now find it interesting that I was allowed to choose Annemieke as my artist considering that until recently, the Gippsland Art Gallery in Sale "The Sale Art Gallery has previously refused to show Ms Mein's work, claiming it was craft not art" (see here)

The other assignment that keeps coming back to me was for chemistry where we studied a chemical reaction and I chose Indigo dyeing - Indigoferra Tinctora. I don't remember anything of this assignment and had completely forgotten about it until last week when I was reading India Flint's book Ecocolour and the section on Indigo. I think it's interesting that now I'm interested in dyeing and back in highschool I chose to do an assignment on that subject. Dyeing hadn't really featured in my life since then, but the linnk is interesting nonetheless.

Next weekend, Part 3: Uni and beyond...

And because this post is a bit light on with pictures, here are a few more pictures showing Mum developing our art interests as kids.... Fingerpainting....

And finally, this is me hanging upside down at aged 4. It seems I was a little monkey when I was a kid. (absolutely no textile or art refernce here at all).

Fancy work doily - project on the go

I'm getting a bit bored talking about the Japanese Quilt and as there's nothing new to show you on that front, I've decided to dig out one of the 'on-the-go' projects for show and tell.

This fancy-work doily (I don't know what else to call it...) was started in about 1997or 1998 when I was staying with my Grandma. It wasn't really her influence that got me started on it(Grandma crochets woolen blankets), just that I remember being at her place when I was doing it. I think I just wanted to see what it was like...

Would you believe that this is the back?... Neatness like this from a girl who struggles to keep her room and now her house tidy!! and yes most of my embroidery pieces are as neat as this.

And just because I wanted to compare the front and back,

This is the front...

and the same section but from the back

Binding delimma...

I dropped into Patchwork on Central Park on Monday on my way home from work (yes another detour) to get some fabric for the binding of Sue's Japanese Quilt. They have some wonderful fabrics and I was very tempted by these heavyweight fabrics which would be great for bags... But I was very good and only walked out with enough fabric for the binding. I ended up deciding on this fabric...

I'm not sure if it is right though? The colours fit, but it's not really 'Japanese' like the rest of the fabrics, and it doesn't match any of the others in the quilt - is that a problem? A couple of others that I've since found at Sanshi are..

I like the dragonfly fabrics, because I love dragonflies, and because there are other dragonfly fabrics in the quilt already and so they are relevant and less 'quilterly' than the piece I bought on Monday. (Not that that piece will be wasted because I have some other fabric that matches it perfectly and would make great purses...). I just need to check that they are black or 'near black' and not indigo (blue) because the quilt is predominantly reds and blacks.

Etsy

I've never really looked around Etsy before even though I've registered several years ago (lucky for me I used the the usual username and password) - until today that is...

I got lost in there looking at all of the fantastic work and brilliant ideas. My brain is ticking with ideas of what I can make to list on Etsy.

Gallery Review - Lumina

On my way home from work yesterday I dropped into Lumina Fibre Arts Gallery and I was in heaven!! This gallery is run by a friend who I did my Textile Arts course with and is also the gallery where we held our Mythomania exhibition in April 2006 (where I sold this fabric book).

Lumina is retail gallery that "represents over 200 contemporary textile and fibre artists from around Australia". Suzanne also runs various 'themed' exhibitions throughout the year, generally in support of a cause (eg Breast Cancer, Reconciliation) or to coincide with significant dates (ANZAC Day, Poppies for Remembrance Day etc).

Lumina's October exhibition is Fat Quarters in Pink - a tribute to Pink Ribbon Day which supports Breast Cancer research. Suzanne has invited patchworkers and quilters to dress a little wooden free-standing dolly (approximately 12cm tall) with moving arms, legs, complete with shoes - totally in PINK!

Currently the gallery is filled with so many fantastic works with a 'green theme' - recylced arts (Suzanne had a great name for it but I can't remember it). It's like Aladdin's Cave filled with treasures. Suzanne has a dream job in my eyes!!! However the down side for her is that the business consumes so much of her time that she doesn't have any time to create - which is a shame when she's surrounded by so much inspiration and dealing with other artists.

It's definitely worth a look if you're ever in Melbourne.

Lumina Fibre Arts Gallery, 89 Waverley Road, East Malvern, VICTORIA

Alltop

My blog has been listed on Alltop.com textile page textiles.alltop.com. Alltop explains themselves to be like "a an "online magazine rack" for people who donot use RSS feeds".

I kinda works like a feed site, where sites and blogs are listed and their 5 most recent updates are shown belown. The difference is that Alltop chooses which sites and blogs it lists and you can customise your "magazine rack" to only show the ones that you're interested in.

ARGHHH!!! Hooligans!

Apparently somebody (or several bodies) saw fit to knock over the neighbours brick letterbox and then hurl one of those bricks at our car last night! What on earth possesses people to do such things. The car sustained damage to the mirror and the stripping and panelling around the drivers door and a small chip in the window - probably very lucky in hindsight, because the damage bill might have been greater if they'd smashed the window.

I've just been up to the local Police Station and lodged a report and apparently there was also a report of somebody on a roof last night also in our street, in addition to the neighbours letterbox and our car. The nice policeman has advised that being schoold holidays that they're doing extra hours and extra patrols as last holidays there was quite a few incidents. It seems that our street has been added to the "keep a close eye on" list.

Looks like we REALLY need to clear out the garage so that we can get the car off the street to remove the temptation. That means that the garage sale that I've been putting off for several months will be on for this weekend.

This is the second time we've had incidents involving the police in the space of 12 months (two different houses). We thought that this was a quite, safe and friendly community, but perhaps not quite so safe... I will definitely be more vigilant about locking the doors - something Bryan is always chipping me about being too relaxed about. You see I'm a small town girl who grew up in a town where we often didn't shut the door at night (it was only ever locked when we were all out and even then the keys were hidden) and the car keys were usually to be found in the car (where else would you keept them??).

A rubber glove, a Weimaraner and a plan...

That's what helped me today to work on Sue's Japanese quilt...

A rubber glove you say? A rubber glove with the fingertips chopped off!


As I struggled with the quilt today, I remembered seeing a quilter's glove in the quilt shop some time ago and thinking at the time - what is the point. Today I discovered the point! With the huge bulk of the quilt rolled up to stay on the extension table there is no hand-hold and when I placed my hand flat on the quilt I had no grip. Off to the computer to google an alternative. I came up with this site with lots of helpful quilting suggestions, including the rubber glove idea. The finger tips are chopped off (as suggested by the hint) because the fingers are too long and bulky making it hard to thread needles etc, and it encourages you to use the palm of your hand rather than finger tips, preventing cramps.

On the other hand I had my lycra "Handeze" glove to help stop the cramping and carpal tunnel syndrome that I get in my right hand.


The Weimaraner?... well she supervises. She's been sick this week so I was keeping her close to monitor her. Today she seems much better (thank goodness) and avoided a harrowing and expensive trip to the vet.

And the plan?... this is my plan...


It won't make much sense to you, suffice to say that I've mapped out the squares of the quilt and the direction it goes into the machine and I'm shadding the blocks as I go. This way I know where I'm up to and I can work out which direction I should stitch so that I don't end up quilting myself into a corner. It's working really well this way because I know exactly where I am all the time.

Sue's Japanese Quilt

From Projects on the go...

I made some progress on the quilting of the Japanese quilt for Sue today.

I've been avoiding it for some time now, and after cleaning up the worktable (again) I finally took it out of it's safe pillowslip and edged it into the machine. I think I've finally got into the "groove" of it and seem to be progressing nicely. I'd already layed it out and had done a little bit of quilting, but at least now I have a plan and it seems to be working. It's still tough working with so much bulk!

The other thing that works for me is audio books. They give me something to keep my mind busy while my hands are occupied with the quilt. They also keep me from getting bored and remove the drone of the sewing maching enabling me to stay with it for much longer than I would without. This is how I got through the machine embroidered landscapes too.

Currently I'm listening to Justice Hall by Laurie R King.

Why textile arts? - Part 1: My Mum

I often wonder when or how I became interested in textiles and arts. I don't really know when or how, but when I think about it there have been lots of indicators... (In order to avoid an epic post and boring the pants off you all, I'm posting this in several parts)

My Mum always shakes her head when people ask "did she get her creativity from you?" but I think that she sells herself short. Mum used to do lots of sewing when we were kids and made lots of our clothes. I've also made curtains with Mum for the whole house and we recovered the lounge suite too. See Mum might say no to the creativity, but I've been surrounded by fabric and sewing and textiles since I was little - Mum can certainly take credit for that!

It was Mum who taught me to sew. I don't remember what age I was, but she used to let me use the sewing machine to make clothes for my dolls (Barbie dolls they were too and the clothes for them are tiny!!). As I think now, she was probably very brave to let me at the sewing machine so young, but I'm very glad she did.

She used to get terribly frustrated too when I would cut my 'patterns' out of the middle of a peice of fabric. She laughs now as she watches me juggle pattern pieces to get the most out of a piece of fabric and then saving all the scraps. (see Mum, some things DO change). My other early memory of sewing (ewww! that makes me sound old!) was struggling with the construction of shorts. I want to make a pair of shorts for my dolls and couldn't work out how to get the two tubes of the legs to join at the top so that a body would fit in.

And who says that Mum's not creative. She has come up with some pretty spectacular costumes for fancy dress balls and book week dress-up days (costumes for Mum I mean, not us kids).

That's Mum on the left (I'm thinking she was a punk-rocker but I couldn't say for sure)

And more proof of Mum's creative ability..

The Easter had that Mum and I made when I was in grade 1 or 2.

Stay tuned next weekend for Part 2: Highschool.

Crocheted Coral Reef

I've been trawling Flickr researching for my next piece and I stumbled upon this crotcheted coral reef. It's spectacular!! (The full articlce about it is here.)

There are lots of other crocheted corals and coral reef scenes on Flickr but right now I need to get back to my research...

Thanks to Knitboy1 from Flickr for this picture

crocheted coral reef
Originally uploaded by knitboy1

The beads have been located!!

I have finally managed to track down enough beads to finish the cross stitch. I contacted the company SJ Designs direct asking for a list of their Australian stockists. Turns out that there aren't any, however, as I only required a small amount, they are going to put a small amount of beads into a bag and only charge me for the postage. How wonderful is that!! Thank you so muc SJ Designs.

Finishing...

My Mum very kindly (and anonymously) commented on my Projects on the Go... post that

... and you haven't changed..... Just the same as when you were little. Always had plans to put pieces in the local show, but come showtime, nothing was finished..... (someone who knows)

I'm wondering though, if this trait could possibly be inherited? Is it possible that I picked this up from my wonderful Dad - I submit for evidence the unfinished kitchen renovations, the car motor that is in pieces under the house, should I go on?.... (I love you Dad)

Like me, Dad is great at finishing the things he enjoys like this fantastic timber rowboat called "Tucan" (note the pint-sized captain "Tiny")...


...with these great (hand-made) woven seats

Finishing what I start is definitely something I need to work on, and now I have a point to prove I MUST get through that list!!! (You'll see Mum!!! and I WILL have that exhibition that I mentioned to you too!!)

I'm off to get to some work because blogging about GONNA's isn't going to get me there!

Natural dyeing, Leaf prints and India Flint

I bought this piece of fabric at an exhibition some time last year as a reminder of a natural dye technique that really interested me. I don't recall the artists (terrible I know) but I do recall it was a group of 3 (I think) artists from the Wangaratta area of Victoria, who had worked together to create these amazing pieces of fabric using leaves placed on damp fabric that was then rolled up and steamed. It remember thinking that this is definitely something that I'd like to try (I know, add it to the list!).

The idea has been simmering in the back of my mind ever since and now that I've discovered this book by India Flint my interest has been rekindled.

Ecocolour is a fabulous book full of luscious pictures and dyeing recipes, but one that really gets you thinking. India's concept is to use ecologically and ethically responsible fabrics, dyes and mordants to create colourful garments and cloth.

One down...

I can now strike one project off the "On the go" list...



The small quilt-kit that I had been given as a gift is now a cushion cover. The idea came to me when I was searching through my sewing cupboard for beads and I had to move a cushion insert to get to the box that I was looking for.

It just happened that the insert was about an inch shorter on all sides (approx 60cm (24") square) than the quilt and was in need of a cover. I decided that a cushion was something that I could use, whereas a wall hanging would get folded up and put back into the cupboard. The deciding factor was that the quilt had lots of purple and green in it and whilst it doesn't fit with our decor, it does match this quilt somewhat and so I bought some purple pane velvet and some lime green trimming and set to work.

I added a border of the purple velvet to the quilt to bring it to the right size and then layered a piece of leftover quilt wadding and quilted it. It was a rough job but the point was to practice and free-up my quilting motion. It looks OK and does the trick so that's what matters.



I added the green trim to make it a bit of fun and used some cute buttons that I found at Spotlight for the closing (Yay! No zip required) and it's now finished.

Lime-green trimming


Cute buttons


One down... still lots more to go.

In addition to finishing this, I have sewn up all of the pieces for one of the bears and am now ready to stuff it (once I get some stuffing and filling pellets)...

I have also decided that I WILL NOT be unpicking the quilting on the Japanese Quilt for me and will continue to perservere with it. It's not THAT bad and the quilting is "in the ditch" and therefore only visible from the back (and who looks at the back - yeah righ!! we all look at the backs as soon as we pick up a quilt!! but nonetheless I will soldier on!)