wips and aqc

first AQC or the Australian Quilt Convention - and the main attraction for me was seeing my quilts exhibited for the first time. last year the australian and new zealand art quilters group set a challenge to make an A4 sized journal quilt every month or at least 5 over the course of 2006, either reflecting things happening in your life or different techniques.

here are my 5 little journal quilts hanging in the Melbourne convention centre along with 50 other ANZ art quilters - i caused a white glove lady great anguish by taking photos but she was very understanding when i explained that i was only taking photos of my quilts and that it was my first time ever having my work hung in public. we had a lovely chat about quilting and different techniques


then of course there was the frenzy of the trading hall - almost as bad as the melbourne show...i was quite restrained and spent my pocket money at the thread studio stall - look at these fabulous colours....

i took the photo below while i was waiting for the tram:

the loot included some glorious silk thread, some silk tops to make more paper, jute scrim, cotton scrim, silk ribbons, silk crunchies and some fusable film (the same stuff that angelina fibre is made from)

i'm especially looking forward to using this mulberry bark....


Part 2 - WIPS
Last week was week 1 of Sharon Boggon's Personal Library of Stitches online class being run at Joggles . The idea is to develop your repertoire of stitches and test the possibilities of colour, texture and design. You can do one long sampler or a number of smaller ones. I have opted to make a number of post card sized samplers in different fabrics.

Here is the first one which i found surprisingly difficult. It's on Dublin 25 count linen which is not a fabric i have tried before - i've got used to using less traditional, firmer weave fabrics and i found the whiteness of the linen quite off-putting. I didn't like this at all until the later stages - it looked stiff and lifeless to me but i am warming to it now - just some more gold chain stitch in the border and the last 15 seed beads and that will do. i didn't like doing the border as i couldn't get the straight edge right - see how it's curved?
i did find out that i love stitching with silk - the red and green feather stitch is done in stef francis silk and it's luscious to work with. but the linen thread felt dry and harsh and caught and frayed - it reminded me of knitting with bamboo needles which i also don't like for the same reasons. the variegated running stitches are done in the most buttery soft silk - it's called the thread studio opulent collection by jacinta leishman in the indian splendour colour

i felt so oppressed by all that white linen that i had to play with some purple shantung (it's much richer in real life and shot through with red- it's the same fabric as the island journal quilt i made last month)


it's great fun playing with different threads and numbers of threads and being allowed to build up stitches - like colouring over the lines!