cloudehill

yesterday kind dog and i went up to the dandenongs to visit cloudehill - a lovely old garden and nursery that was full of sunshine. there weren't many other people there and all was calm with the odd falling leaf and violent burst of colour

playing

acks and pharks and oops

 i wuz wrong..... i thought jealousy was going to be on display at the quilt convention but when kind dog and i rocked up this afternoon - there was desert landscape triptych.

so, sorry to mislead you but you can see the triptych if you're quick - the convention closes tomorrow. and tomorrow i may post what treasure i gleaned from the thread studio stall.

and like jealousy, the triptych is for sale - email me for details

AQC

of course, as soon as i pressed the 'publish' button that last non-post i remembered that the Australian Quilt Convention opens tomorrow and one of my quilts will be on show as part of the Victorian Quilters' One Step Further exhibition.

remember Jealousy - it went to Birmingham last year for the Festival of Quilts and then was part of One Step Further, here in Melbourne.

and don't forget, Jealousy is for sale - send me an email if you're interested.....

holding post

i feel i need to put something here to mark my place but have little to report.

this is an odd time of stasis for me as i try and get my head the right way up - once i work out which way 'right' is.... time seems to contract and there are only snatched moments to think of making anything remotely creative.  on the other hand i did finish kind dog's socks and they have been pronounced satisfactory - photo to come, i promise

in the meantime, here is an oddly inverted semi self portrait with rose and sky.

fugue

i did some more work this evening on the new piece - now called 'fugue' invoking both musical and psychiatric meanings

one of the (many) lessons i learned from making what became salvage moon was not to use fusible web to stick down the elements of the piece which included sheet music, paper, painted fusible web and vellum. the layers of stick were too much for my sewing machine and at least 6 needles were wasted, getting irretrievably gummed up with ick.

in my improbably difficult search for spray adhesive i ended up at the paint shop near the office where the assistant took my problem and worried it like a rat. after some thought he gave me (gave, not sold - he said the condition was that i return and tell him if it worked) a bottle of wood glue and a brush and told me to try that.

which i did. and it seems to work with all but the vellum which absorbed it and curled impossibly in upon itself. this is the result so far and i hope to stitch into it tomorrow.

momentum

after a very sloooow few months i am finally getting some creative momentum back.  we had a very quiet weekend just pottering around not doing much at all, recovering from friday's excitement of my new nephew arriving (he is the tiniest, sweetest little bundle)

 then this evening i had a sudden urge to DO something......

so most of my extensive avocado pit collection went into a dyeing pot with some water to keep it company and has been seething happily for the last few hours.  a short time ago i added some cotton sheeting concertina folded and rubber banded to see what will will happen. i am hoping for he rosy pinks that have been hinted at in various outposts of the intertubes

and then i thought i would have another go at the technique i tried for the challenge piece and so far this is the result.

my resolve not to use fusible web has been tested as i found the can of spray adhesive is actually sealer and not suitable at all. so the sticking down but may have to wait -  using too much fusible web gummed up the machine needle and caused many swears....

and finally Kind Dog's second sock is up to the turning of the heel part so he may get to wear his first pair of handknitted socks before winter - yay me :)

and it also looks as though i just might have my blogging mojo back....

salvage moon

here is my piece for the art quilts around the world challenge for march 2011 - the theme was 'different' and this certainly is...

it's not the piece i intended to make and not the piece it almost was.  it is made from strips of painted rice paper, vellum, sheet music, painted bondaweb, cotton, xpanda paint, gesso, ink, oilsticks and red perle thread.

it was rescued at the last minute by a desperate and frenzied washing under the cold tap and then the addition of paint, stitching and oil stick.