bits of the weekend

we have had a fairly relaxed weekend that seems to have vanished in a puff of smoke.

yesterday kind dog and i went to the australian quilt convention and bought new cutting mats (hurrah!)  although we got a bit carried away at the intense bargamoniousness of the cutting mats and ended up buying the ginormous size, which then had to be toted home by kind dog who rigged up an ingenious harness out of 2 metre lengths of cotton scrim (bought for the purpose, although with an eye to future use)

here he is looking rather like a dashing teenage ninja turtle....

in news from the studio, these fellows arrived on friday and have spent the weekend sunning themselves in the backyard and hopefully losing their slightly musty smell. when they are fresher they can come into the studio and bunk in with the possum skin. (they're ex-hat factory bunny skins i bought on ebay)

this afternoon, inspired by the wonderful margaret cooter whose blog is a daily joy, i free motion stitched vilene, silk and onion skin paper, sprayed with water and then dripped ink freely....

 this one i also ran over a few times with a dressmakers wheel (the thing with pointy bits) before then stitching, spraying, dripping activity

 and this is the next stage of my time piece for the international quilt challenge - we're having very warm autumn weather here so i had to intervene today and take another tack.

and if that sounds too mysterious, the final result will be posted on 24 april here and on the group blog