The view from Planet Julia

Can art be good or bad and still be art?

2010-11-11T08:46:00.003+13:00

I've been reading a few discussions and essays lately on the subject of art (as it relates to textile/fabric art, but the theory is more general).

Some people believe that art must be consciously made to be art. That is, you couldn't start out thinking "Oh this is pretty or striking fabric, I think I'll make a cushion" and call the finished product art. I am not decrying lovely or interesting cushions. They can be functional, decorative or fun or any combination. If you are already producing a lot of work (maybe art), your cushion may be a development of your work, or may embody your artistic voice by default. If you become famous and collectable, it may even have value over and above the obvious one, like a scribble on a napkin by Andy Warhol or Picasso, for example.

There seem to be extremes in this argument for consciousness. At one end you could have someone with a vision that was informing and guiding their process in a work - they could be imagining all kinds of emotions, events, or times, for example slavery in the cotton belt, and translate it into a blank blue canvas with 5 white spots. Any viewer without an artist statement to read would be hard pressed to detect the message the artist intended. They may or may not like the placement of the spots, and the background colour. Is it art?

Well, it could be, but not just because the artist had had a vision before they started work. It is unlikely to be art if the artist has not developed a series of work ( or is going to) exploring a theme. There would have to be something particular to the artist about the colour, brush strokes, size, placement of spots, etc. Otherwise it could just be a class exercise - paint a blue background and add 5 white spots. Not art.

Conversely, at the other end, you have artists who work intuitively. They might start with an image, shape or fragment, and build on it, letting their subconscious guide the development. When they start they have no idea where the piece is going, and can probably only entitle it when it feels complete. I don't mean in a facile way "Oh this looks like a chicken laying an egg", but they will make conscious some of the subconscious ideas that led the development. Again, may or may not be art. It could just be a technique sample to be filed for future use. However, after a period of development, this sample could then find that it is a piece of art after all.

Artist passion is not a guarantee of great art, or even art at all. Having said that, few people would ever set out to make bad art on purpose. Even knowing that you have to have a crap quota to work through, you would not churn out bad stuff just to get through the quota!

I support all the proponents of the "Do the work" school. An 8 year old might write an appealing poem in grade school, lauded by teacher and parents. However, they are unlikely to make a living from published poetry until they have written a huge amount of variable quality. Similarly, novice fabric artists might make some appealing works, but are unlikely to be selling stuff or winning prizes until they have made a considerable amount.

Of course, production of art is not necessarily going to lead to fame and fortune, but luckily we are not usually motivated by anything other than the desire to make art. We might be satisfied or dissatisfied with any individual work, but we know we have learnt something about technique, composition and ourselves during the making. It is never a waste.

quake quilt

2010-09-29T22:31:00.004+13:00

I finished the first quake quilt, well, in fact the only quake quilt that I needed to make. The tissue paper (see previous post) did sort of work, strangely better through the HP up and over than through the Epson straight path. I used a method I found on the internet where you fold the tissue paper over the edge of a piece of A4, and then stick it down with tape. Fusing to freezer paper worked, but I couldn't get it to separate afterwards. But I decided against the tissue paper, as it was very grey and depressing looking. My last attempt was to use extravorganza. This gave a less black print, and I found the white look a bit offputting. So I painted it with a weak wash of green and some metallic acrylic. I liked the look, but from more than a metre away it totally got lost.

OK. Abandoned that plan and decided to put writing on with fused fabric. I also felt that the right side of the seismograph was a bit empty and meaningless. So I fused on 3 different buildings showing damage - just in a cartoonish kind of way. Not to get too literal. The final thing was to make the lettering for the top word, using one eighth inch strips - very fiddly. I'm glad I don't write names on grains of rice for a living!

I am happy with the finished article. It has impact, and tells a story. Although it was one of my projects that have to come from the stash, while I was shopping for fusible web, I saw a FQ of some gorgeous Australian designed print, that was perfect for a binding. Pillar box red with dark blue and gold. It tied everything together well.

Tomorrow I will revisit some felting ideas.

Spring cometh

2010-09-22T14:31:00.002+12:00

It was a bizarre start to the day, when I awoke to an inch of crunchy snow, but a blue sky and sunshine. Luckily it had all melted by lunchtime when the temperature was more like 17!

I have 3 quake ideas in the assembly line. The first is of a seismograph of the 7.1 quake, but on a strip pieced background that hints at grassy paddocks and landscapes. Over that I want to put some transparent newspaper cuttings, or figures representing the important information. I found a site which lets you write your own newspaper headline and beginning of an article. It only has one style, though. I tried to do a test print using TAP, but it didn't work - not enough of the ink transferred. My next idea is to try tissue paper on a carrier sheet and attached by textile medium. Again I will do a test run.

The other two pieces are a fault line idea from another set of strips out of the scrap basket, and a wide wavy village in the Laura Wasilowski style. I am not sure they will all get made, as the traumatic effects are receding.

I have been investigating online C and G course in quilting, but it seems like they are almost extinct, just people who are already enrolled finishing their classes. A bit disappointing, but maybe I just need to do the work myself and not 'study'.

Ups and downs

2010-09-11T19:27:00.002+12:00

Last week I finished a FFFC project more or less on time. However, while I was nearing the end, Christchurch was hit with a huge earthquake and 400 or so aftershocks. It was such a trauma, both to live through the quake, and then to have a week of life disrupted, demolition, amazement at the damage, and loss for some. Though I had enforced time off work, since all schools were closed in the area, it was hard to focus on art and gardening or anything else I would normally revel in. Now I need to work through some of my emotions in a quake quilt.

But the FFFC project was a good one. As always, I found that something that caught my imagination, and had its own momentum for execution, meant a successful outcome.
The parameters were metal and optimistic colours. I went to my mixed media drawer, toyed with copper knitted wire, stainless steel mesh and foils. The copper wire was in a tube, which suggested fish scales to me. I am not that excited by fish, and idea of a mermaid came to me. I researched online drawings, and cobbled together sections from 4 of them, giving a mermaid sitting on a rock, admiring herself in a mirror.

I had several sea fabrics, one of which seemed ideal - some movement but not stormy. I worked through the value issues, where the fabric that I really wanted to use for the tail was too close to the rock background. In the end, it seemed fine to use a terracotta, since mermaids are mythical and we can portray them how we like! The long hair meant I could get away with only showing one hand, and a token Barbie face put on with textile markers. I made the mirror out of a kind of angelina fused on both sides with black misty fuse. I used a floral print that I've always wanted to use but has sat in the stash for 10 years. Fussy cut and layered, it made a good border, giving the illusion of a tropical island. The sky was a fossil fern in a warm yellow.

Near the end I added the copper wire, The tube was too dense in the narrow area, so I cut in half, which left a few sharp ends that need bending before using a metallic thread for a buttonhole couching.

I put on a false back, did a minimum of re-quilting and put on some beads for a necklace and to catch down the copper wire.

To finish - binding? facing? no, satin stitch with a couching of banana fibre.

It's really not my thing - fantasy and cuteness! But I love the composition.

New work

2010-08-18T10:22:00.004+12:00

After 3 months of not blogging, I am back. Since I got back from Canada in June, I have been busy at work and in a funk about starting new creative endeavours. Once you stop, it is quite hard to start again. Same is true for my Japanese homework!I bought a book called Threadwork, which had lovely saturated silk colours, used as bases for freestyle embroidery. Exactly the kind of embroidery I wanted to try. As on previous occasions, I found I am not so comfortable with handwork. I can't find a good position where I can see the work, and not get shoulder and neck ache, even more so with beading because of the limitations of keeping the beads confined.I was thinking of using it as a bag front, but now I am somewhat concerned that it would get abraded and pulled threads. Could maybe cover it in fine tulle.
Anyway, meantime, our group was having a felt challenge. No guidelines, felted crochet, needlefelting or wet felting were all OK. I wanted to make a piece to accompany the embroidery, in geometric blocks of colour. I thought it I did this on the needlefelting machine on soluble fleece, and then incorporated it into wet felting that it would be strong enough for a bag. I did the needlefelting, and then added crochet braids mainly wool, and some sari yarn, machined on with zigzag.
I realised that as the needlefelting got wet, then the fleece would vanish and the blocks would float around a bit. First, I laid out the rovings I had that would tone. One was multicoloured with a short staple and the purple and red pieces were merino with a longer staple. I did the 3 layers with criss cross, but keeping the colours as separate as I could. Then wetted it and put tulle over the top and did a little bit of wet felting, enough for it to hold together. Then I put the needlefelted piece on top of the prefelt, put the tulle back again and agitated it very gently. the soluble fleece vanished immediately, and I could see that the braids were going for a short wander. However, I rolled it up in the bubble wrap very carefully and started on the felting proper. It took quite a long time, but eventually it worked. Between rolls, I tried to straighten the braids and blocks as much as I could.
What I found:
doing the stripes for the wet felt would have been quite weak, had it not been for the needlefelting keeping it together. Stripes and blocks would be best on a prefelt for strength.
The longer staple pieces did not wet down, or felt as quickly as the short staple.
The edges did not tighten as much as I would have liked because I couldn't safely do a lot of friction on them without disturbing the needlefelted blocks.
It took a lot of rolling to get the needlefelt to mesh in with the wet felt. This was probably because the fibres in the needlefelt were not loose and looking for partners!

I have ordered some prefelts from Australia, so I will do more experiments when they arrive.

My aim is still to make a bag, but this may not be the right method.

A struggle

2010-04-17T18:35:00.003+12:00

I can't believe it is such a long time since I posted. All that time I have been working on the abstract seascape piece, and having quite a lot of blocks, which also prevented me from doing any other stitching work, since I was determined to work through it. Initially, a few months ago, I printed out a displacement mapped picture of what I can't remember. I did it on cotton and again on extravorganza.
I admire Larkin Van Horn's beaded pieces, and wanted to try one, so I layered the pieces over a small piece of English felt ( I think it's rayon), and started on the beading. It took an age. Something I haven't worked out yet is how to mark where beads should go, and then take them off, so you can stitch them one by one.I made a frame for the piece by making needle and wet felted rovings into black batting, planning originally to put the piece on top. This was after trying out several batiks that I liked but didn't work from a distance. It didn't seem to have any logic, so I cut a window in the batting and put the piece underneath, which gave more of an underwater feel. I added the coloured stones thinking of the rivets in a porthole of a wrecked ship.
More struggles to link the piece with the dupion silk that I wanted to use as the canvas, tried out flowers, threads and seaweed ideas, but finally decided on the sunray penetrating the gloom of the deep.

Phew!

Now on to more ideas of using modified photos...

2010-02-27T11:06:00.003+13:00

I finished the hydrangeas at last this morning. I had problems with the border
quilting - ripped the whole lot out, which was a radiowave kind of design.
Instead did twin needled straight sections with a free motioned petal in the
centre of the boxes. That is invisible from the proverbial galloping horse
anyway, but at least it is flat!
I did 3 wonky lines of silver grey round the tops of the petals that had a sunnyglow in the photo and used blue round the lower shaded ones.

Things I learnt:

Even using SAS lite, some areas are very stiff and the needle picked up gunk.
Will try misty fuse more another time, or just tack.

I used monofilament on the back, which was simple - no changing bobbins, and no
thread dots on the top. However, it feels very prickly on the back, and I don't
think I will do that again. I want to see the stitching on the back!

If I am going to do the 3 wonky lines to define the petal edges I don't need to
zigzag them first. I had done that with a selection of expensive variegated
threads, which you can't see at all now! Probably 2 days work completely
unnecessary.

I really like the bolder vein lines in the petals, which is all that secures the
fabric changes within petals (apart from the SAS of course). It looked really
garish close up but looks fine from 2 metres.

The problem with taking a photo of a flower is that you concentrate on
interpreting the flower, instead of thinking about composition. There is a bit
of movement in a V shape with the three boldest flowers in the mid and mid-lower
section, but there's nothing to bring your eye round again.

I am happy that I agonised over the background quilting and the border, and
found a solution that is aesthetically pleasing and at the same time functional
in flattening the areas without flowers. I tried out on paper several options for the background quilting, involving echo, meander, spirals etc. When I decided on the free form grid, it really helped not trying anything that would compete with the flowers. Ditto the border. I had measured sections and put in a dot so I could do the sine waves I originally envisaged. It looked really good on paper too. But looked a mess when I was almost at the end of three complete rounds of waves. So ripped it and started again. Basically the fabric is busy enough that it just needs to be flat, and have something that looks good from 6 inches away. Otherwise you can't see it. I tried about 6 thread options, but you couldn't tell them apart from 3 metres.

I'd like to try another more abstract version later, but this week I will play with FFFC. I need playtime.

what summer?

2010-02-09T13:45:00.003+13:00

Although we can't complain compared with northern hemisphere people who have had the worst snow falls in decades, with all the resultant disruption, here in the South Island we have had a cool and damp summer. Many grey days, that reminded me of English summers, and so untypical of NZ. Since school went back last week, the weather was a bit hotter and sunnier, but still not the days of over 30 degrees that we often get now. I have had poor use of my pool, as even when the days were warm the nights were cold. It did reach 28 degrees last week, but back to about 23 now.

I have started training for my 4 day bike trail ride in April. I have a nice comfy bike with suspension, but I remember from my last attempt to ride bikes about 12 years ago that I have arthritis damage in my thumbs. Normally I never notice, because I don't do anything to upset them, apart from the occasional knitting. I need to get the handlebar grips rotated to a more comfortable position. My local half hour trip is all on sealed roads and I don't need to change gear, so that is a doddle. My years of biking as a kid and at Cambridge were on a bike with no gears, so it is not instinctive for me.

Creativity is taking a back seat at the moment, with work so full on. I am hoping to finish the hydrangeas in the next two weeks. I like it, but I'm getting to the end of the interest phase.

I've been re-reading Melanie Testa's Inspired to Quilt, and would like a couple of shots at doing something with organza overlays. I decided against the FFFC this month, as fractures don't do a lot for me, and I was so short of time.

No photos - should be getting my camera out and taking the garden in progress. One new bed is planted, and I sprayed the next one with roundup this morning, having refined the shape by mowing round it. I am excited, since very little in my garden is my original design. I have modified the planting in some parts, and redesigned a couple of places. Where I have done the new beds, I am very much happier than with what I inherited. The flowering cherry trees are becoming a severe pain with their roots breaking the surface, and suckers reaching 6 or 7 metres from the trees. I have about 14 trees that must be 10 years old now. No one needs that many!

Tidying up

2010-01-18T16:25:00.002+13:00

Part of my plan for the school holidays has been to go through the stuff in my office and chuck out anything that I won't need again. I don't know about you, but whenever I have to go through papers and photos, I get sidetracked down various alleys of memory. Some are fun and some are definitely not.

This morning I went through some brochures for language schools in Italy from 1999, when I was thinking of going. I did actually go to one in Florence for 2 weeks, and I really enjoyed that. Most of the other students were American 20 year olds, who were often late owing to a heavy party schedule and its resultant hangovers. Fortunately there was one other mature student, a Swiss woman who was finance director for Levi jeans, and who seemed frequently required to go to places where new factories were being set up. Then it was Russia, but it's probably China or Vietnam now. She had a boyfriend in Switzerland who was a carpenter in a small village. Very Heidi, and I think it unlikely that they are still together.

I found a diary with photos of Tuscany, but it turned out to be the diary of the year I was physically parting from my husband, and there were many entries of weeping and despair, which I really don't need to revisit. But some entries are about my starting in language teaching and meeting people who are now my good friends.

I am in a quandary about the travel brochures, photos and postcards that I inevitably bring back from holidays. I want to keep them, but I can't find a tidy or attractive way to do that. It annoys me that I never know which bag or box or shelf those things are in. I don't want to be so anal that I have them all in alphabetical bankers boxes. They aren't that kind of document.

Good to vacuum up the dead flies from behind the boxes, but only about 20% of the stuff has actually made its way to the garbage!

I had a party on Saturday to celebrate being in NZ for 20 years (that's 10 years married and 10 years divorced). These last couple of years I have had 1 or 2 parties a year, and changed them to be drinks and finger food early. That really works well and I don't find I am clearing up masses of food dishes at 11pm on my own. Instead I have the room reorganised and everything put away well by bedtime, and can start the next day as if it never happened. BUT, and it's a big but, I put away all my stitching and I'm reluctant to start making a mess again!

UFO Stained glass

2010-01-14T20:00:00.004+13:00

I finally finished the ufo stained glass kit that I started about 12 or 13 years ago - I was still married, and that's been over 10 years! I remember at the time that I was really disappointed with fusible applique and fusible bias tape - thinking it wasn't stitching!

Now I look at the design, which I think from memory was a full size pattern with words like light violet, medium green on the pieces, I would change a few things. All the fabric was supplied, you just had to cut it out on the pattern. It seems to me that there should have been some integrity with light source, but it is so stylised that it probably doesn't matter.

I added beards to the flowers by satin stitching and then cutting it into tufts.

I need to block it, as for the binding I just turned the backing fabric to the front, which means it is a bit wavy. I quilted the background to look a bit watery, and the border I quilted in random lines and squares. I decided against quilting the leaves and flowers.

It's always interesting to finish a project that you started years before. Your skills have always overtaken the original, and there is a feeling that you can't unpick stuff at this stage, but it doesn't really represent you as you are now. That's also true of finished work from years before - we are always evolving. I guess there must come a time when your older work is better than your current stuff, as you lose eyesight and dexterity. Hopefully that is decades away.

The thing that really puzzles me is why this work did not perish in the warehouse fire in 2002 when most of my things were lost. I must have had it with me while I was house sitting, thinking I would finish it then! Only 8 years too late!

Walk to Nikau Palm Gully

2010-01-06T19:24:00.003+13:00

On Monday a friend and I drove to Akaroa for a walk. Akaroa is what remains of a French settlement attempt in 1840ish, and it situated towards the end of an inlet. The inlet was formed in the crater of an extinct volcano, and there is another at Lyttelton harbour, the other end of the Banks Peninsula. I have been over to Akaroa several times over the years, and almost always gone out on the boat trip to see the Hector Dolphins that play around the boat. They are the world's smallest dolphin and very cute.

The weather was stunningly good. Warm, sunny, not much wind, and the sea was the most fabulous turquoise colour.

From Akaroa we drove a few km to a farm hostel, where you park and have to get permission to cross their land. It is a slightly hippy style hostel, with outdoor bath fed from a small tank, which you would probably have to share with a heap of sandflies! The walk goes through 4 paddocks with sheep and cattle. The sheep were lazily lying in the shade and only opened one eye as we passed by. After the farm land, the track follows along the headland, with some gentle ups and downs, for about an hour before becoming a narrower path with leads round two gullies to the nikau palm one. That is the southernmost habitat for nikaus in NZ, because of its microclimate. There is a staircase that goes into the gully, but I found the path too unstable and waited by the first nikau that I saw until my friend had done a recce. We decided to turn round, have lunch and head back. While we were having lunch we could see the Canterbury Cat stopped, and could just make out the splashes of the dolphins. The return trip was uneventful, and some cloud was coming up.

Challenge 40 complete

2010-01-05T14:07:00.004+13:00

Once I had chosen my fabrics from my scrap bag, and fused on the steam a seam, this took only about 5 hours to complete. I haven't faced it, as I think I will mat and frame it.

I am quite happy with it, and love the greys and beiges which I normally hate. I also learnt a lot about mixing in unlikely colours, like orange on the green leaves, or bright pink on the red, which I don't normally do. From a distance you can't see them, but they must be adding depth.

What the colours were meant to convey in the ad, I cannot be sure. The black and red might be mobster violence, and of course they were Italian so would need to eat pasta!

Some progress

2010-01-02T17:00:00.004+13:00

I have not had time to get down to my FFFC piece this month, but I had a breakthrough as I was taking down my Christmas cards. I select 3 or 4 which are arty or interesting or handpainted by my friends. As it happened, one, which was a reproduction of a painting by Donald Hamilton Fraser called Poinsettia, was exactly the right colours and a still life for the challenge.

I had previously found an ad for Frescarini pasta and wasn't sure how to interpret it.

This will be perfect, but I am not sure whether to do it realistically or semi-abstract. I am leaning towards the semi-abstract. To be honest, I don't want to spend a lot of time on it, but perhaps I need to spend more than I'm willing to at least today.

It was stiflingly hot this morning. I did some gorse spraying, using the newly extended hose and found I could reach a nasty patch of gorse regenerating (not just one plant, but maybe 20), that obviously got missed last year. I had a swim, then I settled indoors for the rest of the day. I cleaned the windows earlier this morning, so I could put up the insect screens and open some windows once the air cooled down. Luckily, now at 5 pm it is cloudy and cooler, and I will go and deadhead roses for a little while.

The other thing I did was make some cream of watercress soup, which I can eat cold. I love that irony taste - it always makes me feel it must be so full of vitamins.

Another New Year

2010-01-01T16:14:00.003+13:00

Although New Year is traditionally a time for reflection and goal-setting, I decided on a drive back from Hanmer Springs this morning that I would enjoy the present day and keep my eyes open, and that would be sufficient to accomplish most things.

It was one of those drives that I love in NZ. Fantastic light - this was 9 am to 10.30am on a summer morning. The mountains and rivers were as sharp as the best photograph. The colours were saturated, not bleached out like they get at midday. The weather was calm and so the rivers and irrigation channels were that milky turquoise that I've only ever seen here. The little splashes over rocks were white and sparkling. There was not much bird life in evidence, just a few finches flitting from one side of the road to another. On either side the pastures were green, the grass high enough to hide all but the lying cattle's ears. The sheep newly shorn were radiating reflected light. In the scrubby areas were swathes of 'blue borage' which is not a borage, but a nasty pricky-seeded weed called vipers bugloss. Bees like it, and there is a specific honey collected from it. Pretty enough from a galloping horse, though.

It was good to be home, and it was still enough for spraying, but far too hot. Instead I caught up with some new year emails, phone calls, and had a swim.

Maybe I should have plans, but I am happy with things as they are, right now, and will revel in that.

Playtime

2009-12-19T11:04:00.004+13:00

Last week I went to one of the city's craft emporia (I use that word advisedly - it is crammed and hard to find your way out alive!) and bought among other things a piece of silk georgette for making nuno. It was a lovely tomato red, with a few blemishes, which would not show up in a felt piece anyway. Before I allowed myself to play with it, I made myself finish the peacock piece, which was coming together at last.

As usual, I intended to put heaps of beading on it, but ended up undoing some, and having only a few sequins on the larger feather eyes. I realise now, a little late, that I am not a glitzy person and am very unlikely to use the beads I have accumulated! Maybe ebay? I actually like the piece to speak by itself without dress-up clothes. This is a shame, as I love, for example, Larkin Van Horn's beaded pieces. But I read today that the art we admire is not necessarily the art that we are meant to make - an aha moment!

Back to the nuno. I re-read the chapters in my Sheila Smith and Christine White books, and laid out my bubble wrap ready to start. It turned out that I had exactly the right shade of merino roving. I started out intending to have the fibres on only one side. I laid out the edging tufts of roving, and then added some semi-random silk tops, and some corn fibre, and three strands of a toning rayon yarn I had also purchased. I tacked the yarn and the silk and corn down with wisps of merino and got rolling. I had purchased a pool noodle for this. After I had done the requisite 400 rollings in each direction (phew! and had lunch!), it seemed that, though the fibres were migrating through the silk, there was not enough to give a pull and ruching effect. So I laid it out again upside down, and added some 'clouding' of merino only. Then did the next 400 rollings. By this time my bubble wrap had pretty well popped its bubbles, so I went up in the garage roof to get the remnants of my pool cover, much tougher bubbles.

That worked, and I then started fulling. It did take quite a long time, longer than I remembered, to get the wool to start shrinking. That was with a mixture of rubbing against the bubbles, and soaking in hot water and throwing it in the sink. I was pleased with the final result. It could have done with a few more fibres to give more ruching, but had a nice drape, and the silk fibres look especially yummy. I will have to stitch the yarn down, as it will catch where it isn't felted, but then I think it will make a good shrug - just the right length and width.

Fast Friday piece completed.

2009-12-06T15:00:00.005+13:00

I still haven't done challenge 38, though I know what I am going to do. I finished challenge 39 at lunchtime today. I had seen the photo on the leech's central nerve cord in a photography magazine over a year ago, and cut it out. Just by chance I found it on one of the sites that FFFC linked to for the challenge "under the microscope". I couldn't do it the weekend of the challenge, as too busy with work and choir commitments, but I got it done in time for this weekend.

I had some scrunched-up florist's woven raffia canvas stuff that had come round a bouquet at some time. Horrible prickly stuff that was impossible to store tidily. I ironed it and then painted it with setacolour cherry red. I used colour catchers underneath, which now have a red blobby grid on them (for some future....). When you rubbed the paint it came off, even after heat setting with the iron, so I knew I wouldn't be able to stitch it much without losing colour.

I tried purple polka dots as in the photo, but they didn't work. Decided to simplify the design. I didn't have any green fabric the right shade, but went with the citrus parfait dyed one I made a few months ago. I used Romeo, stitched on the green fabric, then couched some yellow thread. I made a cut up the fabric, since on the photo you could see the red grid in its centre. I made some very thin angelina sheet with opal colour, then stitched some needle lace fibres with a 30 wt Valdani thread. Then put it all to soak while I went to the movies to see The Time Traveller's Wife.

This morning I ironed the threads, being careful not to touch the angelina. I felt the regular grid was a bit too regular, so I added some corners to the grid with the angles changed, and cut small notches and holes in it, to add some chaos. I attached it to some purple batik with black Mistyfuse. Finally I couched some more threads over the fabric strip and free motioned the thread lace to the grid. Trimmed and glued to a prepared black canvas square.

Although I initially thought it rather lacking in detail, looking at it on the wall, I find it quite successful and striking.

Hydrangea thoughts

2009-11-20T22:09:00.003+13:00

After working nearly 6 hours a day on the construction (it took roughly 3 hours to do one floweret on average), I have now got to the stage of choosing a background. I asked my online group. One of the good things about asking other people is that if they give you the 'wrong' answer, you by default know what the 'right' answer is. I am going with a pink blotchy look, which is very close to the colour of the top floweret, but gives a kind of glow. I am going to add maybe 3 leaves near the bottom, to weight it, and also stop it looking quite so much like a floating space station!

I struggled for a while with not wanting it to be rectangular, but I think I will have to admit it is the best option. If I was going for a freeform look, I would have had to design that into the original. I am all for logic, so am always asking myself if the look is believable. Not the most playful approach, perhaps.

Zoo visit

2009-11-03T20:43:00.004+13:00

Last week I went to Orana Park, our local ranch style zoo, on a photography course. I was the only one of twelve who didn't have a telephoto lens, which was a real disadvantage. I did get a few nice shots of the tiger, and some birds. Then I borrowed a lens from someone with the same camera as me, and took a peacock that was displaying and carrying on. I had the opposite problem there which was I couldn't get far enough back to take the whole tail. Later, when I edited them in PSE, I did a crop of a full on face shot and have printed it on fabric for the FFF challenge which is the animal kingdom.

What I had really wanted to do was make a black and white chenille to represent zebra stripes, but three people have already done zebras, so I went off that idea. I did look at vultures, but it's amazing when you trawl through 500 photos, and only 3 of them have a clearly identified individual. I thought most of the photos were pretty crappy.

I am still fired up with my hydrangea piece. I'm on the last floweret, but I know I have to redo at least two of the earlier ones. I have found that tinting the fabrics in the light range gives me the colours I can't find in my stash. I think I will end up using about 2 metres of steam a seam light, but it is so much easier than turning the edges, and looks much neater than raw edge.

I have so much fabric left from the purples lilacs and blues that I might do a slightly more abstract version.

Hope to get something to publish here soon.

Slice in the mail

2009-10-18T20:24:00.003+13:00

I have finished my flower shop for the group quilt. It seemed to take forever to add fiddley vases of flowers and try to get enough references to the colours in the canopy and look natural as well. I used some fabric markers to try to give some curved dimension to the vases. Had lots of ideas for machine lace, but opted for the usual fused pieces and FMQ in blending colours to stitch them down.

I am much more excited about my larger hydrangea project. The first flower I did with glue to hold the pieces together, but I don't like the effect, as you can see the glue on the surface. Probably be OK once stitched, but I won't use that for the others. Can't decide between fusing or stitching only. I think I can do a mixture and see how I feel. Some of the flowerets are behind others, which gives me the chance to hide any that I decide are not the way to go.

If I am still interested when I have done this one, I might try an alternative of painting the flowers to get a more natural blending. This is a project that will get me up in the morning!

Spring is really burgeoning, and a lot of irises will be out in the next 2 weeks. That means more flower photos. Is that good????

Fast Friday Challenge No 37

2009-10-07T23:09:00.005+13:00

This is the first time I have done a challenge for this group. The remit was outer space and use a new technique.

I printed a photo of M42 in the Orion Nebula (NASA and Hubble) onto lutradur. That was a first for me. The colours were a lot more muted than the 'real' thing, but I decided to run with that. Next I added a thin layer of angelina underneath the fibres of the lutradur. That added a nice gleam, but to be honest, a pearlised paint would have done the same. Because of the muted colours I spent an age trying out borders and more contrast within, either beads or sheers, but in the end I felt they would all detract from the springlike colours. I glued on some stars from a piece of sheer I had painted ages ago. Added a few sequins. The dark purple star border is actually very shiny and sparkly. I was lucky to have a small piece of batik that looked like it continued the pinks and lights, and some hand dye that continued the grey lower area. I faced it, and it's done.

Now I look at the original again, I can almost "see" a section of Michelangelo's god pointing down from heaven in the Sistine Chapel. I have had a couple of glasses of wine, though!

One hydrangea portrait done

2009-09-24T18:30:00.004+12:00

This project is looking good. It's not very big, about 10 by 8 inches, but it demonstrates how you can show a white flower by using greys, grey-lilacs, and blue. The photo I had originally had a lot of texture in the petals, and that has come through quite well, by using a pale blue thread for the ribs, and Bottom Line white for the cell structure. Close up, I find the fabric changes a bit disturbing, but from 2 metres it looks good.

I tried a different stitch to attach the chenille cording, and that also worked well. As usual, I tried about 6 different types of bead, before deciding not to use any! There really are so few times that I can feel happy about glitz. Yet, I often admire other people's work with lots of embellishment. Something to work on maybe...

Next job, finish my group slice. It shouldn't take too long if I just knuckle down to it.

Trying out uda

2009-09-19T12:46:00.003+12:00

The flower power class has been going on without me, so I need to catch up. There is only one more lesson to come, and then we need to finish (or start) our preferred flower portrait. I want to do a very busy one of hydrangeas in blues, so I am practising the upside down applique technique on a smaller one of two white hydrangea bracts with muticoloured flowers behind. I wasn't sure which sort of stabiliser to use as a foundation, so I used a thin vilene. I think it is too thin, really, as if you have to unpick anything, there is every chance it will tear.

The reason I have missed a couple of lessons is that I have just been to Australia for a 2 week vacation. It's not often that I go away somewhere that doesn't involve seeing my mother at one point, so it was a different experience to just be relaxing and acting like a normal tourist. I flew to Brisbane and picked up a rental car. It was an off-site company, and the car was left with the keys in a coded box. It had a GPS but very few instructions. I couldn't get to hear anything and I tried several menus without success. My first day was on my own, so I planned to go to art galleries and quilt shops so as not to drag reluctant friends round with me. I was fairly stressed on the drive into the town centre, and think a normal map would have been easier. However, I got to the modern art gallery a couple of minutes before it opened. It was an interesting building. There was an exhibition of Aboriginal weaving - baskets, nets, that kind of thing. Brilliantly displayed, but not obvious to me why any particular basket was more worthy than any other. They were fairly simple designs with few obvious patterns. In the centre was a display of about 100 'star' poles, I can't remember the actual name. These were poles about 2 metres long, stuck in the sand, which had bands of grasses and feathers and braids. When you rubbed them between your hands the top part of feathers and braids would spin out and look like stars. Again, I'm not sure which tribes or groups were represented, but they were from Arnhemland.

The rest of the modern art was not for me. There was a huge figure of a woman in bed, about 4 times life size. I usually like a proportion in a modern art museum, but there was little here that would make me return. After that I went to the normal art gallery where there was an exhibition of American Impressionists. It was a good selection and displayed mainly by genre or subject. The landscapes and portraits were my favourites. In the permanent collection there were also some interesting paintings representing most European historical periods, including a few impressionists and pre-raphaelites. Both museums were well displayed, good use of space, and comfortable.

I had a strange spicy bean soup in the cafe there, and then headed by GPS for a couple of quilt shops that had been recommended by 2 people on the AusNz group. They were the Quilt Store, and Sewco. The Quilt Store was very unprepossessing from the outside, looking like a small doorway in a warehouse. But inside there were two large rooms, one with threads, books and embellishments, and one with fabric. It wasn't particularly cheap. Bottom Line thread was $18 Australian, which is about $12 US. I found Margo Duke's book on needlefelting, and another one on ribbon embroidery, that I found irresistible. A few fat quarters and some Colourstreams silk ribbon and I was $150 the poorer (or richer, depending how you look at it!). Sewco was also a good selection of fabrics and the rest.

I got to my apartment in Broadbeach in time to shop for some breakfast and other essentials and a piece of fish and one potato and some frozen spinach for my dinner. I didn't fancy going out. I had got up at 3.30 am to catch the plane, so simple and light was the choice. Apartments in Australia and to a lesser extent in NZ are very spacious. This one had two bedrooms, two bathrooms, a laundry, full kitchen, dining and sitting room and a balcony overlooking the pool. Not a flash place, but quietly on a back street, while still being close to the centre.

That was the total of art and culture for the 2 weeks, but I had a great time walking in the countryside, seeing native animals in the wild, and some really nice beaches. Good to spend time with Noriko, Lynne and Graeme, and we laughed a bit, drank not too much and relaxed a lot.

Flower Power

2009-08-28T13:01:00.002+12:00

I started this QU course last weekend. As usual Susan Brittingham gives full notes about all the processes and good illustrations. The homework for week one was to try free cutting for an applique flower. I wanted to do a rose that I had traced over, since I had the right fabric for it, and thought it was reasonably straightforward. I traced the b and w drawing onto freezer paper and numbered and labelled all the small pieces. I had a piece of fabric that was stripes of rust to tan all merging into one another. One end of it was dark reddish brown. The only other fabric I needed was a deep yellow, and a touch of lime yellow. All fabrics were solids, but it didn't matter for this project, which is small - less than journal size.

I spent all afternoon at the ironing board, cutting sticking the pieces for each petal separately first, and then assembling. Pretty well worked out which pieces needed to underlap - only two places I had to adjust. I got back ache, but keept going in the zone, and totally forgot the time. I looked at the clock at 5.55, thinking I was hungry and what would I have to eat, when remembered that I was going to a cooking class and needed to meet my friend at 6!

When I got home from learning how to make slow roasted lamb in pomegranate molasses and spices, with saffron pilaf, and rosewater panna cotta, I fused the whole rose to a piece of purple McKenna Ryan fabric. It looks pretty real.

I am not sure if I want to finish it, by stitching and quilting etc. No hurry, as I must finish my flower shop first.

Movies, opera and sketching

2009-08-20T11:39:00.002+12:00

Art quilt-wise, at the moment I am working on my house for the slice quilt our online group is doing. It is harder to keep going than I imagined. That might be partly because we let the timescale drift a bit. I did numerous samples for the windows, and I wanted to include something you could see through the glass, like a cat, a blind, or a vase. But the scale is so small, that I abandoned that idea. Next I tried several methods, upside-down applique, piecing and fusing. I preferred the fusing, because the UDA distorted the corners the most, and the piecing gave too much bulk. Would probably be fine on a larger item.

At the moment I am doing the decorative relief plaster that is on my sample photo of a large building on the waterfront in Willemstad, Curacao. I will do the flower shop part separately and attach it at the end, in case of disasters. I have some great fabrics with flowers on, which I hope I can fussy cut. When I get my embellisher back tomorrow I will also try attaching some using that. Oh my god - MORE samples!

Despite my best intentions of starting stitching at 8.30 this morning, I have passed a couple of hours looking at a DVD I rented of Fitzcarraldo. I saw this Werner Herzog movie years ago, and it had a huge impression on me. Since my boss is going to Manaus in a few weeks, I looked for it to check out my memory. Instead of watching the movie, I watched the interview with Herzog et al on the making of the movie. Honestly you get to see all the pivotal parts of the story, plus his tales of the making of it are actually more amazing than the original story. If you don't know the story, a manic Irish guy in Peru decides to build an opera house in the jungle, and that involves dragging a steamboat over a mountain to a different tributary of the Amazon. To make the movie, it took them 3 years to build two identical boats, one to drag and the other to sail about. Their camp, which took a year to build, was razed to the ground by hostile natives. Money was a constant worry and only came in dribs and drabs. Everyone though Herzog was crazy and it would never happen. There was only radio contact from the filming site to Iquito, and all supplies had to be brought from there. They used native Indians from logging areas to act and actually drag the boat (using winches and stone age wooden cranks). They used dynamite to try to improve the gradient from 60 degrees to 40 (plus a caterpillar machine that they shipped in). Half the time there was a drought and no water in the rivers, and the rest of the time there was too much. In the final scenes where the boat goes through rapids and gets damaged, they actually sent the boat through twice, once with a few people on, and once with none. They had to carry with them a few ladies of the night, to avoid problems with the crew and cast having to spend 8 months in the jungle. They had tense relations with the native Indians as it was, without incursions into their villages looking for women. There were lots of near accidents, and a few actual ones. One Indian got bitten by a very poisonous snake, and not having time to get to the antiserum, and knowing his heart would fail in less than 3 minutes, he cut off his own foot with a chainsaw! He survived. Kinski, the lead actor, was almost impossible to work with, having serious tantrums every day. He was certainly mentally unstable, which made him perfect for the part of Fitzcarraldo.

The interview was one of the most interesting I have ever listened to.

A lot of it was shot as in nighttime, with low level light, which had amazing effects. The native Indians have very prominent bone structure and I tried to sketch one man, who was wearing a headband with a few blue and orange bird feathers incorporated into it. Their faces would be great for a portrait quilt.

Now, it really is time to stitch!

Stitching to dye

2009-08-01T15:07:00.002+12:00

I bought June Barnes' book when I was in the UK (well it was my birthday present from my Mum, but I ordered it!). I have read it from cover to cover at least 3 times already, and I was excited to get to start playing with her ideas.

Her initial colour and dyeing exercises are based on blocks like logcabin or stars, since the focus is on the effects of different fabrics' take-up of colour. I couldn't think of a project where I wanted to do that, but I was experimenting with bark effects on trees, so I thought I could base my first attempt round that idea. I played with rectangular and random wavy blotches, and went for the semi-abstract rectangles and triangles, with a selection of natural coloured and printed fabrics. I bought several new FQs and some white on white ones, at Spotlight on Monday. I was very diligent and washed them all first. I also had some velvet for dyeing that I bought from marjie McWilliams, but I can't remember the composition of it now.

I did straight stitch round each scrap, though maybe I could leave out that step if I used glue or fusible web. Actually it took quite a long time. I was using the walking foot and swivelling at corners. I tried FMQ, but I didn't like the effect. Next I tried her granite stitch to secure the raw edges. I don't think I did them anywhere near small enough, but will play some more. I filled in the gaps with more circles and a few wavy lines. My impression is that the stitching and especially the garnet stitching makes too much of the gaps and detracts from the fabric patches.

I was supposed to be using cotton thread, but I only had cheapo white, with no writing on it, so couldn't tell. The blob test was inconclusive. Transpires now that most of it was cottonish, but when that ran out, I used polyester, which didn't take up the dye.

I mixed what I thought would be a yellow-green, but it turned out apple green. Looks OK. the velvet took the brightest dye, the linen the most yellow, and the attached calico the darkest bluest green. The neutral printed fabrics all turned out much the same colour.

I thought about colouring the threads with paint or crayons. Tried out 3 inktense colours on the back, but they migrated right through to the top overnight. I think the batting was the cotton and bamboo one. Nothin remarkable there, except the price.

I might use it to try low immersion dyeing and overdye with a turquoise, or I might start a new one with the white on whites. I had fun, and it didn't matter what happened, which was a good outcome.

Why I have been so quiet

2009-07-22T16:07:00.006+12:00

Since halfway through my vacation, I have not been in the right headspace to post here. Once I got back from the UK and Japan, I was determined to finish the bed quilt I had started in 2001. It was a BOM from Quilter's Barn, Renwick. It began a month before I left to live in Italy for 8 months. I took all the fabric with me, and my cutting wheel and mat. I didn't have a sewing machine there.

Living in Italy was a bit strange. It was less than a year since I had split from my husband, and I wasn't sure what to do next, or where to do it. I went to live in Brescia, which is between Milan and Verona. The first couple of weeks were horrible, living in a dirty flat run by a strange taciturn man - arranged through the school, Inlingua, that I was working for. After that I got a fairly expensive room in a flat on the edge of the central area of town. My landlady/flatmate was from Argentina, and spoke no English. Maria was fairly garulous and most of our conversations consisted of her rattling away and me interjecting the occasional 'si, e vero'. I didn't particularly enjoy the work or the firm. Most of the time I was teaching business English to individuals or groups of 2 or 3. Inlingua has its own textbooks and method, which didn't leave a lot of room for developing your own resources. I was not that experienced at teaching, but I did know that modern methodology for language speaking means the teacher should not talk more than the student. Yet, the most popular teachers were egomaniac guys with lots of stories to tell!

I enjoyed Italy, I enjoyed living in a historic city that was not on the main tourist thoroughfare. It was magic to be able to cycle (no helmet required, hairstyles far more important than brain damage) into the centre and listen to openair concerts, recitals, circus performances, all in balmy summer evenings. Daytimes were very hot by May through to September, with frequent afternoon thunderstorms. The flat was in the mansard roof, good, as it had a roof garden, bad, as hot air rises. Below us was a pizzeria that made fabulous prawn and rocket pizzas. During the afternoons I often had 3 hours to fill in between lunchtime lessons and after-work lessons. I tried to cut out the triangles and squares for the quilt, but it was hot work.

Finally I completed the central section of the quilt, the landscape, with appliqued grapevines round the outside. I didn't have much experience of quilting large things, but I knew that the central portion would be quite tricky to reach. So I quilted that centre section while it was still manageable. That might have been in 2002. At various other times in the next 3 years I made the rest of the blocks for the quilt and the borders and added them to the quilt top. Even later I added more backing fabric and batting and tacked it all together. I stitched round a couple of borders to keep it from shifting and put it in the UFO box.

Finally, in about March I got it out and determined to finish it. I almost did it before I went to England this time, but in fact there was more to do than I thought. After I had done the meandering and some of the block joins with a gold patterned stitch, I thought I only had a couple of things to do. But I found I had to machine the stems of the vines, which I had hand stitched. Then after the meandering the central area was a bit puffy and I had to add some stitching to that.

I pinned it to the carpet and steamed it square yesterday and pronounced it finished.

Sure the satin stitch from 2001 is not up to my current standard, but it looks good from a galloping horse, and that's OK with me.

Oh to be in England

2009-05-17T21:30:00.002+12:00

England is SO English. Yesterday I did the walk near Mum's that goes up a wide pathway between a new woodland development and the scout hut/bowls green/tennis court, thence to the allotments and the parish church. There was a wedding party out front having their pictures taken. The bride wore a restrained wedding dress, stiff satin with heavy embroidery on the front of the skirt and a bolero jacket with a high back neck and cut away front. The wedding guests were mainly hatted, and tastefully dressed.

Today I did parts of the same walk. This time I went through the woodland, which has been in existence about 5 years, I think. A local landowner bought the fields and donated them to the trust, to avoid yet more executive villas. It's become quite a philanthropic venture. Local people donate £200 for a named tree or less for a smaller tree anonymously planted. We have one tree for my Auntie Pat, who died 2 years ago, and one from Mum and me for gratitude for each other. I met a lady out for a walk and got chatting since we were both sans dogs (most people are dog walking). She said she had to get home to listen to the Omnibus Archers! Further on I met a young woman clopping along on a large cob horse, his tail brushed and reaching to his hairy fetlocks.

The green of an English spring is like no other. And the smell of the different weeds and wildflowers is quite particular as well. Nettles, brambles and ground elder, mixed with apple, bluebells and campion.

It does remind me so vividly of my childhood years, and going for local walks with Mum and my brother. Dad never came - too many hobbies in his various sheds!

Out of the closet

2009-05-09T09:10:00.003+12:00

Having put my creative projects on a shelf for a time, I got out an old UFO. This had been languishing in the cupboard for at least 6 years. I started it as a BOM in 2001, just before I went to live in Italy. I remember crouching on the floor of my attic apartment, stifling in the summer heat, cutting strips and square and triangles. I think I pieced a lot of them when visiting my parents, where my father was recovering from a car accident where he broke his pelvis.

Anyway, it is 60 by 83 inches, and greens and purples, representing the vineyards in Marlborough. Luckily I still like it.

I started on the quilting last week. I did some meander round the vines, and that looks good. Then I put on the walking foot and have been doing some of the blocks and borders. Because of the size and the weight of the quilt, I am having to do two passes round the blocks, one left and one right, so I don't have to rotate the entire thing. It's a bit like ploughing a paddock or mowing a lawn. The outside passes take a lot longer than the middle ones. I worked out when I was discing or rolling a paddock once, that if you divide the sides of the paddock into 10, then when you have done the 3 outer rows, you have done half the area.

I've experimented with various threads, including metallics, but the subject matter keeps telling me it doesn't want glitz, so half the time I am using standard white economy thread and it looks fine.

I don't think I will finish before I go to the UK on Thursday, but it probably won't need much longer.

It is great to get it out of my UFO box, because it took up heaps of room. It's made with high loft poly batting, so pretty bulky.

Various experiments, most not a great success

2009-04-30T16:13:00.003+12:00

Several thermofax screens arrived this week, some pre-made and others from my own photos. I tested one, and when I washed it out, it came adrift from the frame, which is a bit disappointing. When I get enthused again, I will re-attach it with duct tape this time. One of the ones from my Japanese stencils is not perfect - partly my fault for not double checking the photo, which I had converted to b and w, but there were still some pixels of the wrong colour in the wrong place. I think I have found a tool in Photoshop to remove all the white areas, so at least they will be blank. Then I had to adjust the blacks, as there were some charcoal grey pixels. All imperfections show up on the screen. This afternoon I tested all the others. The other Japanese stencil one is fine, and one of the smaller purchased screens also came partly adrift. I am not sure I will be a fan of thermofaxes. To be honest the freezer paper stencils on the normal screens worked the best.

Having postponed the poppy project until I can get to London to look for my print, I tried to finish the map of the islands idea. This started as a piece of calico that I blobbed all my blue paints on, to see what they looked like, plus a purplish blue. After that I spritzed it with Mountain Mist or whatever it's called - the walnut ink one. I added a couple of borders, and left it till I got back from Wellington. I then decided to trial quilting all over the borders as well as the centre, with the same kind of lines. I wanted to get away from having separate quilting stitches for each part of the quilt. I used some 40wt variegated threads, and some metallic, and one 30 wt. Then round the three 'islands' I did some thicker thread using the bobbin. So far so good.

I obviously needed to make the island shapes more distinct, as from a distance you couldn't make them out. I used metallic oil pastels round the edge. Then I added a mixture of shiva paintsticks inside those lines. I was playing with a treasure map idea by this time. I plotted the voyage of an imaginary ship. Added a funicular to the top of one mountain, and a couple of footpaths on the other two islands, using the stitch where you have invisible in the top and coloured in the bobbin and it makes a dashed line. Had to have the top tension on 9 to make it work!

I played with beads in the centre, but again, from 3 metres you couldn't see them. I tried bigger and bolder beads, but didn't like the effect.

Since it would involve stitching at least 200 seedbeads, and I wasn't going to like the finished thing, I put all the beads back in their jars! My latest idea is to print some mappish names like Smugglers Cove onto transfer paper and label the map. Much scratching of head later, I think I am ready to put a back on it and forget the whole thing, as just a learning exercise. There are things I really like about it, and the whole map plus contour lines idea is one I think I will play with some more.

Life since Wellington

2009-04-23T20:52:00.002+12:00

When I had stashed away all my new purchases and had a quiet day to recover, I got back on the quilting horse. Well, I tried to. The poppy project had made a small amount of headway on the design front, but I really need a botanical drawing to continue. I researched our local library and the Christchurch one and online, but have not really found anything like I have in mind. I want the black and white anatomically correct drawing of all parts of the plant, plus preferably some text as well.

Since I have the chance to go to a Botanical Art Museum in London next month, I have iced the project for now.

Meantime I have played with a piece of handpainted fabric that I put borders on just before Wellington. I have quilted it in contour lines, and it now looks like there are 3 islands in the sea. The point of the exercise was to try to quilt over the entire piece without making the separate quilt stitching that I've always done for borders. It wasn't so hard! In fact, although I used several different topstitching threads, you can really only see the madeira fs black core metallic from a distance of 3 metres. The other threads just merge into the quilt. The next problem is to make the islands more distinct. I tried oil pastels round the edge of them, but they need more definition still. If it works out OK I have a lot of beading to add in the centre, but I won't do that until I know that the piece is worth it!

Can't add pictures right now, as Photoshop is having a bad day.

Quilted out temporarily

2009-04-23T20:36:00.002+12:00

Two weeks have passed since my last post, during which time I went to the quilt festival in Wellington. This national event happens every other year, and sometimes in the North Island and others in the South. I had toyed with the idea of going, but when my neighbour and quilt tutor at QW, Lyn Winter, asked me to step in as room-mate, it all became a concrete plan. I registered for 5 days of classes, got accepted for 4 and then added an extra class. In addition to the classes, there were lectures every lunchtime and most evenings, by the overseas tutors. There were some well-known names, Dena Crain, Jenny Bowker, Ann Fleeton, Libby Lehman, Vikki Pignatelli and Gloria Loughman, being the ones I remember at the moment.

The venue did not compare favourably with Long Beach. No glossy conference centre, carpets etc. This was a girls' school, complete with 5 floors, several outlying prefabs, and some classes having to be held in chemistry labs etc. High stools, gas supplies on the bench etc. The one day that we were working on sewing machines, we had a normal classroom, but very cramped for 15 people, plus gear. Out of the 5 days, there was one class that stood out and that was Vikki Pignatelli's manipulating fabric. She gave a lot of examples, talked non-stop, and we got to try out a few options. They were all in her book Improvisational quilts, which I've had for a while, but it was much better to see everything in the flesh. To be honest, the other classes I took were either going over ground I already knew pretty well, or didn't cover what I imagined they would.

Don't get me wrong - I enjoyed the trip! It was so inspiring to be surrounded by people all learning, sharing and creating, and then have the exhibitions and merchants mall to look at as well. I particularly valued the chance to look through several books on my wish list. Luckily for my pocket, I decided I didn't need them at all! They were the Art quilts at play new title by Davila and Waterston, Lesley Riley's book on Lutradur, and some others I forget right now. The one I think I will buy later is Dyeing to Stitch by June Barnes.

I did buy quite a few mixed media items, like abaca paper, more Misty Fuse, burnaway, friendly plastic. There were heaps of threads which we can't get locally, so I bought several sample boxes and some variegated king tut and other threads. When I got home, there was nothing that I regretted. Well, there were a few things I had bought for classes that we didn't need at all, so that was a minor pain.

Japanese stencils

2009-04-09T19:30:00.003+12:00

The first time I went to Japan Noriko took me to Kyoto and we went to some small shops hidden away behind blank wooden frontages in the craft district. We went to a fantastic place that made shibori silk scarves. They were all different colours, but not the stripey looks we imagine with the term shibori. They had been stitched and sometimes multi-dyed but others were single colours. Finest silk, left with the pleating as a texture. I bought a pale peach one, to use as a summer wrap for the opera. Needless to say it's only been out of its bag twice in 5 years!

Another place we visited was an indigo dyer. They have to dye the indigo fabric up to 20 times to get the really deep blue, so it's very labour intensive, and I imagine fairly toxic. They had hundreds of used stencils of patterns they use. I think they said they were made of a rice paste, and hand cut. I've had mine in the drawer for those 5 years. I did try stencilling with paintstiks and paint a while ago, but it was only moderately successful. Today I did a couple of pulls with the stencils under a silk screen. I mixed up some yellow and a bit of red textile ink, which made a very unpleasant colour, but then added quite a bit of white and it seemed a bit like mayonnaise mixed with ketchup. However, in the pull, it looked almost metallic gold until it dried, and the colour is much nicer than it first appeared. I did one pull on the reverse of one of the leaf samples and one on polycotton.

After that I spent at least 2 hours with photoshop elements, cleaning up photos of the stencils, as I decided they were too fragile to use for screens which needed washing frequently. My plan now is to get thermofaxes made of them, which are almost indestructible. I don't know if I would seriously use them a lot, but I like the mottled effect of the chrysanthemum one, and the plum blossoms are very appealing.

Poppies and crosses

2009-04-08T14:41:00.005+12:00

My poppy project has been morphing slightly in my subconscious. I often wake up early in the morning with a new idea to try. Originally I was going to have several images of poppies tranferred onto fabric with only one of them red and rest black and white botanical drawings. On top of that I wanted to superimpose a red flanders poppy centred over some gauze bandage in the shape of a cross. I still want that for the top layer, but below that I want something to represent the hundreds of crosses in the WW2 war cemeteries.

A week of mixed success with experiments. I have made two trial poppies for the top layer of my 3 level proposed remembrance textile/plexiglass artwork. One is so almost what I was aiming for that I might use it. I embroidered the stamens with machine and hand stitches and then beaded the centre. I fused 3 layers of sheers with two layers of misty fuse in the sandwiches. I did several different blends of sparkle organza, nylon, acetate and others in reds and oranges. I traced the poppy shape, which is basically two layers, with 2 petals in each. Then cut them out with a burning tool. Some cut really cleanly and some gave a black tarry edge, which I then cut off. Since the pieces are fused anyway, I probably don't need to sear the edges. I tried embroidering the edge of one half, and drew shading line on the other half. But from 6 feet the plain one looks just as good, and maintains the fragility of the petals.

I tried drawing and crayonning with various media on a scrap of TAP (transfer paper) which I ironed on to the knitted off white fabric I want to use for the bottom layer. I ironed it on the normal cotton setting, and although every colour and ink transferred apart from the watercolour, quite a lot was left on the Transfer backing, which isn't supposed to happen.

I bought some grass green canvas to embroider crosses on and spent ages with photoshop elements trying to isolate the crosses to use for a stencil. I think I am abandoning the canvas, as the embroidered crosses don't have enough impact from a distance. Then I tried a freezer paper stencil on the back of a silkscreen and pulled opaque white ink through it onto blotchy green and black fabric. I like that look. Not sure if I want a whole layer of them or just half a layer, or some bold and some fading away. The screen is not precise enough - too easy to get odd droplets of ink where you don't want them. My next thought is carve a stamp, which would be much easier to place.

The most spectacular failure was with trying to tranfer inkjet prints onto plastic standing in for the plexiglass. I think mainly because the acetate sheets were for carbon toner not inkjet. Maybe I should have let the ink dry a whole day first. I also tried printing onto the shiny side of freezer paper which wouldn't even feed through the printer taped to a carrier sheet. I really had to give up at that stage, but will revisit it later. I bought an Epson printer this week because I wanted the pigment ink. It was only $71, whereas the replacement cartridges are more than $25 each. Does this mean I have to buy a new printer every time the cartridge runs out?

I am wanting a botanical print of a poppy plant, complete with root system. Since I can't draw, I have been trawling for free online images, with not a great deal of success. I have found a simple tap root drawing in one of Jane's books, which I could graft on to the poppy plant possibly.

I'm off to Quilt Wellington on Friday, so poppies will have to wait.

Bits and pieces

2009-03-31T11:51:00.003+13:00

Now that my cosmos piece is out of the way, I have been dabbling. A few more screen prints and a couple of attempts at sunprinting. Last weekend was our last of daylight saving, and it was a beauty. I used oak leaves as a resist, and made several samples using 3 different fabrics. I found the wicking problem only happened on the poplin, so won't use that again with inks. The best results were from printing the actual leaves after screening. A nice texture, with a bit of colour variation.

Yesterday I was playing with FMQ one of the poppy prints. Although I used 4 different reds, from a distance you almost can't detect any difference and the centre one was actually a dark maroon. Quite a good lesson, that values really need spicing up for impact. I did a narrow zigzag, which gave better coverage that straight stitching, but didn't really help make the texture look realistic. I can carry on with the leaves today and then the background, all just practice and harmless!

Unusually for me, my first job even before breakfast was to clean my hob and bench. That was because I had just got my new miracle Enjo cloths, which you use with just cold water, and no chemicals. I would say 95% effective, but had to resort to Jif for a few tacky old grease spots. It said you could use it on your glass fire door, so I tried that as well and it was good. The only drawbacks I have found so far, is that the cloths need somewhere to hang to dry. And putting on a mitt soaked in cold water is not an erotic experience. Could be downright nasty in winter.

I've spent a deal of time the last few days trawling the internet for info about slice quilts and then suitable photos for dividing. When we did a poll last week the consensus was for landscape and vertical slices. Now people are backtracking and going off on tangents and we need to keep refocusing. I also keep thinking about the feasibility of the blocks and the look of the finished
quilt. Some people want to do their own thing, and others want to follow a design, some even more literally want to recreate something.

Once we get going I am sure it will be OK, even allowing that one or two people might not make it through to the finished product.

Moving on at last

2009-03-27T17:36:00.003+13:00

I finished quilting the steel colony piece yesterday, and trimmed it ready for framing. Very hard to photograph with the beads and the metallic border fabric. I am thinking of changing the name to microcosmos, because it is a magnification of the steel, but also has a stars in space feel.

Read a couple of interesting blogs yesterday about changing linguistic habits, like eliminating 'but' and putting 'and instead. Could easily have done that in the sentence above.

I haven't done anything creative today, but struggled to get on with more Japanese writing homework. I CAN find the relevant information in the previous workbooks, but it would be so much better if I could remember any of it without checking. It's getting to the end of the month, and time for my clear-out day and my goal-setting day. The clearing out is going OK but I usually find a heap of things I need to do to prevent me doing the goal setting! Learning some vocab would be good, even if only 5 words a day.

I've suggested a slice quilt to the group and we are starting to think about what kind we want to do. There seem to be about 8 or 9 people interested, which is a good number. We could do it with 4 or 5, and anything above 9 is getting unwieldy.

Plan is to do the poppy piece next up. I like the leaf stencil I have, and am thinking about expanding the line drawings I have to separate the elements.

Steel colony

2009-03-22T20:08:00.004+13:00

the original photo

I'm trying out a few titles for the flowers and decay piece. Personally I find naming a piece means it is out of my system and I can move on. Although I often have a few general ideas, it is not until the piece is nearing completion that its personality is revealed. There are not many things I have made for a challenge or class where the subject was prescribed.

I am working on the borders now. Rather irritatingly the borders have grown and want to be as wide as the fabric I have cut, and that is actually a little bit wider than the batting. That means I have to graft on some more batting. I went to the picture framers this week to talk about framing it, and it's going to cost around $100 for something fairly simple, no mat, just glued to acid free card. I think I will try the people who do Jane's framing.

Some friends came to lunch today and were talking about the kind of money I should be asking for it, and that was about 3 times what I thought. No idea what people will pay, but it's not something I want to give away cheaply.

The other thing I started this weekend was my screen printing projects for the class I am doing at QU. I did a newspaper stencil yesterday - which didn't excite me. Then today I cut a stencil of a poppy leaf and stem out of freezer paper and that was reasonably successful. The only problem is that a weak colour oozes out of the inked print while it is drying. For a lot of things that won't matter greatly, but it could be an issue. I am using the Fasttex inks, which seem very thick and gloopy. I am lucky that I bought a remaindered book of flowers and stems stencils when the fashion for stencilling every wall and cupboard door went out of the window, so to speak!

Slow progress

2009-03-09T09:07:00.002+13:00

I am still working on the flowers and decay piece every day, but embroidery is such a slow process. I try to do about 6 or 7 lengths of thread in a session, and that takes about an hour or longer. Yesterday I was getting close to finishing the lower 4 inches. Where the blue part joins the rusty part there are hundreds of French knots and I also added some random small seed stitches and some seed beads. I may add more later, but I will move on to some more of the lazy daisy flowers over felted circles. I am pleased with the painted background. As I work on it, I see all the many layers of paint that I built up, and that is very gratifying.

I spent several hours at the weekend trying to manipulate photos for the online study group on colour and composition. We were supposed to isolate a small area of a photo and enlarge it for a focal point and abstraction. I never even got close to what I wanted. I did print more poppies, one in b and w. I went to the LQS and bought 4 pieces of b & w fabric, one of which would make good poppy petals, but would need gathering at the centre. That could be a future project, but need to finish the current ideas first.

It is only about 8 weeks till I go to the UK and in the middle is the quilt symposium, so I am beginning to panic slightly about the amount of things to do before then. Work, garden, house maintenance, social life(!). I borrowed a water blaster, to clean the house, but it took a lot of paint off, so I am now touching up all the bare wood. Not too hard on the white weatherboards, but the dark green on the front window frames (sash windows) never adheres well. Probably it absorbs too much heat and blisters. I am gradually replacing it with a dark green oil stain for fences instead. That soaks into the wood.

Gorgeous autumn weather - clear vibrant air, long shadows, plants relaxing with moisture again after their stressful summer.

Must go do stuff!

A week without art is a looong week!

2009-03-01T09:35:00.002+13:00

Had the week from hell, workwise. Not only heaps of work, deputising for my boss, and dealing with the Ministry of Education gestapo, but I woke up two mornings at 4.30 and 3.30, thinking about work and fretting, and of course shattered at the end of the day.

Anyway, that is in the past, and this weekend I have been able to spend a few hours on my flowers and decay project. It is interesting how a photo from the pixmaniaque free textures in a smallish size, say 6 by 8, seems to have lots of detail and colour, but when I blow it up to life size it loses both. I did do a lifesize collage so that I could more easily work out the placement of the encrustations, but I am using the smaller one for colour and texture. The fabric I painted on was the Cindy Walter fabric backed with paper that I bought at LB. It is very stable and easy to paint on. However, it is a pig to hand stitch as the weave is so close. I wouldn't use it for a hand stitch project in future. It is fine for machine work. It is challenging me to use surface stitches when I want to use a thicker thread.

I decided not to over quilt (originally I was going to quilt every quarter inch), as there is so much surface work to go on. It is amazing how many French knots you need to even look like you have put 5! (About 3 times as many as you think you need).

I have used a thin pellon and thin open-weave cotton backing. Now I am thinking the pellon won't have enough rigidity to keep the piece from sagging when applied to canvas or framed. So I might have to bond it to some felt. Will worry about that later.

I am enjoying keeping to the original but changing the texture in some places to look more like flowers. I prefelted a few pieces of roving. I will embellish them in place, but then hand stitch.

Because this is a reproduce-the-texture piece, it doesn't have a strong composition. I would like to build on this in a second or third piece to develop the compositional side more. Maybe one entirely machine felted and the other more abstract shapes.

But first...finish this one!

Flowers and urban decay

2009-02-20T17:00:00.003+13:00

I'm toying with words for my current piece. I am using another texture photo from pixmaniaque, this time a bit larger. I spent all of the last two days painting some fabric with many layers of colours of both paint and textile ink. The ink is much gloopier, and I need to thin it for this project. I've learnt a bit about colour mixing - how potent any touch of red is, and how adding light olive green on top of other colours is not very successful - it just blends into the other colours. Some were transparent and some were metallic as well as opaque ones. The metallic needs to go on last, in future, as it shows through all the others.

Now that I have the piece on the design wall, I can see it has a much spottier effect than the original, which has vertical strokes. I may put some wool roving on to simulate those strokes, but the embellisher makes quite a lot of holes through the fabric, so I will experiment on other samples first.

I bought some embroidery threads for it today - didn't have anything in lilac or butter yellow to make the daisy-like encrustrations on the wall or ship or whatever the photo is of. Would also like to add beads, but only have one packet that would tone in - can't believe that, after all the beads I bought last month, I still don't have the colours I want!

Here it is, as it was this morning. I have added more blue ink to the top since.

On/off weather

2009-02-18T07:15:00.002+13:00

The last few days have been alternately gorgeous and dismal. The days are starting to get the autumn feel, from cold nights and fresher air. The light when it's sunny is so clear and makes everything look in focus, even several kilometres away. I love it! It's always a struggle to adjust to the haziness of light in Europe, and the distant views are all in a blue-grey mist. Not just pollution, but the humidity as well. I'm a person who needs lots of light. Not for me the candle glow or the dimmer switch. Often in the daytime I have the lights on over my machine. That reminds me, one of the spotlights has gone and I have to get a huge ladder so I can reach the 3 metre high ceiling to replace the bulb.

Judy in Edmonton has been sending me more poppy pictures, so I spent a while yesterday trying to reduce one poppy flower to a line drawing. It is kind of frustrating how slowly I find my way round Photoshop Elements. I tried to watch a few YouTube videos of various functions, but couldn't get any sound. Then I got distracted trying to find sound switches on my computer, only to discover later in the day that it was a YouTube problem and my computer was fine! They were helpful up to a point, but often the one step I needed in close-up whizzed by and the speaker swallowed their words and I couldn't find which menu the drop-down option was linked to. Eventually I discovered the Magic Extractor option, but couldn't easily drag the poppy into a blank document. 3 hours later, I finally got where I wanted to get, but not sure if I could remember all the steps for another time. I would love to do a proper Elements Course. I did a weekend at the university last year, which was good as an introduction, but I want MORE!

Lyn called round with some more organza scraps for my poppies. I must try both fabric medium and dissolved solvy as methods for stiffening the organza. Also various finishing methods - stitching, burning, double layer bonded with Misty Fuse. Maybe later today when I get back from work.

Class work

2009-02-13T15:01:00.005+13:00

It's been a few days since I have been able to do much in the way of stitching. Very busy time at work, and then had friends for the long weekend. Then it was 35 degrees, and today it is 15, but that's Canterbury weather for you!

On Wednesday I was able to collect my sewing machine from the dealer, where it was having a service. I also got the guy to wind back the top tension so that I wasn't always trying to FMQ on 1 or less. I have never had the tension over its normal place, which is 4, so it seemed a waste of adjustment.

On the way back from town I stopped at a cheap stationery warehouse to look for some washable glue gel, so I could try the technique outlined by Cynthia St Charles in QA magazine. The store was having a 2 days 25% off sale, so I got a whole bunch of stuff. Some, like printer ink and recordable CDs and DVDs, were utilitarian. I also bought some textile ink suitable for screen printing, which I want to try. Some oil pastels, some foam board (for printing onto), a sketchpad and some paintbushes. All in all it came to $247 but at least I got the glue gel I went for! I tried the resist technique, and think it would work fine with a bit of practice to get the lines even.

Yesterday two quilt artist friends came for a playdate. Shirley Goodwin wanted to play with a burning tool and organza. Lyn Winter had brought a big stash of organza bits and acrylic felt for us to raid. Both of them are tutors at Wellington this Easter. Lyn is working on a fabulous quilt for a NANZ competition. It uses illuminated letters and an aged paper look. Shirley is working on a political quilt. I am still gestating my current two ideas, but meanwhile I am doing classwork.

I did another piece for the embellisher class with coiled roving on Kunin felt. This was then zapped with a heat gun. I did a bit of knitting in a variegated mohair and felted that under the first piece onto a second piece of felt. I don't like the melted plastic feel of the zapped kunin, but I like the other two techniques.

In the evening I did a bit of work for the Colour and Composition study group that I am part of, through Studio Quilts. Got a bit confused about left brain/right brain and which should be the one to start. Of the 4 pieces I quickly fused, there is one I really like and the other 3 are OK.

This was a week for parcels arriving - wool roving, silk noil and copper knitting from Texere yarns, and my beads from Craft4me that was going out of beads. Now I really must start using some this new stuff while I can remember what I got and where I put it!

Embellisher piece for class

2009-02-03T17:56:00.004+13:00

The sari ribbon is about an inch wide, and mostly comes in those
cerise and emerald colours with a few dull or bright reds. Some has
metallic stripes. That is what I punched onto the black batting in
stripes, then I cut it and rotated to form a kind of 4 patch. After that I
added the wool roving in a diagonal grid, using the chiffon to hold it
down, which is when I burnt back the chiffon. At that point I hated it.
I started with some fine green wool yarn doing detached fly stitch, then
some feather stitch in a variegated perle cotton. Then the ladder
stitch (which is just a kind of chain stitch). It needed some pizzazz,
so I added the coiled pink chenille for flowers. Then I crocheted the
green chenille just with my fingers and made it into stems, which
looked like snakes to go with the ladders. Oh, and there was some
royal blue foil added under the sari ribbon. The painted wonder under
wasn't really visible in the end, though I painted with dynaflow. It
did hold the sari ribbon in place for embellishing, but black misty
fuse would have been better, especially now we know that fragment-for-tacking technique from Judy and Esterita.

In retrospect the batting has got quite lumpy with distortion from the
stitches. It doesn't bother me here, but black felt would be a better
backing.

February and trying to think

2009-02-02T08:03:00.002+13:00

My goals were to spend at least 2 hours clearing rubbish from my office or the garage on the last day of the month. Well, I managed 1 and a half hours, and 2 bins of rubbish. Still masses to go, but it felt good. The next goal was to spend 2 hours on reflection on the first day of the month. Total failure, but I still have it in my sights. I do understand that you need to be steering a course to get anywhere, but I don't enjoy meditation in any way.

But at least I can reflect on how January went. Artistically there were some positives, negatives and some learning, all of which are good for development. I tried the shaving foam painting with feezer paper stencils, and that is a technique I could use again. The embellisher has been mostly unsatifying. Despite the fact that I love looking at textured pieces, like Sandra Meech, Maggie Grey etc., and even Jane vk's, I do not feel it is my medium. It may be that my fear or negativity holds me back, but I don't think so. There is definitely a left brain/right brain fight going on with it, though. It seems a jumbly way to work and the result looks like a jumble. I have downloaded a couple of the texture photos from flickr. One is a machine stitching sample, but the other could be embellisher plus hand stitching, or painted lutradur or transfer. That excites me in a way the burning of chiffon layers does not (in fact it annoys me because the chiffon is quite expensive and then you throw it away in effect).

Once I have experimented with some of the things I bought at Hands last week, I will make a plan to dye or paint my own stuff for bigger projects. I still haven't got to grips fully with colour mixing, especially for muted browns and khakis. The embellisher class has 2 more weeks, and after that I will stop work on the experiments and get back to something more focused.

My work life has been getting busier, working up to the climax of this week, when all the new kids start and need a lot of attention. While it is not a career job, it does have the benefit of a small income and a small contact with a bunch of mainly nice people.

Socially, there have been some fun times at the beach with both Kevin and also Tarnya and the girls. A lot of movies, some time with Fei, also fun. I have some friends from England coming next weekend, so that will have the effect of making me tidy the house at least once in the month. It doesn't bother me most of the time, until it does - a bit like when your fingernails suddenly need cutting.

The goal setting will wait till later.

Those transient eureka moments

2009-01-28T12:45:00.002+13:00

I've had a couple of brilliant quilt ideas the last couple of mornings, just before I get up, and within 10 minutes they have totally vanished! So disappointing and a good reason for keeping that notepad and pencil by the bed.

I have been feeling more positive towards the poppy project recently and am getting back into the sketching stages again. Maybe it will not work, but I do want to explore the options. I am now thinking to try another couple of samples one with the stitching from the top and the other with the design on the back and using bobbin work. I have never yet tried cable stitch, so that would be an opportunity. I could also try the transfer paper for some black and white sketches.

Since my Bernina is in the workshop for a service and a couple of tweaks, I have put my embellisher machine into the dropdown in the table to see if it is more comfortable. Unfortunately the pull off drawer section is just too wide to fit in the whole, so I only get a small work surface. I did have to replace a needle the other day, which is pretty fiddley, but at least it was a needle at the front. I have no idea how you do the one in the middle.

I am getting very interested in mounting small works on plexiglass, so need to talk to Jane about where she gets hers done. That could work well for my poppy 2 project - the one with the flanders poppy in organza on bandage gauze with some white crosses for graves behind. I am even thinking two layers of plexiglass with a long screw between to keep them apart. Must ask Peter about that!

Found some free to download texture images yesterday through quiltart, and have printed one which I could easily make with zigzag stitch. Turquoise on lovat green. Reminds me of the quilt Peg and I got excited by at the CoCa gallery a couple of years ago. That was postcard size pieces all attached to black, all representing different landscape fragments and textures. Always wanted to do something similar.

Off to have a play now.

Is there anything else in life but stitching?

2009-01-23T17:46:00.006+13:00

I seem to have spent the entire week sewing, even though it is midsummer and I have plenty to do outside (not today though, which is 32). On Sunday I started playing with shaving foam painting, using a simple flower out of Vikki Pignatelli's book Quilting by Improvisation. I was pleased with the effect, mottled with interesting flecks of deeper colours, both on the flowers, centre and leaves. By the end of Sunday I painted the background a pale wash of blue, and quilted the whole thing. I felt the flowers should have had more variation to show one petal separated from the next, but other than that. Really happy.

Then I became truly obsessed, and decided to make an oval 'picture frame' for it. First, added some silk I had painted at the same time as additional separate petals to give a more rounded effect. Then ploughed through the internet looking for how to draw an ellipse. It was a bit mathematical, but it didn't have to be quite that precise. A couple of drawing pins and a piece of string and voila, achieved! Then couldn't decide on a binding or not. Initially went with pale green but ended up with pink.

Finally this morning I made a twisted cord and couched it down with a seed bead every inch. So totally floral and pink, not at all me, but it was interesting to do. The other happy chance was finding a stencil in a wall paint book that I could use to quilt the swirly dark purple which had a similar design but too small to quilt. I didn't want to do major quilting. This was after all just an experiment!

After lunch I did a couple of projects for my embellisher class. I feel I have missed out on some basic info like how you achieve different effects like ruching etc. Must ask Judy.

This was a momentous week with Obama's inauguration, but for me it was just stitching and going to the movies. Saw Benjamin Button on Monday - far too long and rather dispiriting, though interesting idea (Scott Fitzgerald story). Then Vicky Christina Barcelona - again a little off the wall, and well acted. As always, had fun with Sandra and Jane.

Embellisher sample

2009-01-18T12:04:00.003+13:00

Yesterday I managed to combine playing the gold lutradur with some yarn samples for my embellisher class. I layered the lutradur over some handpainted purple and gold fabric over black batting. I stitched round the edge just to keep it in place while I embellished on a range of knitting yarns and some sari silk yarn. That was very hard for the embellisher, but it coped. I found an old sample of felt with tails that I had made at Janes. I cut off the tails and embellished three of them on to the yarns, making an M shape.

I wanted to burn back the lutradur, but couldn't get it to burn with iron, heat gun or soldering iron. Gave up and just cut it. Not quite the effect I wanted but it was just an experiment.

Added a few beads, and embellished on top the outside circle of the felt piece, with a few strands of blue nylon ribbon and tufts of sari fibre to add a frame effect.

Called it M for mother.

I feel playtime coming on!

2009-01-17T11:32:00.002+13:00

I haven't posted for 3 days because I haven't done anything creative. I had some unexpected B & B guests on Thursday, so had to put everything away (just an excuse really). They asked me if I was an artist. I said Yes! That was the first time I hadn't qualified it with some modest self denigration. Yay!

I got a query from Vikki Pignatelli, who is coming to Wellington to teach at Easter, about stabilisers and washaways. I did a short bit of research, which meant I was at the LQS. Found some gold metallic lutradur, very cheap, so bought a metre. It's very fine bonded web, so I want to play with it now.

I did a little bit of compositional drawing for the poppies, and find that 3 or 5 look a bit too 'lumpy', so I'm thinking of maybe 3 poppies plus 3 bits of cow parsley. and a couple of leaves and buds.

After another very hot day, it is a little cooler today and cloudy, so I can have the doors and windows open (the screened ones, that is).

Had a very enjoyable evening with Peter, Gill and their daughter Angela. Angela is getting into crafts in a serious way, mainly beads, and printing. She had heard of the Japanese screen printing gizmo (Gocco) that I read about a while ago on Planet Textile Threads. I may try it one day, but have enough techniques to explore right now.

Energetic day

2009-01-14T12:25:00.002+13:00

The weather is great - sunny, warm but not hot and low humidity. I did an hour spraying gorse on the hillside, which I do at least twice a year. This year, having sheep here longer from my neighbour, I find they have eaten all the seedlings regenerating from the broom and gorse, which is a bonus. Then I had a swim, as I wanted to put the vacuum machine in to clean up the bottom. The water was down from 29 last week to 24, because of the cooler weather and cloud cover the last few days. Then I went to the gym (is there no end to the virtue??) for my yoga/pilates class.

Last night I had a short play with my embellisher for the Dale Rollerson class. I think I will have to try putting net over my surfaces, as the fabric and threads do get pushed out of position. I ordered a HUGE amount of silk etc. and felt from her, but it won't get here for a week, so I will hold off most of my practice till then. To be honest I was a little disappointed with the first lesson, as it was pretty basic, even for me who has hardly done much with it at all.

I have my cream fabric interfaced and stabilised and waiting for inspiration to hit. I need to draw out the poppy family portrait using a combination of the things I have already printed. I am just putting it off.

If I need any more physical work today I will start dividing up the larger clumps of irises. I have a semicircular drive with about 100 irises, and every year I have to divide about a third just to stop them from clambering over each other. This year it is the turn of the intermediate orange, and the deeper pink. I am going to turf out the very flowerful but sprawling white and purple that was here when I moved here. I still have it in other places, but it really goes mad. I bought a new magenta with a luminous spot, to put there instead. Also a dwarf white. It is good to have the dwarves and the intermediates as they extend the flowering period from 2 weeks to 3 or even 4.

Test piece done

2009-01-11T10:24:00.003+13:00

I stitched rectangles of the neutrals together - they all stitched nicely apart from the shiny grey. Then I stitched a red thread over all of them to see if the poppy outline would show up or look good. I am leaning towards the knitted cream fabric, ironed onto woven interfacing, and probably would need a stabiliser as well. The red thread (I did a trilobal polyester and a heavy 30 wt cotton) shows up well, and disappears into the knitting in an attractive hit and miss way. It did not do well on the shiny grey (pity, I wanted to use that). The upholstery donkey brown bonded to some strange backing like a carpet underlay but thinner - would make a nice mat or frame. My plan now is to draw the poppy outline I want for the centre, and do it from both front and back on samples of the knit fabric.

I had a frustrating time yesterday trying to get one poppy picture resized to print 4 copies. Whatever I did, it cut the top off the flower, and I don't know why. So I am going to move it ot my laptop and try it with the Photoshop printer software and the Canon one. These learning experiences are generally not that rewarding, but IF it works, I will make sure to write it down in my art journal. There's only so many times I want to rediscover things!

I restarted working through the Photoshop manual yesterday, and it is amazing what knobs and buttons there are.

But all in all there was FAR too much time spent on the computer yesterday, with all that photo stuff, and ordering some silk and wool from the Thread Studio for the embellisher class. Today I am going to spend at least an hour clearing firewood from the top of the hill, to get some exercise and be outside while it isn't hot.

Promised rain is not coming

2009-01-10T08:11:00.002+13:00

A couple of days ago, the forecast for this area was 3 days of rain. That would have been very welcome, especially after a week in the 30s, up to 36 one day. However, now it has been changed to cloud only, though the temperatures are lower. So I will have to water my trees after all, and maybe a few other stressed looking plants. And I was so hoping nature would do it for me!

I am prevaricating on the neutrals, so should JUST DO IT! Until I've done the sample of fabrics, I won't know if the idea will fly or not. If that background doesn't work, I may try a solid background with printed poppies, or layered poppies. I know poppies are very much used by artists, but they are a stunning plant - colour, shape and texture - it's all there. Plus the shapes of the buds and the seed heads are so different, yet very characteristic.

I had a couple of interesting conversations with friends yesterday about directing our lives and not letting past events or feelings cloud our future. It is one of the benefits of my having lost all my belongings in the fire, I have so few memorabilia to trigger regrets.

Bark fusion

2009-01-08T16:13:00.004+13:00

I bought a cheap picture, just a plastic printed sheet over this wooden frame yesterday, as the framers were not yet back at work. I coated it with gel medium, then some fabric paints. I was trying for a dull ginger, but try as I might with the mixing, I could not get it dark enough. Adding black just made it go more khaki. Anyway, it is good enough, with a bit of violet sponged on lightly. I stapled a strip of mat behind the bark and stitched through it. Not entirely satisfactory - not long lasting - but OK for now.

This is a closeup of the beading, the threads and the fissures I got from drying it over a log. The wide threads are sari silk, and the others are various knitting yarns. I washed and unwound the sari silk to make it softer for stitching.

It's such a hot day here - it's been about 36 before lunch and now cooling slightly down to 32. The Fohn wind has dropped, and the ground doesn't burn your feet now. Definitely a day for a siesta and then cocktails.

My friend Judith cycled over at midday, looking very hot and uncomfortable, to bring me a Christmas card that had gone to her house. It turned out to be from my ex-landlady in Brescia, who I haven't heard from for about 6 years. Like all those kind of random contacts, she told me nothing about herself, apart from the fact that she was going to Buenos Aires. No email address, so I guess I'll have to send a letter in Italian, since she doesn't speak English.

Finished and moving on

2009-01-07T22:42:00.002+13:00

After I couched the rayon yarn, I felt the stems and leaves were too out of proportion, so used my cropping mat to work out that the only really interesting part was the flowers. So I lopped off the lower third, played around with pink and green borders and bindings, and went for a narrow emerald green.

I left the colour as it was on the photo, since the previous one that I 'enhanced' came out very lurid on my desk top monitor, and on a few websites where I posted it. Not sure if this monitor needs calibrating, or if the photoshop is not so reliable.

I just started assembling the neutrals I want to try out for the poppy project. But time for bed.

A hot day for surfing

2009-01-07T12:23:00.003+13:00

I found a link on the quiltart list this morning to a bead sale at http://www.craft4me.com/, who are apparently going out of beads. There were 24 pages of 1214 lots of beads, so it must have taken me at least an hour to check through them all and purchase what appealed. As always some of the more unusual lots were already out of stock. But I feel happy with the choices I made, some light, some dark, some pinks, and yellows, which I have none of in my stash.

I continued with the FMQ piece yesterday, adding some bright green chiffon with the embellisher for the stems and leaves. The colour isn't perfect, but I think it will do. I could overlay with a yellower colour but it might get a bit heavy. I did the beads in the centre of one pansy, and have the second one to do. Then I will couch a rayon thread over the outline of the flowers to make it stand out. I'd like to stop there!

The embellisher did a great job of pinching in the wavy outside edges of the piece. That often is the problem if your stitching doesn't go off the edge at regular intervals. I'm loving my new toy!

Shirley and Lyn got on fine, and we are talking about meeting once a month for sharing of new ideas and techniques. Will have to see if we can make the commitment, since we are all pretty busy.

A very hot, but dry air day here. Good for swimming - yay!

creative play

2009-01-06T08:54:00.002+13:00

I gave myself permission to play with FMQ yesterday on a piece of hand-dye that I used for the previous piece. Partly inspired by Bonnie McCaffery's vidcast of Larkin Van Horn, I let my stitching waffle about where it wanted. First separating the larger areas of colour division, then infilling with what seemed a good idea. I did garnet stitch in 3 different threads, and prefer the flat, darker thread top left to the variegated and the lighter one bottom left of right pansy. I did a candle flame fill on the light area to the left bottom, and that worked well. Had some problems with a 30 wt cotton thread. Did not do well with a 90 topstitch needle, but better with a microtex. Also bottom line in the bobbin was too fine and a cheap linty white thread worked better. After I did a few amoeba in some green areas, I 'saw' some pansies in the lighter yellow, so did them with a few lines of straight stitch and then zigzag in two colours and widths. They are quite puffy, like they want some trapunto. I didn't like the large blobs of light grey, so mixed up some shiva paintsticks and daubed very lightly with various greens. Shadowed in some stems. Not sure that was a good idea, but hard to undo. So now what? Add some sheer ribbon for the stems? Add some French knots for the centres? Beads? Or just file it as a learning piece?

I have Shirley Goodwin and Lyn Winter coming to meet each other at coffee time. They are both tutors from Rangiora going to Symposium in March. Very different styles and different ladies. Wonder how they will get on?

Trying not to go back to normal

2009-01-05T12:18:00.003+13:00

I am trying to develop new habits, and I feel that might be easier if I am trying to change a whole lot of things at once. Otherwise it seems too easy to slip back into how things used to be.

I am trying to change my mouse hand from right to left. Can't do it all day yet, as makes my arm sore, but it should get easier. The biggest problem so far seems to be how to eat meals alone without watching TV.

Yesterday I finished the calligraphy piece. Let's think of a title. How about "Only Truth"?

I am happy with it. I did as usual spend a long time auditioning fabrics and techniques only to come back to the simplest quilting with beads. It reminds me of a medieval castle door with studs, and the border quilting is inspired by the flourishes that come after old signatures. The transfer print was fairly firm, and wouldn't have suited a lot of stitching. I bought a silk necklace ribbon that was the perfect colour to make the border edging. I really like the two colours together. Actually I really like the hand dye that I did at Jane's a while ago. I have another piece a similar size on the table and am tempted to have a go at just quilting it free flow. But must focus on the poppy project and not get side tracked.

There are a couple of study and class options coming up in the next couple of weeks as well, so I should spend this week on the poppy project (are you listening, brain?).

Glorious day - sunny and with lots of air - gives a buoyant feel. The perfect summer weather.

I am human

2009-01-03T09:38:00.002+13:00

Yes, well, it's Jan 3rd, and already after 9.30 and I have not yet switched off the computer to start on my focus for the day. However, in my defence it is the weekend, and therefore semi-OK.

Had a typical distraction day yesterday, but not entirely unfruitful. I was stumped as usual with a stitching design for the border of the calligraphy piece. Wanted a scroll type of thing, so went through some old Q magazines looking for inspiration. Checked online. Nothing. So ended up doing a simple meandering figure of 8, which worked well enough. As usual spent some time pondering whether to bind or zigzag, and went with zigzag. It does tend to make the edges wavy, though. In the past I have had to do 3 or 4 passes to tighten it up. This time I even did the first two passes before I trimmed, hoping to make a difference, but apart from the fact that is was easier to sew, it made no difference. Just have the coached silk tubing to add and some beads, and I will call it done, as in resolution number whatever.

Did find some old QArts mags, that could do with a re-read, since my interests have moved on. It's only a week till the embellisher class starts, which I'm looking forward to. But that will only increase my repertoire, and playtime, and not contribute to my two immediate projects. Tomorrow I will have to get back to my day job, but I also hope to start with the neutrals background to see if the project that is so alive in my imagination will actually draw breath.

I am a bit irritated that I constantly run up against this border stitching problem, but if I am letting a piece evolve and I don't have a structural plan at the beginning, I don't see an easy answer. Well, no border, or a pieced border, would make things more straightforward. Maybe that will be my mission this year - work out several border options for those cases where nothing is clear.

Off with the computer and on with the sewing machine!

Immediate art aims

2009-01-01T16:44:00.000+13:00

There are two ideas that are in the early stages of development.

The big forest project has made a small amount of progress. Time at Jane's working on textured effects using distressed pellon, silk fusion and netting led to me working up the bark piece of silk fusion with threads and beads. At this stage I have not decided if the two trees will be similar (Jane thinks they should be to aid the viewer to enter the picture), and also if each tree will be made of a homogeneous batch of textures, or if there will be separate areas of different textures. This needs to be decided in the next week.

Also in the next week or two, I need to paint the pellon to be distressed in various blotches of suitable colours. To do that, I need to play with colour mixing, or go to Jane's for her paints or dyes.

Later, the back layers will need drafting for both structure, composition and contrast. I have not decided if there will be focal objects, or if the composition will lead the eye up a vanishing path.

The second project is the neutral palette idea with printed and stitched poppies. I have practised drawing poppies, and printing others using transfer paper. I like the idea of a base fabric made from rectangles of neutrals with texture. The poppies could be in a foreground layer, either separate or semi-attached. The whole thing could be behind glass. The glass could even be etched. Next stage will be trying out fabrics and textures for the background. Have been in touch with Sue Snell about using her line drawings.

Meanwhile, I have to find a frame or structure for the bark sample.

Also finish the calligraphy journal piece. Aim for next 2 days.

The time to start is now.

Goal setting

2009-01-01T16:10:00.000+13:00

It's New Year's Day, and there's no escaping the fact that now is the time to set out the goals for 2009, and make a start on reaching them.

Areas that I would like to be improved by this time next year:

Tidier, more organised house
Warmer and increased number of friendships
A special man in my life
Fitter, more toned body
Focused development of art life.

Areas that I want to diminish
Distraction, mess, clutter, in both house and head
'non-attentive' time, e.g. mindless TV, crosswords, reading blogs and group mail.

Goal 1: Daily routine
On days I don't have to go into school for the day: read email while having breakfast. Do not answer any except urgent mails. Do not answer any group mails or go off into links etc. Do not write blog. Get dressed. Do 20 minutes Pilates, or 40 minutes walking plus swimming later in day where appropriate. The aim is - ready to start work or creative endeavour by 9 am or earlier.

Do outside work where appropriate from 9 to 11 (unless spraying at 6 am). i.e. before wind gets up and spoils the day.

One hour to do either work or play until lunchtime. Eat lunch and do all the mail stuff. Do not watch meal-time TV. Write blog

Work, study or do creative work for afternoon.

Try to eat at 6.30, and then won't be tempted to watch rubbish TV.

Go out maybe 3 nights, choir, photography, dancing, movies.

Do all this for 4 weeks and then review.

Goal 2:
Work towards specific body of work. Write in creative journal what the aims are for each piece. If the piece is just to finish up an experimental sample, do not spend a lot of time making it perfect. That is time to be spent on development. When doing classes or studying books, make a written plan for how this is leading to the B of W. Rather than doing things that just appeal, find the gaps in skill base or development and work to fill those.

Goal 3:
One day a month (the first or nearest to first suitable day), do some de-cluttering of office, or wardrobe, or garage. At least 2 hours.

Goal 4:
Develop better social networks. Ask people who have the life I want, what is their secret?
Invite 5 or 6 people to dinner at least every 8 weeks.

Goal 5:
Ring up all men on CC lists by January 12th.

Goal 6:
One day a month (last or nearest to last suitable day) review life plan and do at least 2 hours writing life script, visualisation or other training.

Goal 7:
Allocate one workbook of Japanese to every 2 week period. Aim to work consistently through year.

This evolved into much more of a life list than an art list, but I am happy with my choices.

Art goals in next post.

Creative production, August-December

2008-12-31T07:52:00.000+13:00

Not surprisingly I came back from that trip revved up and ready to stitch! I had signed up with Debbie Babin to work through Jane and Elin's AQWorkbook with a group. We had a target of a chapter a week, which was a heavy schedule, but I had the advantage of it being winter here. I made 6 journal size quilts, mostly in a series to do with discourse, but also 2 others that utilised a hand stamped piece I had made at Judy's and another UFO from a quilt class in Elba in 2006.

Following on from that I did Debbie' s Floral Pizzazz class. I found the exercises on value really helpful, but I lost the momentum to complete the actual class project. The slightly seaweedy look of the flower didn't really speak to me. In October I did the Joggles class on tyvek. The main thing I learnt from the class was that all tyvek and all paint is not equal. The samples I had in the kits from Distractions refused to melt, but the hand painted bits of envelope that I used, would shrivel in a blink of an eye. I was pleased with the two works I completed - the grid with tyvek beads on skewers, and the maple leaves. The class was not well supported, the forum almost non-functional, and the teacher not very present. Another time it could be quite different.

My friends Jane and Sandra were getting fed up with my lack of commitment to my big forest project, so I went and had a half day with Jane, playing with silk fusion and torn painted pellon, to make bark samples. When I got back, I remoulded the silk fusion over a real log, and then embellished it with couched threads, beads and felted fibre. It was amazing how many colours you could add to the basic grey-blue and it still look like a real log!

Two other dalliances at the end of the year - transfer paper for printing onto things other than inkjet sheets, and a new embellisher machine. Hardly got to grips with either, but that's for the future.

July round-up

2008-12-31T07:29:00.000+13:00

I arrived in Halifax on July 3rd, was met by Rose and Willis Comeau, and taken to her sister's house in the suburban woods. Squirrels leaping into nut baskets, that kind of thing. That evening we went to the Halifax Tattoo. A great spectacle, but very noisy and too long. I was surprised at the amount of patriotism felt by the audience for their servicemen and women. Next day, a trip round the southwest of Nova Scotia to their area of Acadia. Lots of quilt shops en route, some amazing and some not so much. Almost met Valerie Hearder, but she was not going to be home. Then at their home, pretty close to the shore, I saw Rose's grandmother's quilts, and then met several friends and a sister-in-law and saw all their quilts. Generally a bedsize hand quilted work will sell for between $600 and $1200 Cdn.

I got the ferry to Bar Harbor in Maine, and was met by Alison and spent a lovely couple of days there in rural remoteness. I saw the works that she keeps under the bed (!), and had a day sightseeing and going to quilt shops, then eating lobster. The second day was hot, so we stayed home and I made a quilted bag under her direction. Next stop a flight to Buffalo to be met by Christina and Petra. They live in a farming community near Niagara Falls. We did the tourist thing, but I much preferred Niagara on the Lake, where I bought a print by Edward Spera, one of several local artists there. He does animal paintings with amazing detail, from photos he takes himself all over the world. The other thing in their local town was a permanent mural exhibit.

Next stop Edmonton and Judy and Dave. Had a great time playing in both her wet and dry studios, visiting galleries, quilt shops and chatting. Judy took me to Calgary and then on to Radium, with a stop off at her favourite quilt shop Sugar Pine in Canmore. We met up with Anne and Brad from Oyama. Next day, more quilt shops in Windemere, and then we parted company, and I went on with Anne to the Okanagan. Too brief a time there, more quilt shops, more galleries, lovely views. Greyhound to Vancouver. Stayed downtown (rather seedy) saw Stanley Park, some great art in the furniture dept of a large store, and then got the wonderful train to Seattle. The best train trip ever for luxury and views. I was met by Sally and Randy and spent a couple of days there (more quilt shops, and a visit to Snoqualmie Falls). Sally and I flew down to the quilt festival at Long Beach. We shared a room with Anne, and we all got on fine. Judy, Cheri, Marilyn, Lynn and Tara were also there, as were Alison and her friend Amy. The quilt festival was perfect. Huge, but not as huge as Houston, and classes not all full, so Judy and I signed up for the embellisher half day with Paula Scaffidi. The next day we all did a painting class with Cyndy Walter, slightly disappointing, but fun. Huge meals, lots of margaritas, and lots of chat. We got to see a lot of Marilyn and Lynn's prize-winning quilts, including Grape Harvest before it was quilted.

All too soon, it was time to say goodbye and head home with a bursting suitcase of goodies.

New Year's Eve

2008-12-31T07:06:00.000+13:00

Although I resisted, I am going to have to review my creative year before committing myself to some goals for 2009.

This time last year I had finished the Self Expressions class, which had been pretty successful in developing confidence and 'listening to' the piece. Some of the class members went on to found a yahoo group, which has had intermittent forays, and a couple of challenges. The number of participants is not great enough for continued momentum, unfortunately. They plan to work through AQWorkbook this year, but I have already done that. However, a lasting legacy of the SE class is that I am much happier just seeing where a piece might go, and adding and subtracting threads, effects, etc. until it tells me it is finished, or I decide I am done with it. Not everything has to be a masterpiece. Randomly about half of what I made this year are things I would be happy to display publicly.

In March I went to a weekend workshop here in Christchurch with Gloria Loughman, to make a forest landscape. We started with a pale wash of sky colours and then sponged on various greens and browns. The technique was not to mix green, but to pick up a blotch of yellow and black or yellow and violet and get a mix on the fabric with the sponge. There were about 14 people on the course, and everyone made completely different landscapes. Some got as far as stitching, but I was not one of them. I did a few hours more when I got home, and the project is still languishing in the halfway land between design board and 'consigned to UFO' box. It was great to work with Gloria and see a lot of her works up close. She was very happy for students to maul her quilts. She also encouraged us to practise with her machine and threads, some of her threadwork ideas. She had some small quilts that feature in her book, which show the same scene using different colour options, which was a great lesson in colour effects.

In April I left for my long overseas trip. This was broken down into: 10 days with Mum to see her and get over the flight, followed by a week in the Alicante mountains with my Somerset friend Barbara to get fit. We had a great week of weather, only 2 of us on that grade of walking, so our own guide, and shared the hotel with a group of birders, so got to see nightingales, rollers, vultures, and a huge tawny owl which sat on a dead tree outside the hotel. From there I went to Barcelona for a couple of nights before heading to Rome to pick up the NZ walking group. That was almost a month of walking, sightseeing and eating our way round Tuscany, Umbria, Amalfi and Rome. Semi-work, but also enjoyable.

I spent another month in the UK, mainly with Mum, but I also did a trip to the Midlands, and met up with Angela and Joanna from our yahoo group. We spent the day in Liverpool at the Klimt exhibition (Tate Liverpool). It was really good fun to meet them in person, and we also took lots of photos of the lambananas exhibit all over town, and went to the impressionists at the normal museum as well.

Then off to Canada and the States, to stay with people I had hosted here through Home Exchange, or other ladies from the quilt group.

More on that next post.

Trepidation on Boxing Day

2008-12-26T08:05:00.000+13:00

Today's the day I set off with a friend to do a 6 day trek carrying everything. I have done it before, about 10 years ago, and I suspect it is a little like childbirth - you forget the pain afterwards until you are committed!

I had three great books for Christmas (I chose them, Mum paid) and spent a happy hour or two browsing through Katie Masopust's Design book, Rayna Gillman's surface treatments, and Maggie Grey's From Image to Stitch. I can see myself using all or most of the first, dipping into the second, and being overwhelmed and paralysed by the third! Although I love to look at those crunchy distressed texture pieces, and have several books, I don't think I want to do them for now. I have other ideas bubbling away, and need to get those out of my system, not to mention a few UFOs worth finishing.

Interesting that in Living the Creative Life, I was reading that you really have to stop yourself from suddenly wanting to do housework, when confronted with a tricky design choice. I do that a lot! In fact, with a few things I wish I was doing, I imagine myself allotting a regular time slot for them and always getting them done, but don't ever start.

With New Year approaching, this might the time to take baby steps in that direction.

Now, off to take 7 league boot steps!

Christmas Eve and not a mince pie in sight

2008-12-24T11:19:00.000+13:00

Today is a day for finishing a few things, like checking my pack for the tramping trip. Buying some food for the holiday. Playing with the cat!

I spent a while last night trying to work out the best way to mount the bark sample. I trie a black canvas, but it looked unfinished. I don't want to frame it as such, but it needs something behind it to separate it from the wall and make it stand out. I tried painting some catcher sheets, and one in a light yellow-green looked OK, but plain strips did nothing for the design. I don't want to do threads and stitching, as that would distract from the subtleties of the bark. I think that will have to mature a while as an idea.

Meanwhile, I have thoughts about how to turn the printed poem into a journal. The other fabrics and ribbons will work well. Now I am fussing about the quilting pattern. The curlicues of the design are too overlapping to follow in stitch. I experimented with treating the left side as a profile of a face, but that looked too contrived. I'm leaning towards a fairly open diamond grid centre fill, with maybe hand stitches or small beads on the joins.

Hope to make some progress before tomorrow.

I had a very inspiring time reading Sandra Meech's Contemporary Quilts yesterday. I like it a hundred times better than Creative Quilts, which I seem to have lost, or lent to someone. I also got my class list for the Wellington symposium. I am doing Beth Miller's landscapes, which I hope will codify my rather disparate ideas about landscapes. Also Vikki Pignatelli's manipulated fabrics. I didn't get the Wednesday class that I wanted, so I am not sure whether to take one of the ones on offer, or just not do classes on Wednesday. I might be classed out by then.

At this stage it is looking like a stimulating year for classes - I start the embellisher class at the Thread Studio on Jan 12th.

Thoughts of friends far away

2008-12-23T08:21:00.000+13:00

Today I was in touch with someone who is close to another friend, and helping her through some worrying post-surgery infection. I remembered another friend whose husband's symptoms have rapidly deteriorated. A friend from schooldays was widowered only a few weeks ago. So it is clear that not everyone in the world is going to have a riotous and carefree Christmas.

I am finding the 'recession' to be a good thing in many ways. If people re-evaluate what is important to them, and come back to being together as a family, or groups of friends, instead of spending considerable hours trolling up and down malls buying ever more stuff, then it has positive outcomes. If people discover that they are just as happy with old things as they would be 2 days after they bought new things, then that is good. That is how more than half the world lives anyhow - those in developing countries, those in remote areas, those on low incomes.

I am sorry that more people than usual will spend Christmas week worrying about the future of their jobs, or their businesses. One of the benefits of being old is that we have seen recessions before, and we have been in situations in the past where we had to tighten belts, and adjust our expectations. Harder for young ones who have never known anything but economic growth.

It's a lovely sunny summer morning, so instead of art, I will go and spend time outside, listening to the birds sing while I cut grass.

Silk paper bark

2008-12-22T08:51:00.000+13:00

I have three days before I head away on a tramping trip. Today's creative task is to finish a bark sample made from silk paper. The silk had been dyed a blueish grey with some warmer streaks. I dried it over a real log (next time put plastic wrap in between!). I used my friend Jane's method of cellulose paste, which has the advantage that you can re-wet it to mould it differently. The disadvantage is it won't be very permanent, and could get weevils! I machined the 'bark' form onto some black batting, which has given me something to hold on to and bury the threads on the back. I'm not so intuitive with hand embroidery as I am with patchwork, and it's been a bit of a struggle to do stitching and then immediately cover it up with more stitching. I didn't try to follow the contours of the real bark, just kept the illusion in my head and drifted with the flow, bringing in more colours when the piece started to get predictable. I was able to needlefelt some fibres with my embellisher, and that softened the silk paper - something to remember if that's an effect I want. (I wanted a harder surface for this piece). I'm about ready to add some small beads, and probably another 50 or so French knots. I had some fine wool yarn hand dyed in sludgy greens and browns, and that has worked well for knots, giving a matte texture.

Will post photos later.

Day 1

2008-12-21T22:14:00.000+13:00

OK. I think I've worked out what I'm doing. Blogging is going to be a combination for me of a textile journal and a textile journey. A kind of backwards/forwards look at my creative life, with maybe some other observations along the way. I will be happy to spend a stopover with anyone who calls in, but at this stage I am less interested in publicising my work and more concerned with analysing and directing it.

It's going to be fun!

2008-12-21T22:13:00.001+13:00