From Mid Summer to Mid Winter

I am  writing this wrapped in a duvet to keep warm- i think I am reacting to the cold after coming from  gorgeous mid summer weather only last Thursday. I don't do cold weather well and  I am feeling a bit sluggish. I left France on the 30th and arrived back in Australia on the 2nd of July- somewhere over the Indian Ocean I lost a day. But I have to get supermotivated and get a load of work done .

There is also some exciting news for the Medieval Project. It has been touring with Expertise Events most of this year and will continue to do so. In August it will go to Canberra and Newcastle and in September it will go to New Zealand, Hamilton and Wellington- I will be going along with the exhibition as well . After the Wellington exhibition I will be returning to Europe in order to demonstrate for Bernina at Carrefour Europeen du Patchwork and teaching in Italy

My last weeks in Italy and France were busy and involved lots of sitting on  buses yet again as buses seem to be the cheapest form of transport, especially when booking at the last minute. I passed through Genoa on the way back to Montpellier-  and spent the night there as my connecting bus did not leave until the next morning. Genoa seems different to other Italian cities- very mixed- I guess a result of its seafaring past- it also seemed poor and the very narrow streets and laneways in the old part of the city were kind of eerie, with very little sunshine filtering down to the street level. The architecture of the older churches were banded black and white stonework, giving it a very middle eastern feel, yet the internal decorations - which were renovated in the baroque period- seemed at odds with the  architecture; all florid and wafting.

Then it was back to Le Triadou and  working on my quilt for Vendee Globe and then to Festival Forca Fil in Alpes de Haute Provence to install my work at the Eglise in Mane. Unfortunately the quilts I had sent for exhibition at the Musee Salagon did not arrive in  time to be installed for the exhibition- so that was a waste of postage money- thank goodness they did actually eventually arrive and I was able to hang them in the Eglise where they looked at home!The festival was disappointing as the visitor numbers were significantly reduced compared to the previous festival so with 85 artists and commercial stall holders all sharing  a smaller visitor base, sales were few and far between. I think everyone would have been disappointed.But it was lovely to catch up with a number of people!

There wasn't enough space in the  Eglise to hang my new Tifaifai quilts and so I draped them over the pews- I quite liked the look of half the design hanging as a triangle.

I managed to get quite a lot of hand stitching done on one of my linocut printed tree pieces as visitors did not disrupt my sewing too much.

The print is available for sale for $25 plus postage. The print measures 50 cm x40 cm and has been handprinted on hand dyed fabric. Email me if you are interested in buying a print( I have quite a few different colours available)

After the Festival I returned to Le Triadou to finish my Vendee Globe quilt, have my last two walks with Nesta the dog  in the shadow of Pic St Loup ( how I will miss my walks!) and to pack for my return to Australia and the long flight  home.

I still have books Musing in Textile:France available for sale- we (my daughter Celeste Galtry and I) wrote an article about our journey with the fund raising and the actual  design and publishing process for Downunder Textiles - our copy arrived the other day . And of course some of my new work is for sale on this page