Wintry Dandenongs Blast

It's been quite quite cold this last week and so I am grateful to be staying somewhere with a wood heater and power. I do have a woodheater in my shed but no power at present which makes it difficult to sew on my sewing machine, and I need to get half a dozen art quilt projects done for  Magic Patch so they can publish them over the next year.It is great to get things published but it also means getting the work done , and unfortunately I cannot share it with you, until they are published.

This Saturday ( 30 July) I will begin a three session Travellers Blanket class at Open Drawer in Camberwell. This is the only class I have booked in Australia at the moment ( and yes I am available for teaching after the beginning of November). This is always such a fun class- because the stories really add zest and life to the stitching, and because it is hand stitched it takes time and thought- a kind of mindfulness that we don't always allow ourselves time for. Just follow the link if you are interested in joining us. We will be dying Fabric this Saturday and making a start to our stitching and story telling. I have had people do wonderful things in the past- some have used woollen  blankets, others khadi cloth or muslin, fabric scraps from  the sewing baskets of mothers, pieces of shirts for a memory cloth, bits and pieces found in a father's junkyard, flotsam and jetsam from beach combing, travel tales- there are so many ways of telling a story in stitch!

I have finally finished stitching my big tree linocut- it's all hand stitched and turned into a bit of a marathon, because well, I wanted it to look a certain way. I have also photographed the back to show you- simply because I am not so concerned about how the back looks ( but as I have been doing other magazine projects- I have tidied up the backs a bit more than I normally do) But I do like the way the back of this looks.

I have the printed tree panel available if you are interested- have quite a good range of colours at the moment or I can custom dye.The panels are hand printed. Panels are $25 AUS plus postage. Email me if you are interested in purchasing a panel.

The studio where I am staying at the moment- has many wonderful trees and plants surrounding it, including many natives and of course tree ferns. The  new fronds are just beginning to unfurl- they are such marvellous looking things! I think I can feel a linocut coming on for my Aussie Bush project!

I have also been trying to sell some older work at bargain basement prices- after all artist' must eat and live and buy materials to create further work. One of my older Hellfire pieces was bought by the friends who is allowing me to use their studio for the time being ( it will get listed on AirBNB after I move out in two weeks or so).It is so lovely to see this piece in their entrance hallway- you don't always get to see how work is hung or how it looks. The fabric has been hand dyed- and then burnt to create the reverse applique and then heavily stitched by machine and by hand.

I think the Aussie bush  project will be my next project in the style of the Medieval Project and the Sentinelles. The Medieval Project will finish later this year, but there has been a lot of interest in the works and response has been very enthusiastic, with people amazed at the variety and imagination used. I have been working on a linocut- which I finished today ( and then chopped a line through- argghh so now I have to glue a small piece of lino in place) and I am waiting on printing ink which I have ordered- so next week I hope to unfurl one maybe two new linocuts for this project.