In the Shadow of Pic St Loup Traveller's Blanket

I have been house sitting in outer Melbourne and whilst doing that I thought I would try and get as much stitching done as possible. So I have started doing a new Traveller's  Blanket with the working title In the Shadow of Pic St Loup. As well as having  an exhibition of my Traveller's Blankets at the Sydney Quilt and Craft Fair in June this year I am also part of the group Crossing Oceans so some of my traveller's blankets will be doing double duty- I simply don't have the time to make extra as in march I depart for Europe to exhibit at ChARTtres from 10 -25 March. I am really excited about exhibiting there again as I love Chartres the small city, and I love participating in this event.

So I printed up some fabrics with grape vines and and french roadside weeds. I wanted to capture the feeling of those morning walks with Nesta the dog amongst the rows of vines and the fascinating  weeds. I thought this would be a really greenish piece but it seems not- it has lots of colour in it- and when I think about it- as I walked each day i noticed the tiny changes of colour. i did the same walk every morning, so I really noticed the changes in the vines , in the weeds and the colours.

The bunch of grapes is actually a woodcut I had made in India. The other print is a linocut I made when I was housesitting in Le Triadou.

During the week I taught at open Drawer in Camberwell, and was really chuffed to receive Deirdre Hassed's beautiful book Illuminating Wisdom from Dierdre herself. Deirdre is a calligraphy artist and she has illuminated many quotes that she and her husband have sourced and provided commentaries on. I am sure it is a book I will be dipping into many times! The back of the urchin quilt seemed to really complement the cover of the book.

I have brought all my quilts with me because of the fire risk at Gellibrand. I realised that I  had never shared a photo of the finished quilt I made for the Through Our Hands exhibition at Festival of Quilts. I am still nto sure what to call it but it contains many techniques I have used  over the eyars. There is both machine and hand stitching.

This quilt is for sale for $1,000AUS and measures 130 cm x  100cm. if you are interested please email me.
If anyone in the Netherlands or Belgium is interested in my teaching a workshop  early April please let me know, as I will be teaching a workshop at Amstelveen