More Lockdown

 Since I last wrote I have been in a very grand funk a lot to do with the fact that Victoria was again in a hard lockdown and it is a very cold winter. Whilst I am regional and am not as hard locked down as Melburnians the simple fact of the matter is that all of my family is in the Melbourne zone so it feels like I am locked down in the same way. I did manage to get my first Covid vaccine shot in the time but have been struggling to get one for my mother who is a category 1 as I need to drive to her place an hour and a half away to take her as she can no longer drive and the availability of appointments was limited . All I can say is that her medical clinic where she has attended for many years and which is the only one around where she lives is not well organised.

I was supposed to be teaching at Fibres West next week but due to the Victorian lockdown and the closure of the border by West Australia they had to cancel me to give them a bit of time to make other arrangements for students who were in my fully booked class. I understand the necessity of course, but I miss out on the camaraderie with like minded people  and also a big loss of income for me and as a lot of my income has been Covid affected I am struggling. I doubt I will ever see a reimbursement of my airfare I paid to Aeroflot last year for what was to be my first trip to exhibit in Russia. So if you feel inclined to support an artist please visit my shop page and see if there is anything you would like to buy or you could also commission me to make work. I will be running another on-line Traveller's Blanket class starting on the 8th of August (which is a Sunday).

And then Gaelle Beech from The Anjelms Project in Perth has very kindly offered for me to exhibit some work in their Community studio in Fremantle and I will also send over some printed fabric for her to sell on my behalf plus I will be developing a few things to introduce you to my work and we may even develop a short workshop to follow via zoom- I am trying to nut it out at present exploring how to use the scrap packs and Khadi from The Stitching Project ( and they have just had delivery of another shipment of khadi for khadi enthusiasts) and that also complements the fabulous clothing that the Anjelms Project do in collaboration with the Stitching Project. I must admit to being a little enthused by the idea of tie-on pockets, inspired by The Pocket ( A Hidden History of Women's Lives) by Barbara Burman and Ariane Fennetaux. Beside it is a tie on pocket I made from a scrap pack of fabric from The Stitching Project.

But despite all the kindnesses and some exciting things I am finding it difficult to get enthused- I feel like I am dragging my self kicking and screaming to everything, especially since Fibres West got cancelled- it feels like creative block, it feels like complete adrenalin drain and it feels like I will never have another creative idea in a million years let alone the next 6 months, and I am really sick of my computer screen. I am tired of deleting the spam comments on my blog! I don't feel like writing and I don't feel like walking, both things I have to do and  which I force myself to do and my garden needs loads of work (that is another story- I can't operate my whipper snipper at present because I am having some rotator cuff issues- nothing major but the doctor thought it was probably not a good idea to get all macho with a whipper snipper). I have been trying to make my hands dig small amounts of dirt every day ( this often works to get me out of a funk) and if it all comes off I will have enough lettuce to supply all of Morwell, and as it is my lemon tree which is growing through a bucket but is now too big to take out of said bucket ( and has been too big for quite some time) is producing  bucket loads of lemons. I would put them out to share but the hooning seems to have escalated to new levels with this lockdown and I would rather not see them used as projectile objects.

I do know I have to keep doing work as work often ignites other things and I am trying- who knows maybe tomorrow I will feel more enthused. I did manage to finish my Traveller's Blanket on madder dyed khadi cloth- One World which ended up with 87 worlds. When I started this project late 2018 I had no plan no idea how big it would end up and about half way through the temptation to make it much smaller was very strong but I decided to stick to my guns to make it begger. The background stitching seemed to take forever, even though I worked on this piece steadily. it measures  1 metre by 140 cms (in the past I have made traveller's Blankets this big and I swear they did not take as long as this one) Anyway it is done!Not sure what hand stitching I will start next.

So If you would like to make your own Traveller's Blanket, there is plenty of time to enroll. I will be starting the next class on 8 August 2021. I deliver pdf lessons over an 8 week period ( one per fortnight) and i set up a private Facebook group for discussion and question and answer. I also do a fortnightly zoom session for Question and answer. There is some video content but it is a slow process and I use simple stitches to create the effects that I do. The cost of the class is $75.00 AUS