Sale of Older work Tomorrow !

I have been going through some of my older work and will have a sale of work at seriously discounted prices starting tomorrow  at 12 noon EAT ( Eastern standard time). I  would really like to  clear out some things so I don't have to pack and store them and I have to pay my car registration on Christmas day ( it seems to motor registry office has Christmas too ;-) ).

So I have also been adding some things to already finished work hoping to make them more attractive...

 Half the image is with more stitching- before and after..... the extra stithcing makes it seem much richer!

See you tomorrow!

Good Intentions and all That!

I feel like I have been away on the Tardis for two weeks- to outer space and back again the time has simply disappeared from my mindscape! The Geelong Patchworkers & Quilters Guild exhibition has been and gone ( with set up and break down that took 6 days of my time)- I wish I could share some photos but as there were signs up stating that photography was allowed for personal use only I did not feel I could share any on social media.  Thank you to my wonderful and stellar committee  ( Lyn Weeks, Judith Oke, Judy Bubb, Nicola Picken, Glenys Russell, and Marilyn Davidson) for making the experience a most enjoyable one and for all your hard work. By all accounts the exhibition looked terrific!

 My youngest daughter had her valedictory dinner ( and now it is the anxious wait for the ATAR score). My car has gone into the repair shop to have the prang damage repaired ( thank goodness the other guy had insurance so I  did not have to claim it on my own insurance) but it does mean I am without a car for some time. I did talk the insurance company into  giving me a hire car but I had to  pay a bond deposit and because I have an 18 year old driving that was a substantial sum and well beyond my means, so legs work too I guess, and buses and trains. I wrote an article  for  the March 2014 issue of Downunder Textiles and  had a sharp learning curve on a Macbook . My eldest daughter sold me her old one when my  laptop died and I have always had PC's. I have also found I need to get a better filing system and that I need to name files more succinctly- trying to find things on my back-up hard drive has been interesting to say the least!

I did manage to enter a quilt in One Step Further this year and to my surprise  won a Judge's Choice Award- thank you to Unique Stitching for the prize!I had entered my Travellers Blanket with Circles, which i changed after it came back from the UK. The One Step Further Exhibition is on at Oak Hill Gallery at Mornington.

The piece to the top right is by Jill Galvin who won Best Small Quilt award. I failed to record  by whom the bottom quilt on the right was- my apologies.

And I have managed to make some new small works for sale. And I am offering postage included in the lead up to Christmas.

A Coqueclicot panel measuring  20 cm square- hand painted transfer onto lutradur, machine stitched $45AUS  SOLD

I am trying to sort through all my things in preparation for storing everything come the end of January 2014 ( when I will become homeless unless the universe decides otherwise). I found one of  my  coral panels printed on lutradur and decided to stitch it up ( the linocut I used for these got damaged so is no longer viable). I made quite a few of these in  2006/07  and one is on the cover of Ravissant Lutradur a book I wrote with Marion Barnett. The panel is about 22 cm square and the price is $45 AUS

I also found a lutradur printed panel of a sentinelle which I decided to machine stitch it rather than hand stitch- it measures 17 cm x 45 cm. The price is $65 AUS. Email me if you would like to purchase any of these pieces.

I will also be having another Fire Sale of my work next weekend- Friday 5 December- 6 December- when I shall be offering some of my work at seriously discounted prices. I have to store things when I leave this house and am trying to minimise the amount of space I need things to take up! I would rather someone enjoyed a piece rather than it being stuck in a box.

I will make a page of works for sale which I shall put on my blog on Friday at around noon EAT ( eastern standard time)

And because a number of people have asked me I shall be commencing another Travellers' Blanket on-line class in 2014, starting on January 10 ,2014 once some of the celebrating calms down and life goes back to sort of normal! Let me know if you are interested. I am currently writing another ad -on  lesson to add onto the notes I have already  made for the class in the past.

A Busy Week

1200 post on my blog is looming. If each were a page that is a pretty thick book, and there I have been dragging the chain, the last week has been pretty busy!

 First a friend from New Zealand, Clare Smith came and stayed a few days, so we went to see things on in Geelong and caught up on a couple of years of creative efforts and family things. We went to see the delightful Robert Ingpen exhibition on at Salt in Queenscliffe- paintings that accompany the launch of his new book Looking for Clancy- inspired by the iconic A.B Banjo Patterson poem Clancy of the Overflow. There was even a painting of the Conargo pub- an iconic pub close to where I used to live in Jerilderie and attended on a number of occasions ;-).

We also saw a wonderful exhibition  entitled Banks Florilegium- The Australian Botanical Prints at the Deakin Waterfront Campus. It's a fascinating  exhibition of lithographs made some hundred years after James Cook's journey of discovery to Australia, and Joseph Banks was the botanist on the Cook journey. He collected an amazing amount of botanical specimens and made many drawings himself. the lithographs were made from those specimens but some time after the journey- almost a hundred years in fact.The exhibition is on in an anteroom of the Alfred Deakin Library at the Waterfront campus. One or two complaints, not well advertised, yet a wonderful little exhibition, badly signed for finding within the maze of the Waterfront Campus, no exhibition documentation or catalogue available, but nonetheless I encourage you to go and see it, especially if you are coming to Geelong to see the quilts this weekend.Some images from the exhibition- aren't they gorgeous and yes Australia sometimes has very subtle and soft colours!

Then  a meal with Alison Holt, a marvellous embroiderer form the UK who is visiting Australia on a teaching trip. I had hoped to take her along the Great Ocean Road but as it happened daughte rnumber one was moving house and I had to help her move, so that chewed up  a day as Melbourne is a large city if you have to drive across it!

Saturday was my middle daughters 21st which we had in my shed which is on my block of land down in Gellibrand (  sadly it has still not sold, so  send a note to the universe for me please). We had a fun night and she has passed a milestone. My daughters Celeste and Siena on Siena's 21st.

But the major thing chewing up my time is the Geelong Patchworkers and Quilters Guild Biennial Exhibition, which opens on Thursday night at 6,30 pm and then will be open  from 10.00am until 4.30 pm for 22,23,24 November at the Deakin Waterfront Campus. You enter through the Gheringhap Street entrance. It is a members exhibition but we have some pretty talented quilters in our group of both the more art oriented type and traditional. However the focus of this exhibition has been the work made by  all of our hands and  a special exhibit called Envisioning Geelong- I kind of thought it up intended to make for it, but have run out of time with everything that has gone on, and in the end did come up with an idea after brainstorming with Clare, but just felt I couldn't bring it to fruition ( and I must admit a bit of food poisoning didn't help). I don't think I can make something in a day! But watch our for a silly photo in the Geelong Echo on Wednesday.If you are in the area please come along and please come and say hello , I shall be wearing a decorated ( if I get time) green glove on my chest! Actually there will be a few of us wearing decorated green gloves on our chest.

The Ladies are Growing

A fairly quiet week and still no laptop- I think it will really go to laptop heaven, which is pretty annoying for it to happen at this time. I have been trying to work out where I will live once I come back from Europe in late May, but nothing is jumping at me. Geelong is simply too expensive, but  more in the country also means more travel and the cost of petrol is pretty prohibitive these days, perhaps it will be France after all! We are gearing up for my middle daughter Siena's 21st next week- hard to believe that the time has flown and that she has reached this milestone.We will have the party in my shed seeing that still has not sold-there is plenty of space for people to camp, if the weather behaves. Now if that block of land were to sell life would take on a whole new look!

And the winner of the blog give away from the post before last is Lemonade Sandwich- I looked at your blog but you had not posted in quite some time. Can you contact me please so I can get postal details?


I have been stitching on more Chartres ladies- I am very tempted to say to the world I will make at least one of these a day for  at least the next two months, though some will have to be variations of ones I have already done...hmmmm worth keeping on going or not???It's very soothing work and it is also very tempting to make one into a print, apply some stitch and sell it as Christmas cards- they would hopefully be lovely enough to frame?Would anyone be interested if I were to do this?

All of the  embroidered faces have been inspired  by  feminine representations at Chartres- apparently there are at leats 120- I certainly have not seen them all!

Fragments

Another week to forget. First someone backed into my car and caused enough damage for it to be awkward and in need of repair- fortunately the other driver was insured, but it will take time. Then my laptop died, I am hoping it is only the screen because I can't afford to get another laptop. Fortunately my daughters partner knows how to retrieve what's on there if necessary if it can't be fixed, but it meant I didn't get around to blogging at all. Add to that I had to do the  layout for the Geelong Patchworkers & Quilters Guild Inc for our Biennial exhibition that starts on 21 November and my whole week was gone! Fortunately the parents are on the improve, but I still feel a bit wonky- they do forget at times that there is only me , there is no partner I can turn  to for  help, or  to talk things through with or even to lose some of the angst. And my daughter started her exams- so school is officially finished until the next stage in her life and that will depend on exam results.

I will put all the names form my previous blog post in a hat before the weekend and let the winner know.

So all of these events do play havoc with equilibrium, and I find it difficult to get  back into a working rhythm, your thought processes get interrupted. Thank goodness I am doing a lot of the prep work for my book  by hand, but still I look at the photos from time to time, and then delve a little more.

Awhile back I ordered a little book from  Junko Oki entitled Culte a la Carte- she does boro inspired kind of badge embroideries with rough stitches. I guess I was drawn to the book for the  preciousness of the fragments that  had been added to and also the sense of repetition in creating the small pieces because I have been thinking about the medieval badges worn by pilgrims,  and looking at how to translate them into something to do for my book- often the badges contained a print of a saint but as I am making work to do with Chartres, I am thinking the badges need to reference Mary in some way .Each of Junko's pieces is small remnant or fragment with tiny tiny  stitches. It made me realise it's alright to have fragments and stitch those and indeed so much  of  what comes to us from the past is fragments, snippets- so here are a few things I have come up with:

Stitching is a kind of drawing for me- but I don't exactly want my stitching to be  like a perfect thread painted drawing- I want the quality of the stitch to be an integral part of how these images appear. I am thinking of these in the same way as the precious little fragments of coptic embroidery I encountered in the Cluny Museum in Paris or the embroidered copes or  procession dresses worn by the Virgin. I am also working with the idea that one of the  most precious relics at Chartres was a piece of fabric said to be from the veil/shawl of Mary. Each of the embroideries is inspired by an image  from Chartres which has changed with the actual drawing and then again with the stitching.

The image below is inspired by one of the stone sculptures of the  Royal Portal. I was intrigued that a number of the statues had female figures with very long braids. Braids were appreciated in medieval times and in fact Baldwin of Canterbury bestowed praise on braids:

"He was allegorising, but this fails to conceal his sensitive taste  in matters  of fashion, for he described the beauty of plaits persuasively and with exactitude, and referred explicitly to their wholly aesthetic appeal." from  Art and Beauty in the Middle Ages, Umberto Eco

So they were fashionable and the sculptor has taken a great deal of effort to portray them so , just as much as with the vestments, so I should  honour them too.

Dottie

Today I have  been blogging exactly 10 years! Hard to believe I have been blogging for this amount of time. I had intended to write something well a bit more than usual, but my week went completely pearshaped. 

Firstly my father went into hospital on the weekend with mystery severe internal bleeding and at 81, well that is always a worry, but today after a colonscopy and gastroscopy the news is positive- and abraded oesophagus so he can go home again.Also my father has a partner who is high care ( he is her carer) so we had to call in respite, as she would not budge, but the relief in home respite worked well thankfully, so that is good to know.  

Then  today my mother went into a hospital ( my parents have been separated for a long time) with  intestinal infection and they have decided to move her to a big hospital that is better at caring for these conditions. My mother lives about  3 hours form where I live , so it all gets a bit complicated. The infection has been ongoing, she said she was clear on Monday night but said she still had some pain, so I asked her to please go and get another blood test, and the results were that the infection was not better.. Even so I feel a bit frazzled, as my daughter starts her end of high school/university entry exams next week. So all of this  could not have happened at a worse time. Anyway I suppose dottie might be a good word for it somehow.

I have been making samples for a workshop I am teaching  on Saturday and they wanted to do the  travellers blanket but it can't be done in one day so I ran up some dottie samples.

 The humble dot can have lots of interpretations!

On my mantel piece in the late afternoon sun- it looks a bit outlandish....

And thank you thank you all my followers and readers- for all your comments, for all your support, for all your positive thoughts and all your putting up with me.... if you leave a comment , I will put all your names in a hat and one lucky commenter will receive a bag  of  goodies ( I am too dottied at the moment to say what it will be  but it will be a nice surprise)

Acknowledging an Ian Potter Grant I received in 2000

The years 1999 and 2000 were pivotal in how my  arts practice evolved. It was in 1999 I hatched the crazy idea that I would like to go overseas with my then quite young family ( my daughters were 9,7 and 5) and spend 3 months in France. The idea had grown from the fact that I had entered a quilt in what was then known as Chassy D'Or  which was held annually at Chateau de Chassy and had won a kudos prize. The prize  was very welcome  for the resume ,though as I said if was kudos only, but the even better part was that the organiser Madame Tison wanted to purchase this quilt.

So why was this pivotal? Well I  had entered this particular quilt in Quilt National in the USA and it was not  accepted, and I had entered several other things from this series of work in Australia with similar results.It seemed like I was shelling out  quite a lot of money annually for  absolutely no return; even then life was on a strict budget( as a result of this I only charged an entry fee for all the exhibitions I have toured with the work  of other artists , if they were selected, i think it's a much fairer system ). As a result of Madame Tison purchasing the quilt we started corresponding and she had a passion for the environment. As we corresponded it transpired that she was preparing a friendship year for Chassy D'Or in 2000 and so I suggested (  where did I get that cheek from??) that maybe I could bring some quilts from Australia as part of that friendship? We agreed that Madame Tison would co-curate and that the number would be 30 and it would be by all different artists. I then suggested ( even more cheek) that maybe I could do a residency there during the day? Madame Tison said she would be delighted but that I could stay with her at Chassy. At this stage I said  I wanted to bring my family and that we were happy to camp as I knew there were camping grounds nearby. No no she replied she had a big castle and we could all stay...........So that is how we got to live in a castle for 3 months in the year 2000. And  even more surprisingly we were the only Australian travelling exhibition on the European continent in the  year of the Australian  Olympics and that in itself attracted attention.

I have always lived on a strict budget, as my ex husband  did not hold a permanent job and most of our income was generated by my textile pursuits and teaching, so it was obvious we would need grants to tour the exhibition. I also wanted to accompany the exhibition, which by now had the name Australian Bounty with a catalogue as there was  little documenting of Australian art quilts at that time and there were only the odd piece here and there in museum collections- hardly representative of what was going on. I felt we had some really exciting quilt artists. So we got a grant from the Australia France Foundation and I got a personal grant from the Ian Potter Cultural Trust for my travel expenses to not only do the residency at Chassy but also to study antique textiles at the Musee de l'Impression sur Etoffes in Mulhouse ( because  Madame Tison and I formalised that arrangement and I did create new  work and hold workshops and did demonstrations and talked and walked people through the exhibition. Bernina kindly lent me a machine for the period that I was at Chassy).

 The reason I mention this now, nearly 13 years later ,was that last week I was invited to attend the 20th birthday celebrations of the Ian Potter Cultural Trust, and it was a  wonderful night of celebration- of stories of people who had been funded and the difference it had made to their arts practices.The Ian Potter Trust is funded by the Potter family as a private philantrophic trust and they have supported some 1200 artists over the 20 year period. I felt proud to be part of the audience but most of all I felt  extremely grateful that they had seen that my crazy dream was not so crazy at all....This is the Victorian Arts Centre- walking back to the station to catch the train after the celebration.

About The Ian Potter Foundation
The Ian Potter Foundation is one of Australia’s major philanthropic foundations. The Foundation makes grants nationally to support charitable organisations working to benefit the community across a wide range of sectors including the Arts, environment, science, medical research, education and community wellbeing.  The Ian Potter Foundation aims to support and promote a healthy, vibrant and equitable community for the benefit of all Australians.

And it has made all the difference, the  connections  I made in 2000 has in many instances turned into friendships and  it still underpins much of what I do in France, people still remember  Australian Bounty and how it sparkled amongst the soaring rafters at Chateau de Chassy and the sandstone walls and terracotta floor tiles, and funnily enough many people still remember the fund raiser we held in the Gellibrand  Community Hall  on a rainy winters day  when  buses and 500 people arrived to see Australian Bounty before it set off on its journey  to Europe.

But you know most of all, last weeks celebratory night reignited my enthusiasm which has waxed and waned over the last 6-7 years of divorce, and family upheaval and struggling to look after my family and work in a sick economy  and just keep all the balls up in the air.It was a worthwhile reminder to trust myself and  what I make, that it does take a little craziness to dream outside the box and that I need to keep dreaming.

And funnily enough what am I working on now? It is still France, but this time work inspired by France itself and the experiences of the last 13 years and it will turn into a book that is a hommage to that experience. So here is another lady of Chartres- this time done  on two different weights of polyester non-woven- one the normal one and the other  florists polyester non-woven which has a much more open layering of the fibres and also colours slightly differently. One is machine stitched and one is hand stitched- which do you prefer?

And I do realise they ended up reversed, which makes the wrong hand pointing  to the heavens in one.

There are still some Mirabelle kits available ( S16 AUS inclusive of postage).

Also the next  on-lineTravellers' Blanket class commences this  Monday on 21 October ( $60 AUS). There is still time to enroll for this class. I have also set up a FB group for all past travellers who have made blankets- to share and inspire each other. There are some stunning pieces out there with some equally wonderful stories. If you want to join the on-lineclass or the FB group ( which is for past travellers as well as commencing ones) just email me .

Mirrabelle in a Different Way

I have been working on a piece I needed to make for Voyageart, a group I belong to, with members from all over the world. We will be exhibiting last years work at  OEQC at Veldhoven, in the Netherlands next weekend. The brief is that we make an A3 piece every 2 months and this year we are exploring a theme set by ourselves- so I have chosen faces of the past. I was a bit bereft of ideas so I thought I would use the printed panels I made for the  Mirrabelle doll kits and use them  as an applique rather than as a doll.

I have photographed the stitched piece with the dolls and am surprised at how different they look!It also became a bit of a stitching marathon as I decided to  cross stitch the background fabric as it was a bit loud against the embroidered figures.In the photo below are all the ones I have stitched this year....displayed with some of my wooden printing blocks and batik stamps.

The doll kits are still available in a few different colour ways, and I would really like to sell them as I have to move house in February, and I have no new place to move to, as I don't want to rent another house in Geelong as it is way too expensive to rent, plus my youngest daughter will move into student accommodation (I hope) so this house will be too big to live in alone. I am going to Europe at the end of February for the Voices of Women Festival in Palaiseau, and then for a show in London, and then  to Nadelwelt in Karlsruhe at the end of May- so I am trying to lighten my storage load as I don't think I will  try and find something to rent if I am away for nearly three months. So as a Christmas special, I have discounted them and am willing to sell the remaining kits for $16.00 inclusive of postage ( AUS).

Each kit contains a hand printed outline of the figure ( male or female) on khadi cloth ( which is sourced from the Stitching Project in India), the backing fabric ( khadi ), anchor pearl 8 weight threads for the stitching, a colour photo with instructions.

Please email me if you are interested in a kit. I can be paid using Paypal but you will need to email me for details.

Small Linocuts

Nothing major has come out of my hands this week, so I made some small linocuts to use up a left over strip of lino which had been sitting around but was too wide to waste. Little linocuts can work really well as fillers and there were a few small ideas I wanted to try without committing to making a large linocut. So there are some grapes, stylised roses and the quatrilobe motif. When I make linocuts I am always looking to print them onto fabric and so some different considerations need to be taken into account. I usually do a paper print as well but as I use the textile ink and don't really prepare properly for the paper printing process the prints are  far from perfect. The  linocuts measure just under 10 cm square ( about 4 in).

Would anyone be interested in buying linocuts of this size? I am thinking they would sell for $20 plus postage.

It was a bit of a crazy week really- another health scare with my father and then his 81st birthday yesterday. he has to  undergo further tests so am not sure what to think.

Went for a walk with my neighbor on Friday along the Barwon River. it was very swollen after all the recent rain and some of the picnic areas were flooded. I am always bemused by the fact that birds are the ultimate opportunists...these two ducks squating and waggling their tails on a bench..

 And a heron enjoying the sunshine and the sparkling water despite its muddiness.

And last but not least- a sentinelle panel which I found  in my bag as I was looking for my camera. There are still panels for sale though their number is dwindling.If you  would like to purchase one and join the project please email me- cost of the panel is $15 plus postage( they measure approximately 8 inches x 18 inches)

There is also still time to join the on-line Travellers' Blanket class which starts on 22 October.Email me  if you would like some more details. I have dyed some of the muslin for some of the participants this time as not everyone has the space or the dyes to make the fabric.

More Cocteau's Cat Inspiration

I have been busy making linocuts of late. Here is another new one , inspired by jean Cocteau's cat at Chapelle Saint Blaise des Simple. Jean Cocteau said of cats  "I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul."

I guess the same could be said for my cat Mitsou. So here is my new linocut- Cocteau's cat. I have added in the foliage because it reminded me of the lovely herb garden that had been established at Chapelle Saint Blaise des Simple, and also of the herbs that Cocteau painted all over the walls of the chapel.I have just looked at the website devoted to the chapel and realised it has been 50 years since the death of Jean Coteau and that there are celebrations inspired by the works of Cocteau. Of course, if you are in France a visit to Milly la Foret is well worth while  for the little chapel, the museum in Cocteau's house and the lovely gardens around it and the wonderful old covered  market building in the centre of the town.

 These panels are for sale for $15 plus $2.60 for postage and measure approximately 12 inches square. The panel below I have transfer printed onto heavy weight polyester non-woven and then stitched by hand without any batting or backing. I am thinking this may become a page of a book.

And below is a not very good photo of my Traversing the Land- which travelled for nearly 2 years with Brenda Gael Smith's  Beneath the Southern Sky which went to many corners of the world. It's lovely to see it back after all this time. It measures 40 cm wide by 100 cm long and has been made from hand dyed khadi cloth and has been embroidered and hand stitched. I am  offering it for sale at a once only price ( available until this coming Sunday) of $1200AUS ! The colour is much warmer than is showing on the photos.

Faces From the Past

I have been reading and drawing some of the figures from Chartres. I often keep redrawing the same figure or  shape because with each new drawing something changes even if just a little- the mood of the day or the slip of the pencil. So this is  one of the queens from the royal portal at Chartres... I had printed her onto background fabric with a gocco ( same as thermofax screen), but there were a few problems with the plastic actually lifting off  the silk.

I keep redrawing this figure because  I am trying to get the face right. The photo I took at Chartres is from below so it makes her chin look very large and weird and the resulting shadow is also strange. Then yesterday whilst poring over Emile Male's "The Gothic Image"- and it is dense reading and I must admit to enjoying having the footnotes at the bottom of the page rather than at the end of the chapter or at the end of the book, and it has lead me in the direction of a few medieval treasures, it's easy to get sidetracked.....Anyway  I needed a break and decide to paint this queen with transfer paints- and I am so glad I did. I had got a little stuck with how to take these figures further, but am brimming with ideas for them now. So here is the  finished stitched piece- it's A3 size as  it's a piece for Voyageart as well.

Shes is changing, she seems much more modern somehow.The original would have been coloured as the medieval sculptors did apply lots of colour to their sculptures.

Olive Tree and Coqueclicots

I am trying to research some of the history of the Cathedral in Chartres as part of my exhibition at Voix au Feminin will be the visualisation of some of the feminine forms at the Cathedral.There is remarkably little written about the feminine representations except of course those of Maria/Mary and in particular the stained glass window, but there are quite a number of other feminine forms within the cathedral. It is also reputed that there was a black Madonna, but that it was destroyed during the revolution, when so many  objects and relics were destroyed as indeed buildings.The modern day black madonna is of relatively recent making.Chartres Cathedral has no  entombments so the female figures do not reflect those that normally accompany  burial tombs, not is there a reflection on patronage. However most of all I wish I could go back before creating the work to better study and to better take photographs, but such a trip is not in my budget plans this year alas....just a week at the Cathedral would be  a dream...

I have worked up a little olive tree piece to see , how it would look stitched, and can see this developing  into some other work. The olive tree measures 10 inches by 14 inches ( 25 cm x 35 cm ) and is for sale for $60 AUS inclusive of postage.

I also collected my  Coqueclicot from Artis here in Geelong, and apparently it was admired but  sadly it did not sell. It is mounted on a 12 inch square ( 30 cm square) canvas. It is also for sale for $100 AUS inclusive of postage.

 I am part of the Through Our Hands group, which has some wonderful textile artists as part of the group. Laura Kemshall has made a video of all the quilts that were exhibited at  festival of Quilts which you can see on the Through Our Hands blog. There is a link on the blog to both the video and the magazine.

I will also be teaching the travellers' blanket from home here in Geelong  starting on 7 October. We will have 5 sessions, the first session will be dyeing the background fabrics and then other sessions of 2 hours each we sit and sew. The cost for the 5 sessions ( 10 hours of meeting ) is $110 inclusive of the dyes - all you need to bring is the fabric.

And for those that can't make the  real life version I shall be  starting another on-line Travellers' Blanket course starting 21 October. Stitching the travellers' blanket is an intensive process and takes quite some stitching .Below is my Travellers' Blanket with Circles which I recently got back from England after it was exhibited at  the Museum at Leamington Spa and  festival of Quilts in Birmingham. it is for sale. It is made of hand dyed khadi cloth and is embellished with recycled sari silk and is entirely hand embroidered and stitched to within a  cm of its life and it measures 145 cm x 85 cm. I am prepared to do a seriously good deal if anyone were interested.

If you are interested in any of the classes or the travellers' blanket, or the other new small pieces
 please email me.

Olive Tree

The week has flown by and I don't seem to have much to show for it, or I thought I didn't until a realised my subconscious has been doing quite a  lot of work. Yes I am trying to write  for my France book, but in the back of my mind there I have been channeling Le Triadou. I wanted to make some work that reflected the 9 months I was there- the happy 9 months, the early morning walks, the vineyards and olive trees- that special feeling of the Languedoc and a sense of freedom which I haven't felt since being back here. And then it came tumbling- poppies of course, but just little stitched "bits of nothing" as Peter says so disarmingly in "Finding Neverland."

And more this afternoon- a linocut of an olive tree- now the dilemna is make it bigger or what , or make do as I like it as it is....

The background for the trees I monoprinted some years ago with Trapsuutjies textile paints. again trying to get that feel of southern France.Trapsuutjies really do have lovely colours- just wish I was a little richer and I would get some more sent over. The linocut is about 30 cms high.

And there is still time to enrol in the on-line linocutting class. Just email me if you are interested. Hopefully by the end of the course linocuts like the one above will be well within your skill level!

On-Line Linocutting Class

I have been making a linocut this weekend. My linocuts seem to be getting larger and larger. The one I worked on , on the weekend was inspired by "indienne " fabric produced by Steiner in 1880 or thereabouts. The image below  is cropped from a book I have entitled, Andrinople: Le Rouge Magnifique printed Editions de la Martiniere in 1995 ( and I am sure I did not pay what Abe books have listed it for). I think of all the  antique french fabrics, and I do love Toile de Jouy's, I love the Indienne fabrics for their decorative elements. This particular image really reminded my of a waratah and may have been inspired  by a waratah ( a native Australian flower) as the French people had an ongoing love affair with Australian flora since  samples first came back from the la Perouse voyage in the late 1700's.

There is incredible detail in this printed fabric and I have found that  printing with lino on fabric at best lends itself to two colours ( a paler background overprinted with a darker foreground) However I do know I can get in some of that colour detail with accent stitching.

So I made the linocut ( it measures 12 inches x 12 inches , 30 cms x 30 cms)... I have been  dreaming of some new linocutting tools- the Pfeil carving tools are wonderful. I bought one when I was in Florence as one was  all I could afford...the one in the image is a Lyons cutting tool, and the  knob ends sit in your palm beautifully making it easier to carve I find. I drew the image onto the lino- I drew the image free hand as I did not exactly want to copy the  indienne printed fabric.

  From the workshop I did in Florence earlier this year and in particular from Gianni Verna I learnt, to colour in what you want to leave- it allows you to see the graphic qualities in much better detail and also avoids carving accidents where lines are fine.I have started carving the lino and below is the first print, which I found disappointing because there was  not sufficient contrast between the various area of the design- so back to some more carving....

The resulting print after some more carving, I can already see this will be much more interesting than the first print once the stitching goes in especially around the central flower area and  also by defining the leaves further.

Anyway these are some of the things you can learn on my on-line course which starts 22 September 2013. There are 4 pdf files delivered over an 8 week period with all sorts of exercises to try and I am going to trial a FB group this time  as the contact is  much more immediate than with Yahoo.The cost of the course is $60AUS- simply email me if you are interested .

And last but not least...  I spend sunday mornings ( early) finding new  things on the internet and catching up on favourite blogs. I am really not sure how I stumbled on Maggie Salcedo , a French illustrator of children's and teenage books, but it was kind of love at first sight. I managed to find her La Mission du Biquet in the Netherlands of all places ( as other listings were quite expensive) at a really good price and it arrived last week.... well all I can say is more love. Her style is said to be Art Deco, though there are quite lovely  individual touches which  also take her a little outside that genre. Anyway there has been a bit of a revival in her work with some exhibitions in the early 2000's- I tried drawing the quite lovely stylised face from the cover of La Mission du Biquet , whilst our cat Mitsou, grumpily looks on. She loves it when I work in the sunroom, but most of all she would rather sit right on top of where I am drawing...

Berry Quilt Retreat

I have been away teaching for the weekend at the Berry Quilt Retreat and I did not take many photos unfortunately. Berry is a lovely little town about 2.5 hours from Sydney and gets a lot of weekend visitors for the weekend getaway. The retreat was organised by Elizabeth Dubbelde from the Berry Patchwork shop ( which is for sale in case you are interested). I stayed with Elizabeth in her lovely house just outside  Berry  with lovely views of the  gorgeous countryside. The photo on the right is some of the lovely views in the early morning.I had a wonderful group of participants- they were all so chatty that i thought they all knew each other, turns out they didn't. One of the participants was 16 year old Olivia- and I have to say it's  delightful to have younger people in the room, because  young people like Olivia are the future of textiles and textile design. Olivia who had never free motioned machined before took to it like a duck to water and created some  exciting work- she immediately leapt outside the boundaries and I could see her eyes light up with the possibilities.

 On the Sunday she brought in some of the work she had made previously at school and home- she is one very talented young  lady and a pleasure to spend time with , as were all the participants. So thank you everyone for a wonderful and sharing weekend.

Isn't this beautiful spring blossom on the right just gorgeous......

Fortunately my cold abated  before leaving for Berry though it was tenacious so I  did not have the energy to do very much except make some of these- guess what I am making????