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????

Older Things

The cold has not got any better, actually worse. I could not even go and see my father for Father's Day as i don't want to spread this nasty one to two elderly people with every ailment known to man or just about.

So I have  tried to just be quiet, but don't you know it , the weather is on the improve and when the sun is out, I want to be out in it or in the sunroom where it's sheltered from the wind, and after what has been months of feeling low, dare I say it depressed, when I have really had to set some new boundaries and learn to say no to my parents, I couldn't just be still and stay in bed.

So I pulled out my  Across Australia quilt- which I had been looking at for some time. For the  quilting in the central panel  I had free motioned zig zag stitch to create a kind of leafy effect. The effect was fine but it also had the consequence of pulling in that section of the quilt tighter than the bottom part so that it was never straight. It annoyed me. Why I persevered with the free motion zig zag when I  knew what it was doing I don't know, maybe it was the looming deadline?So here is a link to how it used to look  Anyway it has bugged me since I made it, and today was the day to pull out all that zigzagged free motion stitching. And because I wasn't feeling I should be doing something else it came out remarkably quickly, so quickly that  I could see that now the quilt was much straighter and so I wanted to see it quilted with another stitch. End result it's all done.

I am much much happier with it like this. It measures 100cm x  120 cm, consists of a hand painted background done the African painting style, transfer printed lutradur , tied dyed cotton and hand printed cotton.

The quilt below is entitled From One Flat Place to  Another, it was made for an exhibition about immigration but it was never selected- it has kind of languished in one spot after another. I know I was upset it was not selected- perhaps it was because the story was so close to my heart and I felt  it as if it were some kind of personal rejection- anyway it's a quilt that I have never exhibited anywhere else.It belongs to a period of my life that is no more. It measures 105 cm x 120 cm. The question is what to do with it? Should I just chop it up? Is anyone interested in buying it? ( I will sell it for $300AUS plus postage  if anyone wants it) or do I chop it up and use the flower as  small quilt lets?

The  flower above is a banksia,  a very Australian  bush/flower. I used to have many in the garden down in Gellibrand. I used to be besotted by banksias and now somehow they have become emblematic of a former life , another dream, and sadnesses  that I would rather not be confronted by. Of course the tulip is the symbol of my former homeland. I came from an area that lay just 1 kilometer away from a bulb growing area, and so  bulbs were part of the spring garden.. The text on the blue panel read " We went from one flat place to another flat place by crossing oceans. The language was strange, the people stared. We were outsiders, we were migrant. It took time to feel home. I am of two places, Australia and Europe. They are a part of me as much as I am a part of them"

And last but not least a new Sentinelle panel which I have stitched onto felt. I stitched most of it whilst in Europe in April and i used felt as I could not get any batting. I like that the stitching still created texture on the felt.It is still possible to buy sentinelle panels and be a part of the Sentinelle  Project. The panels cost $15 AUS plus postage ( $2.60AUS) and measure 20 cm x 45 cm. We hope there will be many panels to display! Email me if you would like one or two or three .I can do Paypal for overseas customers.

On-Line Linocutting Class
I shall also be running another on-line linocutting class commencing 22 Septemeber. You will learn how to make linocuts and the classes and exercises have been designed to hone your skills and build your  confidence. The lessons are delivered as pdf files and there will be a discussion group, which this time I shall set up as a closed group on Facebook as it is more immediate for discussion.The notes comprise about 90 pages of exercises and examples. Indienne  Inspired was made with linocut printed fabrics. If you are interested the cost  is $60 AUS- and email me ! if you want to join or would like more information.

Reinvention

I have one of those horrible head colds, which makes you want to crawl into bed, but in all reality I have to keep my nose to the grindstone because if I don't I shall lose impetus. I know  I  often say  I struggle, and sometimes people don't want to hear that, but the artists life, whilst it has many freedoms has its down side in harsh economic times. I would trade for a steady job  any day and would have done so  for quite some years now. But the reality is , no jobs, so I have got to keep going at this. Some weeks I don't even know where money for food will come from as the rent in Geelong is high, energy costs are high, ( and despite a new hot water service being installed in the house I rent, I have to boil water to do my dishes, and yes I have complained but nothing can be done...),, running a car is expensive.... but my daughter must finish high school and the school where we lived previously just wasn't sufficiently supportive. I did not have a mobile until very recently, much to kids consternation, because I simply could not afford it, and my eldest daughter gave me her recycled one. I have tried to use every skerrick of material from years past, and what I can't use I have sent to better quarters. And then I am writing a book- I hope it will be worth it in the long run, but meanwhile  it's difficult to make things for sale because I need them photographed for the book and for styling shots.

 So the last few days I have spent thinking about how I cna change things. I think I need to devote daily time to making small pieces for sale and to spend at least 1-2  days developing entirely new things.I need to be more marketing savvy but I am my own worst marketer. I like to talk but I find blowing my own trumpet difficult and Imust admit there is a fine line between too much trumpeting and  simply being proud of what you have achieved and there is nothing wrong with feeling a sense of achievement.Also after my daughter finds out which university she is going to  I can look for more affordable accommodation.. my shed, even though I would rather have sold my block of land and moved elsewhere- it is not my most favourite option.

I have befriended a number of people in Geelong, been president of the Patchwork and Quilters Guild and am convening the  exhibition later this year. I have initiated a project called Envisioning Geelong which will be part of the exhibition- it asks people to  project their community in quilts.The Sentinelle project is also starting to grow and looks like it will get good exposure.All of these things have been enjoyable and at times take up time but they don't exactly earn you money, but if I want to belong to this quilt world I also need to contribute, and often the rewards are greater than the energy spent.

So one of the things I plan to do  is hold a last Travellers Blanket Class frm home- after February I will be going to Europe to work ( and I am hoping  I can snare a grant of some sort to at least cover my airfares)The class consist of 5 lessons in theevening and we will be starting Monday September 16.  We get together in the first session to dye the fabrics and then will get together 2 weeks later to make a start on the project. Each session is 2 hours and the cost is $110 for all 5 sessions and includes the cost of the dyes. Please email me if you are interested. The project is entirely hand stitched.

And I have made some small poppy pieces for sale.They are designed to fit into the Ikea Shadow box Frames. The poppy pieces have been transfer printed on lutradur and then  machine stitched, you could say they are embroideries. I wondered how these pieces would look in the 8 inch x 8 inch format ( approx) because all the other pieces have been bigger, but I am happy with them - they are quite luminous. The prices is $50 AUS inclusive of postage.

I have to send my Voyageart pieces off to theNetherlands soon as they will be shown inVeldhoven in Ocotber of 2013.

And this morning on our morning walk this wondrous piece of nature....

Stitching

I seem to have been treading water for forever and finally this week I  got to some real stitching on the machine. I had to finish the indienne inspired piece as it has been accepted for exhibition at Botanica at the Red Rock Gallery- photos later. I also wanted to make a piece for the Artis 12 x 12  contemporary art prize, here in Geelong, as they do accept textiles. The piece did have to be mounted on 12 x 12  stretched canvas

It feels good to be in a better frame of mind  to get on with things, as the worry of making ends meet was really getting me down, along with some other factors. To say the last 3 years of living in Geelong have been a struggle is an understatement and then there have been  other issues impacting on it, like  my separated ( but never divorced) parents with health issues as they get older and  partners, and being a single parent. I really thought I would get a job by moving here, but to the world of employment, I must be brain dead and that has been hard to deal with as well, it affects your sense of self worth. So the last month of  invites to exhibit and support for my work has really lifted my spirits.And the sentinelle project is taking off in a way that I dreamt of but never thought would happen- that is largely due to two quilt groups in Palaiseau and  in Geelong, and of course you my readers around the world, so I am so grateful you have embraced the idea.

And then as I was rummaging through a box of  fabrics I found a couple of pomegranate panels I had prepared but never stitched. So I finished them as I don't like to have unfinished things lying around if I can avoid it.These panels are for sale . They are approximately 8 inches x 8 inches ( 20 cm square) with hand dyed fabric and hand printed fabric and machine stitched. the price of each panel inclusive of postage is $50AUS. They are made to fit inside Ikea shadow box frames. . Email me if you are interested in buying one.

SOLD

There is one which is postcard size (5 inches x 7 inches) and its price is $30 inclusive of postage.

Indiennne Inspired

I have been stitching on the indienne inspired printed fabric- I really wanted the feel of hand printed blocks as the early indiennne fabrics would have been made but also the texture of the stitching. And quite a lot of stitching has gone into this piece and it is still not quite finished.It is quite different to my normal work so does it have my stamp do you think?

And in today's post a journal for me to play with in preparation for the Mirabelle Trail of France next year with Creative Arts Safaris in September of 2014. If you are interested please contact Fiona through Creative Arts Safaris. The idea is that we will create a journal and workpieces on-line after the tour using the tour as your inspiration.

And last but not least- it is still possible to buy sentinelle panels and join the Sentinelle Project. The  price is $15 plus $2.60 postage and you can embroider them however the fancy takes you. Some of the colours are starting to run out.If you are interested please email me. If you have already  purchased one and would like to join the project please let me know and I will put you on my list.

Productive Frame of Mind

I spent most of the weekend doing some kind of stitching, painting or reading, as the sun was out and then the sun room is a pleasant space to be in despite the fact that it is cold outside.- the cat likes it too.

Friday I went to Colac for a meeting and am delighted to tell you that CrossXpollination will take place again in July of 2014. Council have also agreed to provide some funding given the last CrossXpollination was a resounding success. If you are from Victoria, we will be offering a great program of workshops ( which we will announce in November). The theme for  2014 is Love & Loss, so get your thinking caps on as there will be a competition for a 3 dimensional  creation addressing the theme. The them for RRTAG ( red Rock Gallery ) is likely to be Love Letters- it is an opportunity to exhibit in a dedicated gallery space.

In March of 2014 I shall be international guest artist at Palaiseau at Voix au feminin.  The Sentinelle project will also be shown as part of  the festival. So if you have purchased a panel which you have emboidered and would like to be included in this exhibition please let me know. It will also travel to a Textile Festival in Canberra in May 2014.  I still have a good range of colours available but the actual linocut has now been retired as I want to conserve it as part of the project. Price of one panel is $15 AUS plus postage ( which is $2.60). The panels are made of hand dyed fabric which I have hand printed.

 In April ( early) I shall be in London for the Creative Stitches shows helping Gillian Travers mind the Voyageart  works and also displaying some of my own work in an adjoining space. I am very excited about this as it  has been some time since I have been to London or the United Kingdom in fact. I am available to teach after the first weekend in April if anyone in the UK were interested? Just email me. I am also looking for a reasonable priced place to stay in London- so any suggestions will be welcome!

Then onto what i did this weekend. I finished a replacement piece for last years Voyageart- so now they are all ready to send.This was from a small gocco print I made of the face, and the rest is all hand stitching. I like the circuar stitched shapes, they remind me a little of Vincent van Gogh's Starry Night, though I only realised that afterwards, i was simply looking for a contrast to the dark blue background and the dark blue stitching.

 I am playing, well more developing  really, some motifs for my work next year.It involves working in a large sketch book so that i can also print my linocuts into the book. I do journal and have done for many years, but it often involves writing with a drawing her or there. I have decided I wanted to be more focused particularly as I often get asked where do my ideas come from. Some things I have been writing about or drawing in one way or another for many years, but others come out of working  directly onto fabric or some direct source of inspiration. So the photo below is  some developmental work I did on the weekend.

Once Upon a Time

I will get to the once upon a time a bit later, so you  can turn off. I have been finishing up work for  the Voyageart Exhibition which will take place at Veldhoven/ Open European Quilt Championships in October 2013. I must admit that I had sold some of the works, simply because  I needed to and there was a buyer. So it means I have had to remake some of the pieces which of course takes time and which I was putting off.  However this week I decided to catch up on things. I also had to finish a piece for this years challenge we have going, as I was behind on that too. So firstly the replacement pieces I have made ( I made an extra because when you use the tifaifai technique you end up with a positive and negative , and I had lost the negative for the piece I made last year). The top piece is the positive image and I have hand printed the seeds into place. Thenext piece  is the negative , which remained after cutting out the top piece. I quite like the negative, it seems much more medieval looking to me and you can see I have done a lot of stitching. So which one to choose?

 Then of course there are poppies. I have sold a few of these- they are quite popular.  Unfortunately I am running out of the Mettler 30 weight silk finish threads they sponsored my exhibit in Vicenza last year ( I absolutely love these threads) and have not been able to source them in Geelong. I have written a few hopeful letters in the hope of getting some more sponsorship but so far not a reply.

Below  on the left is the image of the piece  I have created for this years Voyageart challenge. I will write more about it on the Voyageart blog

I also have work at Festival of Quilts this year as well with Beneath the Southern Sky exhibition curated by Brenda Gael Smith and with  the Through Our Hands exhibition as well. Wish I could be there, maybe next time!

 The image on the right is stitching with Printfuse. Victorian textiles sent me some samples  to play around with,as someone told me it was similar to  Solufix. I find the photo print quality slightly better on Solufix but otherwise the Print fuse works in exactly the same way and after all the importance of the photo quality is not important to the end product. One amusing thing I have found though , that if I do not print off the original photo on photo paper as a guide, then the  resulting stitching becomes a bit more abstract than the original, and I quite like that!



 And then ...
once upon a time on a cold blustery windy day  on the 8th of August 1965 a young dutch family arrived aboard the Flavia in Melbourne, i was the 9 year old daughter in that family. It was freezing  especially as the sea journey had crossed tropical waters. We had left Holland in June, and had anchored in South Hampton ( or was it Portsmouth?) to pick up English migrants who were on a different part of the ship, we had crossed the Atlantic to spend a day or so in Curacoa, through the Panama Canal, where children were not allowed off board in Panama City for fear of kidnap, on to two idyllic days in Tahiti and Papeete, then through a horrid hurricane that washed cars overboard and where i was one of about 8 people not sea sick so I was allowed up to the Captain's Bridge, to Auckland, then a day in Sydney before landing in Melbourne. We arrived towards evening time and it was freezing- we were bused to Spencer Street Station ( now Southern Cross) in all it's glorious windiness of how it used to be and then onto the night train for Albury with all the other non-english speaking migrants. The English migrants were allowed to stay in Melbourne and  we were sent to Bonegilla in order to learn English and acquire the Australian way of life We arrived in Albury at midnight and were then  put on buses for Bonegilla (called Bone- gilla by locals  but called Bonnegilla by every migrant I have ever known). Remember it was dark, and we had no idea where we were going, but we had emigrated for a brighter future.

We arrived in Bonegilla well after midnight and because we were a family, we were allocated a two room unit in the old army barracks. I remember the grey prickly army blankets that was our bedding and it was bitterly cold with no visible form of heating that I can recall ( i think my parents did get a  bar heater from the office the next day) It seemed dismal, like we had come  to the end of the world and were in a locked compound confined to army barrracks ( we had lived on a lovely old farm in the Netherlands , that always had extra people staying because we had so much space). We must have slept and I can remember waking to the peculiar warbles of magpies, a sound that is very very Australian, there is nothing like it on earth.We were shocked that we seemed to be in a camp that consisted of galvanised iron barracks, surrounded by high fencing and barbed wire- the food was another matter, barely edible.Many nationalities were in Bonegilla and some had been there for years. My father got the first job out of there at a large farm called North Yathong  station  between Narrandera and Jerilderie. Our furniture was still in transit and we were allocated an old cottage.  The owners wife had made a lovely attempt to welcome us by leaving half a sheep in a washing basket  on the kitchen table ( we had never eaten sheep) and basic groceries in another basket including Vegemite( vegemite is an inconic Australian sandwich spread, inedible to most but you do get a taste for it, and now I make sure I always have some in my travel kit). She tried and she was generous- and so started my life in Australia.

Stitching is a Slow Process

I had a busy week and made a number of decisions regarding next year, so whilst I have been quiet here I feel as if some progress has been  made. I must admit August is my least favourite month of the year- it is long , cold and wet which means I can't get out into the sunroom to print etc much as it is way too cold out there.

I visited my friend Robina Summers up at Montsalvat during the week. She and Margaret Summerton are doing a residency in one of the studios that is all about yarn bombing and making yarn bombed things. I had a largish amount of wool which I had been carrying around for 20 odd years with the idea that one day I might get back to knitting, but as it hasn't happened and as I am trying to rationalise how much stuff I have i thought Robina and Margaret could make better use of it than I. Check out the link to see what fun things they have been up to.Montsalvat is always such an interesting place- so many nooks and crannies and it is good to see things happening there and to see tne Nillumbik Prize.

Yes this steed which was apparently created by Judy Jacques for a jazz festvial some years ago is getting a yarn make-over- it will do her the world of good as she is rather worse for wear and has some odd protrubances.

  Painters studio at Montsalavat- although there was no one around and below the door to the kitchen of the studio Robina and Margaret are  habitating.

 Wonderful iron gate  near the Great Barn.

I have also been working with the figures from the Royal Portal at Chartres and had reduced one drawing ready for  making a gocco print ( similar process to thermofax printing). It's been a while since I made a print this way so I  had not used the riso screen material for awhile and so I did not realise that it had actually been affected by the heat because where I had stored it gets direct sun. So the print was not entirely successful and the plastic film not only burnt off but was also lifting off in various places. Sigh shall have to be buy some more  riso screen material and unfortunately it is not cheap.

I am still stitching pages int he khadi book but using photos for colour clues- i like the effect of the lines of stitching and love how the feel of the page changes form a papery feel to a much softer feel.

And decisions. I aim to be in Europe a lot more once my youngest daughter goes off to university in february of 2014 and my dilemna has been that I did not want to rent a place, as I will be away so much and I had hoped my block of land in the Otways would sell so that I could buy something in France, but  nothing is selling down there and our economy seems to be worsening . So what to do.... I do have a shed on my block and it is lined so I will go and live down there as  it means I don't have to pay rent. I am not actually enthused about the prospect of living in a shed , but we will do some work to fix things up and I shall have to do something about the power situation.Anyone want to come help once the weather warms up a bit?We will have to build a bathroom of sorts . At least it has finally  resolved itself as a solution to a dilemna , being a place where I can store my things and I won't be there all the time, and that has actually given me some peace of mind.