Around Our New House

Part of the reason I did not want to move far away from my former marital home is that I love the nature in this region ( and it allows the kids easy access to their father). The house we have rented is just outside the village we have lived in for the last 10 years- Gellibrand in the Otway Ranges of Victoria. I was delighted when we found this house we are now renting as the views are as good if not better than in our old house and best of all we have a little grove of tree ferns out the back door. We also pump water from a small creek for household water ( which is the first image). I love tree ferns and especially the uncurling fronds. I have in the past made a quilt with this subject matter- still no quilting/textile work done.

If anyone is interested ,another box of Across Australia caralogues emerged ( we had thought them all gone) - this was the exhibition which I curated that travelled to the Middle East in 2006/2007. If you are interested ( 28 quilts in full colour catalogue) the cost is $20US inclusive of postage and you can email me by clicking on my profile.

I have also had several people email me recently to ask me whether Tifaifai Remaissance is available anywhere as it is out of print. Alas the answer is no as far as I know, and I only have two copies myself which I use for teaching. I suppose the only solution is to write another and put it on cd?

We Have Moved!

I loved this wall of plants , which is a project by Patrick Blanc at the Musee Quai Branly- wouldn't it be fabulous if all houses had walls like these?

We also visited Lembach Haus in Munich and were delighted to find many of Vassily Kandinsky's early works ( he was masterfeul in the use of a powder blue/corn flowery blue sort of colour) and some work by Paul Klee. This painting took my fancy because of the way it has been framed- obviously Klee wanted the "intrinsic" quality of the canvas on which he painted to be part of the whole ambience of the painting.

We have moved house- no phone or internet yet- but almost all of our stuff is there. We decided not to take the cats with us last night as we were still moving too much stuff around and then this morning on my walk with my friend we found Celeste's cat Izzy in the gutter- she had been run over. My daughter will be heart broken, she was a very sweet and affectionate cat.

Have to write an article on my forest quilts for Magic Patch by Wedensday, and then I go to NSW to teach at the Entrance Retreat for three days.Not much work done ont he textile front unfortunately - so much for my itching hands!

The Week That was and the One to Face

The above little piece I started whilst travelling in Europe when we did some felting at the gite in France- it was machine felted and then I started to stitch it. There is a lot of stitching to still go in, but as I have done no other work it is soemthing to show.

The last week has been another roller coaster- we did get the house to rent- hoorah- but there are so many things going on it has been a tedious process moving in and it won't really happen till the weekend. Tonight I have to take my daughter for an MRI scan of a tumour in her left thigh - which has previously been looked at and is benign- but is presently causing her a lot of pain. Then we see the specialist tomorrow.

Then I had a small car accident ( well it was not really an accident more of a minor scratch really) in the car I hired to get home from the aiport- talk about a scratched bumper bar being expensive- there was a $3000 insurance excess and that has gobbled up a lot of my hard earned dollars. ( since when is a plastic bumper bar a 10th of the value of a whole car???) I don't think I will ever hire a car in Australia again- all of my experiences with the car hire companies have not been good.

And we are in the process of trying to arrange a student exchange for my middle daughter int he Netherlands- as she has not been living at home there is a lot of bureaucracy to deal with- though they are supportive of the idea and plan- meanwhile paperwork to do and t's to cross and i's to dot. So not much work is getting done

Home Again

Some Parisian icons for you and a mummified cat in the Louvre Museum. The cat dates from around 3000BC- how interesting that even then they knew how to make log cabin blocks! Of course they wove in narrow strips hence the joining of the strips to make a larger whole.

I am home again after 8 weeks of travelling- it was wonderful seeing my children again. I have swept the shed in preparation for some serious sewing which needs to be done! I have the itch in my fingers to get going on some work and to write another book. I have applied to rent a house not far from here- so I can still use my shed/studio- keep your fingers crossed for me, it would be a good solution for the time being!