New Linocut and Autumn

Doesn't this paella look so yummy!I saw it at the St Gely market on Saturday.

Olive trees- still looking at how I might make an olive tree quilt- i love the shapes of the branches

The last of the grapes of the season- most of them have been harvested.

Yes that is my trusty friend the dog, on our daily walk this morning- she sat to wait for my whilst i took yet another photo  of Pic St Loup.

And last but not least- I have made a coqueclicot linocut- still playing with that idea, but it's getting there .

I have some  new books available of 72 More Ways- the french and coloured version- the cost is 30 euros inclusive of postage. I you are interested email me and I will sign your copy.

Ta Dum- 1000th Blog Post!

I can scarcely believe that i have done a 1000  blogposts! This is what i wrote on my very first blogpost:

I have finally taken the plunge to start a blog. It will be peripatetic as my life is. I travel, to teach and curate exhibitions of contemporary quilts which I occasionally take to Europe. I spend chunks of my life travelling with exhibitions loaded into my suitcase and two sets of clothes- can't fit more than that!When I come home again I need to regroup, so I often start by making things which are manageable in a day- hence the bookcovers, and I trawl through the books that offer inspiration- to get going again- and as I have a family I need to do some cooking too! 


In a sense little seems to have changed, my life is still peripatetic, I still curate exhibitions that travel in my suitcase, my wardrobe has not increased a great deal ( though I have promised myself to make some more clothes from the fabric I make, i still buy too many books- for example last night we visited Art Nimes and who could leave behind this hand printed treasure by Veronique Agostini??

it so makes me want to make hand printed books!!

But much has changed; I no longer have a home as such, though I have many places to stay. I am no longer married,at the moment my children are not living with me, though that will change when i return to Australia. I have written three more books, and am working on another book proposal, I am still trying to hang in there is a textile artist, but there are times when I am wondering why on earth I do this. I am still writing my blog after nearly 6 years, and many of you have travelled the highs and lows with me and have sent me messages of encouragement.For that I am so very grateful- they have been like rays of sunshine in what seemed at times to be a situation without resolution or answer.

But..... I am still making textiles and quilts and can't really imagine doing anything else.

People asked what the African painting technique- it is like yes the technique  is indeed like making paste papers except you do it with base extender and textile inks. I have been making a few  for use in the future.

And my favourite motif is still the pomegranate. This one fell off the tree in the heavy thunderstorm we had here last night. But now it is apero time with good friends and by that i include all of you too- sante! There is much to look forward to!

Back from Carrefour and Fabric Painting

Phew! Carrefour Europeen du Patchwork was hectic- fortunately I did get some help  from my friend Margo from Teinture Textile. Saw lots of people i knew and met some new ones. Delivered my Gypsy Blanket to Aurifil.

Now it is down to very hard work- working on my Syria book, a book proposal and an exhibition here in le Triadou at the end of October just before I return home. It will be our first exhibition as Atelier Printemps Sacre ( sorry can't find the accent thingie). I want to make a  lot of new quilts all inspired by being here this year! I kind of feel fueled up and ready to go!

Today I have been African painting fabrics to use in  work later on. It takes quite some time to paint these so i tend to spend a whole day or two making the fabric. Tomorrow i will do some dyeing.

And the pomegranate tree in the garden is spawning fantastic looking pomegranates! My favourite fruit and motif.

Help Needed at Carrefour Europeen du Patchwork

I will be  at Carrefour Europeen du patchwork next week with an exhibition entitled My PLace- It will be shown in  Eglise St Nicholas- number 13 on the route in Ste Croix aux Mines.


I had hoped one of my friends was coming over from England and that she could help me a few hours a day to mind the exhibition- as I have to give a lecture on the Saturday and  I will be book signing on the Editions de Saxe stand for my new book and demonstrating Pique Libre with a Bernina. However my friend is not attending.

Question

Is there someone there who could help me a few hours on the Thursday, Friday and Saturday? I have a name badge for another person which entitles you to free entry and also a meal. If you are able to help please email me.

Back in le Triadou

I have been back in le Traidou since late Monday night- those long haul flights certainly  take some energy. However the dog who lives here knows nothing of these things and she was ready for her morning walk regardless of the fact that it was hard to drag myself out of bed! Maybe it was a good thing because she and i do so enjoy those morning walks!

This morning Pic st Loup was looking rather sultry...

And the air has a freshness in it  that probably means summer is gone. The grapes on the  vines are ripening and taste deliciously sweet. This morning on my walk I breakfasted on a ripe fig, a small bunch of grapes, and some almonds and a hand full of blackberries. Strangely the dog likes blackberries too.

We are preparing for a wedding here this weekend- my friend with whom I am staying is getting married!

I did some linocutting when I was in Australia- I am adding some extra exercises to my on-line linocutting course. The first one I call wobbling the lines .

I used this  photo to create this linocut.

When you work form a photo the inclination is to make the  linocut look like the photo. There is so much detail in the photo that you would really need to make a very big linocut to do it justice. So i decided to select an element that pleased my eye and decided to wobble the lines to add character.This wobbling of the lines was inspired by the work of Rosario Morra. and also seemed to suit the gothic qualities of the building.

The second  image is about incorporating text and  pattern- it was inspired by the door on the cathedral Familia Sagrada and is just another example of the thoroughness of Gaudi's designs

I made this linocut from the image above:

I normally print on fabric but printed these on paper as i had no  textile ink/paint to print with. I can see myself doing a lot more printing on paper.

Heading Back to France Tonight

I don't know where that month went but it is time to head back to France. I seem to have done a lot of running around and feel like I haven't achieved much at all and I have to hop straight back into work when I get back to le Triadou.

To show I haven't been idle i did  dye some fabric...... to sell at Carrefour Europeen du Patchwork

I have also done some linocuts but I will show them another time when I get the chance to print them on fabric.

This koala was encountered on the road at night near Gellibrand. You rarely see them and this little chap sat and posed and then ambled off into the trees.

This little blue wren decided to use my car mirror as his special grooming aide the other day. The blue of his coat is actually a much deeper colour than in the photo- it's a very beautiful blue colour ( eat your heart out Yves Klein). This is the male of the blue wrens, the ladies are much plainer- it is said that 90% of the progeny that is produced in his little troupe of women are actually by males outside the troupe.....so all that grooming has little effect ....

And last but not least- gorgeous magnolia's in my mothers' garden.

72 MORE Ways Not to Stipple of Meander in French and in Colour!

Here it is - finally 72 MORE Ways  in French and in colour. My french version of my first 72 Ways book is now out of print and this book has been released in time for the Carrefour Europeen du Patchwork. I love the styling they do of the photographs, it makes the whole quilt look so French! Thank you Clarisse and the team at Editions de Saxe.

I am also getting close to having a linocutting book done, I have been working on  more exercises- but because of coloured photos ,it is not something I can self publish unless it is on cd/dvd.I was really surprised to see a number of images for the on-line linocutting class appear when I googled linocutting- very satisfying to see the  participants linocuts and prints stand up so well with other linocutting images!

Syria and silk

I have not got the right adaptor plug to charge the battery for my camera- so I cannot take photos. So I am sharing some of my encounters with textiles in Syria on my recent Creative Arts Safaris trip.

Silk was once a trading  product produced in Syria and much of the lush Ottoman  silk fabrics which one can still encounter in museums, were  produced in Syria. There was a thriving silk industry which has dwindled to perhaps half a dozen producers in  small villages in the countryside..We have been lucky to find one of the artisans and to be able to see the whole process from mulberry leaf to silk worm to spinning the silk yarn to weaving and the creation of scarves and crocheted tops.

The white mulberry tree the leaves of which are used to feed the silkworms.

Silk worms feasting on mulberry leaves on specially made dishes which prevent the worms from escaping.

The worms beginning to spin their cocoons.

The cocoons once they have been collected- could you not have fun with these!( I am of course thinking dye and colour)

In the spinning process the silk thread is wound onto a wheel for easier reeling afterwards. I love that  this family used such simple but effective equipment- no  whirring machines here, just age old equipment.

The silk  wound onto reels.

Weaving the silk on a narrow loom which has been sunk into the ground. This family has been weaving for many generations and it is being passed on to the children.

Voila - finished products- all hand made!
I loved being able to see this whole process, I know you can read about it in books, but it is not the same somehow. Of course a wonderful hand woven scarf, made wider with a crocheted seam had to come home with me and thank goodness I have had it in this cold nasty and wet winter weather!The family were hospitable and  passionate about their silk. Of course we were treated to a cup of coffee and traditional home made biscuits!

If you are at all interested in the tour of Syria more information can be  obtained from Creative Arts Safaris- I will be your creative tutor on the trip!

In Australia it's Cold!

I finished this little bag a couple of days  before I left France for Australia.

Thank you everyone who sent condolence wishes, it is much appreciated.. I tried to reply to everyone personally but some I can't as the  reply is no reply.The funeral  was last friday and took a lot of organising, and also settling affairs it all takes time.

I have a really urgent request. A friend in Redcar, England carried the My Place quilts in her luggage to help me carry over so many things late last year. I haven't had a chance to visit her to pick up the quilts ( Redcar is in the north about an hour and  a bit from Leeds) I was supposed to have taught a workshop there tomorrow and pick up the quilts but because of circumstances i cannot do that. Is there anyone out there who could bring the quilts from Redcar to the Festival of Quilts where they can deliver them to a friend who will take them to Belgium for me? I know it is a long shot but i thought it worth asking.

Sadness

I am heading home to Australia for 3 and a bit weeks- my mothers long time partner Serge Lajoie passed away very suddenly whilst they were holidaying in his favourite spot in Queensland. He made  my mother very happy, he was a loving grandfather for my children and now I will never see him again. Vale Serge you were truly a gentle man.

Teapot and Rosewater Jug

it is a while since I made a teapot and Rosewater Jug piece. I actually had to make a new linocut as my old linocut is still in Australia, and I accidentally reversed it. Anyway this piece has been printed on lutradur and has been machine stitched. It measures approximately 20 cm square and is for sale for 45Euros.

I have also been making pomegranate pieces as well- it is nice to mix  up the sewing. this one measures 23cm square and is for sale for 45 Euros. The pomegranates have been hand printed and the piece has been machine stitched.

This little piece is entitled Little Fairy Forest.It measures 15cm x 15 cm and is for sale for 30 Euros.

I went and picked up the Southern Lands exhibition from Centre European du Patchwork last Saturday. Unfortunately not many pieces sold but it does mean we have a smashing exhibition available for exhibition should anyone be interested.  The exhibition was very well attended and we received a lot of positive comments. so if you are interested in any of the things in this post please email me.

On my Walk This Morning.

I have no hope of not going for a walk in the morning. The dog is waiting at my door at 6.30 am- waits impatiently for my ablutions and whilst i don walking shoes, and then with great energy pulls me along the little roads of the village across the bigger main road past the village, she looks left and right ( am I imagining this but is the dog really that clever?) and hurtles up the track into the vineyards- then I let her off the leash and she races and runs like something possessed checking every once in a while to make sure I am still following.Today was especially fun , the rabbits seem to be home for the weekend as well- oh what fun to go hightailing through the vineyard chasing bunnies! I enjoy the early morning light on Pic St Loup, watch the growing grapes, keep an eye on the almond tree and plum tree- not quite ripe yet but any day...marvel at snails attached to thin stalks,admire that weeds can make such interesting flowers, back along the country road past the water fountain with it's modern tap trapped within an older shell, and so home, 5 kms later. What a start to the day!!

now to work!

Oh Well

This is the complete quilt In the Spirit of Decoration. Unfortunately  it was not selected in the competition  for the Carrefour this year- wasted some money yet again, for the entry fee.. sigh... I can use it for my book on Syria as of course it was  inspired by some silk I bought in Syria and the beaten decorated copper and silver plates you encounter everywhere .

It is for sale. It measures 76 cm x 129 cm and is made from hand dyed and hand printed cloth from an original linocut- the silver discs have been hand embossed with patterns. It has been machine quilted. The price is 1,000 Euros.

here is a detail image.

Breaking all the Rules.

Reader 300,000 is from Leipzig in Germany- if you know who you are please contact me !

Later in August I am teaching in England before the Festival of Quilts event. The class I am teaching is called Breaking All the Rules. it is possible for students to make a couple of variations and simple colour contrast is used, but I realised that all my samples for this class are still in Australia. So I made this one as a sample- it measures 50 cm by 62 cm. This is about the extent of piecing i do, and it started out as an attempt  to see how far  you could make unmatched lines and still create a geometric effect.I also did some linocut printing in the border areas which created a nice contrast but also an opportunity for some stitching. The dark cloth is actually a deep blue and the red colour just sings in this little piece.

 I always feel this kind of piecing has a very African feel so in that mood I want to share a photo portrait made By Seydou Keita a Senegalese photographer from the  late 1950's whose portraits are just stunning, and of course i did notice that textiles are a very important part of his portrait compositions.

Thank you for all the responses about  freebie tutorials and youtubes. I will keep blogging as always- only 13 posts to go until I hit 1,000 posts since i started. That is quite a lot of photos and work and words!

Fairy Forest

Here is the finished Fairy Forest quilt. I have called it fairy Forest because of the kind of gnarly  trunks of the trees.Initially i did not think the trees were so interesting as there seemed to be truncated trunks but now with all the stitching I like the effect.But this is definitely the last forest quilt I will do! It measures 94 cm by 89 cm.

This piece is for sale for 800 Euros including postage. Email me if you are interested.It's been a very slow year for quilt sales I must admit- i don't think I have sold a big piece at all. Which makes it hard going to make a living .It is just as well I teach.I haven't made nearly enough small work for sale something which I intend to remedy over the next weeks before the Fete de Fil we are doing on 15 August at La Bastide-Rouairoux.

 And I really do wonder what impact all the free tutorials on blogs and youtube have- it seems that everything under the sun is a tutorial now and how will that impact on those who teach- is it a good thing or a bad thing or nothing at all?I am not sure .... I am thinking about this issue as I blog for the Bernina blog where i am making instructional posts.

397 Readers to go until 300,000 readers have visited my blog since i started- who will it be and what can i think of to send....

Absolutely the Last Forest Quilt!

I am one of those people who finishes almost everything I ever start. I am not sure why, it's just one of those things. I can count the unfinished quilts i have made in 20 years of my quilting life on one hand. So the unfinished forest quilt that i found in my suitcase of quilts left in Paye Bas bothered me, despite the fact that i had said i would not make another forest quilt- the piece of cloth was too nice to discard in the corner of a cupboard somewhere. I actually pinned the cloth for a photograph shoot that Editions de Saxe did back in 2007 or 2008 for an article about my whole cloth forest quilts. I had done some small sections of  stitching, so I have been working on finishing the stitching. These pieces take ages as they are heavily stitched and I am blogging about the process of this quilt on the Bernina Blog. I also started out making the red circles orange, and after completing a section decided that the orange was too yellow- so rather than unpick all the stitching I had done I decided to stitch over the  circles in red- the result  of this overstitching is rather nice even if I do say so myself.

It's been so hot- it's just hot and sunny here everyday. I get up early to take the dog for a walk- they say for humans you have to do something for 6 months before it becomes a habit- well i can tell you that for a dog it's nowhere near that time- in fact if I don't take the dog for an early morning walk, she pushes open the door in my room and then if I am not ready I am in serious danger of  having my feet bitten off at the ankles. The up side of this is  I am walking  at least an hour every day through the vineyards- we usually take the same route as I love to see little shifts in what is flowering in the wild flower department, the growing grapes in the vineyard, shifts of light on Pic St Loup, which is starting to acquire a bit of a Mont  St-Victoire sort of  feeling inside my head  though I am certain I cannot emulate Cezanne- the grand master.

I am also thinking about a vineyard quilt- how to get the effect of those stunning shade of green and those gnarley branches.

I am also becoming the queen of gazpacho- we have been trying out different versions and  we take turns  trying to out do each other ( my friend Liwanag is a great cook as well as wonderful quilter)- but the last gazpacho I made was very yummy- it is the best soup in hot weather!

Oh and I tried to respond to the question a reader asked about the painted fabrics- it is a scratch back technique I am using.

Sete and Hand Painted Fabrics

It is Bastille day here so I will start with something french first!

The graveyard in Sete affords some wonderful views of the Mediterranean.The flowers in the foreground of the first image were made of ceramic- each grave seems to have a collection of them.

I have been hand painting some fabrics ( I am starting to run low on my printing inks...) I wanted to capture some of the colours  that i see around me, but having a small pallette of  colour had to give poetic license to some of that idea....

Paisley Shapes

The church bell is ringing seven, time to go for a walk with the dog otherwise I might be in danger of having no ankles left... but first a blogpost!

The above stitched paisley shapes are the lino-print I made recently, stitched. They are for sale at 25 Euros each inclusive of postage.. The first one measure  6x8 inches because i printed the shape on more of an angle and the second one measures 5 inches by 8.

Had a lovely day yesterday at Sete a small city on the Mediterranean not far from here with a fellow antipodean and blogger Shirley Goodwin. The Paul Valery Museum in Sete is hosting an exhibition of Raoul Dufy ( unfortunately none of his woodcuts boohooo).it was a very good exhibition showcasing a good range of his works and really only confirmed something which I already knew- there is a lot of lessons to be learnt. yes the early influences of the Fauves, Cezanne and Braque can clearly be seen , and yes I know he is considered to be "pretty' or lightweight compared to the great of Matisse and Picasso, but yet there is something that captures my imagination!

There is still time to enrol in the on-line linocutting class- it will be the last one I do this year as looking at the logistics of this year - things get hectic and then I move back to Australia and have to find a house to live in and move all my stuff there and find a room to work in.