Piecing....

I was thinking the other day that I hadn't done a great deal, craft wise, since my last post - and nothing quilty wise since it seems forever....but that changed when I received the first Block of the Month for "Ginger Crush" by the very talented Cathy Cabbage Quilts and Emma Treehouse Textiles.

The quilt itself is just beautiful (you can see it here) and as soon as the first month arrived in my letterbox, I had to make the first two blocks...(please excuse all the crappy night time photos)

This then spurred me on to get stuck into a UFO that's been sitting around for too long - "Citrus Sweet Love" (you can see this one here) and this too was designed by the abovementioned Cathy and Emma and I've stitched a few blocks....

 
 

 

 

Really enjoying these, but now it's time make another Sew Together bag......and I'll blog about those next time.

The Bride Series - The Bride Painted

This is the last of this series of pieces - and this one is different to the other two in that it is a framed piece, rather than a 3D mask.

The inspiration came from a photo of a young South American girl, her face painted and her head part shaved, that I found on Pinterest.

I used the 'quilt as you go' method using my hand dyed fabrics to represent the painted markings on her face and the bluish shaved part of her head.  A mask shape made from painted and heat treated tyvek continued the Mask theme and a flutter of fabric leaf shapes decorated her hair.

This piece was framed to protect the fabrics.

Before it was framed - I couldn't get a decent shot after it was framed because the light kept reflecting off the glass.

The Bride 1 – Painted

Height:   85 cm

Width:    90 cm

Depth:    4 cm

Materials:             

·         Tyvek, painted with acrylic

·         Hand dyed cotton fabric

·         Cotton batting

·         Silk cord

·         Cotton threads

·         Perle embroidery threads

·         Linen threads

·         Silk threads

The Bride Series was my contribution to our first, 'real' exhibition - 'our' being my Textile Arts cohort, collectively known as Stitch Theorem.

It was a huge learning curve and the experience held us in good stead for our Graduate Exhibition - and what I'll be talking about from next week.

The Bride Series - The Bride Masked

Continuing with the theme, inspiration came from many women/girls who are masked or veiled for the ceremony - which also has comparisons to the veil worn at traditional western weddings....

Beaded, painted and adorned with precious threads and fabrics, all eyes are on her as she makes her way to her destiny.

Height:   69 cm

Width:    60 cm

Depth:    20.5 cm

Materials:             

·         Wood

·         Sun dyed cotton fabric

·         Cotton batting

·         Silk cord

·         Cotton threads

·         Perle embroidery threads

·         Linen threads

·         Silk threads

·         Steel

·         Corflute

·         Beads

·         Commercially printed fabric

·         Fencing wire

The Bride Series: The Bride Scarred

The theme for this exhibition, held at Manningham 29 January to 22 February 2014, was ADORNED.

Quite a few thoughts went through my head about how to represent Adorned...

I thought about continuing work on my felted fat lady, which had been started some time before for another exhibition, then abandoned...

..but she was again assigned to the WIP box....

...and then flitting through Pinterest, I saw some beautiful faces of young women/girls which had been decorated and adorned to either attract a mate or to meet their new spouse in marriage...and I got to thinking about how they might feel about it...whether it was with joy or trepidation...whether if it was possible, would they still choose to marry or would they choose another life for themselves if the boundaries imposed by tradition, opportunity and geography...and what the carefully crafted adornment masked...............

...and I had it - the Bride Series...

The Bride Scarred

Photo courtesy of Carol O'Loughlin

Adorned with feathers, she waits to see what will unfold, whether the pain she endured through scarification was worth it or was simply a forerunner of things to come...

Height:   118 cm

Width:    64 cm

Depth:    23 cm

Materials:             

·        Wood

·         Sun dyed cotton fabric

·         Cotton batting

·         Paper cord

·         Silk cord

·         Hessian

·         Fencing wire

·         Cotton threads

·         Perle embroidery threads

·         Linen threads

·         Silk threads

·         Corflute

·         Beads

·         Feathers

·         Commercially printed fabric

Come back next week for the next in the series....

I'm baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack

What has prompted this blog post??

I've been published - and my blog address is in the magazine - so I've decided I shouldn't be such a slacker and start blogging again - I'm thinking I could be showing processes, works, whatever - but definitely get back into the habit - it's amazing how quickly one loses the discipline when getting stuck into something else - for me it was getting ready for the end of my course....

Since my last post myself and my fellow emerging artists from Stitch Theroem (the last graduates of the Diploma of Textile Arts at Box Hill - they've cancelled the course) held our graduate exhibition at Tacit Contemporary Art - we had a fabulous time and Keith and Tim were so supportive of us and our work - thanks guys.

I'll come back with more about the exhibition in my next blog post.

So, published - I was very excited to be included in the latest Down Under Textiles, a magazine that provides fantastic information and inspiration to me as a textile artist.

This is an Instagram photo collage of the article.

Using a Peruvian technique called Mola - which is more widely known as Reverse Applique - I created images from photos using fabric and thread.....

I was advised by my dear husband that I should have smiled!!

Abstract

Check out the magazine for a step by step process of how to turn your photos into fabric images - it's easy to do and it's a lot of fun.

Still here........

Busy doesn't even describe the past month or so:

• new job
• do.good Stitching
• sewing
• knitting
• crocheting
• veggie gardening
• felting
• embroidering
• article writing (for my classmates and I, we're Stitch Theorem and we have a couple of exhibitions coming up)
• CFA stuff (Country Fire Authority for those outside Victoria - it's a voluntary Fire Fighting Service and I've joined the support team - I don't go and fight the fires - my husband does that - I do admin stuff, sizzle sausages and stage manage a local Carols by Candlelight....)

Apart from the fact I love my new job (House co-ordinator at our local Community House) and all the wonderful challenges it brings, another fabulous side effect is that I have to be super-organised to ensure I fit everything in - so few minutes get wasted and I have accomplished loads of stuff that I wouldn't have in my pre-new-job life....brilliant!!

One of my exhibition pieces - not yet finished - I used a sun dye in 'bark' and used brown paper as the mask - it was a bit windy that day so I put a load of coins onto the brown paper to stop it blowing away and got a fabulous pattern I wasn't expecting - very serendipitous...

Both my boys are home for Christmas which I'm very happy about and my little brother and his wife will be coming to Melbourne in the New Year - very happy about that too :)

....the only thing I'm not happy about is the cricket...

Ok - back to it...

No autographs please......

....I AM published, after all!!

Some time ago I got a very exciting email - would I mind if my Twisted Tutorial was included in Homespun Magazine - hmm, let me think about that - ummmm NO!!!

...and so it came to pass...

I received another email from Homespun who said the little link is the November issue, page 16...

According to Blogger, my tutorial has already had over 28,000 views - awesome - fame at last :)