A Kats Tale

Weekend at Wanaka

2009-03-29T16:01:00.000+13:00

I spent a weekend at the Otago Embroiderers Guild Wanaka School. It is a great weekend of embroidery classes - lots to see! I did a class on Personal Sketchbooks with Jan Wilson. My theme for the sketchbook was bird nests. We tried different techniques and mediums to create pages on our subject.

I love bird nests and want to create one in 3D and this was not the place to do any sketching or get ideas - unfortunately. There didn't seem much direction that I could take a bird nest in or so it seemed to me but I did have a lot of fun creating lots of ideas and trying a lot of different techniques.

These four sketches show just one idea.

Firstly just charcoal pencil on newsprint.

Then I did collage on black paper with a photocopy of lace!

Another pencil sketch but this time I put in some colour.

And lastly a stencil print - kinda looks like a stylised rose (well I thought so).

We were shown a neat idea to bind all our pages together which I want to do at a later stage. It would be a great way to create a sketch book of different types of paper to print/draw on and save pictures/scraps. It would make a great present for an artist. When I get around to doing the book I will do a step by step process of how it is done.

I definitely want to try this idea again - I just have to find an object that inspires me !!

We've Been Adopted

2009-03-16T15:13:00.000+13:00

Look what turned up one night ! One minute seen racing across the driveway and later that night it had discovered the cat door and was inside eating cat biscuits. Who could say no to this sweet little face? It is amazing that there are people around that would take a little kitten like this for a drive in the country side and throw it out of the car - well partly true and because of a limp I am presuming the thrown out of the car bit.

Well he has settled in, the other three cats are coping a bit better and not hissing so much. They don't come to sleep in bed as much as they used to because young Harry is already in bed purring loudly !! Yes, we have called him Harry, I am not sure if it is (Horrible) Harry or (Dirty) Harry. He seemed not to know about dirt boxes but he knew all about newspaper on the floor and was also attracted to Ken's shoes. Needless to say the shoes are since tidied away. Harry is also a bit of a slippery customer, he doesn't want to be picked up and so isn't easy to grap and chuck outside at those important moments but sit down for any length of time and he is all over you wanting to have a cuddle, that and he loves having a snuggle with you in bed too. Thank goodness there have been no incidents on the bed.

Anyhow we are smitten with the kitten.

Dyeing again

2009-01-23T17:12:00.002+13:00

I had a wonderful few minutes doing some more dyeing. Once I actually start to slosh dye on fabric time goes in a flash. I didn't have much fabric to play with - only 5 metres plus some bits and pieces and gosh cloths. Brown was my choice of colour for this session. I find I like to use a few browns in things. And I had some nice browns from lovely golden, rich toffee and deep dark cocoa. Swishing in a bit of black gave me some nice green highlights and somewhere a hint of blue and lavender slid in. My personal best piece was a test strip of some sheeting that I was testing. I wasn't sure just how well it would dye up and so I tore a strip off the end (extra wide 2.5metres) and had it snaking around in a tub. Every time I dyed another piece of fabric I would slop a bit of colourover the test strip and at the end laid all the gosh cloths on top of it higgledy piggledy and poured over one last dark brown dye mix. Everything in that tub turned out well but the star was my test strip - isn't that the way it goes ! Actually everything turned out well so I am happy. And as DH has turned up with another 20 odd metres of fabric for me I can hear the call of the (wild) dyes.

And then of course I had to iron some of them - even in this stinking hot summer scorching heat. I just love to iron the dyed fabrics and admire the way that the colours have spread and mixed on the fabric. So far I have resisted taking photos though I am not sure why but somehow photos don't really capture the essence of the fabric.

Oh well, off to dream of what I am going to dye next..........

Petal and Big Ears

2009-01-17T18:54:00.001+13:00

Well my camera seems to be talking to Picasa again so I thought I would show you these photos. They are sort of a Christmas present from the dairy farm neighbour. They are two very late calves that were going to be knocked on the head. Well they knew Ken was a soft spot and gave the two calves to us. We started bottle feeding them both and they have started on Moozlee as well. So we now have Petal (black) and Big Ears (brown) joining us on the farm. Petal hasn't been too well but with some antibiotics and she seems to picking up. Big Ears took to feeding out of a bucket very quickly which saves a lot of hassle. They are both a couple of cuties.

The sheep have been shorn today but I won't show pictures of naked sheep. And as always happens when the sheep get shorn, it rains!! Well, we are in a drought so the rain is welcome but I just wish that there was a bit more that the sprinkle that we have had.

Lots of pictures to come of some of the current projects that I am working on.

An idea

2009-01-17T16:17:00.000+13:00

In my travels surfing the net I see lots of ideas and occasionally write myself notes. I annoy myself by sometimes forgetting where I saw an idea and am unable to find it again. But one that I did pick up was from someone that makes a lot of doll quilts. I thought that this was a good way to use up orphan blocks or to try out an idea and only making a small number of blocks. It makes a quick project (yeah, right) and with thought it could be given as a gift. I do have a lot of orphan blocks and stuff to send away to a UFO orphanage (I have only been planning to do that for a couple of years now) but I have some that I would be keen to make small "doll" quilts with. Sized right they could be table toppers or runners.

My camera and Picasa are not talking at the moment so here is a gratuitous photo of a quilt that I made a couple of years ago with my dyed fabrics. I love the luminosity of colour and the woven effect of such a simple block. And you can see that I even used up the left over blocks in a small quilt. The small quilt was done with a decorative stitch and the buttons came about when I made a bit of a mess of the stitching but if I didn't tell you, you wouldn't know.

I have just ordered a bolt of fabric for dyeing. The company that I have always ordered my fabric from has been taken over by another company and the service isn't quite so good anymore and I am thinking of perhaps finding another source of my fabric. They don't import this particular fabric any more themselves but rather buy it from another importer who deals in bigger quantities than them. Anyhow I am planning a few sessions with some dyes. I am wanting to use up all my dyes, they are starting to get a bit old and really need to be replaced for next season. I love dyeing fabric, I love playing with colour and it makes me feel like a kid again with the paint pots and splashing it every where although I am a bit more organised with the dyes and fabric. Actually I need to do some printing on fabric as well - again a whole lot of fun and I have some wonderful wooden blocks that I carved myself, very basic, and very primative but oh so effective on a wonderful dyed background. Mustn't waste time and hop to it!

Colour on the Farm

2009-01-13T19:28:00.000+13:00

These are some old photos from around the farm. I was challenging myself to find colour and was surprised at finding this turquoise.

When I walk around with the camera I tend to see things in a new way and with all the buildings and sundry farm "stuff" that lies around there is always lots to see

Trying to be positive

2009-01-11T21:40:00.003+13:00

I was trying to create a positive start to the New Year. I really need to make an effort with looking after my health. I have a lot I can improve on and do better but I am at least wanting to try. Of course it is depressing to find that my co-worker is resigning soon and I will have to train someone else to work with and I really don't want to have to step out of my comfort zone again. Just enough for me to want to seek solace in comfort, i.e. food!

Okay so let's get over this pity party and be positive. I need to put plans in place to cope with the changes that I am going to face over the next few months. That sounds like I need to make a list for myself - deep breath - ahhhhhhhhhhhhh

I am trying to fit in half an hour of what passes for dancing most days. I enjoy my dancing and this is my effort to exercise. I am wondering about doing it at work during my lunch hour but not sure about that as there isn't much privacy and I don't want it to be a spectator sport.

I need to be more definite in my goals each week/weekend and actually work on them rather than sloping off and doing something else - another list looms.

At the moment my priority is to face the week ahead - I am working a full week so will need to be organised so that I can cope.

A List

2009-01-04T13:27:00.002+13:00

We had to go and buy some curtain hanger thingies and of course I got lost in the store on the way out and ended up amongst the fabric. I did succumb to some cat fabrics and another novelty type for a project that I wanted to try. It was while I was waiting at the counter to be served that my non quilter friend spotted all the Christmas fabrics at 75% discount. Well what was I to do?? About $60 later I left but the rest of the damage was went we went back to the store later to get a refund on the curtain thingies that we didn't need. There was a lovely cream on cream print amongst the Christmas fabrics and at 75% off I ended up buying the 9 1/2 metres that was left on the bolt.

Anyhow the list of fabrics that did the damage was:

Two cat fabrics - 1/2 metre each
Palm trees & stars - 2 metres (I at least have a special project for this fabric)
Cream christmas fabric 9 1/2 metres
Poinsetta & black - 4 metres (good for table cloths)
Xmas patch - 2 metres
Festive patch - 1 metre
Bows & ornaments - 1 metre
Green print 1 metre
Red print 1 metre

so much for trying to cut down on fabric and using more of what I have good in the stash.

A Gratuitous Photo

2009-01-01T08:57:00.000+13:00

Back to Blogging

2009-01-01T08:35:00.002+13:00

Illness stopped me blogging so long ago and then I just never found the right moment to jump back in but New Year 2009 seemed a good time.

So many small things have changed and I have changed with them. One biggie though was finding that I had diabetes (NIDDM). And I slowly slipped in my management of that too so again this is a good time to strengthen my resolve to look after myself and manage my diabetes better.

Okay then, let's put in a gratuitous picture and leave it at that for now. Well maybe not - where is Picasa when you want it??

Dye Day

2006-09-30T16:45:00.000+12:00

I didn't pick the best of days for dyeing, it was a little cooler today than the past couple of days but I soldiered on. I had bought some new dyes and instead of mixing my own colours I decided to go for mixed colours this time to have a play. I just did some very basic dyeing to see what the colours looked like but I did them at fifty percent which is what I usually do.

My first half metre on the right was scrunched into a tray and had a quarter cup of dye poured over it and left for 15 minutes and then another quarter cup of dye poured over and the colour was manipulated through the fabric so that there were no white patches. The second half metre had the other half cup poured on it, scrunched and then the fabrics were layed into a container and pressed firmly down so there would be a little bleeding.

The textures were interesting, lots of light and darks on the first pieces and on the second pieces I was surprised that there was very little bleeding of colour.

First up is a deep lime, as you can see the mix had settled and I got a rich spicy orange colour instead and interestingly it is two different tones plus darks and lights in the piece. The second piece has a hint of green in it which is interesting as it was placed on the top of the boysenberry and nothing on top of it.

The greens are more attractive than they appear. The mixed piece had been placed at the bottom of the tray with the blue on top of it but it is more of the Eggplant that shows than blue. I found it interesting how pale the second piece was too.

Brilliant blue - it probably would have been darker if I had it at full strength. The mixed piece was placed between the Green and Eggplant.

And lastly this is Boysenberry. I think I will play with adding some black to it and possibly some Eggplant. It is a nice red without being harsh.

For some reason when I blot from Picasa I can only get four photos and poor old Eggplant lost out on the transfer, it was nice too!

I am having another day tomorrow with a friend coming over to have a play for the first time. More fun and this time I have some large pieces of sheeting I will play with as I like to use the big pieces for my backings.

Now just to hope that all this decides to publish and not disappear into the blogger black hole.
More tomorrow.

Spring

2006-09-03T13:08:00.000+12:00

Well it is officially Spring and today is Father's Day but did the cats have to bring in a (live and screaming) rabbit for Ken's present? Losing it in the house was not a good start to the day either. I did discover it finally behind a large desk that was surrounded but lots of "stuff". Poor Ken finally managed to pull the rabbit out unscathed and took it outside to one of the paddocks and let it go - lucky rabbit.

The weather lately has been warming up (as it should) but we have been having cold winds coming off the sea (bitterly cold actually). A good time to get organised for lots of dyeing as I do all my dyeing outside (under a nice veranda). I am lucky to have a four metre bench to work on or is that lucky to have a husband who doesn't like to throw things out and came home with the bench from work one day and asked me if it could be useful. Now all I need is an outdoor sink with hot and cold water (I am planning that too but that is part of the long term plan).

On my way around taking photos of some of the areas that had been boggy mud and are now drying out I took this photo - I like the tractor tyre pattern and it is very three dimensional.

My other mud photos didn't quite come out as well but it was interesting to study the patterns and textures that were there. I am still trying to think how I can get tyre patterns onto fabric from one of our cars - I love the pattern it makes - next time it rains and there is some mud I will take a photo to keep as a record.

I really have been lazy as far as creativity goes - nothing has called my name so far. I really must get on as there are one or two small projects that won't take much to finish and it is always satisfying to cross something off the work to do list. And of course I do love my lists.

I am back

2006-08-19T07:39:00.000+12:00

Actually I have been back three weeks now and I only realised on reading my last blog entry that I was supposed to be writing to my blog while I was away - tsk, tsk, I never did. Actually I didn't feel that I saw much that was of creative interest although I did find the geology of a couple of areas I visited interesting. Actually I hardly took any photos at all.

So where did I go - without boring anyone too much I visited friends in Portland, Oregon where the day after I arrived we had a record high of 103 degrees - hot. We went to the beach for the day via Tillamook for icecreams. To beat the heat another day we went to Mt St Helens which is an amazing place to visit.

Then off I travelled to Calgary for the opening of the Stampede and what fun I had there. All the parade photos that I took were of horses - anybody would think that I liked horses. I also did a side trip to Banff where the photos were all geology and plants.

I then flew down to Boulder, Colorado for my residential workshop with Judith Trager and I have a photo below of my first day (there were five days in all). It didn't help that I came down with a virus and sneezed and coughed all week. It was amazing that we were 6000 ft above sea level - that is like halfway up a mountain to me. And of course those 100 degree plus days. Thank goodness for airconditioning is all I can say. What a wonderful place Boulder was.

Anyhow off I went to Paducah in Kentucky to visit the American Quilters Museum and generally check the place out. This time the 92% humidity at night nearly bowled me over - phew. And of course those temperatures. Funny that I didn't miss the fact that it was the middle of winter at home during this time. I enjoyed the old town area of Paducah and exploring around there.

After waiting for St Louis airport to reopen after the large storm that had gone through the city the day before creating mayhem I went to Las Vegas - I wanted to see the glitz and glamour of the city at night with all the neon lights and I wanted to go to the Grand Canyon. Well I saw it all and I was not disappointed. But those temperatures again - actually I didn't find them that hot compared to the cooler summer temperatures at home which was interesting. I didn't get sunburnt at all.

San Francisco was last on my tour where I spent a couple of days before flying home. After five weeks of travelling I was getting tired of living in hotel rooms and other peoples homes. It was good to get back to my own bed. Although I have to say I didn't enjoy the Novo-Rota virus that I caught as soon as I got back to work - it had been going around Oamaru while I was away.

Anyhow that was (briefly) my adventure. I don't feel as though I have been very creative since I got home - there has been a lot to do. The most creative I have been is doing some baking yesterday, ginger crunch, afgans and kiwi biscuits - yum.

Glad to be back blogging and must write some more.

Last Days

2006-06-22T10:36:00.000+12:00

I'm heading off tomorrow and although I am planning to keep in touch via internet cafes I am not sure if I will be able to send photos or not so there may be just text entries instead.

It has been so cold over the last couple of weeks - well it is supposed to be winter, but it has been a prolonged cold. We often get nice sunny days after all the snow and frost but there hasn't been much of that lately.

I have been putting out bread for the birds. I save old bread in the freezer and bring it out on cold days. Not the best of shots but this is a group of Wax Eyes feeding - the bread will be gone within the hour. There are Sparrows, Blackbirds and Larks also hanging around but they are shy feeders compared to the Wax Eyes. Around the back of the house the Swallows are doing their aerial aerobatics - they are wintering in by the spa pool which obviously keeps the worst of the cold away for them. Fantails are flitting through the garden looking for insects and driving the cats crazy as always - thankfully they are never caught. And I have seen a large flock of ducks coming in to land down on the pond. The pond is full and the neighbours paddocks are flooded and swampy which they are loving.

I have managed to sew some blocks together for a future quilt. I will leave putting the top together until I get home. I have a mixture of lighter shaded blocks which will shade down to some darker blocks. I have used mainly paua colours again, blues, purples, teals with hints of greens. I am thinking it might be the sort of thing that a Kiwi living abroad might want to remind them of home. Just a couple of piccies of some blocks below to show the variety of colours. Very simple piecing but I thought very effective.

Getting Ready

2006-06-09T13:51:00.000+12:00

I am wanting to bring some fabrics with me to give to quilters that I meet on my trip. What else to take but some NZ themed fabrics. I have been cutting and folding squares and of course peeping out at the bottom are some sheep - have to have sheep. I am also going to take lots of dyed fabric with me but I am yet to make my choices as to what to take - probably lots of greens to promote NZs clean green image.

I have also been covering notebooks. These ones are covered with dyed fabric but look nothing at all yet the fabrics by themselves are fabulous. They probably need some embroidery/stitching to bring them up more but I am in a hurry and this is all there will be.

I also did some in NZ fabrics to bring along as give aways - I am quite pleased with how they turned out. And when the notebooks are finished the fabric can be taken off them and reused for something else.

I still have some more notebooks to cover (hopefully I will meet lots of people to give them to) and a couple of goodie bags to make for my surrogate grandchildren. And of course I will have to go shopping to find some goodies to put in the bags.

After that the only thing I really have to think about is a bag for my camera. It is currently in this huge bag that my husband bought for it - way too big to be carting everywhere. I thought I would make a double padded carry bag for it that won't look so out of place for me to carry about. Hopefully I can get myself organised and get all this done this weekend. Next weekend I hope to reserve for packing and then it is off on the aeroplane and winging my way to Portland Oregon for the start of my trip.

My Weekend

2006-06-04T19:17:00.000+12:00

I hate when things disappear into blog heaven and have to do it all again - it is never the same.

Our club had their biannual exhibition and invited me to have a sales table ( there were only three other merchants). This is the only time I go out of my way to sell fabric and was happy to sell my fabrics. This is my entire stash of dyed fabric (for now). I figure that I can replace anything that I sell with more fabric. It was a great day and worth my while being there.

Shirley from Dyeing 2 Design was there as well. She has a new range of fabrics that she is selling (check out her blog). I had to buy some for some blocks that I was making over the weekend - they are wonderful blendy colours. I will put up a photo when I am a bit further ahead with the project. I am not sure when Shirley will be putting them up for sale on her web site but they will be worth buying - the photos on her blog don't do them full justice - wonderful blendy colours.

This quilt won Viewers Choice - the workmanship is amazing.

This is one of my quilts - I started making it during our last exhibition. I have never seen it hung before and thought it was amazingly vibrant. I plan to bring it to the US with me and give it to a friend's young son for his bed.

I had to take a photo of this quilt. I think it is a real snuggle quilt - warm and inviting colours. Of course I am biased - I love 9 patch.

All in all a wonderful weekend (though cold) and I loved the wonderful display of quilts, the inspirations and wonderful colours.

I think off to the spa soon for a hot soak - brrr Winter is not my favourite season.

Lavender Luggage

2006-05-31T19:35:00.000+12:00

Isn't it gorgeous? This is going to be my carry on bag for when I come over to the US (only 23 sleeps to go). It doesn't show here but it is quite a little fattie. I am planning to fit in a change of clothes, my camera (large), toilettries and my journal stuff (incl pens, pencils, stamps etc) and a few other bits and pieces. Ken thought I should have bought the black set (there are three of them in all but I only wanted the large one here) but I thought how boring when everything else will be basic black - I wanted purple and this was close enough.

Queens Birthday weekend coming up and our quilt group are having their exhibition. I am having a stall selling off my stash of dyed fabric - hopefully will make a little more spending money for my trip. And of course I have a good excuse to dye lots more fabric when I get home. I will post some piccies from the exhibition after the weekend.

Christine's quilt

2006-05-25T15:53:00.000+12:00

I like the collage of photos of this quilt. I have spent the past two years making it - on and off during that time - I didn't want to hurry the process. It is a quilt for my best friend's birthday in June. And now I'm hurrying to finish sewing the binding and make a label for the back.

The colours are my favourites and in fact this was my collection of special fabrics that I found hard to cut into, that is until I decided I wanted to make a quilt for Christine. These are her favourite colours too - the wonderful paua shell colours.

So at the moment everything else takes a bit of a back seat to getting this finished. The cats are helping by sitting on it whenever they can and softie that I am I can't disturb them - that's what is making it a slow process at the moment.

Found them

2006-05-20T14:37:00.000+12:00

My glasses have turned up - phew. I was out getting in firewood for tonight (it is late Autumn down here don't forget) and there under some wood were my glasses, safe and sound. I am so relieved as I really didn't want to be buying them quite now.

I attribute my luck to a personal charm I created after reading about them in Keri Smith's Wish Jar Journal. I had a Japanese coin that we found under the seats in our car, I wished upon it and make it into a bracelet with some fabric. IT WORKED FOR ME!

Where are my glasses?

2006-05-19T08:34:00.000+12:00

I know I had them on yesterday but I had them on and off during the day as I was doing various tasks. I was sure I had them on when I went outside to do some photographs of some fenceposts that look interesting but the photos were not quite what I was wanting. I was sure that I had them on when I went out and got firewood as the sun was bright and my glasses are anti-glare. I know I didn't have them on when I went to check the crock pot for tea as they would have steamed up and I wouldn't have seen a thing. So WHERE ARE MY GLASSES?? I am usually very good and never, never misplace them but they are missing in action. I know I can cope without them - I just have to make sure I have sunglasses on hand for outdoors and I have my reading glasses and computer glasses for those more close up jobs. But WHERE ARE MY GLASSES?

Something old

2006-05-18T14:16:00.000+12:00

I did these pieces early in the year. They are small and I was just having a bit of a play. It was my way of trying to do something creative when I didn't know what else to do. I was actually in the middle of doing a lot of quilting and sewing but had the need to create something.

I love the simplicity of the palm tree - my first play with a fancy blade in my cutter too.

The lady was based on a picture I had seen and had admired. I would love to do a series of myself and my friends like this - of course there would be lots of artistic license to create the portraits (translated means that no one will actually be recognisable by the time I have finished with them).

Oh well, back to the housework I promised myself I would do today and then give myself a couple of days at the sewing machine.

Quiet Time

2006-05-16T18:23:00.000+12:00

Well the blog has been quiet but that is all. There has been a lot going on that hasn't been at all creative or that I want to write about or share.

I am keen to get back into some printing and also have an idea for a quilt that I want to make. It involves making a lot of blocks and then cutting them up and sewing back together, nothing I haven't done before. It is the sort of thing that once you start it is hard to stop as it is so much fun.

I have my trip to the USA coming up soon and I have been doing a lot of planning for that and looking up lots of sites on the Web. I am travelling by myself and leaving my husband at home (he had his big trip earlier). I usually read a lot of books at night and in the mornings. This time I am planning to do a lot of writing/journalling as it is very portable and hopefully will be lots of fun. I am not a fan of a lot of hand sewing but have considered doing some crochet and knitting as well but I am not very proficient.

In fact I want to start writing more in those quiet moments while I might be waiting or sitting relaxing. I can't say that what I write will be riveting reading but it will be soothing for me.

I did catch up with some friends recently in Christchurch and it was wonderful to see them again, it makes me appreciate how valuable good friends are.

So, my promise to myself is to do something creative this weekend apart from a quilt that I have to bind for a friend's birthday.

Printing Play

2006-04-22T17:58:00.000+12:00

I decided to have a bit of a play today - not the best of weather but not too cold for me to work outside. I had some Manutex to use up (and still have lots too). I used white fabric as my background to check how my prints were going. I did a couple of my linear woodcuts but found out the hard way that they absorb a lot of the dye and not much gets onto the fabric. This could still be good if I want to do a bit more of a softened effect rather than hard edge. The foam roller after it becomes quite saturated is difficult to work with and the hard rubber rollers don't take up the thickened dye. I have some small fluffy paint follers that are quite firm so they might work better next time. I just had a play with some stamps and the top of a stencil rather than waste the dye after doing some leaves.

I enjoy doing the stencils but by this time I was down to using a foam brush and I didn't find that as good. The flowers were on a foam roller that I inked up and ran the length of the fabric which gave me dark to light as it moved. The animal print stencils tend to start to smudge if I want to do an all over pattern and they are better as a tone on tone with the fabric. I like the leaf stencil and have used it before long long ago.

And then I went over to using some (very old) discharge paste. Sadly it didn't work well but look at what happened with a woodblock that I used. There must have been something dark on the wood that came out when I put the discharge paste on it and printed. The pattern is a little darker in reality and I was pleased when I was able to join it up ( it is a 1/4 block print). I like this as a background piece. Worth doing some more on my plainer dyed fabrics and see if they sell. If you peer closely at the bottom of the cloth you may make out some other patterning which was more discharge paste that didn't work - darn it. I will have to open a fresh bottle and try again.

It was frustrating when things weren't quite going right straight from the beginning. I might have another play in a day or so and improve upon my mistakes. I haven't been wanting to use fabric paints at this stage but rather just work with discharging and using thickened dyes.

Onwards and upwards - there is always more to learn.

Experimental Works

2006-04-20T11:58:00.000+12:00

I have been having a bit of a tidy in the quilt room and discovered these. There was a fun day at a not so local Embroidery Guild. It is amazing what can be done in an hour or so. There was lots of layering, sewing and burning going on. I did tend to be a bit enthusiastic with the heat gun and some of the pieces were a bit too firm to sew through afterwards (should I have wanted to do some embellishing or something). I am not sure where I would take any of this but it was certainly a lot of fun and something new.

Off Quilting

2006-04-13T20:27:00.000+12:00

No photos today. I have had a quiet week with nothing to show.

I am off on Good Friday down to Dunedin and Southern Quilts, Southern Women. It should be a lot of fun with four days of classes, shopping, lectures, exhibitions and smoozing. I am taking lots and lots of fabric half of which is my dyed fabrics - yum it was lots of fun to select the ones that I was going to take.

My purple hair has caused a lot of reaction at work and I hope to have as much fun with it in Dunedin too. I have had some people absolutely speechless and others who can barely keep their hands off it. It is fun, lots of fun.

I will be taking lots of photos so there will be something for everyone to look forward to when I get back and start to put them up next Wednesday (Tuesday for those of you in North America).

Have fun while I am away, I certainly will be having lots of fun and a little bit of mischief added in for good measure.

Yesterday's dyeing, today's ironing

2006-04-09T09:54:00.000+12:00

I had lots of fun yesterday and it was good to have it dry so quickly last night - how come the regular washing doesn't dry as quickly. I started to iron the fabric this morning - I like the old fashioned way that I grew up with and that is doing it on the table with a woollen blanket and an old sheet. Unfortunately I kept getting help as you can see - great warm spot to sit and still observe the birds outside. I haven't got all my fabric showing, just what has been ironed so far - it is a slow process for some reason.

These pieces below are one of my favourite techniques that I haven't done for a long time. The top two pictures are of small pieces about 12 x 8 that I sit on top of the trays of dyed fabric. They absorb some of the colours in a sort of marbled pattern. I did scrunch down on them at one stage so they are darker than usual but I do like the patterns created. The bottom two fabrics were scrunched in trays and colours slowly spread on with a spoon and left to run for a while before placing other colours on and again left to run. I did this about three times with a final pale colour poured over top to take the whiteness out of the light areas.

Just another picture of the fabric on the table by the iron showing a little of the textures. I love the serendipity of the colours and although I know what colours I used it is amazing how they change in relation to each other.

I'm inspired now to start printing onto my fabrics and doing some discharging. I have a large pile of plainer dyed fabrics that are crying out for some attention - onwards and upwards !

I have the tools

2006-04-08T17:30:00.000+12:00

I went out this morning and bought some woodcarving tools for doing my own blocks - now there should be no stopping me. Any little piece of MDF is now in danger of being carved into a stamp. I have some doodles that were inspired by a glass panel that I saw in a book on Gaudi. I am keen to make some of these up as I think they will look good on fabric.

And speaking of fabric I did some more dyeing today - I was inspired by someone elses blog to go back to a technique that I hadn't used for a while of carefully spooning colours on some scrunched up fabric and leaving them to bleed and blend before putting on the next layers of colours. It gives some wonderful textures. Pictures tomorrow as it is all on the line tonight and hopefully will be dry enough in the last sun of the day and a gentle breeze to carry it along. I love the textures and multi colours in fabrics but really must steel myself to do some plainer (but textured) pieces of fabric that are necessary to offset the splendour of the multi coloured pieces.

More Woodblocks

2006-04-07T13:13:00.000+12:00

Argh, this posted too quickly without any words so here goes at editing it - I had the same problem with my earlier post too.

These are my latest woodcuts - they are done using what is called the reduction technique. I started with the yellow block, printed it and then cut out some of the tree and printed it in orange, cut more again and printed in green. I think I like the yellow and orange tree best. This series also has a key block which shows in the red and green print, the key block being the green outline but I am not so fussed on using it over the other blocks, it looks rather good by itself as can be seen in the last photo of my wood blocks. The plain coloured blocks below were test prints each time I reduced the block for printing.

The tutor is slowly getting used to me not wanting to make pictures and really I want to make woodcuts specifically so that I can print onto fabric. I can't wait to do some of my own but need to buy some tools (shouldn't be too hard), get some small offcuts of wood (should be easy but as the husband is involved it will be near impossible) and find time !

The big weekend

2006-04-07T10:18:00.000+12:00

I am getting ready for the big weekend at Easter - Southern Quilts, Southern Women.

I thought I would dye my hair a nice blue - Brazen Blue in fact - it sounded nice on the packet anyhow, but I don't think it should have been quite this colour. For once the camera was very accurate with the colour - it looks perhaps Vicars Violet or perhaps Cardinals Crimson but definitely not Brazen Blue! Well this will knock a few socks off my friends.

Quiet Week

2006-04-03T06:41:00.000+12:00

It has been a quiet week, I have been feeling very tired and lacking in energy. I haven't been getting much time for myself to relax and unwind and I think it has all caught up with me. Anyhow nothing that a couple of small dyeing sessions can't fix. I dyed mainly in half and one metre pieces and tried a new technique of dyeing - some worked and some didn't quite work.

I always enjoy dyeing and the serendipity that it brings. There are some odd colour combinations, some unexpected surprises (well it is all unexpected really) and there were a couple of "why on earth did I do that!" pieces as well. There was nothing that cutting up into smaller pieces won't fix. And for once I ironed it straight away - usually it gets folded and put away with the ironing only being done when I want to use it which is what I always do anyhow, iron just before I use it that is.

I am feeling a bit more relaxed now and ready for the stresses of the coming week and coping with all that I have to fit into it.

Currently on the table

2006-03-25T14:40:00.000+12:00

I have pulled out my book by Jane Dunnewold - Improvisational Screen Printing - wonderful book and I really must do some printing. There are some great ideas there and lots of ideas that you can take further.

I recently bought a very inspiring book by Janet Edmonds - Three Dimensional Emboidery. Well it is more like 3D fibre and lots of other "stuff". I loved some of the ideas to play with. One in particular was a piece that looked like a huge cone shape stack of pancakes. Yum. There were also a lot of vessels made of coiled fabric in the style of coiled baskets only the idea was taken further with more stitches and texture. I have been wanting to make "nests" for a long time now and this book gives me lots of inspiration to add to some of the samples that I have done previously. (I hope I can find them).

Creative catch up

2006-03-24T08:47:00.000+12:00

I seem to have been full on since returning from my weekend at Wanaka. The bookmaking class was excellet with lots done. I have done a collage of work from my own books on the upper LH corner and the rest are other students (who were happy for me to take photos). It was great to get so much done in the two days but we had to work hard to achieve so much. I made two bound journals (red and blue), a photo album (purple), and an oriental book in a box (dyed indigo and print). I was pleased to be able to work with fabric for these and there was one lady in our class who had glued beads onto the front of her photo album and another who inset some embroidery so I know that I can take this idea further.

Back home and off to printmaking class - I can't remember what the tutor called this technique for the two prints but I think of them as one being a positive and one a negative block. The blue block is the "reduction" block. I can carve more design into it and print with another colour onto the blue print. I can do this as many times as I want with as many colours. When I have finished I then use the other block with a dark colour and print over everything to hide the white lines from the first print and it will also give more definition to the final print. This is as far as I got and I hope to do more next week perhaps (we might be doing screen printing next week though).

I am really enjoying the woodcarved blocks - I think I have already said that I am doing this class to see what I can get from it to be able to make my own blocks to use for printing on fabric.
The tutor knows my intentions and has been very encouraging and I am starting to feel more comfortable with doing the carving. I can see that my blocks are going to have a very basic folk art (or is it "my six year old could do that") style.

Just to finish off here is a view from my motel at Wanaka - it doesn't really show the true glory of the mountains as it was still quite dark when I took the photo and I had to do a few adjustments to it. When I try to describe the mountains I think in details of fabric and embroidery stitches for textures. Truly glorious.

I'm feeling lucky

2006-03-17T09:18:00.000+13:00

I had a couple of hours to kill before I would be picked up for my weekend away so thought to myself - what can I do in this time other than housework?

I printed my woodcut onto a wonderful tan shaded piece of fabric - very ethnic as I am wont to say. I used a foam roller and as you can see I didn't cover the block as well as I had thought. (BTW it is about 9 x 9) When I was playing with cropping and colour on the PC I chose "I'm feeling lucky" and it looks good too. I think I will use it as the theme for my weekend.

I think I will look into raiding the offcut bin at school for some smaller pieces of MDF and some of the more odd shaped offcuts. This could be lots of fun.

This week's print

2006-03-16T14:23:00.000+13:00

Darn it, I lost my original post. I never have quite the same inspiration for words the second time around.

This week the tutor thought that my print was very Aboriginal and said that he thought it should come up well on fabric. I hope so because I made a complete dogs breakfast of my prints on paper - the colours tended to be too similar and didn't show the design well. I have done more carving on the woodcut since and taken out a lot more of the background. One day soon I shall print them all onto fabric. I haven't been enjoying the white paper that we have been printing on in that I don't like the white lines and would prefer to have coloured backgrounds.
Anyhow it will all have to wait a bit longer, I am away for the weekend.

I'm off to Wanaka for the weekend. The Otago Embroiderers Guild use the high school there and have a weekend of classes with a little shopping added on. I am doing the book binding class which I think will be fun - I am not really much of an embroiderer anyhow. I haven't really organised myself well for the class. I should have most of the things on the needs list somewhere around the house so I have started to gather them up. I have started to organise some clothes too and if I pretend to do some housework in the middle of it all then I will have accomplished something for the afternoon.

I will try to remember to take my camera and take pictures - some of the classes are quite interesting and very creative and can be easily interpreted in all sorts of fibres. I think there is even a class in paper making too. Fun, Fun, Fun.

An old project

2006-03-12T14:19:00.000+13:00

This poor thing has been hanging in the wardrobe for a very very long time waiting for me to get back to it. I was wanting to do something wonderfully inspired with embellishments on it but the hand quilting in the centre panel is all that I have managed so far. The centre is a hand painted panel that I bought many years ago and as you see inspired the colours that I have used. I have lots of wonderful threads that I have bought over the years and some wonderful pieces of shell but I can never decide what to do - almost as if I don't want to be in danger of doing too much. One day............

What I am planning to read

2006-03-09T17:18:00.000+13:00

Of course top of the list is my Quilting Arts Magazine that arrived yesterday - wonderful thing overseas post as I am sure that with having a subscription it came extra early. There were some interesting articles and pictures that will demand lots of attention. I find that even the advertisements are worth reading and checking out too. I am planning to go over to the USA and Canada later this year and there might be some places that I can check out when I am over there after all I am not going all that way without doing some serious shopping.

I got a couple of books from the library on symbolism in art which I think will be an interesting read - I had read small pieces before about the symbolism in pictures and what it all means but I wanted to delve more into this and see what there is to bring to quilts.

My other book to devour is one on Hundertwasser. His pictures are so colourful and inspiring. I am amazed too by his architecture and design. He lived (and died) in New Zealand and his legacy to New Zealand I suppose you could say were that he designed some public toilets - apparently they are quite a sight! Anyhow I think this will be an interesting book.

Printmaking class

2006-03-09T17:07:00.000+13:00

The top print is dry point which was very messy but fun. It started off a bit of a mess but when printed came out okay. It was supposed to have a Pacific feel to it. Not a method that I will do much more of but was worth learning.

The bottom green and yellow print was another woodcut which I enjoyed. I want to learn more and be able to carve my own prints and stamps for printing onto fabric of course. These are all done by the "reduction" method (sounds smart doesn't it) . Again this was supposed to have a more Pacific flavour but I decided in the end that it felt more Scandanavian - big turnaround. I would liked to have done it in red and black but had to work with the colours that we had in class. Can't wait until the next class to do some more.

On the line

2006-03-05T09:37:00.000+13:00

There is nothing more enjoyable for me when I have been dyeing than to hang it all out to dry after washing out - I pet it all out and then stand back to admire and look at all the nuances of colour and texture in the pieces.

This was a piece that roughly pleated on plastic and then sponged colour on - I like the texture but I think I want to play with application of colour a little more. Down in the bottom left corner there was some blue that had run from another piece on the same plastic and I like how it stayed separate and didn't really blend too much with the other colour being sponged on top.

These both had the sponges placed amongst the scrunched fabric and then wrung out so that the dye transferred - very interesting and lots of fun. Love the seredipity of it all.

Love the earthy colours of the piece on the left but for the life of me I can't remember what I did, it looks better closeer up.

Would you believe blue, apricot and pink were poured on separate areas of these two fabrics scrunched together in a large bowl and then each colour mixed (separately) with brown rose poured over top. I find it hard to believe but that is what happened and this is what I got.

After all this I am still enthused to dye more - perhaps that is why I have ordered more fabric. But then I never can decide what to make with the fabric after that

Back again

2006-03-04T12:55:00.000+13:00

Oops, I am a bit back to front here - I lost these photos that were supposed to be at the bottom of my previous blot - oh well never mind.

I had a bit of fun with sponging dye onto some roughly pleated/folded fabric

I played with the sponges again and sponted onto the rumpled fabric on the two left trays and wrung the sponges out in the fabric in the two right trays. I suspect all these experiments will come out quite light but I loved the dark earthiness of the colours in the trays

And we can't forget a photo of my security guard. He turned up a bit late and was flustered until things settled down. He is always very alert and takes his role seriously. My Husband was in the shearing shed (hidden by the shrub) and was being a bit noisy which gained a growl or two. Tabby (very original name here) also sits on guard at night when I am in the spa. He takes his duties very seriously.

So now all I have to do is wait a couple of hours and start to wash out the fabrics. That is about as long I can manage to wait. I usually time it so that I have lunch during this waiting time. So then, more piccies later when I have it all washed and on the line.

The sun was warmish so ...........

2006-03-04T12:47:00.000+13:00

The day was cool but the sun was warmish so what else was a girl to do. Now this is not what my hand is supposed to look like - but I always get too excited when playing with my dyes and burst out of my gloves. Can't complain about the gloves, excess supply of surgical gloves that I was given from work

Now here is my dye studio - on the left the dyed fabrics, then we have my dry bench for fabric and my notebook and the small bench (ha, ha) has all my dyes. The water supply is underneath the small bench as you can see.

This picture of the small bench also shows my small dye mixing table - it usually has a nice table cloth on it to catch all those drips.

Oops, where did all my other piccies go - better send out the search party - there are more to come.

Serendipity

2006-03-03T08:56:00.000+13:00

I was auditioning fabrics and found these. When I am dyeing I always keep a few small pieces of fabric on hand, usually f1/8. When I have finished dyeing a piece of fabric in a tray I will layer one of these small pieces of fabric over the top lightly and where they touch the surface they pick up colour. It was originally to stop the tops drying out too much in the sun (in times past when we had super hot days).

I like the marbly type of effect they give. The pink and green have both been used more than once and I may use them again to give some more multi coloured effects though they can also come up very good on multi dyed fabrics as well. Of course now that I have the pieces of fabric I am not sure what will happen to them next but they are nice to have in the stash and admire every so often. I always enjoy the serendipity of doing something like this - never knowing what to expect because it is never the same each time.

Now that Autumn has come with a crash I must order some more fabric to dye on the few warm days that we will have before winter. The cold days of winter will become my days to do printing and play with the wood cuts that I am hoping to make in class over the next couple of months.

Playing around

2006-02-26T16:57:00.000+13:00

I'm not having much luck with my last posts that disappeared on a little adventure of their own. Perhaps they might turn up somewhere, perhaps not.

Now I have my photos a little out of order here so let's just admire the fabric first and then down to the sketch.

I was trying to do some sketches of the fern style wrought iron that I had seen earlier and it started to look like a feather quilting pattern. I becane distracted by doing some oval/circle designs instead. Now I liked the one on the left and decided to see how that would go. Now this is a teeny tiny scrap of paper that I started with and it changed slightly in trying to draw it to a larger scale. BTW the purple background that I photographed this on is for you Shirley.

Okay, I know it seems a bit bright but this is what I have come up with so far. It is A4 size which is still small but will have to do for now. I started to think rocks in water as I was auditioning for a background fabric and I did like the contrast only it will change over time with a little bit of this and a little bit of that plus some quilting.

Doing some sketching

2006-02-25T17:16:00.000+13:00

I was still annoyed with myself this morning about not taking my camera with me when I went walk about in Christchurch that I got up at 5:30am and did a small sketch trying to re-create what I had seen but of course my memory is not very accurate. I think I will do a small series to sketches and play with the basic idea of the stylised fern leaf fitted into different shapes, e.g. square, rectangle, various triangles, hexagones etc. I did have one or two ideas as to how to approach it as I tossed and turned before getting up to do my sketching and I want to plan to do something in a modest scale, say about A3 to start with. It could be the sort of thing that turns into a series. Once I get organised I will take some photos of my progress and post them.

Having a camera helps

2006-02-24T20:40:00.000+13:00

I had to drive up to Christchurch today - it is a long boring three hour drive and then to turn around and come home again after a couple of hours is even more tiring. But to try and make the most of my trip I took my camera with me to try and take photos in the brief stops that I made. And what happened when I saw some wonderful wrought iron - yep I didn't have my camera with me. I was so annoyed. I was too far away to go back and get the camera and never thought to take a sketch either. The wrought iron was in a fern shape and was used in alternating mirror images at the edge of a paved area to keep people from walking straight out into traffic. I was very drawn by the stylised image and the repetition of it.

I want to take my camera out more - I think that taking photos just as much as sketches will keep me focused more on being creative. I will look at doing some sketches later and see how I can expand upon them.

Fun, fun, fun

2006-02-21T21:32:00.000+13:00

I decided to do a night class on print making. Over eight weeks we will learn different techniques of printing. Tonight we did wood cuts as you can see above and I also did some dry point which I will finish next week. There is a bit of glare on my picture and thankfully you can't see where Tabby (the cat) stepped onto the picture trying to gain my attention. I am sure that cat is a few sandwiches short of a picnic. Anyhow this was fun especially with printing in two colours. It is supposed to be sort of leafy.

I think for me to better use this techniqe for fabric printing I might do some smaller wood cuts. This one is about eight inches square.

Lots of fun and I managed to come home without too much paint on myself.

Trying to take photos

2006-02-16T13:52:00.000+13:00

I have always liked this group of sheds - something about the different roof lines. There are lots of interesting angles around allthe farm sheds (on my small farm) and now that I have a camera to take all these wonderful photos with off I went on a photographic expedition.

My apprentice was not having too much attention taken from him and so I had to take his photo too - he was very obliging and sat on a fence post squinting into the sun. So here is Michael one of the loves of my life. He is actually a Cream Burmese that we rescued (another long story) but for now I think he is being the Farm Manager/Security Guard/Photographers apprentice. I think he imagined he was guarding me from the sheep who are avoiding having their photos taken. Yes, I have sheep too - more than enough to make a few sweaters.

Better luck next time but with three cats, friendly sheep and nosy cattle I don't have a lot of luck with being alone to take photos. The joy of the digital camera is that I can take lots and lots of photos and only keep the good ones - yippee. I must remember though to take prints too.

Having fun

2006-02-16T09:26:00.000+13:00

Having a bit of a play here - my first photo that I had put up myself - a real learning curve but I a getting there.

I had this icky notebook pictured above and I decided to have a small creative moment and made a cover for it, also pictured above. I made the cover that it will come on and off the notebook. I used one of my overdyed gosh cloths as the base and sewed strips of other dyed fabrics on. I used my wavy cutter blade for the first time and sewed the strips on so that over time and wear they will fray slightly to give it an aged worn look.

Taking photos

2006-02-14T06:54:00.000+13:00

Well I have the camera, it is fully charged and ready to go. The fact that I don't know how to use it does make it difficult. And of course I don't know how to put photos on my blog. So thankfully I am off to see Shirley (she of the red leg) tonight and will con her into showing me how to do it and also how to add links - I did try and all I managed was to delete the samples that were there instead. Why suffer all the problems of trying to do these things when I can make use of someone who has already gone through that process and knows what to do.

I will be able to go photo mad and why not, what else are cameras and blogs for!

Dyeing to have fun

2006-02-12T18:56:00.000+13:00

I just bought two new colours, rust orange and burgundy so of course had to had a play with them. I particularly wanted to do some overdyeing as well so did some icky pieces with a navy overdye and then some others with what I had hoped was a dark red but was too fuchsia-ish.

I used some dry fabric that had already been soaked in soda ash and spooned the colours on to cover as much as possible. I used variations of the two browns, a medium blue and some apricot. A greenish colour that I created seems to have disappeared on the fabric but there are patches of blue amongst the terracotta and burnt orange tones. There is a small pinkish tinge from the apricot. I am quite happy with how things turned out.

A little something

2006-02-10T20:17:00.000+13:00

Well it was small and not quite a quilt or wall hanging - a notebook cover in fact but it was at least creative. I quilted a piece of a dye wipe up cloth in a random pattern, added small strips of dyed fabrics cut with my wavy cutter (I needed an excuse to use the blade) and top stitched around the edges in a nice thick threat which gave it a very rustic look. I am quite pleased with the effect and have left it so that I can slip if off the notebook. I am hoping that over time the strips of fabric will fray and give a more worn look.

All in all I was pleased with what I had accomplished, so much so that I have some more notebooks that I think I will do and keep them for presents.

A bend in the road

2006-02-04T11:35:00.000+13:00

I have wanted for a long time to do more art quilts but never know where to start. I have lots of inspiration but never know what to do with it. In the meantime I get off onto making some quilt blocks and soon become totally distracted with something more traditional. At the moment I have about 15 plus quilts sitting around at various stages of completion from needing borders, needing sandwiched and of course needing quilted.

I did have a bit of a think about it all over at 43 things and I will send all the sets of blocks (except for some more "personal" ones away to a quilt orphanage and let someone else have the pleasure of putting them together and sending them away to orphans in Indonesia. That will then clear the deck for me once all the other tops are slowly finished.

This will leave me to dye more fabric (as if I don't have enough), print and otherwise embellish the fabric and then do something with it. I do have a couple of ideas that I will play with, perhaps in smaller sizes first.

And of course I can keep my stash and traditional blocks to my Friday club nights when I can do lots of piecing which I do find peaceful and relaxing just to sit and sew. These can be the bed quilts that I can make for myself and friends. Afterall there are all those cat fabrics, the horse fabrics, the orientals, the greys (what did I have in mind there), all the wonderful batiks and all the other small collections of fabrics.

All that being said I should plan to go and organise the orphanage parcel - it is a very cleansing feeling to pack up blocks that you have had sitting for a long time and feel guilty about not using. And of course an orphan somewhere gets a lovely quilt.

Being Brave

2006-02-03T13:00:00.000+13:00

I am a step closer to opening up my blog. I am considering joining a web ring which will open me up to visitors (which it is all about). I feel a bit of an intruder going to so many blogs and not always leaving a message but I do try to in a regular basis just to give some feed back to the blog owners, I mean they are baring their souls to a lot of unknown people. And of course I then wondered where on earth I came up with the name of my blog or my ID - I suppose in an effort to be totally anonymous but that will have to change. At the moment this is still my small collection of thoughts - I enjoy the release that it gives me to put them into words.

Friday Quilt Night and stuff

2006-01-28T21:35:00.000+13:00

I enjoy the monthly quilting nights that our group has down at a local school. The lighting is good, the room is well set up and equipped and most of all the company is great.

I took a small wallhanging with me to quilt but forgot to take the thread holder with me - well that is my excuse, it doesn't help that I couldn't decide what colour thread to use - or should I use different colours. I did a Ricky Timms Convergence with fruit fabrics, red, orange, lemon and green. I thought of doing nice swirly lines to break up the criss cross of the pattern. Anyhow that wasn't done and I did a small bag instead with some of my Japanese fabrics. I hadn't really thought out what I was doing much and should have selected a plain fabric to bring with me for lining. And then I really should have used some pellon to give it a bit more body but I was being a tad lazy which really didn't serve me well in the end. There wasn't quite enough fabric of the ones I selected to cut out in a single piece and so had to do some piecing which in the end you don't notice. It turned out well after all the mistakes and reverse stitching that was made. After discovering the blot Tote-along I am keen to make myself some more bags and try to have a variety of styles as well as colours - it is fun to have a different bag for every occasion and event.

I saw a quilt pattern that I liked in a Keepsake Quilting catalogue - actually it was a cushion pattern that I liked. Of course it met my favourite criteria - super simple. It was made in batiks in the picture and that would be a good option or in dyed fabrics. The decision would be whether to have the same fabric for sashing throughout or different fabrics for the sashing - it would work with different fabrics. And then of course I could use my commercial fabrics for it instead - they really do need to be used. That is where I really need to find some good patterns - I enjoy scrap quilts.

On the inspiration front I joined a new group called Abstract-Challenge and they have a monthly challenge on a pre determined subject - it is to be an 8 x 8 quilt and the subject is to be interpreted in abstract. They encourage lots of talking about inspiration, design, colours and then of course to submit a photo for everyone to see. I am hoping that this will help me get away from all the traditional patterns (not that there is anything wrong with them) but I want to do more art quilts.

43 Things

2006-01-22T21:41:00.000+13:00

I have just been over at 43 things trying to keep up to date and make some entries - more like plans about how I am going to achieve them or my progress on tackling them. I think I will need to make some paper lists to help me with them but I find such things so personal that writing them where someone (that I know) might read them is hard. I find it difficult to share my feelings and emotions. Writing lists does help me keep my mind clear about what I am doing but those generally are different types of lists. My 43 things list is almost like a list of quasi resolutions and I suppose that I don't want the feeling of failure when things go wrong and I don't achieve what I would like to. I know that nothing can change dramatically overnight (or can they). I think I procrastinate too much to voluntarily make major changes and even knowing this doesn't help me. It is not too late to change but perhaps if I make small changes every day, a little goes a long way and a little every day soon adds up. Now I need to make a list of those small changes that I can make every day to remind myself that things can be better organised and I can achieve more.

Where did it go?

2006-01-22T12:42:00.000+13:00

I know I had a wonderful inspiration for a new project.

I went through all my dyed fabrics yesterday and sort of sorted them into groups of colour and multicoloured to see if anything called to me - it didn't but last night when I was asleep...............

I am sure that it was a wonderful idea - darn I should have woken up and dived down to the lounge to draw on some paper - none of this notebook by the bedside for me - for a start there isn't a lamp there and I don't think the rest of the family would appreciate a light going on and disturbing their sleep (husband and three cats that is). I am sure there were circles somewhere - it is Shirley's fault that I am thinking in circles. But what was I doing with the circles.?

Oh well then it might come back to me later - want to do some overdyeing and dye printing next week and that might bring on some inspiration.

It is difficult dyeing multicoloured fabrics - not so much the act of dyeing but I look at the fabrics and don't want to cut them up and I am seriously not up to par doing a whole cloth quilt or anything remotely arty with my quilting, just meanderings of a giddy spider.

I bought an art magazine recently that was wonderful to look at - quite different to looking at quilt magazines yet so many of the art works could translate very easily into fabric - there were one or two that I rather liked the look of and thought were quite inspiring. Let's see where that might take me then.

Indecision

2006-01-21T09:24:00.000+13:00

I want to be getting on and starting a new project, I know there are a lot that need to be finished but I want the excitement of starting something new. But what? I look at all my fabrics - I love them dearly but nothing calls to me. I wonder should I do some printing - I want to do some printing but again no strong direction comes to me. Should I do some silk paper - well yes that would be fun but to what end am I making the paper? If I have no goal, no inspiration then there is no creative spirit coming forward.

I do want to do some overdyeing on some pieces and have bought some more navy dye to add to my stash - I want to do some deep dark blues, reds and purples for the overdyes, then do some discharging and then some overdyeing again in pale washes. Hmmm, I might just get the fabric out, plan the ones to be used for overdyeing and decide on the colours for them. That will be a project for another weekend I think when I can dedicate some time.

I did notice on a couple of blogs that some dyers who put their dye on with a brush then let the fabric dry (flat). I am not sure of the benefits of that but it could be an interesting way of putting the dark overdye colours on which could be quite rough with the brushing and leaving streaks of light colours as well as a small amount of scrunching to cause some texture as well.

But I still need to get on and find some inspiration to start a new project.

Time Flies

2006-01-11T22:08:00.000+13:00

It is hard to believe that it is nearly 9 weeks since Ken left for his trip. I was thinking that I had not done much in the way of quilting compared to what I was hoping to do but when I wrote down all the things that I had done it was a big list. My last job are two 9 patches for a swap and finish sewing the binding down on Tony's quilt so that I can take it to Christchurch with me. And of course I have four tops that have been sandwiched and are just waiting for me to find time to start quilting them.

Ken will be coming back to lots, broadband (without the dramas), the water tank saga (I think the tank needs a good clean out), the broken tree limb (or what is left of it) and whatever else can be found.

I am trying to find my next big sewing project and so far nothing has called to me particularly strongly. I really need to get in and start to use more of my stash. Now that I have decided that it is okay to send quilts away to be quilted I can sew larger tops quite happily. Mind you I will hold the three back that I want to send away until after I come back from the US - I want to save my money for the trip first. Of course if I want to commit fabric to larger quilt tops then I want to be more sure of what I am doing with an even larger amount of fabric at stake. I know that my love of the scrap quilts will dominate my decisions.

There are the fabric collections to take into account as well - the cats, horses, ethnic, japanese, greys, bali batiks, and some other smaller sets of co-ordinating fabrics. I need to start thinking about some of these and how to use them.

Let's not get sidetracked

2005-12-30T10:50:00.000+13:00

I find it so hard to stay on track with what I am doing. Whenever I am doing something I want to have it completed now and become impatient and start to lose interest. One project can often inspire you for something else that you just have to start straight away and before you know it you are drowning in many many works in progress and no inspiration to finish them.

I am trying to work on getting some of my recycled clothing down - I want to make a large quilt with some of the shirts (cut intou four inch squares). And of course while doing this I hit on an idea to use the pockets (large squares containing the pockets cut about 6 inches) on a wall hanging and use the pockets to put small treasures into etc.

I am trying not to get too side tracked onto new projects and stick to what I am trying to achieve and that is to get the list of unfinished projects down by actually finishing a few things. Some of course require more work than others and if I didn't procrastinate and got down to it then a few more would be finished or closer to being finished. At the end of the day all I want to do is start a new prject - it is the sewing that I enjoy - it is soothing and relaxing. And of course I keep getting new ideas.

At Christmas I have started to try and work on a small project (8 x 8) easy to start and easy to finish - sort of. It is a bit of a play with what we did in the Dottie Moore class. The project is not so much important in itself but the creativity that it brings to me. To come up with a small sketch or drawing and then to execute that in fabric. I started my first one as a sketch of a woman in a flowing garment - Because of the small jumble of fabrics for her garment I didn't want to use any fusible web and used my glue stick instead. I am pleased with what I accomplished - there were one or two compromises made but I am happy with them. I now have to decide what to do about quilting it or attaching it to the backing rather than just the glue. Could I peel it off the backing and perhaps put it onto some fusible web and then iron it back - it would put off having to decide about stitching.

My second effort was a palm free. I had seen the idea a couple of years ago and was very taken with it. So pencil in hand I drew a sectioned palm tree on a scrap of paper. It was a bit untidy but a good start so I fished out some webbing and my scrap dyed fabrics and set to work. The background is very dark so I needed bright colours for the tree, an orange/red trunk and light bright green fronds. The fiddly part is cutting all the shapes out and laying it out. At the end of it I was very impressed with what I had done.

This is something I should try to do more often - I will try to do the drawings myself even if I have a picture in front of me that I want to try to emulate - I rather like a folk art theme. Something creative every so often like this would keep me going and sooner or later will lead to something bigger. I don't think I will keep them for a larger project but let each one stand by itself. I might find one that I particularly like and want to do a series on a theme or use them as a gift for someone.

The ultimate goal is to keep the creative energy going and challenge myself to get other larger projects nearer completion so that I can get onto my next small picture.

The small inspirational project needs a name - you know - "I must do XYZ before I can get onto my next ??? (small inspirational project). Something fun and catchy. Something for me to think about while I procrastinate. As usual the name will come to me at an odd moment.

Possum Dancing

2005-12-26T22:49:00.000+13:00

Darn that jolly possum. He hops up on the roof and clambers about making a racket - running this way and that - like little possum races around the roof. And then down he comes and into the garden, he particularly loves the Rheus tree but it is too brittle for his weight at the tips and they keep breaking under his weight. I keep hoping that one day he will break his neck. I can't think of any ways of getting rid of him that is safe and doesn't endanger the cats. They are particularly thoughtful of me when we hear the possum on the roof, they all snuggle closely to me to reassure me that they are there keeping me safe. And they are very brave and come outside with me sometimes when we hear the possum and stay very close around my legs to the point where they almost have a peace pact, all to ensure my safety.

The rain over the last fortnight has kept the possum away a lot of nights but I am sure he makes up for lost time racing around the roof on the nights when it is not raining or is a little drier. I don't know what it is about the roof that he does this or is he after the birds and their chicks that nest under the roof that he is trying to get to. Whatever it is I wish it would stop and leave me in peace.

Company at Christmas

2005-12-26T22:34:00.000+13:00

What is it about people that they cannot conceive that there are some people who want to be by themselves, even at Christmas. I got to the stage I had to tell lies about what I would be doing on Christmas Day just to have peace. I was happy to be by myself afterall it is just another day. Admittedly I did decide to clean off the kitchen table and put all my quilting things away - Christine was coming on Boxing Day - and I wanted things to be tidy for the two days. And of course my Christmas treat was a box of Cherry liquor chocolates - yum, although I didn't actually eat many. And utter decadence, I made a chocolate cate - nothing fancy just a plain microwave cake that wasn't quite as good as an oven cooked one but it was good. '

Christmas Eve was a wonderful hot day and so what did Christmas Day do - it was wet and cold and then of course come Boxing Day it was wonderful and not again - grrrr.

The water is still not right - still that smell of sulphur. Oh, that is right I forgot to mention that the neighbour forgot to shut an irrigation gate one night and flooded our property - really flooded the place well - the poor cats were trapped in the house as it was totally surrounded by water. Thankfully it wasn't too too high but darn well high enough. And I think that some of the water may have seeped into the tank. Although I don't like to think of that because it has never happened before - I mean why doesn't it seep in when it rains or is there not enough to cause a problem them but with the flooding and all the shit and much that is carried in the water there was. I keep trying to think that it is the Council that is at fault but then surely someone else would have complained about it surely? I keep hoping that eventually I will get ahead of whatever is infecting the water and eventually dilute it out - dreams are free.

Christine's quilt just needs the binding now to finish off and of course a label. She has decided that she would like to hang it on the wall at first so I will put a hanging sleeve on it for her. So to give her a bed quilt I have given her my dyed fabric quilt - the one that I hand quilted all my old microwave dyed fabrics - it is a wonderful and colourful quilt with a very simple four patch and half square triangle blocks.

It was wonderful to catch up with Christine and to spend a couple of hours with her. Ritchie is wonderful too - he is so easy to talk to and comfortable to be with.

And now back to life as we know it . Must set up the sewing machine and start to do some more work on my WIPs and UFOs. The garden needs some work (clearing weeds) and I must do some more housework - dusting would be a start.

And thankfully people left me alone at Christmas - I was worried that I would have lots of people checking up on me but in the end they left me alone which is what I had wanted all along. Phew!

Approaching Christmas at speed

2005-12-12T21:55:00.000+13:00

It is that time of the year once again when we are bombarded with advertising for all the sorts of expensive gifts we should be buying and all the cheap knick knacks in the shops that only come out for Christmas. All the food and the decorations, all the wine, and even more food. And then there are all the Christmas parties that everyone seems to feel are necessary.

Why do we need all this - why can't it be simple and relaxing shared with friends and family without all the stress that we put upon ourselves. It becomes so expensive buying not so wonderful presents for people you don't really like and don't see all that often anyhow.

Why do we do it? Is it because that somehow we are not seen as fitting in with everyone else, that we dare not step off the line and a touch of oneupmanship creeps in - we have an image to maintain. What happened to the simple handmade gifts and homemade food?

I would rather a nice picnic with friends somewhere relaxing and enjoy their company without the stress of buying presents and far too much food. Yes, I would like it simple and easy.

Managing by myself

2005-12-10T22:40:00.000+13:00

Well it is a month now that I have been by myself and I have been fine - I think the only time that I really needed someone else around was when establishing a broadband connection was being difficult, now it is just expensive.

I haven't done as much as I would have liked but I have tried to be steady with my quilting and keep doing something each week. I have a lot of Christine's quilt quilted, Tony's quilt just needs binding which I don't think will be an easy job, I have nearly finished sewing the binding down on the second wall hanging and now that I have found the Japanese Black fabric I can do the binding on the third.

I have started on the Club Quilt Challenge and have most of the top made - very imaginative with four inch square sewing together 10 x 8 squares. I am not sure about a border or not and I will tie it with buttons I think and add a couple of shirt labels.

I was questioning myself recently, do I really need to keep all the furnishing fabrics. I mean what am I really going to do with them. The same goes for a lot of the fabrics that I have got from the Op Shop - what am I going to do with them. Oh yes, it would be nice to do some art quilts/wall hangings but will I really get there ??? But then what will I do with all those fabrics, I don't want to just give them to Tracey - I don't think she deserves them. The furnishing fabrics are easy, I can give them to the Tuesday group for charity quilts.

I really should look at a lot of the other things that I have lying around as well. All that beautiful silk needs to be made up into whatever it was that I planned to make with it. All the wool that I bought for needle felting - well perhaps Shirley might like to have it. I really didn't get into the trading cards much as I wanted to and still might do something provided it is fabric which means there is a lot of "stuff" that can go out and I can give away some of it to people who do scrap booking.

If I have a good "dung out" I can concentrate on quilts and not be side tracked as I so often easily am. It will give me more space and room in my quilt room.

With all the rain we have been having I haven't got into the garden as much as I wanted to - there are a small number of jobs that I wanted to do and some plants that need to be put out. The poor lawn needs mowing too - I don't know when Derek is going to come again but I may have to do it myself when the weather dries out a bit.

Time Management

2005-11-14T22:17:00.000+13:00

I have two months of just me and the cats so I want to manage my time a bit better. It is amazing how much more time I seem to have when I am by myself. I think when others are around me I slow down to their pace and don't do as much.

I have sort of made a plan of some of the things that I want to do and if I break it down into weeks and so much every when then I should achieve something if I can stick to the goals. As long as I make them manageable goals and can maintain the momentum.

There is so much that I want to do. Of course there is the quilting - I have a lot I want to achieve. I have three wallhangings that I want to get the binding done one, I want to try and get as much of Christine's quilt done as I can if not finished. I also want to finish Tony's quilt and the puff quilt that needs to be tied. After that everything is a bonus I suppose. There are a number of quilts that just need borders to finish them and I don't want to have just plain borders on all of them either. And if I get the borders all done then it is down to making backings for them all and starting to sandwich and quilt some of them. I really don't want to start any major projects in the meantime but that is easier said than done.

I have my swap parcel to put together and that needs something hand made to go in it so I must remember that too.

Back to my plans. I want to go through the house room by room and do a minor spring clean in all of them. And then there is the garden - I want to tame more of the jungle out the back and tidy up the small area by the computer room and plant the shade loving plants that are sitting on the deck in the full sun.

Not a lot eh?

In a Garden

2005-10-30T18:58:00.000+13:00

I had a wonderful gardening weekend - in other people's gardens. The NZ Trillium Group had their annual get together this weekend and there were some wonderful gardens to visit. It was pouring rain but that didn't stop a good turn out but it did stop me after I got soaking wet despite a good jacket and umbrella. It is totally inspiring the wonderful large country gardens that some people have that cover more than a few acres, especially when they do all the work themselves! It inspires me to get into my garden more and try to tame the jungle and reclaim some of the garden beds from the weeds. I don't want to take on too much that will draw me away from my quilting but I really should spend some time each week in the garden. I think the first tasks will be to do lots of spraying with Round-up to kill off the weeds and then to put down lots of compost and mulch. After that it is to carefully maintain each area as I bring it back into some semblance of order.

I also bought some small treasures for the garden but it isn't worth getting too carried away and buying too many at once. For me often the best way to keep track of myself and what I am doing is to have a gardening type diary and write all my plans in that.

Ken will be away soon and I have my plans for when he is away - time will need to be found for gardening in all my plans - there seems to be so much that I want to do during this time - two months will go along very fast.

Creative Urge

2005-10-22T19:31:00.000+13:00

My creative urge seems to be waning at the moment. I am keen to start something new but just cannot find something that calls to me. There are lots of ideas that I am keen on but again nothing stands out. I really must get into my stash and start to use it more but when I decide go look through for a set of colours there doesn't seem to be much selection - if I want a dark blue they all seem to be medium or pale or too patterned or not quite the right colour or shade. I have been dyeing lots of fabric lately so the creative urge hasn't quite left me but when it comes to making a decision to overdye some fabric or do some printing then I seem to not quite find the time or the weather is wrong or some other reason. I am the same with housework at the moment too - mind you I am always like that with the house work.

When Ken is away for his two months sabbatical then I really must get stuck in to all the things that are sitting waiting for me. There is so much to be finished off with my patchwork and I really must put Christine's quilt together and start to quilt it for her. I thought I might set up the sewing machine on the dining table which will give me lots of extra light during the day and at night I can have the TV on for company. I really should dive into 43 things and add my plans to that - I really don't go there much but it is a good place to put those sorts of private lists. Ahh those secretive little lists that I have on bits of paper in my pockets and in notebooks. I keep meaning to have a book of lists and one day I will have one - it can be an art book too with doodles in it and some pictures just to give interest in it. Another of my wonderful ideas that really doesn't seem to go far I suppose.

What's happening

2005-10-11T18:56:00.000+13:00

After a big busy weekend retreat I am going to have a lot of quilt tops sitting waiting to be quilted - ten in fact. I think I might send a couple of them away to be professionally done just to get the numbers down (and they will be my largest quilt tops too). There are five quilts that just need borders and three to be bound. I am on the lookout for something new to get on and start sewing.

Small change of plans

2005-10-11T18:52:00.000+13:00

My timing has had to be changed and I now go over to the US in July. Hopefully I can get to the Sisters Outdoor Quilt Show. It would be good too to catch up with other quilters over there - I always enjoy seeing what other people are doing.

Time Flies

2005-10-07T22:07:00.000+13:00

My goodness it is so long since I have written anything. Have things been bland and boring - not really, but I suppose there just hasn't been anything that seemed exciting enough to inspire me to write. And of course now there is.

I have finally decided when I want to travel to the US next year. I saw a quilter on TV who takes week long residental workshops in her home - it look good and sounded great so I contacted her and it all has gone from there. I am now hoping to spend a week with Judith Trager at her home in Boulder, Colorado. And finally I will go at the end of April and hopefully catch the AQS show in Paducah Kentucky and end up home again mid June. It feels good to have started to make some definite decisions re my travel.

It is not long until Ken is away on his own trip too - only about 5 weeks which is not long at all. I have big plans for myself when he is away. I want to do a spring clean on the house and set up my sewing machine in the dining area and quilt there during the time he is away. I will have to get Christine's quilt done then as it is the only bit opportunity of time that I will have. I really need to get on and quilt a couple of my other larger quilts as well.

Lots to do, lots to plan - lots of my beloved lists to write!

Spring

2005-08-20T06:07:00.000+12:00

Spring seems to be early this year or is it just that Winter has never really happened. We haven't had much rain which the paddocks really need though I don't miss all the mud and puddles.

The garden is leaping ahead and I really need to get into it and rediscover more of the jungle out there - I am finding that a little bit every day helps - I don't feel overwhelmed when I am only intending to just a little bit and it is always good to see how much of a difference even that little bit makes.

The early bulbs are up and flowering and it seems that every day there is something new to see in the garden. Tabby is enjoying rolling around on the earth though I wish he wouldn't squash everything in the effort.

Time marches on

2005-08-20T06:04:00.000+12:00

I can't believe how long it has been since last posting - probably the winter cold weather keeping me away from the computer. It is so cold up in the computer room at night, not a lot better during the day either.

I have started my mystery quilt and it is so much different to how I imagined it would be, even knowing how it would look. One lot of blocks are very blendy and the alternate set are very "look at me" - I almost want to replace the blendy blocks.

I am trying to get on with some of my UFOs and WIPs to get them a bit further out of the way - the Friday nighters once a month have helped - I just have to stop myself from starting new projects but that is easier said than done. At the moment the only project if you can call it that is cutting up a lot of novelty fabrics from the club stash. I am finding it boring and uninteresting though.

It has been good to have a clean out and send a few bits and pieces away to the UFO orphanage - it stops me feeling guilty that they have been hanging around for so long.

I have what seems to be a growing list of small jobs to do with my patchwork, those small jobs that don't take too much time to do just one small step. I think I will use my club Friday nights to do these. Waihola is coming up soon and I want to look out for those larger more time consuming jobs that I can take down with me. There are 3-4 wallhangings that need their quilting finished. Hopefully my parcel from the USA will arrive with all the fabrics that I ordered for borders and then I can put the borders on 2-3 large tops and have them ready to sandwich. And it would be nice to have something cut ready to sew for when I just want to relax.

It is amazing how relaxing it is just to sit and sew simple blocks together.

Life goes on

2005-07-23T18:08:00.000+12:00

Just when you don't expect it the computer keyboard goes on the fritz. I didn't realise how much more I use my right thumb on the space bar than the left. And of course it is the right side of the bar that has gone, rather difficult to type at times. Almost like when I had to change which finger I typed my B with after getting a split keyboard with the B on the left and up until then I had been using my right hand for the B. Strange considering that I am left handed and you would imagine that I would naturally use my left hand over my right hand. I wonder if that is part of being ambidextrous (?sp).

Mystery quilts

2005-07-23T06:31:00.000+12:00

I have to select fabrics for a mystery quilt and thought it shouldn't be too difficult even though I know I can procrastinate a lot with making decisions choosing fabrics. The biggest problem turned out that I have so many fat quarters and not much else in the larger pieces (except perhaps for the Hoffman Bali fabrics). And even then everytime I thought that I had found just the right fabric it was only in a FQ - darn it. I was not wanting to buy fabric but to use my stash.

Actually looking through my stash for another project that used FQ it was hard to find say 3-4 co-ordinating fabrics that could be mixed and matched for the project. I seemed to have so many individual fabrics that didn't really go with much else. I must look at finding something to use them in but I don't want to be forever doing scrap type quilts. I suppose if I did something using the same colour family - say a 9 patch or something might be a way of doing it. An idea to work on for the future.

I recently worked on a mystery quilt from the net although I had seen how it turned out. It was still quite amazing to see it finished as it still looked quite different. I really liked the pattern and have come up with a couple of small variations that I want to try out with making another one. Must get on with working on some more UFOs and get some projects crossed off my list. It helped with organising a parcel to send to the UFO Orphanage - I don't feel guilty sending away projects that I do not want to continue with - they will go to good homes.

Catching up with myself

2005-07-04T21:52:00.000+12:00

I feel as though I have been doing nothing exciting or interesting for a while but I have been getting a lot of quilting done. I just need to make time to do more quilting and some of the other crafts that I want to do. I have had a couple of work days over the last month and have managed to get a lot done. Three wallhangings have been sandwiched and the quilting has been started so there shouldn't be too much to do, one of them is to be finished with minimal handquilting around some applique. The cabin windows quilt needs to have the large blocks sashed and then put together - I will have to decide whether a border is needed or not - I could probably order something through Hancocks - cheap, cheap, cheap. I have finally started on Tony's quilt top and will buy the batting soon for it - I will only be tieing it instead of quilting so that shouldn't be too bad - I could even put the binding on quite early while still tieing the quilt. I still have a couple of scrap quilts that I am slowly working on. Oh, and the dyed earth quilt top is progressing well - just have two diagonal rows to sew together - setting triangles to be cut and sewn on and hey presto the top is ready for a border (or not).

I had a big parcel arrive from Hancocks - lots of yummy batiks again - yum! I really must plan to use the batiks for some quilt tops - my collection is getting large. Actually I really need to make a dent into my stash and use some of the older fabrics - makes room for lots more new fabrics! I do have some ideas for lots of simple quilt tops - something to work on in the future.

Relationships

2005-06-16T08:25:00.000+12:00

The more I get to know people the more I appreciate my cats

bits and pieces

2005-05-28T22:15:00.000+12:00

Well my workshop was interesting. We had a slide show first on the work of Don Driver and some of his influences. We were to then do a small fibre collage based on what we had seen. Obviously we weren't working to quite the same large scale as some of his works but it was fun to work even on a smaller scale. With the speed that we worked it was all very intuitive in placement and design. We used staplers and glue guns to attach a lot of pieces. There was an amazing variety of fibres to work with - nothing really very traditional. Lots of feed sacks, tea towels and larger pieces to use as backgrounds and then lots of less usual pieces to put on them including cutlery, metal pot scrubs, suede, silver heat blanket etc. I can't say it is something I would do again but it was fun to do something totally different.

Our embroidery guild had a friendship day during the week and we had a very successful day with lots of visitors. I didn't get around and see what everyone was doing this time - ended up being very busy with a new piece that I have started. It took me ages to decide what to do for the day, not being a traditional embroiderer, and I ended up with a piece of calico that I had dyed and then ironed on a large piece of painted vliesofix (wunder under I think some call it). I am doing herringbone stitch in the crease lines with a little straight stitch and some couching. There are interesting lines of movement and shadowing that should make it look interesting when I have finished.

I also did some quilting. My maths was out in calculations and I need to do about four times as many blocks as I had originally thought. They are just some basic stuffed puffs using a lot of my scrap basket fabrics. It was started in an effort to radially use up a lot of my scrap basket and something easy to sew while I procrastinate in finishing a lot of other projects. I didn't want to start anything new that was too complicated and distract me from what I should be doing which is sandwiching and quilting about 6 tops. What I really need to do is take myself off somewhere peaceful where I can sit and quilt without interruptions.

Oh, and I did some paper collage - I tried to do something a bit different and it was fun - I work better if I work quickly and don't think too much about what I am doing and don't dither too much on my decisions. If I start to think too much about what I am doing and the whys and wherefores of what I am doing then I start to procrastinate about what I am doing and end up in a muddle and very unsatisfied with my choices and decisions.

Next week I must make a start on a quilt that a friend asked me to do for him. It is really easy peasy - just two large pieces of printed fabric to be sewn together and then bound and tied. It is a wonderful ethnic fabric that is too nice to cut up and really doesn't suit a lot of machine or hand quilting. It shouldn't take too much time to do once I get started so since he is coming next weekend for a visit I should at least make a start on it for him.

cruising around

2005-05-21T10:30:00.000+12:00

I had a bit of a surf amongst one or two blogs this morning. It is great how someone will mention anothers blog that they enjoyed and so I checked one or two out this way. They are definitely ones that I will check out again. I was good too and let a small note that I had visited - it is nice to know when someone has visited. It made me even more seriously aware that I need to organise myself with regards to doing some photos. I always enjoy others photos - they can be quite inspiring for me and lead me to one or two ideas of my own or they just inspire me to get out and be creative (in any form). One in particular had some freeform embroidery on a background that looked interesting and reminded me that an experimental piece at a recent "play day" wasn't that bad afterall and was really worth trying that technique again. The one good thing about freeform embroidery is that my lack of skill with embroidery doesn't show - the stitches all look as though they were mean't to look so rough and haphazard.

I also enjoy the humour - I am still finding it hard to put words on paper but the more that I write the more my style will improve. One of my biggest problems is the worry of what other people will think of me and that I am not really good enough or as good as "the others". I usually talk myself out of that by saying to myself that I am doing it to please me, it is something that I am enjoying and the more that I do the better I will become. Well that is the theory but on the way I try to make sure that I am enjoying myself and having fun. Life is too short not to have some fun in our daily life.

So I am off today to our local art gallery for a workshop. I am not quite sure what to expect except that we will be creating with fibres in the style of one of the featured artists in the gallery. He had created an amazing large wall hanging with old feed sacks and old garden implements. I am looking forward to doing something totally different and out of my usual comfort zone - this definitely fits the having fun criteria. Will have to report later on what the workshop is like.

May Day

2005-05-15T16:02:00.000+12:00

I had a creative day playing with textures. We were using furnishing fabrics - all the synthetic ones and after cutting the fabrics up and laying them onto a background we stabilised them with a few stitches and then got out a heat gun and singed them - they really shrunk up and melted to create interesting textures. Something interesting that I want to play with more. They were also using a paper that reacted similiarly to Tyvek - it is normally used to wrap flowers in by a florist - will try to see if I can get some. We also used the same types of fabrics and wrapping them around a satay stick and burning to create beads - they looked quite interesting and were a lot of fun. It was interesting to see how the different fabrics reacted to the intense heat.

I had a bit of a spend as well (as you do). Bought another book on silk paper making which was excellent - it goes before the other book I have in that it has more basics in it for beginners to silk paper making. I bought a small pack of silk in very dark colours and some silk rods. I had seen an article in a magazine that used silk rods that had been sewn together and embroidered - very nice. Bought a mould as well that I want to use with silk and some very nice dyed thread that I have no idea what I will do with it beyond that it appealed to me.

I have also been playing with some ATCs and silk paper that I had cut up. I did a few embroidery stitches on the silk and then glued it to a painted card. They look quite nice but I wondering if they might be too plain for some people. I shouldn't worry about it because the cards are an expression of me.

Dancing to your own drum

2005-04-30T06:45:00.000+12:00

I love that saying. It came up somewhere recently when someone said (about someone else) that she danced to her own drum. It sounds joyous and fun. I think it is something we should all do for ourselves more often if we don't already. It is fine to go along to the shared beat but every so often to dance to your own drum. Don't we always admire those people who do just that or are we afraid of them and turn away from them for their non conformity. I think it is a good thing for all of us to do from time to time - to be ourselves and to do something for ourselves without thinking what others would think of us or how they would see us.

Yes, let's dance to our own drum!

silk paper and book binding

2005-04-25T18:56:00.000+12:00

Had a wonderful day learning how to make silk paper. We used different types of silk, mulberry, tussah and a couple of "natural" looking types - very rustic looking. Oh, and we also used hemp to make paper as well. It was a lot of fun - I particularly liked using the "natural" silks and the hemp to make paper - I am not so sure about the other papers - a bit thin perhaps. I was a little disappointed in the texture that the netting we used imprinted itself on the surface of the paper and made it "matt" and not the glorious shiny texture that I was expecting. We made bowls which was fun - again I think I would use a thicker silk paper than I did but I was pleased with what I made. Used a mixed silk/hemp paper to make a book cover - very basic but gives me an idea to go further. But I particularly liked and enjoyed making moulded silk shapes - I bought a leaf and a cat - they were neat. The leaf particularly will be good to use on my ATCs. And of course I can use snips of my silk paper and beads to decorate ATCs. I figure if I make a leaf a day (well probably most days) then that will give me a good supply for swapping.

I bought a lot of colour packs of silk fibre to make more paper. I will see what moulds Ken has from his scenery moulds that he made for his train layout. They could give me some good textures to use particularly with my ATCs.

I am also enthused to do some more book binding - had an idea for making a book using very heavy thick paper and only one folded sheet per set for coptic binding. It would give lots of scope for decorating and plenty of room if I don't do the binding too tightly. The heavy paper would bind well and give a good base for decorating. I bought an American magazine in stamping and scrapbooking and in it there was a very good idea for a small bound journal that would also be good for using as a decorated book as the binding is very open and there are good gaps between the pages.

So many new ideas, so much to do........

doodling

2005-04-20T16:14:00.000+12:00

Having fun doodling and drawing. My latest are some horizontal and vertical lines on a page without taking the pencil off the page. I tried to then put black lines in some of the areas without having the black in adjoining areas. Could effectively use just the black lines to create an art work (very modernist). I like the look of some but obviously there are others that just do not make the cut. I will try these for my ATCs with just a slight colour wash for the background or should I add the background wash after drawing the lines? Worth some experimenting to see just how to adapt this technique. Another adaptation would be to use paper collage in the black line areas on a more tone on tone type background. Hmm , I think my weekend is going to be taken up playing with this and see how I can extend it into embroidery and fabric as well.

Creativity

2005-04-20T13:29:00.000+12:00

I love to be working with my hands, to be creative and making something. It seems my problem is that I want to master the techniques of whatever I am trying to create immediately and don’t like to practice, practise practice.. Is that why I become despondent and don’t always finish things or stay the course. I love my quilting – just need to make more time for it in larger blocks of concerted effort. I think that one of the things that I like about quilting is that it is quick to (usually) make one block (at a time). There is something relaxing almost hypnotic about sitting at the sewing machine and piecing. Quilting itself is another matter – I concentrate very hard and often end up biting my lip with pulling all sorts of contortions with my face because I am concentrating so hard

I love reading “creative” and “inspirational” books but often am at a loss as to how to apply it in my own creative endeavours. It is going that next step of interpreting all the wonderful imaginative ideas and putting them into something achievable (for me anyway). I often can come up with the ideas for other people but never for myself. Funny how that is – I can always give lots of support and advice to someone else’s creations but get stuck with my own. Perhaps I become too intense and involved that I find it hard to step back and see things from another perspective.

Much as I value my privacy I find it easier to work creatively with others around me – as if I am drawing on their energy. It is always wonderful to see what other people are creating and it inspires me in my own creations. Perhaps I should surround myself more with other creative people. I did try that with a friend once where we tried to have weekly sessions of playing with decorating fabric with different techniques but she wasn’t prepared to explore beyond her own ideas and comfort zone and try anything that was too different. She was going in a set direction and had blinkers on that would not let her divert from her course – shame really. It didn’t stop her later coming to me and wanting all my ideas on some different techniques that she had shunned earlier. I had to admit to being not as helpful as I should have been – I was feeling a little piqued and used.

We should always be prepared to try different ideas beyond our comfort zone and it is always good to have someone else exploring with you – you can feed off each other and can often reach higher levels of creativity and inspiration than you would have achieved working by yourself.

It has been great to read blogs of creative artists and see their photos and just read about what they are doing and what inspires them. I think in part that is what I like about books – although I can’t always translate all the ideas and inspirations from them they help me maintain my curiosity and creative thoughts for when that lightning bolt of creativity hits me and I actually do something that works out! In part too I fear failure (don’t we all) and I don’t like to do things that might fail .

Surfing

2005-04-19T22:31:00.000+12:00

I have been doing a lot of surfing the net lately. Checking out one or two blogs and some photo galleries. There are some wonderful creative people out there and I love to see what they are doing and it is interesting to read about other peoples lives. People are so interesting even in their day to day activities - well I suppose not everyone but lots of people though. I pick up all sorts of ideas and have read a few books that others have talked about and recommended. I always find it interesting too when I am waiting somewhere to watch people - what they are wearing, how they are wearing it, how they walk, their interaction with other people, their behaviour - it is fascinating to be that fly on the wall to their world. I can't say that I am really that observant, in one eye and out the other type of thing at times but at the time it is great to just sit and watch people.

When I was young I loved to go visit the airport and watch all the activity going on out there. It was a wonderful adventure to wander all through the buildings and outside onto the roof. People were everywhere and there was so much activity. A wonderful place to just sit and observe all that goes on.

These days the only people watching I do is while I am at the supermarket doing my shopping - seeing all the people and what they have in their trolleys and wondering about the significance of some of the items they are buying. Mind you people might equally wonder about the contents of my trolley too!

Old Friends

2005-04-14T17:02:00.000+12:00

Wow - out of the blue I had an email from someone I had been to school with over 30 years ago - makes me realise how much I have change and how much has happened in all that time. It bought back a lot of memories and it was interesting to hear what she remembered as well. This unexpected contact is like a message, a beacon almost to me. I am not sure fully of the message but I do believe in signs and this to me is definitely a sign of something more. I am really enjoying this contact that we are having and hope after such a long time that it will be maintained and will last.

rain, rain go away

2005-04-09T11:33:00.000+12:00

I know that we need the rain for the paddocks but it is so cold and miserable. The fire is on which is good and the cats have all the good spots close to the fire. I somehow think there will be no biking today (I am not that stoic). I have already been playing with some new stamps that I bought (for printing onto fabric) and they were great. I think I will get the water colour paints out later and have a play with some new paper that I have bought and see what sort of mess I can come up with. Sure as eggs I will have a little helper want to walk through it all and have coloured paw prints everywhere - could add to the texture! Must get on and get some cards finished for a swap - I have the backgrounds done and now it is just to decorate them a little more to finish off. I really must pull myself together and get some fibre ones done too.

And now back to the warmth of the fire.

Photographs

2005-04-08T08:08:00.000+12:00

I must find out how to put in photographs - it can't be too difficult surely. The biggest difficult I will probably face will be getting my hands on a digital camera and it isn't that we don't have two high quality ones in the house. There is sure to be a how to do it type page somewhere so I must check it out and try some photos. Something to add to 43 things.

Trotting along - only just

2005-04-07T19:35:00.000+12:00

I haven't been out cycling lately and just haven't been particularly active lately. I can't totally blame the weather but I do need to get outside more - fresh air and all that. I need to be stronger with myself and not procrastinate.

I must take control of my time and write a list of what I want to accomplish each day, mane and nocte. From my experience of writing to do lists it will need to be realistic - little steps. It should help stop me wasting my time that could be more creatively utilised. I have been managing though to do more doodling which I am pleased about. But I must be more positive about my doodling and stop doing it on scraps of paper and have a notebook with my doodles in - be proud of them.

ATCs

2005-04-03T15:12:00.000+12:00

It is ages since I have written and so much has happened. After receiving my latest Quilting Arts magazine I was keen to do some Artist Trading Cards and of course fabric ones but I have gone completely in a different direction. I joined up with two Yahoo groups that do cards and swaps. The photo albums are great to see and I have so much to learn. I am not sure about doing so many themed swaps and at the moment would prefer more one on one swaps. I find it hard to think about doing more than one of each card but I suppose when you start into a theme you just want to go on and on. It has encouraged me to doodle more which was one of my 43 things. And boy did I cut that list down - I didn't really visit the site much to make it worth having too many things on my list - too easy to neglect the list. I must have a hard copy of the list written somewhere to remind me of the 43 things that I wish I could accomplish (but not necessarily so).

But I digress away from ATCs. I have had a few attempts and gone off the fabric and have found that I like collage but not sure about the talent, it may be lacking a little. Still it is fun and creative. The Keepsake Quilting catalogues have been cut up and lots of pictures and bits of colour have been put in a bag, ready to use. The paper is a bit shiny though so must come up with a way to cut the shine down a little. Saw a wonderful technique of crackling that could be interesting to use over them. I did some collage with newsprint and liked that.

Need to get away from white card as a background for some things. I have found all my hand made paper and glued those to card and cut up ready to use. Love the texture that I now have as a background. When I do use a plain card for background I should at least use an Ecru and look at other colours.

Found a blog - Janeysjourney, that has encouraged me to doodle more and so that is what I have been doing for the last hour. Must get some marker pens to colour them in though.

There is so much to share but that will have to do for the moment.

43 things again

2005-03-26T10:40:00.000+12:00

Well I gave myself a small list here, not quite the 43 things. It felt good initially but then I started to feel as though I had a list of New Year Resolutions - those near impossible dreams of good intentions. I have cut the list down to three items, two are hard goals and one is a softer goal. There are always going to be things that I want to do but priorities change and they all tend to come and go.

At the moment I want to try making Artist Trading Cards and have been finding out what I can about them and have joined an internet group (well trying to join). I think they would be a great way to try out ideas on a small scale - a great creative outlet without it becoming a large project. Obviously I want to do them with fabric and fibre using my own dyed fabrics and decorating them with threads, beads, stamps, applique. So let's see how that goes.

Achieving my goals

2005-03-22T19:54:00.000+12:00

I have just been an reviewed my list of 43 things (well there are only ten). I haven't really done much about any of them. Is it because I don't have the list close to me and more visible. Do I need to cut the list down to just 3-4 things and work on them and only add to the list as I either achieve things or start to do more. I will have to at least write the list down in hardcopy somewhere and review it and put in an action plan of how I am going to achieve them.

It could be confused with a list of New Year Resolutions and you know what happens to them - they are not achieved! I think that is why an action plan needs to be made because I am sure that I have kept the list simple, achievable and realistic.

Creativity

2005-03-22T19:21:00.000+12:00

There are so many projects and ideas that I want to follow up but end up doing nothing about them. Is it because there are so many that I don't know where to start or that I worry about the result. I shouldn't worry about what others think about my creations as I only make them for my own satisfaction. I really need to have one of my famous lists with all the things that I want to make/do on it and slowly work through it one item at a time.

A creativity/inspiraton book would be good. Something not too small (or too large) with plain pages in acid free paper. I can draw, make lists and have all those little sayings that I love in it. Actually a nice bag to hold it all in would be good - I could also then have a lot of those postcards and pictures in a small folder in the bag as well. It would be a chance to make one of the lovely looking bags from my recent book purchase of Bags With Style. Not as big as my library book bags, perhaps something that will comfortably take A4 size.

I want to have a go at making Artists Trading Cards and follow on with a fabric postcard that I can post to Christine and following on again an altered book would be fun as well. So then I must look up my Qulting Arts books for information on all these.

First things first - look for a book for all my creativity/inspirations
Second - decide on my bag
I can look through my magazines and draw some ideas etc.
Well then, off I go

Containers

2005-03-12T17:30:00.000+13:00

After cutting out lots of small pieces of fabric for an upcoming class I was looking around for a small container to put them in. Now although I couldn't find just the right container I realised that this is another thing that I like to have lots of - containers. I love having something to put something else in. All sorts of little containers right up to larger ones. Lots of variety and some more practical than others. I gave myself a surprise to realise this but it is something that I can add to my collection of and they can all be useful and have a function.

This speaks for itself

2005-03-09T13:34:00.000+13:00

Life is not a journey to the grave
with a pretty well preserved body
but rather to arrive totally worn out,
thoroughly used up and proclaiming loudly
“wow, what a ride!”

Lists

2005-03-08T10:59:00.000+13:00

Some lists are working lists and will continually change.
Others are also very short term, for a specific occasion or time.
Some are nothing more than action plans, hope to do lists rather than achievement lists.
There are longer term lists that can also change but not so often.
Another set of lists are those that are used as guidelines and set the standard for whatever purpose they are written.
Some lists will be double edged in that one part of the list is what I have and the other part is what I need or want to acquire.

I need to develop a Book of Lists – a ring binder with plastic inserts would be the best
And then I will need a list of all the lists that I want to have

I love my lists

2005-03-07T21:57:00.000+13:00

I can't help it, I like writing out lists. They give me stability and order in a disorganised world. They help me to maintain control. I don't always use my lists but just the action of writing a list sometimes is enough to help me relax and remain focused.

43 Things

2005-03-07T12:57:00.000+13:00

I know that I am going to change this from time to time but this is a start

Keep in touch with my friends more – telephone, write, visit, invite them over
Read more fiction
Watch less TV – turn off, leave the room, do something else (like read)
Go to an Eric Clapton concert
Get out on my bike more regularly – buy a new seat with suspension
Save on a regular basis
Have more pot plants on the deck
Grow more trilliums
Doodle
Explore new places

starting over

2005-03-07T10:34:00.000+13:00

In an effort to keep my blog private I thought I would try to change my login and ended up deleting my blog notes but nothing else – darn it. So I need to start over with all my thoughts and ideas.

I thought the 43 Things list was interesting. When I went to the web site that supports these lists it was amazing what people had on their lists. And of course with my love of lists I couldn’t resist of coming up with my own but I didn’t register it with the site. On reflection I wondered if people were using it in part as a resolution list – all those things we want to do, but never get around to doing them. Some of it seemed very much wish list – the things we would like to do if it were possible but know there is no way that it could happen. But anyhow I will try my list of 43. I have made a start but most of them are more resolution type things – all achievable if I put the effort into them. There are other things (like going to an Eric Clapton concern) that are not quite so achievable (or possible). I thought that some of the items on the list warranted a fuller explanation of how I was going to achieve them. Should I have ongoing items on the list or cross things off the list once I have started to be able to achieve them on a regular basis. Those sorts could be relegated to a “sub list”.

Thinking early

2005-03-06T11:28:00.000+13:00

It isn't mid day yet but here goes:
Great to be sleeping in the waterbed again, very comfy and a lovely floaty feeling
The cats are enjoying having the waterbed back again
Keeping things tidyish

Simple things

2005-03-05T17:56:00.000+13:00

It seems hard to come up with my three good thoughts today but here goes:
Lunch was yummy - bagels with cheese and tomato - must see if I can buy some more
The black bull wasn't difficult to get back into one of our paddocks from the neighbours (usually it can be quite a merry chase)
Now that the bedroom has been repainted Christine's painting looks really good hung on it.

power of positive thinking

2005-03-04T13:57:00.000+13:00

I know I read somewhere a long time ago that instead of being overpowered by the negative that we should think more positively about things - find the good in everything or some way of putting a positive spin on even the most dire situations.

So then I will try to regularly put in three (or more) positive thoughts about things that are happening in my day to day ramblings.

So to start for today:

It is a lovely sunny warm day, not too much wind
Went for a nice bike ride which felt good
Found a blogspot that I know a friend at work will want to know about
Found some bagels at the supermarket and had two for lunch with cheese and tomato - yum