Kids stuff

In between quilts I am doing some small fun stuff. I made this library bag for Ernst using the Spoonflower swatch made with his Grameldon drawing. He'll get it on his 5th birthday this Saturday. And I decorated t-shirts for him and Hugo using stencils from the book I showed you in the last posting:





The gymnasts quilt is finished, it's called MAGnificence (MAG = Men's Artistic Gymnastics). I'm trying to enter it online in the State of the Art Quilt 2010 exhibition, but the website it not cooperating...

Queensland Quilt Show

I managed to go to the Queensland Quilt Show yesterday and see my quilt hanging there! Compared to some of the other quilts at the show I thought it wasn't very good - I still have a long way to go... But it was nice to be there, meet some people, and, of course, do some shopping!



I bought some paintstiks, angelina and paint, 2 stamps and a gorgeous red handdyed fabric from Lisa from Dyed and Gone to Heaven. All for the quilt I promised to make for my mother-in-law - I am going to start on that one now. I also attended a beading workshop by Lisa and signed up for her beading club! I didn't buy the Down Under Quilts calendar but got it from Deborah because I read her blog! ;-)
I also bought this book which has great stencils for projects for the boys (dragon, bicycle, robot, rocket) and for me (feathers, cityscape, mandala!):



At home I played with the paint, stamp and some older stencils:

Hugo

This is the quilt I have entered in the Queensland Quilt Show. It is based on the photo I showed here. Click on the picture for a larger version. Do you like it? I do - I feel I really 'captured' Hugo.
Hugo likes it too, mainly because of the pirate fabric I used for the border!

Here you can see the winning quilts from the Show. I can't wait to see them IRL on Sunday!

It's that time of the year...

The jacarandas are flowering again. I keep making pictures of them!



Tomorrow the Queensland Quilt Show starts. I won't have time to go until Sunday, but I will post a photo of my quilt hanging there tomorrow.

Second Art and Craft Display

Remember the Art and Craft Display we had at my workplace, the Queensland Tuberculosis Control Centre, last year? This week we had the second edition of that event. My selvedge quilt had a prominent place (kept in place by some heavy medical textbooks!):



My colleagues loved the Tuberculosis journal quilt:



And I loved this throw knitted by one of them:



At home, I suddenly realised there are mandalas hidden in the woodwork!



I'm still adding seed stitches to the gymnasts quilt. It's getting a bit boring... But it has to be finished before the end of this month to try to enter it in the State of the Art Quilt 2010 exhibition.

Tomorrow the boys' grandparents are coming! They will be staying in Brisbane for 1 week, before travelling to the Whitsundays, so I think I won't be doing much quilting in the next few days. But it will be lovely to have some family here for a while.

Mandala and more dyeing

The theme for the next Art Quilts Around the World challenge is mandala. I used this photo from our holiday in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland to make a freezer paper stencil and made the print with discharge paste. Do you like it? I'm not sure if I will use it for the quilt or try something else (I have a few more ideas).

The blue fabric is a handdyed one - I did some more dyeing yesterday.

Seed stitching

I am still busy quilting the gymnasts quilt, adding seed stitching by hand. It's a helluva lot of work but I think the quilt needs it. I used to say I hated hand sewing but I am actually quite enjoying it...

Dyeing again

I signed up for another dyeing class with Marjie McWilliams at Quilt University, Quilters Palette. The first lesson was about dyeing fabrics for landscape quilts - water, sky, mountains, rocks, forest etc. I am very happy with the way my fabrics turned out!