Elephants and Iranian fabric

Yesterday, Australia Day, we went to Australia Zoo. I had a ball playing with my DSLR and made more than 500 photos! The elephants especially were very photogenic - here are a few pics (more on my photo blog). I can feel an elephant quilt coming up!



Hubby is back from Iran. He loves the Kindle cover and brought these fabrics for me, that he bought in this shop in the souq. My hero!



As you may have noticed, I have changed the pages in this blog. By clicking on the tabs above you can view my sports quilts, my optical illusion quilts and a selection of my other quilts. I have deleted the page about fiber postcards since there did not seem to be a lot of interest in that one.

Now I am going to tear myself away from the computer and try to finish my entry for This is a Quilt!

Queensland Flood Appeal Auction

This auction has now ended. Thank you Patty for your winning bid and everyone else who placed a bid!
The Queensland Flood Appeal Auctions together raised $99,089! Isn't that awesome!




After writing this morning's posting, I read about the Queensland Flood Appeal Auctions on Toni Coward's Make It Perfect blog, and decided to join this great initiative. It is an online auction with all proceeds going to the Premier's Flood Relief Appeal.

I offer for auction this quilt:


Monstera deliciosa*
40 x 40 cm
Whole cloth quilt, reverse applique, machine quilted


How the Auction works:

1. Bidding starts at AU$50 (= 38 Euro / US$50).
2. Place your bid by adding a comment here stating how much you are willing to offer to own Monstera deliciosa. Your bid must be greater than the previous bid.
3. All bids must be in whole dollar increments.
4. The auction is open to all and the price will include postage to any address worldwide.
5. The auction is now open and closes at 9 pm on Monday the 24th of January 2011 (Brisbane, Australian time)
6. I will contact the winner at the conclusion of the auction. The winner must commit to sending their bid to the Premier's Flood Relief Appeal and provide an email receipt as evidence of payment. Once I have evidence of payment Monstera deliciosa will be posted to its new owner.

Your generosity is much appreciated, particularly by those most affected by the floods. I offer you my thanks on their behalf. Please share this auction with as many people as you can.



* The quilt was inspired by this photo.

Kindle Cover

I ordered a Kindle for hubby's birthday on January 8th. Of course it did not arrive until last week, which was actually quite good since he is away on a business trip to Iran and will be back tomorrow. So I was able to make this cover without him seeing it and will present him with the Kindle in the cover tomorrow!



The backside:



I'll let you know his reaction! (I suspect though that I will be the one who uses the Kindle most ;-))
I have some of this quilted fabric left and will use it to make diary covers.

The next step

Don't you love that background fabric?! (it's a batik that I bought for the Hawaiian Quilting class I did at Quilt University in 2009 and never finished)
I also made this one:



and hope to finish it in time to send it in to SAQA's 2011-2010 Travelling Trunk Show, now that the deadline has been extended to January 31st.

As you may have noticed, the name of this site has been changed to http://www.lindarobertus.com/ (instead of http://q-linda.blogspot.com). The old url should still work but you may want to change it in your favourites or bloglist for all the gadgets to work properly. In the coming weeks I hope to rearrange the pages to make it a comprehensive site.

I am thrilled that this blog has more than a hundred followers now (and 53 Facebook followers, although there is some overlap) - thank you so much everyone! I am preparing a giveaway to express my gratitude to all of you....

And finally I am more than thrilled that my Queensland Flood Appeal Auction quilt is currently up to $200!! Remember, you can still bid, until Monday 24 January 9.00 pm (Brisbane time). If this is getting outside your league (as it would be for me) there are lots of other handmade goodies on the Auctions Master List at Toni Coward's blog. A great chance to donate something for the flood victims and become the owner of a unique hand made item!

Screen printing again!

Have I ever told you I love screen printing? I think I did a few times, didn't I? :-)

Yesterday I printed this gymnast on beam, using a freezer paper stencil - initially I didn't plan on doing WAG (woman's artistic gymnastics) images, but I have changed my mind...

I also made some prints with my Dutch Houses thermofax screen, to make postcards. And maybe I can frame them... Hmmm...

Today I made new freezer paper screens - hope to do some more printing this week!



PS Remember you can still bid for my quilt and support the Queensland Flood victims! The complete list of all Queensland Flood Appeal Auctions is now online here.

Flooded

Unless you are living on the moon you will by now have heard about the flooding in Queensland, Australia. The Brisbane River reached its peak last night and many, many buildings are inundated. The photo above (from the Courier Mail) shows a flooded street corner in the Brisbane CBD, the one below was taken by my husband yesterday; it shows the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital where he works (and where I work on my thesis on Fridays).



We are incredibly lucky to be living in a high-lying suburb, not close to the river or one of its tributaries, and we have had no problems at all - thank God. But we have spent the last few days glued to the television, radio and internet to follow what was happening in Sout-East Queensland and our thoughts are with the victims of this disaster, and their families.

With all this happening, and our 4-year old being sick for the last 2 days, you will understand that I have not done any sewing or quilting recently. I did manage to work my way halfway through this wonderful book:



If you are interested in learning to draw I can highly recommend it, and even if you are not, it is a fascinating read. Here are some of the exercises I have done so far:



I think it will be useful to finish this book before I get back to the Sketchbook Challenge.

Week Planner

Here is a new quilt that I have been wanting to make for quite a while and finally did last weekend. Using a piece of chalk cloth I made a week planner for our family - now that the boys are getting a little older we need one to keep up with all the swimming lessons, gymnastics training sessions, birthday parties etc!

To make it a bit timeless I used some of my novelty fabrics in subdued colours - Robbie may still like Bob the Builder now but I'm sure he won't in a few years...

It's hanging near our dinner table now and I'm very pleased with it!

Sketching

I did some sketching today - any idea what the above is supposed to be? My 6-year old thought it was a toothbrush ;-).

I was actually trying to abstract this image:



and quite surprised at how much you can take away and still keep the essence - although that may have been because I knew the image? I tried the same with the gymnast on pommel horse that I depicted in my Balance 2 quilt:





Of course this is the process they use for the pictograms at the Olympics etcetera... I would love to study graphic design! (maybe someday, when I have finished my PhD...)

I have also started on the Sketchbook Challenge for January - the theme is Highly Prized. I will show you some of my drawings soon.

2011

Having a word for 2010 felt good, so I want one for 2011 too! After some thinking I have chosen Focus. As in, focus on what I really want to do, where I really want to go, versus doing a little of everything. Looking at all the quilts I have made in 2010 it struck me that I have done so many very different things and that it might be good to focus a little more and spend my limited time and energy on more coherent work.

My concrete goals (to strike through when they are reached!):
- make at least one quilt to enter into a juried art quilt exhibition;
- make 4 quilts for Art Quilts Around the World;
- finish the Alphabet Calligram Quilt for Robbie;
- make a Kindle cover for DH;
- participate in the Sketchbook Challenge (even though I haven't filled my sketchbook for The Sketchbook Project...);
- make a Dutch Houses bag;
- continue and improve my photography.

We are off on a camping holiday today in the beautiful Sunshine Coast Hinterland. See you in a week or so!