Different

Today the 'Different' quilts at the Art Quilts Around the World blog are unveiled. Here is mine - it is different because I have used a pink background fabric. As you know I hate pink and have never used it before in a quilt!

However, since my word for this year was Focus, I decided to use this challenge to make a quilt in my sports series, but using a colour I would never normally use. So here is the first female gymnast, on beam.

I am not very happy with this quilt - I feel that the design is unbalanced. Maybe I need to add another 'shadow' in the rigt top corner? It's so empty...

Would love to hear your comments!

Gymnasts and fairy tales

Here's the new gymnast - recognize the fabric? Yes, I'm making a WAG (women's artistic gymnastics) quilt now. WAGnificence?! ;-)
Getting ready to do another screen printing session soon...



I also made some more Vintage Fairytales cards for my online shop, Blue Jacaranda. Here are Sinbad and Cinderella, I hope to add Rumpelstiltskin and Ali Baba soon!

Screen printing

In a stolen hour I managed to do some screen printing. Sally made my St Basil's drawing into a thermofax screen and here is the first print! Isn't it lovely? (the St Basil's fabric is for sale now at Spoonflower, in black and red)



I also did another gymnast, and printed some more Dutch Houses to make postcards for Blue Jacaranda (they all sold after being mentioned in the MadeIt newsletter - I've added some new ones now).



I just love white on black!

Woohoo!

What a week... I'm reeling! On Tuesday I heard that my abstract was accepted for the TB conference in Hong Kong in July - and today I heard that there is funding for my travel expenses. Yay!

Today I also heard that my quilt Cycle of Life has been juried into the State of the Art quilt 11 exhibition, which will be displayed at the Textile Art Festival in Brisbane in June. Woohoo! I was asked not to show the full quilt on my blog yet, but to post the detail pic I sent in with my submission. So here it is!

And as if that wasn't enough good news for one day - I came home to find that my Dutch Houses postcard was featured in today's MadeIt newsletter, and that I had sold a number of items in my Blue Jacaranda shop! So I need to make some new ones quickly - but not tonight, I am presenting my research findings tomorrow at our World TB Day symposium and shouldn't even be blogging now, but rehearsing my presentation!

QTBCC Quilt

My workplace, the Queensland Tuberculosis Control Centre, was 60 years old last year. This wall quilt was made to commemorate this fact and unveiled today, just in time for World Tuberculosis Day 2011; this Thursday March 24th (on that day the clinical staff is at a symposium in another location, which is why it was unveiled today).

All staff members received a square of fabric to sign and embellish (if desired). The quilters among the staff assembled the quilt. Here they are: Bev, yours truly, Carmel and Louise.

New quilt

See here the start of a new quilt - and the bath mat I bought especially for this purpose! ;-)

Update

Not much to show here - I am at the stage where I have designed two new quilts in my mind, have put apart some fabrics, but haven't done much else yet. It's been too hot in the last week to do much in an unairconditioned sewing room...

I did make these rubbings with a paintstick, just to see how it would look - I used these potholders!



I am also designing some new animal calligrams, but can't show them here yet. They may end up printed on children's duvet covers, pillow cases, fitted sheets, bibs etc - very exciting!!!

And another exciting thing is about to happen... All I will say for now is that at this moment three of my quilts are in the United States to be photographed!

A heart for Christchurch and more

Yesterday I made this small blue flannel heart for Christchurch. Evie is collecting them for the victims of the terrible earthquake. Since she seems to get a lot of pink hearts I thought I'd make a blue one! All the details are on her blog, if you would like to send one too.



And here is a card for the Recycling swap at the Dutch Fibermail group. I used scraps of fabric from old blue jeans and shirts from my boys, and some coordinating fabric from Reverse Garbage. I still plan on making a quilt with these fabrics (I posted a possible design here - but I think it's too ordered).



The Fibermail group also has a bookmark swap this month. I made this one with some appropriate selvedge words, and an alphabet fabric on the back:



I've also made some selvedge cards for the birthday list:





And finally, here are some ATCs that recently arrived. These two are from Jackie in Canada:



and this one is from Kate here in Brisbane. It took a while, but was worth the wait! ;-)



If you would like to swap an ATC or a fiber postcard, I still have some Dutch Houses cards left (in both sizes). Leave a comment here and I'll get back to you!

Dutch Houses Bag

Yesterday I finished my Dutch Houses Bag! I used my white on black Dutch Houses design printed on linen-cotton canvas for the exterior and the black on white design printed on quilting weight cotton for the lining.



The bag has pockets for my wallet, keys and mobile phone, and a magnetic closure. It stands on six bag feet. The handles are from U-handbag, and I also made grateful use of Lisa's book in making this bag. I love that this book does not just have patterns for bags (it has quite a few) but lots of information on subjects such as interlining, closures, pockets etc etc etc so you can design your own bag (as I did here).



In my handmade bag I carry around my (er... hubby's) Kindle in its handmade cover, my sunglasses in their handmade case and my handmade purse with all sorts of small items (tissues, USB stick, work pass etc) - quite a showcase, eh? ;-)