Studio and Shop Opening at Thea & Sami

This morning I drove to the other side of Brisbane for the opening of Thea & Sami's new Studio and Shop. I had to bring my two little boys (their older brother was at gymnastics), for their father left for a business trip to Canada very early this morning. As you can see they were quite happy under the gorgeous stretched Brisbane print, munching chips and biscuits ;-)

As an enthusiastic amateur screen printer I was very keen to see how Thea and her assistant Dan print yardage at their immense table:





Here are the screens they use - a little bigger than my thermofax screens!



In the shop Thea's gorgeous homewares are for sale:



Drool...



I was strong and managed to only buy a fabric scrap pack and this piece of fabric; Marguerite (my favourite T&S design) printed on linen. I love the selvedge strip!



I had a great morning, thanks Thea! Am very inspired now to do some screen printing myself... I have a few ideas and hope to try them out in the next few weeks, although with hubby away I might be too tired at night to do anything creative... I'm sure I will be tomorrow, when I have to drive the boys to the Gold Coast where Hugo will have his second gymnastics competition of the year. He won the cross country (2 km running) at school yesterday, so I hope his winning streak will continue!

Crafty Easter

I'm being very crafty this Easter weekend. I've spent most of the day on this decoupage project: covering this old table with pages from an 1998 Brisbane Street Directory. It needs another two layers of glue but is already looking very good:



I got the idea from this British magazine that I discovered at the newsagent the other day:



I tried the technique on a wooden picture frame first, using some old sheet music:



I have also framed the Kookaburra and Robot calligram fabric and made another set of Vintage Fairytale Cards - all for sale now in my online shop.



And yes, I still make quilts as well! I have started quilting the new gymnastics quilt. Will show a sneak peek here soon. Now I'm off to apply the third layer of glue to the table!

New thermofax screens

This week I received my new thermofax screens from Linda Stokes. I had two of my calligram designs, the Robot and the Kookaburra, made into screens and used the first prints to make postcards. They are up for sale in my Blue Jacaranda shop. (the first two have already been sold!) I am planning on making some stretched prints as well.

More prints

The stretched print I showed in the last post sold within two days! So I have made some more stretched prints, of St Basil's and the Dutch Houses, and more cards, and added them to my Blue Jacaranda store.



Yesterday my gymnast son (8) had his first competition of the year. He did very well and provided me with lots of inspiration for new quilts and prints!

Stretched Print

I just finished stretching this Dutch Houses print on canvas - it looks good, doesn't it? I've put it up for sale in my Blue Jacaranda shop.



And tataaa... here's another W class cushion from Mrs Beckinsale! Jennie auctioned another one for the Japan quake appeal and I just had to have it... 253 stands for March 25th, the day we arrived in Brisbane in 2007. Thanks Jennie, we love it!



Here's female gymnast no. 3 - one more to go and then I can start quilting this new quilt that is not called WAGnificence ;-).

Screen prints

Last night I did another round of screen printing. Here is the latest female gymnast. (yes, her leg is a bit thin - this is one of the test prints, not the print on the new quilt!)



I also printed some more Dutch Houses - the postcards are a hit in my shop and I'm thinking of selling the prints stretched on canvas (just have to figure out how to do that! Tips very welcome).



And some more St Basil's prints - they are also very popular in the shop, and I'm thinking of using one in a quilt.

I will be screen printing again soon, for I have ordered some thermofax screens from Linda Stokes, who has opened a thermofax screen service. She is having a giveaway of one of her screens that ends today, so if you go there quick and leave a comment you might still be in the draw.

Thanks to everyone who commented on yesterday's posting about the Morocco quilt aka the Steamboat! I have been thinking about it a lot. I'm wondering if I hadn't shown the photo, would the reactions have been the same? My intention was not to copy the photo but to reduce that image to its basics - colours and shapes, almost an abstract. It's not about what is actually in the photo, but about my memories of Essaouira - white buildings, a red/brown wall, blue sea and turquoise boats. (they might be someone else's memories of another Mediterranean place but that is irrelevant) I agree that the white shape is too dominant but apart from that, for me the piece does convey the image of Morocco. However, I may make another Morocco quilt since I have a lot of memories...

Morocco

In June 2003, when our firstborn was 4 months old and we were still living in the Netherlands, hubby (then a graduate student) had a conference in Marrakech, Morocco, and we decided to make it a family holiday. It was one of the best holidays of my life (and that is saying something as I am not a holiday person). We saw some amazing places, the people were extremely friendly (they loved our blond baby, everyone wanted to hold him), the food was delicious...



I'm still sorry that I didn't buy that red plate! (it would have been hard though to carry it home in a backpack)



Marrakech is a gorgeous city. We had a wonderful afternoon at the Jardin Majorelle:



When the conference was over we took a bus to Essaouira, a beautiful small city on the Atlantic coast.



We spent some lovely days there and then took the train to Rabat, for our last few days. Another beautiful city where we enjoyed exploring the kasbah:



As you may remember, the Australian and New Zealand Art Quilters have a journal quilt project this year with the theme Countries. You can see my first quilt, The Netherlands, here. For my second quilt I wanted to use this photo of Essaouira and reduce it to its essentials.



Here is the quilt:



It's not quite what I had in mind and I'm not sure if I'm happy with it... (my boys said 'A steamboat!' when they saw it!) Would love to hear what you think!