Coffee?

And here it is, my coffee sack quilt! Quilting it was a bit of a nightmare - do not try this at home ;-).



I used another coffee sack for the backing. (no batting necessary)I had wondered about the binding, but realised I could just fold over the finished edges of the sack:



I am now trying to decide if I will add some stenciled letters to the quilt or leave it as it is...

Update

To be continued...

Burlap... quilt?

If you have been following my blog in the last few months you will have noticed that I am slightly obsessed with burlap at the moment. After buying some coffee sacks at Reverse Garbage here in Brisbane I have been making pillows, postcards, ACEO, bookmarks, coasters and a bookcover with it. I have used a strip of burlap in my Indonesia quilt - but what about making a quilt out of nothing but burlap?? The current challenge theme at Art Quilts Around the World is monochrome, so it would fit in very well!



I cut strips roughly 3 inch wide from the four sacks I have here - they all have a different texture; some are very loose, others quite tightly woven.



Because burlap frays terribly I used a zigzag stitch instead of a straight stitch to piece the strips together.



This is the result so far - to be continued!



I love burlap and its texture - but working with it does leave a terrible mess!



I also made two new bookmarks to add to my Blue Jacaranda shop. Have to make one for myself as I really like them!

New: Flag Cards!

When I was making my Country Quilts for the Australian and New Zealand Art Quilters group, I thought it might be a good idea to make fabric postcards in the colours of various national flags. I finally followed up on that thought and here are the first two Flag Cards: the Netherlands (of course) and Ireland.



I've added them to my Etsy shop, thinking they might be just the thing for your Irish grandmother or to announce a city trip to Amsterdam to your beloved!

Flag Cards for France, Germany and Italy will follow soon, and after that I hope to add more countries. It's fun to make these cards and a great way to use up small scraps of fabric. I am not a hoarder but I do have trouble throwing away scraps of my precious quilting fabrics - especially the handdyed ones!



I didn't do any quilting on my day off, because I had a custom order - a mum of two boys in California asked me to do this series of three calligram cards for her sons' room. What a lovely idea that my creations will be hanging there, on the other side of the world, soon!

Sunglasses case

We have had some very busy weekends in the last few weeks, so instead of a Mother's Day present I asked for some me-time in my studio (and for the boys not to fight for one whole day - they made it until 30 minutes before bed-time, sigh...)

Here in sunny Queensland you always need to have your sunglasses with you, and I have been looking at some gorgeous kiss-lock eyeglasses cases on Etsy. But of course this is something I could make myself, so I just bought a frame on Etsy (they have supplies as well), dug up one of my favourite Thea and Sami fabrics and made this case!



The lining is a plain red cotton. Do you like it? I absolutely love it! :-)



I also sandwiched the new gymnastics quilt and hope to start quilting it on Wednesday, my day off.

Gymnasts and coffee

Not much to show this week - I did add the large gymnast to the blue piece I showed here earlier, done in Paintstick. What do you think?

And I made another burlap coffee quote card and added it to my shop. I am so enjoying making them! (although cutting those freezer paper stencils is a lot of work...)



Sunday is Mother's Day and I have asked for some 'free' time to make the gymnast piece into a quilt. Hope all you mums out there will have a lovely day and be really spoilt!

SAQA Oceania Studio Blog Hop

Welcome to my studio! Today it is my turn in the SAQA Ocania Studio Blog Hop to show you my workplace - and here it is, in sunny Brisbane, Queensland, in the subtropical region of Australia.



We rent this house, as we still do not know if we will stay in Australia for good, or go back to the Netherlands at some point (or somewhere else). We have been living in this authentic Queenslander since 2008.



My studio (which also serves as as our guest room and study) is this lovely, light room. On the desk my simple but beloved Janome sewing machine - I bought it before I started quilting but it is still serving me very well. In the corner to the right of the desk are my screen printing, textile painting and dyeing supplies. On the left (visible in the first photo) is my fabric stash.



My ever-growing collection of magazines and books on quilting, textile art, screen printing etc. The books in the large bookcase on the right are mainly medical ones, from the other partof my life ;-).



The ironing board in front of the doors to the deck; taking advantage of the light:



Screen printing is an important element in my work. This is my screen printing room, aka our dining room:



Fabric dyeing is done under the house:



Thank you for having a look at my workspaces! I hope you will join us for the rest of the blog hop as well. The next stop is in Perth, at the other side of this vast country, with Dale Rollerson from The Thread Studio. She also has the full ist with all participating artists on her blog - click here.

Screen printing

This is the result of my screen printing session today. It's inspired by this photo I took of my gymnast son in September 2010 - still one of my all-time favourites:




The plan is to add something more... I will keep you posted!


I also made this card and added it to my Etsy shop - I am planning a series of burlap coffee quotes cards and am having a lot of fun searching for appropriate quotes!

Burlap Bookcover

Here is a burlap bookcover I made this weekend for an A5 notebook. I quite like how it turned out. It is for sale now in my Etsy shop.

The SAQA Oceania Studio Blog Hop has kicked off today, with Mel Forrest here in Brisbane being the first one to show her studio. Sue Dennis is next on May 3rd, followed by Lisa Walton on May 5th and yours truly on May 7th. After that there will be eleven more artists showing their studio this month - you can find the full list on Lisa's blog, and I will give directions when it is my turn next week. I'm looking forward to seeing all these creative places and hope you will follow us!

Speaking about creative spaces - tomorrow is my day off and I am planning a big screen printing session. I have just prepared my silk screen with a new hand cut stencil and as soon as I have dropped the boys off at school tomorrow morning I plan to get going. Hope to show you the results soon!