Mini Zebra

Yesterday I finished this mini zebra quilt (9 inch/23 cm square). I used one of the original prints I made for the Animal Kingdom challenge in June 2011.



This small piece is now for sale in Galleribba.

Hats

I suddenly realized I haven't shown my monochromatic quilt for Art Quilts Around the World here yet! (the reveal was on the last day of June, when we were in Holland, that's why). Here it is: Hats.



It is based on a photo I took of my two eldest sons walking home from school in 2010:



I used pieces of fabric from an old school hat and shirt, and a handdyed blue fabric for the background. I love how the backside looks:



I made a postcard based on this photo in November 2010:



... and ever since I have wanted to make a small quilt of the same image, so here was finally my chance. I love this piece; it is now hanging in my sewing room studio.

New work

It was a public holiday here today and very cold and wet outside. So I was perfectly happy inside, quilting! I made a little monochrome quilt for Art Quilts Around the World which will be revealed on 30 June, and I made this little piece, something I had wanted to try for quite some time now.

The fabric is actually more yellow than orange. I added a double layer of thick polyester batting (left over from my early days of quilting - I much prefer a thin bamboo batting nowadays) to create the impression of a footprint in the sand:



I think the backside looks good too!



It's a small piece - only 17 cm / 6 3/4 inch square. Just a fun thing to try out something I had been thinking about, after making a photo of a footprint in the sand last summer.



This is a sneak peek of the monochrome quilt for AQATW. I love how this little quilt has turned! It is already hanging in my studio, but I'm afraid you will have to wait a few weeks to see it in full!

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!

Blue Rose selected

Yesterday I received a letter telling me that my quilt Blue Rose has been selected for inclusion in the PETITE miniature TEXTILES exhibition at the Wangaratta Art Gallery in Wangaratta, Victoria, from 16 June until 22 July 2012. Yay!

Something old, something new...

... something borrowed, something blue. That is the theme of the current Art Quilts Around the World challenge. I immediately thought of blue jeans - I have been saving old pairs of jeans for a few years now, thinking I would make a quilt with them someday.



So here it is, my quilt Something Blue. It's 12"/30 cm square. I used the fabric weaving technique that I tried first in April 2008 (to make a bookcover that is now for sale in my Etsy shop). Here is a close-up:



The flower on the first photo comes from a pair of flip flops that I bought last year. It came off a few weeks ago and I think it goes very well with the quilt. Just need to sew it on ;-).

For the stats:
Something old: blue jeans (and zip flower)
Something new: thread
Something borrowed: blue jeans from DH and my sons
Something blue: blue jeans

;-)

To see the other challenge quilts, please visit the AQATW blog.

Blue Rose

My Barcelona quilt Blue Rose is inspired by Gaudí's Rose Window in the Sagrada Familía church:


(source: www.barcelona.de)

The quilt is made using the reverse applique technique, with turquoise handdyed cotton sateen from Dyed and Gone to Heaven behind black cotton. It is machine quilted and has a facing finish.





(cross-posted to Art Quilts Around the World)

More cushions

Today was my once-in-a-fortnight day-off - not at work, oldest two kids at school, youngest at Kindy - and I had a ball. Made two more cushion covers; another Dutch Houses one and a Brisbane Tram Scroll one; made from two tea towels that I bought a while ago at a little shop in Clayfield. I intended to make a bag out of them (never understood why you would make tea towels out of lovely fabrics) but really, I have enough bags...
Here's the other side:



(For overseas readers: all these names are Brisbane suburbs)

I also cleaned up my studio (trying to get used to calling it that) and found a number of projects that I started in the last few months (divers, skaters etc). Got very inspired to get going again!

I also googled some Barcelona images to find inspiration for the next Art Quilts Around the World challenge. And I found it! Looking forward to starting on that quilt soon.
I created a Gaudi board on Pinterest for my collection of photos. Pinterest is such a useful website!

Here's looking at you, kid

Today we unveil our Animal Kingdom quilts on the Art Quilts Around the World blog. This is mine, hanging in my sewing room. I would like to show you how it came about.

I wanted to use my new large screen for this quilt and thought of an interesting animal shape to screen print. Of course - a zebra! I found this copyright-free image on the internet:



I cropped it and printed it in A3 size using Posterazor. I traced the lines on freezer paper and cut out the white shapes - about an hour of work!



I ironed the freezer paper stencil to my screen and got everything ready to print:



Then I took a deep breath, pulled the squeegee down a few times, carefully took the screen off the fabric and voilà!



Oh, the moment when you uncover a great print! :-)



I made a few more prints and then had to clean the screen - and that was the end of my beautiful stencil...

I chose the best of the prints, sandwiched it and quilted it with a black Aurifil thread along the lines, letting them continue in the border (using the original photo as an example). I used a facing finish for the edges of a quilt and attached a sleeve rightaway. Usually it takes me a while to get to that, but I really wanted to put this quilt up the wall!



I think this is my best screen printed image ever and am very proud of it! I uploaded it to Spoonflower where it is now for sale in a few different colourways (a regular black-and-white one and two pop-art zebras!).

The quilt measures 60 x 43 cm (23.5 x 17 inch). There was no size requirement for the challenge and I wanted the quilt to be large enough to enter it in my guild's quilt show in October. Afterwards it may go to my husband's office for he absolutely loves it! :-)



PS The title popped into my head while I was quilting this piece and I thought it fitted the bill...

Busy

Long time no blog - I have been very busy since the last posting but haven't got much to show for it. I finished the Animal Kingdom quilt for Art Quilts Around the World but can't show it here yet... Too bad, because I am really excited about this quilt! I think it's my best one for AQATW so far. You will have to wait six more days for the unveiling.

I've also done some boring but necessary tasks like sewing sleeves on quilts... And most of all I have been busy with my family - DH was away for a week so I had to taxi everyone to taekwondo grading, band performance, gymnastics training etc... And take care of my little one who was sick again - it looks like he suffers from migraine, poor little mite, he's only four years old :-(.

This weekend my oldest is competing in the Queensland State Gymnastics Championships; very exciting! And next Thursday we are off for a few days camping at beautiful Wooyung Beach again (see photo above) - I am really looking forward to that!

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!

MAGnificence is back!

Yesterday, after more than a year, MAGnificence came back - my first quilt to be juried into a show. It was so good to see it again! I have put it on the wall in our living room.
Here's a close-up - I still love that quilt!



And here is a sneak peek of my 'different' quilt for Art Quilts Around the World - it is finished (more than a month before the due date!):



After posting about the giveaway yesterday I discovered that I suddenly had a lot of new fans on my Blue Jacaranda Facebook page. I really appreciate that, but to be in the draw for the giveaway you need to be a follower of this blog, here or on Facebook. Hope that is clear now!
(I will do a giveaway when I reach 200 fans at Blue Jacaranda, but that will take a while!)

2010

You may remember that my word for 2010 was identity. As I said in my first post of 2010: This year I want to develop more of a personal style in my art quilts, an identity. I think it is already forming but I want to consciously develop it further.

Looking at the most succesful quilts I made this year, and also my personal favourites; Balance 1 and 2 (the first one was sold in the SAQA Auction, the second selected for inclusion in the exhibition Petite Miniature Textiles at the Wangaratta Gallery), I think I succeeded - especially when looking at these two quilts, Speed and Monstera deliciosa, that clearly have the same 'signature'. What do you think?



(I have made another cyclist quilt this year that I am not showing here yet, but am very happy with.)



Another succes story was Grrr Argh, a fun little quilt that won a Highly Commended at the Thread Studio Textile Tantrum Challenge. And the lino printed portrait of my son Ernst is one of my personal favourites.



Here are two quilts of a kind: Forest for Dijanne Cevaal's KISS challenge and The Four Seasons for my mother-in-law, shown here hanging in her living room. I like them but don't feel this is really my style.



I made two optical illusion quilts; Len's Quilt, from a pattern by Lerusisik (which I think will be the last quilt I will ever make from a pattern), and Op Art Quilt, my own design, for the Creative Arts Spectacular Auction for my sons' school. I love optical illusions bot don't think I will make any more of these soon.



Finally I made a traditional baby quilt for our niece and finished the play quilt for Robbie. And I made four quilts for Art Quilts Around the World; (clockwise) A Rose is a Rose, Stone Soup, Doors and my self portrait quilt, Linda Warhol, which will be unveiled today along with the other self portraits.




I also made three bags: the polka dotted backpack for my BFF Hylkia, the bag for the Embellish a Bag Challenge, and the gymnastics bag for my son Hugo. I love bags, and making bags, and am sure I will continue making them!

What else did I do... Make a lot of postcards, a few ATCs and two pairs of zebra pants!

I designed a lot of calligram fabrics and some other fabrics at Spoonflower - something I found I love doing and am actually quite good at, in so far that people seem to like my fabrics and often buy them!

I set up Blue Jacaranda, my online store, which was fun... And I changed the name and the look of the blog. Wow, I had a busy year! But I loved it. Non-quiltwise, it was also a good year, with a trip to a conference in Berlin and a short holiday in the Netherlands, my first paper accepted in a public health journal, DH and our boys doing well... Yes, I am a happy person!

Tomorrow I will tell you my plans for 2011. Now I have to go and do the shopping! ;-)



PS (back from the shopping) Of course I wish you all a very happy, colourful and creative 2011! Thank you for reading this blog, I hope you will keep following me in the new year!