Russia

I have never been to Russia, but would love to go there one day. The first thing I would go and see would be St Basils's Cathedral in Moscow. You may remember I had a thermofax screen made of the drawing I did of this cathedral a while ago. I used this print in a Russia journal quilt for the Australia and New Zealand Art quilters group - I printed it on the red part of the Russian flag (white, blue, red - very similar to the Dutch flag, which I used in my Netherlands quilt). I stenciled the word Russia in Cyrillic script on the blue part. It was quilted simply with horizontal lines. Here is a close-up:



I consider this the second quilt in my series of country journal quilts. The Morocco quilt I regard as a failure and it will probably be cut up to make a postcard ;-).

I also finished the Barcelona quilt for the Art Quilts Around the World group and will post a sneak peek there soon.

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!

The Netherlands

Here is my first journal quilt for this year with the Aus/NZ Art Quilters. You may remember that we are doing Countries this year, and for the first one I chose my home country, the Netherlands. I thought about it for a long time before starting it and finally decided to use the national colours, red, white and blue, and orange (for our Royal House).

I cut strips of fabric, free hand, and sewed these together. On this background I stitched the outline of the Netherlands. Such a familiar shape, and while I was sewing I mentally revisited all those parts of the country.

I added buttons for the places where I have lived - Groningen, Enschede, Amsterdam and Leiden/Hazerswoude. Here is a close-up:



For the backing I used a Dutch boerenzakdoek (farmers' handkerchief):



This little quilt is very different from anything I have made before, and I love it!

I am looking forward to making more of these journal quilts - my list of countries at this moment consists of Morocco, England, Kenya, Egypt and Ireland.



PS Remember, you can still become a follower to make a chance to win a fat quarter of my Dutch Houses fabric! Or a Dutch Houses fiber postcard... See the details of my giveaway here.

2009

Quiltwise, 2009 was a very good year for me. Three of my quilts appeared in Down Under Quilts, one (the optical illusion quilt) as a Creative Process article, and my Selvedge Shopping Sack featured as a project.
Very recently I heard that my MAGnificence quilt was juried into the State of the Art Quilt 2010 exhibition; for me the highlight of the year!




Here are the quilts I made in 2009 (except for Hugo's Rainbow Bird Quilt) - interesting to discover that I have made three 'traditional' quilts featuring squares (I love squares, can you tell?) and three pictorial quilts. I like making both sorts; after finishing one sort I usually want to make a quilt of the other sort.




And here are my five journal quilts for 2009. I would have liked to make some more, but hey, I do need to sleep sometimes!



And finally, here are the four quilts I made for Art Quilts Around the World: Brave New World, Connexion, Where Land and Sea Meet and MAGnificent Mandala. The last one has been unveiled today, together with the mandala quilts of the other members, on our AQATW blog. Do go there to have a look at the quilts and read about my mandala!

I also made lots of ATCs and fiber postcards, a few bags and some other small projects, but I will not bother you with all of that now!

Non-quiltwise, 2009 has been a very good year as well - I had the opportunity to visit the TB outreach clinics in the Torres Strait Islands; we had a wonderful holiday in our home country, the Netherlands; I started a PhD traject (it's going well, thanks, I'm busy working on my literature review); the boys are all doing well and DH had lots of publications this year (he is a public health researcher at the University of Queensland).

Tomorrow I hope to post a little about my plans and goals for 2010...
Meanwhile, I wish you all a happy, healthy and creative New Year!

Journal Quilt August

Finally, after a 4-month gap, I made another journal quilt for the Aus/NZ Art Quilters group. The theme for August was Motion and I thought it would be a good way to try out one of my gymnasts screen prints in a quilt. I chose the pommel horse, because on that apparatus the gymnast performs a series of continuous motions. The 'shadow' was made with a Paintstik on a freezer paper stencil.

For the text on the quilt I used some childrens' alphabet stamps. I quilted them with a free-motion zigzag stitch; the first time I have tried that. It works very well for letters!

I am quite happy with this journal quilt. To see the other ones, click on the tag journal quilts at the end of this posting.

Journal Quilt April

Here is my journal quilt for April 2009. The suggested theme was Human Figure. I first thought of doing a self portrait or a portrait of one of my boys, but after my trip to the Torres Strait Islands, where I observed the tuberculosis outreach clinics, I decided to use an X-ray of a TB patient.

(In case you are not familiar with a chest X-ray: the white part in the middle is the heart. The lungs should be black (because they are filled with air) and all the white bits that I have quilted are parts of the lungs that are affected by tuberculosis. This is actually an X-ray showing extensive disease in both lungs)

Tuberculosis is a very old disease (evidence of TB has been found in Egyptian mummies) that is still a major cause of morbidity and mortality in large parts of the world. When it is caused by non-drug resistant bacteria it is easy to treat, although treatment must be continued for at least 6 months. Multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) is a growing problem in many countries that needs to be addressed urgently. In the Torres Strait patients from Papua New Guinea, many of them with MDR-TB, are treated by an outreach team from Cairns. For a posting about my trip, go here (in Dutch, but with lots of photos) or watch this ABC news report (July 2008).

Journal Quilt March

Here is my journal quilt for March. The theme was Life Cycle, which I found rather difficult. In the end I decided to look at symbols for inspiration. These Celtic knots may or may not represent the cycle of life- their meaning, if any, is far from clear. But they are beautiful and I enjoyed using one (but making a black quilt is not much fun!).

When I had almost finished this quilt I suddenly thought of another way to represent a life cycle. I may make another quilt using this idea... but then again, I may just go on with the journal quilt for April! The theme for that one is Human Figure - a very attractive theme, I think.

Journal quilt February

It's finished!

The suggested theme for February was Love - I guess because of Valentine's Day, which does not mean much to me. But February happens to be the month in which my first child was born, and with him (and later with his brothers) came love in a way that I had never known before. (I remember going away on my own for a few hours for the first time after he was born, it must have been in March, because I saw lots of lambs in the fields... I got quite teary and wondered if those lambs' mothers felt the same way about their babies as I did about my Hugo...)

Some of the suggested techniques for this month were to use angelina and metal foil. I have used angelina in a quilt before (the jacaranda quilt) but not foil, so it was a good chance to try something new.

I used the photo that I think is still the most beautiful one of my 3 boys ever made. I took it when Robbie was about 6 weeks old.

And I satin stitched the edges following the advice that was given after I posted the pic of the January journal quilt. I think it does look better this time, so thanks!

Would love to hear your comments on this one!

My first journal quilt

I just finished my first journal quilt for the Aus/NZ Art Quilters group. The proposed theme for January 2009 was Heat - of course you're free to use your own themes, but I thought this one was very appropriate. The idea that I had worked out quite well - I painted the map on Vliesofix and ironed it on some muslin, then quilted the (iso...?) lines.

I do think my thread writing needs some practice though, and am not too happy about the edges (satin stitched, but it makes the quilt wobbly)... Maybe I'll put on a binding after all.

Would love to hear your comments!