Here be dragons

Yesterday I took a short break from crocheting to make this pencil case for my middle son Ernst. It was his 13th birthday on Tuesday and he got (as requested) a set of 24 coloured pencils (and some other things as well, obviously). He asked if I could make a case for them. Of course!



He loves dragons, so chose this fabric from my stash. I think I bought it in 2016 for his Big Dragon Cushion, but didn't use it in the end because it didn't go very well with the other fabrics.



Ernst loves the case. Here is the first drawing he made with his new pencils:




Speaking of dragons, today this crocheted dragon popped up on my Facebook feed. It's a pattern by Crafty Intentions, available on Ravelry. I showed it to Ernst who begged me to make one for him! So I've ordered the pattern although I'm not sure if my crochet skills are up to this level yet...



And speaking about making things for my sons - we've had a few moving companies come in this week to check out our stuff and give a quote for moving us from Sydney to the Gold Coast in January. A lady from one of those companies saw my sewing machine and the quilts hanging on the walls, and exclaimed that it was a shame I did not have any daughters to make things for...!

Finished!

The dragon of the sky is finished!



I had so much fun making this quilt. The best part was attaching all the rhinestones:



I free-motion-quilted spirals in the background, inspired by the tail of the dragon. Free-motion quilting is not something I enjoy doing, but I do like the texture it created.



Ernst loves his dragon recreated in fabric. We might do another one together (I have found a very groovy green fabric) but first I have a few other projects to finish. Stay tuned!

Read more about the making of this quilt here, here and here.

Wild Fabrications

A few days ago I saw a call for entry for a new SAQA exhibit: Wild Fabrications. I have been making a lot of traditionals quilts and quilted items for Down Under Quilts in the last six months and I really feel like starting a new art quilt project. The exhibit concept reads as follows:

'Wild Fabrications celebrates a world of animals both real and fantastical. Let your imagination run wild as you create interesting and unusual interpretations of animals using unexpected or unconventional materials and adornment, and/or unusual techniques. We are looking for whimsical and creative depictions of animals. Your animals may be common or capricious; odd or ordinary; live or imagined. The key to this call is to have fun!'

That sounds good, doesn't it? I asked my middle son Ernst (9) if he would like to design a fantastical animal for me to recreate in an art quilt. He sure would! He started drawing immediately:



He drew and drew...



... and drew...



... and drew:



(And drew some more, but I won't show you all nine dragons!) It was a very difficult choice but in the end we decided to go for 'the dragon of the sky'. Ernst re-drew it for me on a large piece of paper:



Here it is. This dragon lives in the sky and never ever comes down to the ground. When it is really tired (very rarely) it will sleep on a cloud.



I traced the drawing on tracing paper:



In my stash I found a beautiful handdyed purple fabric. I backed it with fusible webbing and cut out the tail of the dragon. I hadn't realised until after I started cutting that it was going to be the mirror image of the original drawing, but fortunately Ernst didn't mind. Here is step one of the quilt!



Now I need to go and find a yellow fabric - and some more fusible webbing.

To be continued!

PS I asked the curator if it was okay to use a drawing of my son and to post this on my blog. It was :-)

Sneak peeks, upcycling and kids' art

I have just finished two quilting projects - can't show them yet but here are some sneak peeks. The first is the quilt made out of men's shirts; the binding is also a striped shirt! The second project is this one; cool hey!



Today was a rainy day here in Brisbane and I decided to have another play with my felted sweaters. This is a mouse pad for a colleague. The camera on my mobile phone had a hard time capturing the orange...



My second son Ernst (9) had his first art class with Brisbane artist Kylie Farrelly yesterday and loved it. This term's theme is 'Paint like the Masters' - can you guess yesterday's Master?

Felted wool and kids' art

A while ago a friend who was moving overseas gave me her (small) fabric stash. In it I found some woollen jumpers (sweaters) which I felted in the washing machine. Then I cut them up and stitched the pieces back together, as you do when you are a quilter... and ta-da!



 The back is made from another jumper:



I think this sort of thing is called a trivet, right? it is residing on our dinner table now where we could put a vase of flowers on it if we had any flowers (flowers are shockingly expensive here in Australia, compared to the Netherlands, so I hardly ever buy them). The boys, especially my middle son Ernst, are fascinated by the 3D shapes!

Speaking of Ernst, here is a painting that he made this week. It's called Robot Dog:



And here is a drawing of a character that he invented. He called it Triple Trouble - or rather Triplle Trubull ;-)



I just love his original artwork and am going to try to upload it onto Spoonflower and see if I can have some of it printed on fabric (as I did with another drawing of his a few years ago).

Sunday

Today my friend Yasmin and I visited the Wooloongabba Antique Centre, where they have this ginormous shoe-shaped bicycle (or tricycle?). A note on it said that it was used in the Closing Ceremony of the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney. My friend thought it also featured in the movie Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Anyway, it looked awesome! Inside they had this beautiful little sewing machine. I've never seen one like this before! (unfortunately it was too expensive to take home...)



I bought this piece of vintage neon-green fabric:



Yesterday I made this small toy for my middle son - he drew it and I created it out of some pieces of felt and a few buttons.



(it's the Golden Super Leaf from the Mario games)

Tomorrow I'll show you the items I made from the prints on blue jeans fabric!

Busy

It has been a busy week here. It's the school holidays and all the boys, hubby and I have been sick with a horrible gastro bug. Everyone was sick for only one day, but the whole thing took almost a week and I was of course the last one to get it. Haven't felt so bad in years! But today I was well again and made these two cushion covers for our caravan. The zebra is one of the prints I made a while ago for the Animal Kingdom Challenge quilt - it looks good, doesn't it?



This newsprint fabric was a birthday gift from my friend Yasmin. I think it makes a great cover!



The boys did some painting today, and I decided to join in. Ernst (6) made this wonderful painting, called Electric Attack:



I polka dotted my canvas - inspired by the Polka Dots Forever Treasury List I made on Etsy today (please have a look, it really is fun!).



I am still figuring Etsy out - it is fun, but eating up a lot of my time! I have added quite a few new items to my shop, joined teams, formed circles etc... And become quite addicted to making Treasury Lists, which are collections of 16 items currently on sale at Etsy centered around a theme. So far I have used these themes: Zebra (surprise!), Rainbow, Blue and White, Stylish Screen Prints, Bicycle, Turquoise and Birthday Bash (wow, so many already!). There are so many original and beautiful items on Etsy! (and I try to add some Australian and Dutch items to every Treasury List)

On Wednesday we are going on a short holiday, to our caravan at Wooyung Beach of course. Looking forward to that! After the holidays I will start on a quilt for the Beneath the Southern Sky Challenge.

School holidays

It's the 2-week winter holidays here. We have just come back from a short camping holiday, again at Wooyung Beach where we were last month as well. We like the place so much that we have bought an on-site caravan there!



I have been quite creative in the last week, but mainly in helping with these children's projects!
I did manage to finish quilting the new ice skating quilt and now only have to do the facing finish. I hope to get that done before Thursday night, when I fly to Hong Kong for a 4-day trip to a medical conference. Am looking forward to that!



I am not continuing my photo blog, but will post the occasional photo on this blog. Here is a Grevillea that I photographed at the campsite. Love these funky flowers!

Creative moments

As I told you in an earlier posting, hubby is in Europe (in the Netherlands right now), so I am a single parent at the moment. Thankfully the kids are all well again, but as it it the school holidays here it is quite a demanding job to keep them all entertained. So demanding that when the boys are in bed I am too exhausted to do anything creative. I had hoped to do a lot of quilting these weeks, but haven't done anything yet :-(.



However, today we were creative! I had bought sketchbooks and new pencils for the boys, and they all started drawing with gusto! Hugo and Robbie made one drawing each and then went off to do other things, but Ernst (5) kept on going and filled about ten pages of his new book!



And he made some really nice drawings - this one's my favourite:



The boat and car are also very nice:



I took my Sketchbook Project sketchbook and made these (not very good) drawings of Robbie and Ernst:



I also did some 'doodling' (something I never do!) and managed to fill five pages of my book!



Now I am going to crash on the couch and watch a dvd. Somewhere in the back of my mind a quilt called Exhaustion is starting to take shape...!