Wordless Wednesday

Blogger's Quilt Festival Spring 2013

Amy from Amy's Creative Side is hosting the Blogger's Quilt Festival and I have decided to enter my favourite quilt into the art quilt category.

Cycle of Life was made in 2010, part of my sports series. It is a whole-cloth quilt, the background fabric is a handdyed piece from Dyed and Gone to Heaven. The cyclists are screen printed and their shadows are stencilled with a Paintstick using freezer paper stencils. The quilt is machine quilted. The dimensions are 48 x 107 cm / 19 x 42 inch.



I used photos of my sons and my husband to make the first three images and the last one. I am especially fond of the third image: my middle son riding his bike without the trainer wheels for the first time (see here):



Cycle of Life was juried into the State of the Art quilt 11 in Brisbane, a finalist in the Fall Expo 2011 at the Infinity Art Gallery, and was exhibited at the SAQA/SDA Conference 2012 in Philadelphia, USA.

As I said, this is my favourite of all my quilts; it hangs in our living room above the piano!

Black and White Expo

Yesterday I heard that my Zebra quilt was selected as a finalist in the Black and White Expo at the Infinity Art Gallery. There were 129 entries, so I am very happy to be among the 44 finalists!



You may remember my gymnast son, who inspired some of my quilts - yesterday he had his first competition of this year. His coach advised he skip a level and he is now competing in Level 6, where at just 10 years old he is by far the youngest. He was very nervous (and so was I!), but he did well and passed his Level Test. I'm so proud of him! (in the photo he is doing his practice run on rings)

New calligrams!

It's been on my to-do list for a very long time: draw some new calligrams. And finally I did, and had them made into thermofax screens. They arrived this afternoon, just when I had to go and pick up the kids :-(. When their homework was done and they were playing on the Wii I couldn't resist making a few quick prints. I'm very happy with the seahorse and the platypus, that fascinating Australian animal!



The mouse was a request from a friend. I love his tail ;-).



What do you think of the crocodile?



I also had this drawing made into a thermofax screen:



I can see so many possibilities with this one!

All these designs are also available on Spoonflower, for printing on fabric, wallpaper or as a wall decal. There is also a Shark Calligram design, that I haven't had made into a thermofax screen (yet):



The World Map design is available in six colourways.



Last but not least: Happy Valentine's Day! It's almost over here in Oz, and we (hubby and me) don't 'do' V-day anyway... but here is something you might like to pass on to your Valentine:

Copy and paste the following on Google:

(sqrt(cos(x))*cos(300x)+sqrt(abs(x))-0.7)*(4-x*x)^0.01, sqrt(6-x^2), -sqrt(6-x^2) from -4.5 to 4.5

;-)

Queensland Quilt Show 2012

On Wednesday I was at the Queensland Quilt Show, at the 2QAQ table with Glad, Sue and Jane. We demonstrated some techniques - I made this piece of burlap:



People kept asking 'But what will it be?' - I don't know yet!



The quilt show was amazing; there were more than 500 quilts! The red and white quilts from the Mount Isa region looked spectacular:



I had entered two quilts; Wooyung:



.. and my Zebra, which had been folded and looked terrible :-(



I discovered that The Final Round was also at the show, with the other State of the Art quilt 12 quilts:



I had planned not to buy anything but couldn't resist this book - I have been wanting to read it for quite a while:



I have almost finished it and will post a review soon!



I took something else home: Cycle of Life, which has been at a number of exhibitions and even a visit to the SAQA/SDA Conference in Philadelphia! It's been away for 18 months and I am so glad to have it back home! It is my favourite of all my quilts.

I had a lovely day at the show - unfortunately I had to leave early to pick up the boys from school. Hubby is in New Zealand at the moment, so I am temporarily a single parent. I had forgotten how much time and energy it takes when you have to do it all by yourself... which of course shows how much hubby usually does!

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.

Hoop-la

It's still very quiet on this blog... I am busy quilting the new quilt and, as always when I am at the quilting stage, not happy at all. I will probably feel different when the quilt is finished, but again I have that horrible feeling 'why did I spoil that lovely quilt top with this awful quilting?' :-(

So today, to cheer myself up, I tried something new; stretching screen printed fabric in embroidery hoops. Wouldn't these look lovely in a nursery?



They are in the process of being added to the shop...



And last but not least, here is a photo that I made last Sunday at the beach:



I'm very proud of my big boy AND of the photo! ;-)

Blue jeans prints

Remember I did some screen printing on the legs of discarded jeans? Here are the art cards and the canvas I made with the prints:



Looks good, doesn't it? They are part of a set of new items for Reverse Garbage. The plan is to bring them tomorrow, but my eldest son got sick today, so I might not be able to go tomorrow.

This morning I had a nice email telling me that my sports quilts are featured on the Quilt Inspiration blog. They asked me a while ago and I was happy to agree; it is a beautiful blog that showcases lots of quilt artists.

Robbie was proud to see himself on another blog: Blue Jacaranda is one of the sponsors of Tractorgirl this month. Do check out this blog; Julie shares her craft finds, has great design tips, beautiful photography and more.

Now I am going to switch off the computer and read my book - I'm reading Shadow of Night, part 2 of the All Souls trilogy by Deborah Harkness. Witches, vampires, daemons, ancient books, Oxford, France... Irresistible!

New items in the shop

Yesterday I made this colourful pencil roll, using two swatches of Spoonflower fabric that I designed: Colourful Pencils for the outside and Colour for the inside. I love how it turned out! It's up for sale in my Etsy shop now; you can find it here.



I also made this Dutch Houses business card holder, which will be added to the shop soon:



Today I did a screen printing session. The Narwhal is now available as a stretched print:



While I was printing I suddenly had a brain wave - what about printing on the legs of discarded jeans?



It looked great so I quickly got some more fabric and screens:




These prints will be made into art cards for Reverse Garbage. Remember the set of burlap cards I made for their gift shop, Reverse Emporium? I hadn't heard anything from them so assumed there was no interest... But when we came home from Europe there was a letter telling me that all my cards had been sold and could I please make some more!! Yes, sure! :-)

I am thinking of switching to using only recycled fabric for my screen printed items and quilts... However, I still have lots of commercial fabrics that I need to use up first, so maybe I'll just start a 'line' of upcycled items. Would love to hear your thoughts!

Shadow Fighting

I haven't shown you this quilt yet: Shadow Fighting. I made it in January 2012 for my youngest son, Robbie. It is based on this photo of him, at a taekwondo grading last year:



I have described the process of making this quilt in an article that you can find in the current issue of Down Under Textiles:



For a free online subscription to this magazine click here.

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!

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!

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!

State of the Art quilt 12 at Gallery 159

Today the State of the Art quilt 12 exhibition opened at Gallery 159 in The Gap, Brisbane. Mel took this photo of me next to my quilt, The Final Round.



I made this quilt in May - July 2011 and have shown some sneak peeks here last year. Very glad to finally be able to show the full quilt!



It was hanging upstairs in the gallery in very good company: next to Mel's quilt Platforms and Sue Dennis' quilt Roundel (only partly visible here). Downstairs another 13 quilts were exhibited:



Sue's quilt was my favourite in this show; it was simply stunning:



I also really liked this one: Waterline by Felicity Clarke:



And this one: Living Threads by Rosemary McCall, made with beautiful silk fabrics (read more about it here):



And finally this one, Number Nuances by Tricia Smout - brilliant!



I had often heard about Gallery 159 but never visited it before. It's a lovely place and even the bathroom sign is a piece of textile art!



When I left the exhibition there was a double rainbow outside waiting for me and my camera!



The exhibition is at Gallery 159, 159 Payne road, The Gap, Brisbane until Sunday 29th April 2012. Gallery hours: Saturdays & Sundays 11am to 4pm. Entry is free, so if you are in Brisbane, do go and have a look!