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!

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!

Quilting again!

I just checked - it's been more than a month since I last worked on a quilt! No wonder that I really itched to get going again. Yesterday was a rainy day here in Brisbane and the boys were over at a friend's house, so I finally started on that pile I dug out on Wednesday (see photo above; there are three sandwiched quilts - a blue one, a red one and another blue one).

I finished quilting the little skater quilt and made a good start on the other two. Today I managed to finish quilting another one. Here are a few sneak peeks:





I already love this quilt!

I have cut the strips for the facing finish of these two quilts and hope to sew them on tomorrow.

I also did some stencilling on the top of a new journal quilt. Love the smell of Shiva Paintstiks!

Oh, why do I need to go to work tomorrow... Wish I could stay at home and make art quilts!

Busy

While at home with a sick 6-year-old and a healthy 4-year-old I managed to get a lot done today. I finally finished the ice skating quilt, hanging sleeve and all. I'm not showing you the full quilt yet but here is a sneak peek (ignore the pink spot at the bottom; something to do with the light). I also finally sewed sleeves onto a few other quilts -- not my favourite part of the quilt making process!

I realised today that the first anniversary of Blue Jacaranda, my online shop, was last week on July 15th :-). It's been a good year, with 66 items sold - not bad for an enterprise that was just started for fun! And I'm now taking it to a new level: on Sunday, August 14th Blue Jacaranda will be at the Kerbside Lane Markets in Brisbane! So I have been very busy creating new stock:



(much, much more to come!)
I haven't been to this market yet, but it sounds like a fun place - here is a review of one of the earlier markets. The best thing for me is that it starts at 1 pm so no need to build my stall (ehm, it will just be our camping table for now) at 5 am!

So please come along all you Brisbane people and say hi on August 14th! (still a few weeks to go, I know - and I will need them - but don't worry, I will remind you !)



PS My 6-year-old is much better now, thanks. Just hoping that his brothers won't get sick...

Progress

DH took the boys to a park today so I could work in peace and quiet on my new ice skating quilt. I made some good progress and hope to finish the quilt in the next few weeks.



On my new website I used a photo of the Tuberculosis quilt I made in 2009 as a journal quilt with the Australian and New Zealand Art Quilters group. I cropped it so the stitched writing wasn't visible and realised that I actually like the quilt better this way. So today I chopped off that part and finished the new edge with a satin stitch.

Speaking about my website: I am going to rename this blog www.lindarobertus.blogspot.com and use the domain name www.lindarobertus.com for the website (with the blog integrated in it). I hope that this will work and that you, dear reader, will be able to find me again! It may take a little time for the url to work again though...



PS For thise of you who were wondering: my gymnast son won a ribbon for 5th place on high bar at the Queensland Gymnastics Championships yesterday! On Tuesday he will compete again in the Regional Team Challenge, as the number one of Brisbane North in Level 3 Under 9.

New: website!

I have been working hard on the new ice skating quilt - it is now ready to be quilted. I think it is looking very good at this stage...

Something else has kept me busy in the last few days: I have set up a personal website! You can find it here - I would love to hear what you think of it.



We are having a spot of very cold weather here in Brissy and that made me buy some yarn... Will I really knit a scarf this time? We'll see!

A productive day

I've had a very productive Sunday! First I made a Sentimental Scarf. Inspired by Jennie's Yardage Design Scarf I used some of the blue fabrics I cut last year (yes, I think they would have made a nice quilt as well, I just didn't feel like making it). I backed it with some pale blue fleece.



It's called a Sentimental Scarf because there are some much loved fabrics in this scarf. The striped fabric in the middle for instance, I used that for the very first shirt I made for little Hugo - here with his father in a steam train in Kent, England, in 2004... (hard to believe that it is the same boy who won two gymnastics medals today!)



The pale fabric at the end is from a cute pair of pants that I bought for Ernst in Noosa, in the first year we were here (2007). Here he is with his brothers, on the left:



There's also a piece of fabric from a shirt we bought on holiday in Norway, and a lot of hand dyed fabrics... Sentimental Scarf indeed!

I also made a bag today. A while ago I saw a bag made out of a man's woollen jacket in a magazine. It looked really good. I kept my eyes open and found this woollen skirt in the local Op Shop last week. They had a belt in a matching colour:



It was quite easy to turn the skirt into a bag:



Here I am trying to photograph myself with bag and scarf in the only large mirror in our house ;-):



Oh, I also did some screen printing - here are the last two speed skaters:



Tomorrow I'm off to the Textile Art Festival here in Brissy. I can't wait!!! But I know what I'll be wearing - and carrying ;-).

Pennant for London

A while ago I read about Quilts 4 London - a project to provide every athlete at the 2012 Olympic Games in London with a quilted pennant. Of course I had to make one; exactly my cup of tea! I went through my extensive stash of screen printed gymnasts and found one that just fitted in the A3 sized template. I added a shadow, quilted it and voilà! Now I only have to add a sleeve and a label. I may make another one, it's fun and not much work!



While going through my screen printed fabrics I also found these four cyclists and pieced them together. This could make a nice small wall hanging, don't you think?



And I added a shadow to this ice skater - this one is ready to quilt now.

I have also, finally, made a start on the Animal Kingdom quilt for Art Quilts Around the World. About time, it needs to be finished at the end of this month! Will show a sneak peek soon.