Cyber Fyber Postcard

Yesterday I received this postcard from Susan Lenz. In March I had traded an ATC with her as part of the Cyber Fyber Exhibition, now I joined Round 2 of the Postcard swap. I sent her this postcard (she had commented on my posting about the Australia-postcards, saying she liked them, so I made another one for her):

No show

I had thought I would be able to show you some of my first dyeing attempts today, but unfortunately I can't show anything, as I still haven't got any dyes! I ordered some online on September 1st, but at the wrong place... Twelve days later I still haven't received anything. (the order is now cancelled and I have reordered at another, more trustworthy place)

I am very disappointed (to put it very very mildly), because today the second lesson of my dyeing course is online and I still can't do anything :-(.

To end on a happier note, I did receive some more silk scarves (from another online store, obviously) and hope to do some more fabric painting tomorrow.

And because a posting without pictures is boring, here are some photos I took in the last few weeks, in New Farm Park and the Mount Coot-tha Botanical Gardens. Nature can be so inspiring!

Silk scarf and painted postcards

Remember the Playing with Paint class I did at Quilt University (QU)? It's finished now and the last thing we did was paint a silk scarf. I really enjoyed doing that and am very pleased with the result:



I scrunch-painted this scarf with pink Dye-Na-Flow paint first, then again with purple Setacolor. Then used a gold Paintstick to stencil the butterflies on it and traced the outlines with a gold gelpen.

I also made some postcards from painted fabric:



DH really liked the card with the butterfly, so we gave it to him today for Father's Day. The dinosaur card is for my oldest son, Hugo, on his next birthday - he loves dinosaurs. The other cards are for friends.

Hugo (he's 5 years old) painted this piece of fabric:



I think it looks very good and will make a postcard out of it as well.

I have now signed up for the Cotton Dyeing Basics class at QU, with Marjie McWilliams. Haven't got the dyes yet, but am looking forward to dying my own fabric!

Award

I have received an 'I Love Your Blog' award from Bethel of Bethania!
Thanks Bethel, I really appreciate it! I'm thrilled that you enjoy looking at my blog.

Here are the guidelines...
1. Put the logo on your blog
2. Link to the person who nominated you.
3. Nominate seven blogs you love to read
4. Link to those blogs
5. Let those bloggers know with a comment that they've been nominated.

Well... there are more than 70 blogs that I try to read and it's hard to choose only 7. I will not nominate the blogs of some famous quilters like Jenny Bowker and Lisa Walton, although I love to read them, as I know they are far too busy for this sort of thing.

I hope these 7 bloggers (in no particular order) are not:

1. Margeeth at Margeeth's quilt-blog - her blog was one of the first I followed.
2. Corryna at Corryna's blog - We 'met' in cyberspace years ago at a babyforum and a few months ago I discovered her quilting blog. Now she's a fellow member of ATWI20Q.
3. Kieny at The Dutchlady. I found her blog a while ago by accident. She actually is my aunt, although we have never met IRL... (long story, don't ask!)
4. Helen at From down the well, and her alter-ego Queen Helen at Quiltland Chronicle, for her well-written and thoroughly enjoyable postings.
5. Marjon at Marjon's Quilts (in Dutch, but with photos of beautiful quilts) - I only recently discovered this blog, but so far I like it very much!
6. Jill at Remote Ramblings -although she does not post very often, I love to read the stories about her life and work in a very remote part of Queensland.
7. Nicole at Nicole's Needles - she is an Aussie in Berlin, I am a Dutchie in Oz, and although we have never met I feel quite connected to her!

I hope you will enjoy taking a look at the blogs I have nominated, and for the nominees; I hope you will select some blogs you love - a good way to discover some new ones!

Around the world in 18 quilts

My online art quilt group, Around the world in 20 quilts, just finished its first challenge: Trees. Unfortunately this time there are only 18 quilts, as 2 members dropped out just before the deadline, but we have found 2 new members, so hopefully there will be 20 next time, on November 30th.
Do check out the gorgeous tree quilts on our blog!

Bookcover and art & craft display

With some leftover strips from the TATW quilt I made this bookcover, for a small sketchbook:



I free-motion quilted a flower on it, maybe I'll use a purple Paintstick on it as well (have to order one first though!).

And look at this!



At my workplace there are a lot of very creative people - quilters, painters, papercrafters etc. Very often someone brings something handmade that we all admire. So we thought it would be a good idea to have a 'show and tell' where everyone can bring his or her creative products. Carmel made this poster, using some pics from this blog - how flattering!

Trip Around the World

I just had an email from my sister-in-law in Croatia, saying that the quilt for Saskia has arrived, and that she loves it and is sure it will become a treasured possession.
So here is a pic of the quilt.
Smile... it's nice to make quilts for others! :-)

Baby blocks

My poor 1 year old, Robbie, has been quite ill these last 4 days and I am feeling a bit under the weather myself, but did manage to stitch this toy together, a present for the baby of friends in The Netherlands (he was born in January, so am rather late!):




Robbie got one of those from Rens for his 1st birthday and the boys all love it, so I hope it will be a succes in Holland as well. It was a bit more work than I had thought, but I think I am slowly starting to appreciate hand sewing! Good for thinking...

Postcards from Australia

Remember those fabric samples that I won a while ago? Well, I did use them to make some postcards, first for a swap at the Arts'nthemail group, then some more for friends overseas.
The theme of the swap was 'Maps', so I made these postcards:



Here are the cards I received:



And this is the second set I made:



I sent one of them to Corryna, who devoted a blog posting to it - thanks Corryna! Glad you like it!

I'm currently making some postcards and ATCs from the painted fabrics and also have some of these aboriginal fabrics left for postcards, so if you would like to swap, let me know!

More fun with paint

For the Quiltuniversity course I had a go at food printing (pear and kiwi) and painting with a string wrapped brayer:



I discovered yesterday that my local craftstore sells Setacolor and Dyn-a-flow paints, so I bought a few more colours... And some other gadgets (the dinosaur and lizard shapes) and did some more sunprinting and salting. I think I will use these pieces of fabric to make ATCs and postcards.




The last pic is actually of the piece of fabric that I used to wipe the plastic table cover after painting the other pieces... and to wipe the brushes on. I sprinkled some rock salt on it and put it in the sunlight as well and see what it turned out to be!

Playing with paint

The babyquilt is finished and has started its trip around the world. I will show a pic here when it has arrived.

As I told you in the last posting, I signed up for a Quiltuniversity course; Playing with Paint, and that is what I did last weekend. With white cotton fabric and Setacolour transparent paints I tried out some techniques:


wet fabric, paint, salt and sunlight








wet fabric, paint, clingwrap and sunlight







and my favourite technique, sun printing:



I used a gel pen to outline the prints in these pieces. This is really great fun - am I lucky to be living in the Sunshine State! :-)

Photo-fun

Thanks for all your kind comments on my 'quiltiversary'! :-)
In the meantime I have almost finished the babyquilt for Saskia; I only have to hand-sew the binding to the back. I can't show a photo here yet of course, but trust me, it is lovely!
I also signed up for a new course at Quiltuniversity.com; for Playing with Paint with Lyric Kinard. I just received the paints I ordered for this and am now ready for some serious fun!

Nothing to show today, but a posting without photos is boring, so here are some pics!





(I stole this idea from Wietske - go here if you want to have some photo-fun(ia) as well!)