Sketchbook and giraffes

A while ago I signed up for The Sketchbook Project (after hearing about it on the Quiltart mailinglist). Last week I received my sketchbook and on Saturday I started drawing in it. The theme is Storybook, so I made a title page and wrote the beginning of a story. I used my Derwent Inktense pencils, but discovered that the pages are too thin to use wet pencils :-(. Oh well, it's all part of the artistic experience... I hope this will force me to practice some more drawing.



One of the things I drew was a giraffe. My Dutch friend Heleen alerted me to the One Million Giraffes website - set up by a Norwegian guy who has a bet with a friend that he can collect one million giraffes before January 1st, 2011. These giraffes need to be hand made, not on a computer or store bought. So far he has collected 855,315 giraffes, so he only needs 144,685 more!



Hugo, Ernst, hubby and I drew about ten giraffes and I also made a giraffe calligram. I've uploaded it to Spoonflower, it's not for sale yet but will be in a while:



Speaking about calligrams, here are the first eight for Robbie's quilt:



I'm thinking of making it a quilt-as-you-go quilt, like my selvedge quilt. Then the back could be an I Spy quilt, with lots of novelty fabrics...

I am looking forward to Friday, when I will visit the Textile Art Festival here in Brisbane. Can't wait to see my MAGnificence quilt exhibited, and the Textile Tantrum quilt, and my embellished bag! I will also be sure to attend one of the floor talks on the Twelve by Twelve exhibition and say hi to Brenda, who created my blog header.

This and that

I've finished the top for the Art Quilts Around the World challenge and sent it off to Melbourne. Time for a new project! Yesterday I took one of my bicycle prints and added the shadow with a paint stick. That has to dry now for 2 days, so I took a try out piece of painted and quilted fabric that has been laying here for months (since October, acutally - I posted it here when I had just painted it) and made it into a new case for my sunglasses:



I just saw that my Robot Calligram fabric won the 6th place in the fabric contest at Spoonflower - out of 116 entries, that's not bad, is it! Thanks to everyone who voted for me, I appreciate it! Next week the contest theme is Nautical - I might design something for that...

And finally, here is a very amusing video that I found on a gymnastics blog (no, it's not about gymnastics). Go and have look, you'll love it!



I wish they had one of those slides at Brisbane Central Station!

Gymnast

I can't resist showing you these photos of my ongoing source of inspiration - my oldest son Hugo (7), here at a gymnastics competition at his own club, a few weeks ago.


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The photos were made by Brisbane photographer Martin Glastonbury.

Back from the retreat

I had a wonderful weekend away - no cooking, no cleaning, no kids - and managed to start and finish the quilt for our new niece. (I didn't do anything else though!) Here is a sneak peek - I will show the whole quilt when it has arrived at its destination.

Today we saw the Ron Mueck exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art (there's a pic on my photoblog). I thought it was awesome, but Hugo and Ernst found the big sculptures quite scary.



Afterwards we had lunch in the City and discovered lots of woolly creations there! They're all part of the I Knit Brisbane project. Cool! (or should that be Warm?!)

Robot Calligram in fabric contest

This is my new calligram fabric, the Robot. I have entered it into the Spoonflower Robots Fabric Contest - if you go there you can vote for as many fabric designs as you like (there are 118 entries). You don't need to sign in or become a member. I would of course love it if you would award a vote to my fabric while you're at it!



In my last posting I completely forgot to show you this beautiful ATC, made by Pamela on her new Bernina 830. Sorry Pamela!

I am going to pack now, for this afternoon I am off to the quilting retreat in Highfields (near Toowoomba). My plan is to finally make a start on the quilt for our niece Josien (see the fabrics I bought for it here) - and maybe even to finish it. The poor girl is four months old already and still hasn't got a quilt! ;-)

The playquilt for Robbie isn't finished yet - I used a stretchy polar fleece for the backing and it's making the quilt very wobbly :-( Have to think about that...

I have almost finished my quilt top for the current Art Quilts Around the World challenge though - you can see a sneak peek here!

Postcards and ATCs

Today I received this glorious Elmer postcard from Tonny in the Netherlands (part of the Elephant postcard swap at my Fibermail group). It even came in a fabric envelope! I absolutely love it (and so do the boys).



And this is the Mosaique postcard I received from Ellen a while ago:



And the Mask postcards, from Jettie and Evelyn:



And here are some ATCs I haven't shown yet. The two on top are from Hannie, the other two from Astrid (both from the Netherlands):



These are from Mia and Cobi, also from the Netherlands:



And the last one is from Melly in the USA:



After writing the previous blog posting I felt so guilty about still not having made a 'big quilt' for Robbie that I dug up the play quilt top I made for him at the retreat in November last year. I have almost finished quilting it and hope he will be able to play on it this weekend, when I will be at another retreat! Yay!

Quiltz in da house

Yesterday I finally got around to hanging a few of my quilts in our bedroom. We rent a house, which here in Australia means you cannot put a nail in a wall without written consent of the owner of the house, so I just used the nails that were there already. Unfortunately there are no nails in the living room, butI do think the bird quilts look nice here!

After making this photo I thought it would be nice to show you all the quilts currently on display in our house. It is winter here in Oz and the nights get quite cold, so we all have a quilt on our bed. Here's the selvedge quilt on our bed:



Hugo has his Aussie quilt on his bed and the Hugo quilt on the wall, with his gymnastics medal and ribbons pinned to it:



I put my little Ernst quilt on the nail above the cupboard in the boys' room:



Ernst has his I Spy quilt on his bed:



Poor Robbie is still waiting for me to make him a quilt... In the meantime he has my very first quilt on his bed - I made it for Hugo in 2006:



The jar quilt hangs in the dining room annex kitchen because everyone really likes it:



I showed you the KISS quilt in my sewing room a while ago:



And I almost forgot the sampler that hangs on the couch and the little Dutch quilt that I made into a pillow cover:



(this photo was taken a few weeks ago when Robbie had a plaster cast).
Are your quilts all over your house too?

The last bike prints

Here are the last two bikers for my bicycle quilt.
Thinking hard how to quilt it...
(the prints I've shown here so far are the test prints, not the real thing!)

New fabrics for sale!

As of today, I have five new fabrics for sale on Spoonflower. The first one is my Bicycle Calligram fabric - I love it!
Then there's four new animal calligrams; the ant, dolphin, elephant and flamingo:





And the last one is this Flower fabric:



All fabrics can be purchased in swatches (8 inch square), fat quarters and yards; on quilting weight cotton, organic cotton knit, upholstery weight cotton twill, linen-cotton canvas and cotton lawn. If you like one of my designs but would prefer another colour, let me know and I can arrange it! I would also love to design a calligram for you - another animal or an object, just ask!

Do go and have a look at Spoonflower. There are thousands of wonderful fabric designs, and while you're there, have a go at designing your own fabric - just upload a picture from your computer and see how it looks in repeat, in different colours... It's great fun! (and quite addictive!)

Woohoo again!

My Textile Tantrum quilt for the 2010 Textile Challenge at The Thread Studio won a 'Highly commended'! Woohoo again, I am on a roll!

:-))