Blue Jacaranda now on Etsy!

I am happy to tell you that I now sell my handmade items on Etsy too! You can find my Blue Jacaranda shop here. I have just added The Owl Quilt to the shop - my very first quilt for sale! (apart from the quilts that have been auctioned) I will be adding items to the shop in the next few days (weeks). If you would like to be updated please 'like' Blue Jacaranda on Facebook. I am planning a giveaway when I reach 300 'likers'.

I am still exploring Etsy - there's so much to discover! My first Treasury is here, do take a look!

Some more fun news to share: the Dutch Quilters Guild's magazine has started a new series of articles, featuring Dutch quilters living abroad. I was the first person to be interviewed and here is the article:



And finally, I have been wanting to share my new business cards with you:



Aren't they cool?!



I got them from MOO and can highly recommend this company!

Russia

I have never been to Russia, but would love to go there one day. The first thing I would go and see would be St Basils's Cathedral in Moscow. You may remember I had a thermofax screen made of the drawing I did of this cathedral a while ago. I used this print in a Russia journal quilt for the Australia and New Zealand Art quilters group - I printed it on the red part of the Russian flag (white, blue, red - very similar to the Dutch flag, which I used in my Netherlands quilt). I stenciled the word Russia in Cyrillic script on the blue part. It was quilted simply with horizontal lines. Here is a close-up:



I consider this the second quilt in my series of country journal quilts. The Morocco quilt I regard as a failure and it will probably be cut up to make a postcard ;-).

I also finished the Barcelona quilt for the Art Quilts Around the World group and will post a sneak peek there soon.

Only one week now

... until SAQA's Benefit Auction 2011 takes off!

On the SAQA website you can now find eight pages of 'dream collections' - collections of nine auction pieces, curated by SAQA members. My dream collection, Colourful, can be found on page 8. And I'm proud to say that my quilt, Balance 3, features in three dream collections: Threes, curated by Linda Boone Laird on page 4; Carolyn Ryan's collection of pieces that create a strong mood through use of color or theme on page 5, and Feminine Figures, curated by Wen Redmond, on page 8.

Tuberculosis

I have entered my Tuberculosis piece into the Political and Social Art exhibition at the Infinity Art Gallery, an online art gallery. You can view it, and read my artist statement, in Gallery 2.
I encourage you to take a look at both galleries; there are some very interesting art works.

I have finished my diving quilt and called it Synchronicity. It's hanging on the wall in our living room now - I love it! But I'm not showing it here yet, as I am thinking of entering it into a show... Sorry!

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!

More cushions

Today was my once-in-a-fortnight day-off - not at work, oldest two kids at school, youngest at Kindy - and I had a ball. Made two more cushion covers; another Dutch Houses one and a Brisbane Tram Scroll one; made from two tea towels that I bought a while ago at a little shop in Clayfield. I intended to make a bag out of them (never understood why you would make tea towels out of lovely fabrics) but really, I have enough bags...
Here's the other side:



(For overseas readers: all these names are Brisbane suburbs)

I also cleaned up my studio (trying to get used to calling it that) and found a number of projects that I started in the last few months (divers, skaters etc). Got very inspired to get going again!

I also googled some Barcelona images to find inspiration for the next Art Quilts Around the World challenge. And I found it! Looking forward to starting on that quilt soon.
I created a Gaudi board on Pinterest for my collection of photos. Pinterest is such a useful website!

Dutch Houses Cushion

Yesterday I made this Dutch Houses Cushion cover. It has a hidden zip that I am very proud of - I never inserted one before (always steered clear of zips) and sort of just figured out how to do it (well, it's not rocket science), and it worked!

The fabric is a leftover from the Spoonflower linen-cotton canvas I used for the Dutch Houses Bag. There's enough for another cover and both will go to our caravan.

I have added lots of new stuff that I made for the Kerbside Lane Markets to my Blue Jacaranda shop on MadeIt - Vintage Atlas Cards, Vintage Bookcover Cards, Chalk Cloth Gift Tags, Pencil Rolls and lots more. And I made and added this polka-dotted apron, modelled here by my almost-5-year-old:



I have also started on a design for a new quilt. I seem to be stuck in this small project mode - it's so easy to work on these things that are finished in a few hours or less, but much harder to start again on a large project that involves enlarging designs, screen printing etc... I long to be back in that flow, but there's so much else going on. (my PhD Confirmation has been postponed until September 6th...) However, I do hope to start on it this week. To be continued!

What's new?

Well, not the quilt, but the quilt stand is - I bought it at Design Matters and love it. Very useful too in a rented house where you're not allowed to hang anything on the wall!



Because of the Ekka holiday in Brisbane we were able to go to our new caravan at Wooyung Beach for two days. The new curtains give it a very fresh look!



Hugo agreed to bring his Aussie Quilt to the caravan - it's really too big for his bed and fits perfectly on this bed.



The Kookaburra and the other small bird quilts are now at Wooyung too! (yes, I will make some new covers for these dark cushions)



And here is another Grevillea. I can't stop photographing these funky flowers!

To market, to market

Today was the long awaited event - my first market! Around noon hubby dropped me off at Kerbside Lane to set up my stall, while he took the boys to the Queensland Museum. A few hours later they came back and manned my stall for a while:



It was a small market with a good vibe:





Music too:



I sold enough to make a profit (including a few of my Callies, which is encouraging), but all in all I think this market is not quite the right place for me - most visitors are young people looking for vintage clothes and accessories, not for the stuff I sell. I need a more family-oriented market!

However, I enjoyed being there - until suddenly around 4 pm it started to rain; for the first time in Brisbane in weeks! :-( And it didn't stop, so everyone quickly packed it in, and my boys came to collect me:



Now it's back to work for two days, then we're off to our caravan for two days (because of the Ekka holiday here in Brisbane) and after that, on Friday, my Confirmation. I'll be very happy when it's Friday night!



PS Spoonflower has a Free Swatch Day on August 18th! I think I'll order a Hippo Calligram swatch to make another Calli...

More Callies

The Kookaburra and the Giraffe:



And here's the whole Calli Family so far (remember the Kelly Family, back in the 70s/80s?)



I'll probably make some more and take them to market on Sunday...

I'm looking forward to the markets but will also be glad when they are over and I will be able to do other things again! Life is a bit busy at the moment, with the markets coming up and my PhD Confirmation next week... Here's the invitation:



Thankfully we have two days off on Wednesday and Thursday next week - looking forward to going to our new caravan and hanging up my new curtains!

Curtain!

My latest sewing project: curtains for our new caravan!



I bought six metres of this coated blockout fabric and have now finished the curtains for five of the eight windows. It's the first time in my life I have made curtains!



I also made another Cuddly Calli; the Dinosaur. Working on the Kookaburra!



And I finished another decoupage project. Using a Chinese newspaper from Hong Kong I covered the inside and outside of a plain box. I love how it turned out. Thinking of making a gymnastics box for my oldest, a bicycle box for hubby, a train box for my youngest etc...



I'm itching to start a new quilt but it will have to wait until after the Kerbside Lane Markets next week...

Dolphin Cuddly Calli

Meet my Dolphin Calligram Cuddly toy! (Calli-Cuddle? Trying to think of a good name...) I made it from the Spoonflower swatch (8 inch square) that you have to order before you can put a fabric design up for sale. I have lots of them and suddenly thought this was a good way to use them! (yes, I still have to finish the Calligram Quilt for Robbie, also made with these swatches...)



I'm sure I will make some more of these Callies!



I'm also working on some new decoupage projects - a few photo frames to start with, for Blue Jacaranda at the Kerbside Lane Markets on August 14th. I really enjoy this technique; I brought some Chinese newspapers from Hong Kong with this in mind.

So... still no quilting here. I guess I will take it up again after the market. I'm thinking about a design for the Beneath the Southern Sky exhibition. It will probably include some screen printing..!