Another burlap project

Here is my latest burlap creation: a coffee cosy for my friend and colleague Yasmin. We always have a coffee together in the morning at the coffee shop next to our workplace. She usually asks for some extra hot milk in her coffee and then needs an extra cup because it is too hot to hold... Very eco-unfriendly, so I made her this cosy with a piece of coffee sack. She loved it :-).



Last Sunday she and I went on a shopping expedition to Paddington. We started at the Antique Centre, where I saw this gorgeous Singer (drool!):



My grandmother had a Singer, so I am quite partial to that brand... Unfortunately it was too expensive to take it home. They also had these beauties:



I bought a few vintage tea towels and some vintage bias binding. Then we walked all the way down Latrobe Terrace. Lots of lovely shops, many in beautiful old Queenslanders:



Paddington is very hilly, so you get lovely views:



Unfortunately it was a grey and rainy day, of which we have had quite a few lately... But we had a very good time.



Tomorrow I'm off to the Craft and Sewing Show here in Brisbane - looking forward to that!

PS Last Saturday my oldest son had his first gymnastics competition of the year; in Level 4 now. He did very well - won a bronze medal on high bar. Here he is on parallel bars:



There might be another gymnastics quilt in my future ;-).

My Etsy purchases

My Etsy shop, Blue Jacaranda, is slowly taking over my life! I keep adding things, taking better photos, tweaking descriptions... and wishing I could devote all my time to my shop and my quilts... Oh well...

But I don't just sell on Etsy, I also love buying things there, and thought I would show you some of my purchases today. My absolute favourite is the Prism Necklace shown above, from Sage and Indie. I love it! I often wear black (black top and black pants) and that colourful necklace just looks great on black!



These Black Mobius Earrings from Marjon Scheffer are another favourite purchase - I wear them almost every day. The funny thing is that Marjon is a Dutch woman living here in Brisbane. We haven't met IRL yet but I'm sure that will happen someday soon!



Delft Blue items never meant much to me when I was still living in the Netherlands, but now I love them! I couldn't resist this little Mustard Jar from Vintage Seas - it took forever to arrive in Oz, but seller Jean was very helpful. Highly recommended for your vintage shopping! (she now has a lovely vintage wooden sewing box that I would love to have - my grandmother had one just like that. But the shipping costs to Australia are just too much...)



After booking our flights to Holland I made a 'Holland here we come' treasury to celebrate that fact and found this gorgeous reprint of a 1928 KLM poster that I just had to have... We are flighing KLM too this time! It's from sandmarg in Canada and arrived here in Brisbane very quickly in a mint condition.



I am a bit obsessed by Russian history at the moment - after reading War and Peace, Russka, and The Kitchen Boy, I am now reading Nicholas and Alexandra, a biography of the last tsar of Russia. Fascinating. I was thrilled to find lapinegr on Etsy - Polly and Joe from St Petersburg sell Russian art cards and antique cards. I bought a few - so much fun to receive that envelope from Russia with the lovely stamps!



And last but not least... I told you a while ago I wanted to learn to crochet to make one of these covered stones... Well, that is not going to happen, so I bought one from MonicaJ, for our caravan. It is gorgeous!

Reverse Emporium

On Wednesday (my day off) after taking the boys to school I went to Reverse Garbage, a wonderful shop here in Brisbane that sells 'high-quality industrial discards'. They have a lovely gift shop, Reverse Emporium, where my Burlap Coffee Cards are now available for sale. I bought the coffee sacks at this shop and made the backing of these cards from a linen blouse found at the op shop. I also added a Dutch Houses card, screen printed on a piece of that same linen blouse, with a backing made from an old bed sheet. I plan to do more printing on salvaged materials as I really like the idea and might add a category of upcycled cards to my Etsy shop.



Of course I couldn't leave without buying something! These suede samples were irresistible:



... and how about these gorgeous fabrics?



Drool!



Back at home (after doing the shopping and two loads of washing) I did a quick screen printing session, as I had a custom order for a Robot Calligram Print. I also printed this shirt as a birthday present for one of Hugo's gymnastics friends:



And then it was time to pick the boys up from school and take Hugo to gymnastics... Unfortunately there was no time for lunch, but I did have a lovely day! ;-)
Wish I could do this full-time... Maybe one day...

PS Thanks to everyone who commented on yesterday's blog posting, here or via email. Your comments were very useful!

Synchronicity

This week I heard that of the two quilts I had entered for State of the Art quilt 12, one was selected (The Final Round). Hurray! I have been asked not to show that one here until the exhibition opens, on April 14 at Gallery 159 in The Gap, Brisbane. So here is the one that was not selected: Synchronicity.

I made this quilt in August 2011 (and showed a sneak peek here) and will confess now that I have tried to enter it in four (yes, 4) art quilt shows and it has been rejected every time! This time I was really surprised because of the two quilts I entered I was quite sure the other one would be rejected!

Luckily this time I finally got a juror's comment to shed some light on this issue. The juror for SotAq12 was Sharyn Hall and she wrote this about my quilts:

Synchronicity: An effective abstract work – though on initial viewing, I found it difficult to interpret the subject matter, the text was a necessity (for me anyway).
Comments: I feel the subject matter has been over stylised, though there is good dimension created with the 2 divers, but a strong singular focal point is missing. You are creating a good effect in stylising subject matter in your quilts – a different treatment of the background without detracting from these (stylised figures) might help to create more depth – in The Final Round, the use 5 figures of different shapes and size has created movement and dimension with the work, hence it’s selection.

(The text - the artist's statement - said something about the quilt being inspired by the sport of synchronised diving and trying to capture the gracious forms and movement of the divers in my quilt - I always forget to copy and save my Artist's Statement somewhere!)

So - my quilt is abstract and too stylised! I'm surprised, as I don't consider my Sports Quilts to be abstract. I use the silhouetted forms and try to let the quilting lines emphasize these forms. (see more Sports Quilts in my Gallery here) I do admit this quilt is more stylised than the other ones and personally I like this development in my work, but it seems to be an unsuccesfull one... Would love to hear your opinion!

In the meantime I have put this quilt up for sale in my Etsy shop - you can find it here. I really like it myself; it has been hanging in our living room since it was finished (and a number of visitors has said they liked it - maybe they were just being polite, haha!), but I am not emotionally attached to it the way I am to some of my other sports quilts (notably MAGnificence and Cycle of Life). And I as I have said before, I do not have room to hang all my quilts...

Speaking about my sports quilts, I have written a 'how-to' article about them which will be in the next issue (no. 8) of Down Under Textiles, so stay tuned for that!

Also very exciting: Cycle of Life will travel with Ali George to Philadelphia, USA, and together with some of the other SotAq11 quilts be shown at the SAQA/SDA Conference at the end of this month! Lucky quilt - wish I could come too!

New print - and some happy news

Yesterday I made this screen print (on a gorgeous piece of Lisa Walton fabric) - during our Christmas holiday at the beach I often thought I would like to print some surfer images. Do you like it?

I have done a few and intend to use one of them for a 12" x 12" quilt for the 2012 SAQA Benefit Auction.



And finally, some happy news: we have just booked tickets for a trip to the Netherlands in June! It's been three years since we were there with our whole family (I was there for a few days in 2010 after a conference in Berlin and hubby has also visited a few times on business trips) and we are so looking forward to it!

The photo above was taken in Groningen in November 2010 - can't wait to visit my favourite city again and catch up with my BFF (the Apple Tart Queen)!

Indonesia

Yesterday I finished my last country quilt for the Aus/Nz Art Quilters group: Indonesia. Another country I haven't been to yet, but would love to visit one day.

As in my other country quilts, I have used the colours of the Indonesian flag (red and white) for the background, and appliqued a strip of burlap from a coffee sack on it that says Prod. of Indonesia. Indonesia is the fourth-largest producer of coffee in the word, but there is another reason why I have used a piece of coffee sack in this quilt.

As you probably know, Indonesia was a Dutch colony until it gained independence in 1949. One of the most famous books in Dutch literature is Max Havelaar: Or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company, written by Multatuli (Eduard Douwes Dekker). It was published in 1860 and contains a strong protest against the abuses of the colonial system of that time. The name Max Havelaar now lives on in the Max Havelaar Foundation, which launched the world's first Fairtrade Certification Mark.



Here are my four country quilts: the Netherlands, Russia, Japan and Indonesia. It wasn't until I made this photo that I discovered that Indonesia is quite a bit larger than the others... :-( Will have to trim it a little, hopefully tonight... and then send them all of so they can be part of the exhibition at the Australasian Quilt Convention!

Burlap Bookmarks

Not much to show this week - very busy at work, plus a sick child and all the usual young family things. I did make some burlap bookmarks and added them to my Etsy shop. Books and coffee are a great combination, don't you think? Wouldn't these be the perfect gift for your book club members?



This is the part that is now left over from the first coffee sack (I have quite a few more waiting to be cut up!). Thinking about what to do with it... maybe use it for my last country quilt??

Japan

Yesterday I made this Japan quilt for the Australian and New Zealand Art Quilters group. Like Russia, Japan is a country that I have never been to but would love to visit. I used the Japanese flag, the outline of the country and the offical name of the country in Japanese to design my quilt.



I need to send off four country quilts in March, for they will be exhibited at the Australasian Quilt Convention in Melbourne in April. Although I have made four country quilts, I am not happy with one of them (Morocco) and another one (Blue Rose, my Barcelona quilt for AQATW) does not really go well with the rest of the series, I think. So I intend to make another one in the next week... if I can find the time!

What to do with an old coffee sack

A while ago I bought a few coffee sacks at Reverse Garbage, and this week I started cutting them up and using them in small projects. I made two hand-stenciled cards that I really like. The first one has been added to my Etsy shop, here.



I also made another Beach Pillow and added it to the shop (here), as it was really popular.



I hope to make some more stuff this weekend. I love burlap!

A busy week

It has been a busy week here, with ups and downs. The biggest 'up' was an email from Spoonflower, letting me know that my Dutch Houses fabric was chosen to feature in The Nate Berkus Show! Initially this didn't mean anything to me, but after some googling I discovered that Nate Berkus is a very famous American interior designer who has his own TV show. Okay... The episode was taped last Tuesday and will be aired in May. The Spoonflower people have promised to send me a link to the video online and of course I will share it with you! ;-)

It was my oldest son's 9th birthday on Thursday, so that kept me busy, and I have been writing an article for a magazine (!) which took up a lot of my time. Will tell you more soon!

Today I had to come home from work early to pick up my youngest from school, as he had a headache and was waiting for me on a bed in the school office... That was a 'down' but being home early meant I could add a new line to my Etsy shop, which I had been planning to do for a while: Printable Art.



A few of my calligrams are now available as PDF files that you can download and print at home (or in a print shop), and frame, or use as cards, birthday invitations etc. At this moment the Robot, Dolphin, Elephant and Flamingo are available but I will be adding more in the next few days.



Coming home today I found a parcel waiting for me... and in it was this gorgeous bag, that looks like a cute handbag but is in fact a Ketti Camera Bag! As you know I love to take my beloved DSLR everywhere, but not in the ugly black camera bag that I got for free when I bought it... Now here is a camera bag that you can be seen with!

(talking about cameras, I put a new photo on the photoblog and I would love it if you would go and see it!)

We have a busy weekend coming up, with gymnastics training, friends coming over and two birthday parties... But I hope to have some time to play with fabric, thread and maybe even paint!

Wooyung

This is Wooyung, the quilt I made for the Beneath the Southern Sky exhibition. It has not been selected, which is disappointing of course, but not too much, for it is hanging in our dining room and we all love it. It is a whole cloth quilt, made from another gorgeous handdyed fabric from Dyed and Gone to Heaven. As soon as I saw it I knew I wanted to make this quilt!

I really wanted to add some shells but since that would probably be a problem if the quilt had to travel, I didn't - now however I have started to attach some; will show it here when it's finished. I have been collecting shells with small holes at Wooyung Beach for this purpose!

This weekend I have been quite busy with my first custom order at Etsy - a customer bought the oilcloth bunting I showed here and asked if I could make two more as she wanted to hang them in a cubby house. I will send them off tomorrow - she has promised to send some photos, I can't wait to see them!

Treasures

We spend the last weekend of the summer holidays at Wooyung Beach, where I collected these treasures... I was also lucky enough to 'catch' this osprey with my zoom lens:



Yesterday school started again here in Queensland. I had taken the day off to be there at my youngest son's first day of school. He couldn't wait to join his brothers, but was a bit nervous nevertheless:



Today I went back to work - I am now working 4 short days instead of 3 full days, so I can pick the boys up from school (hubby brings them in the morning). Being home so early means that I can do some sewing/quilting in daylight, which is great! Today I started quilting the new quilt that I can't show here yet...

We were lucky to have a sunny weekend, for on Sunday night it started raining and it hasn't stopped since... Already streets are flooding here in Brisbane and the weather forecasts are saying it will rain all week...

Red Work

The other day I saw some pictures of redwork quilts and I suddenly thought that printing my designs in red ink on white fabric might be a good idea... So on Monday night I did a massive screen printing session at the kitchen table (made 41 prints!) and yesterday at night (I work on Monday and Tuesday) I made a lot of Art Cards...



Today I was at home with the boys (it's the last week of the summer holidays here) and between gymnastics and the library managed to add them to my Etsy shop.



I also made some stretched prints:



... and a red-on-white Robot Calligram t-shirt! (the white-on-red Robot Calligram t-shirt is here)



This Dutch Houses ACEO (ATC) sold within 2 hours of adding it to the shop - wow! (I have added a new one, so it is for sale again)



I will be adding some of these items to the MadeIt shop as well in the next few days, but for now I am concentrating on my Etsy shop as I have almost reached the magic number of 100 items! I am already noticing an increase in sales - I have been to the post office five times in the last eight days!

Aprons, models, silly pics

I am working on a new quilt, but can't show it here yet :-(. I hate that! Since I do want to show you something, here are two aprons I made today and put up for sale in my Etsy shops. The red one with white dots can be found here on Etsy , the white one with red dots here on MadeIt.



I have heard that items for children sell better when you show them worn by a real child. So I asked my boys to model these aprons. They were happy to do that, but would only smile nicely at the camera if I made some silly pics of them afterwards. So here is my 5-year-old, Robbie:



My 7-year-old, Ernst:



And my almost-9-year-old (only 18 more sleeps!), Hugo (who is really too big for this apron but wanted a turn as well):



Gotta love 'em!

Sadly, the 5-year-old is now once more in bed with a migraine :-(. Poor little bugger, wish I could take the pain and nausea for him... And we had such a quiet weekend - what triggered it this time???