Kuala Lumpur

On our way to Europe we spent one day in Kuala Lumpur. We took a train to the city, visited the bird park and took a hop-on hop-off bus. Here are some photos that I made:



The hibiscus is the national flower of Malaysia:













Unfortunately there was no time to visit this museum...











Once in Holland we first went to my mother-in-law's house. It was very nice to see my quilts hanging there:





... and the hippo I made for my boys when they were little:



More to come soon!

Going to the Netherlands!

Tonight we are flying to Kuala Lumpur and tomorrow night on to Amsterdam! Very excited about seeing our family and friends again. I hope to be able to post some pics here (or on the photo blog) in the next few weeks, but it may take a while. Cheers!

Shadow Fighting

I haven't shown you this quilt yet: Shadow Fighting. I made it in January 2012 for my youngest son, Robbie. It is based on this photo of him, at a taekwondo grading last year:



I have described the process of making this quilt in an article that you can find in the current issue of Down Under Textiles:



For a free online subscription to this magazine click here.

New thermofax screens

As I told you yesterday, I had some new thermofax screens made. Remember this picture? It's a photo of a transformer station I made in Adelaide last year (I showed it on the blog here). I made a black and a white print and like how they look together... To be continued!



I also had some of my calligram designs made into thermofax screens. Here is a cute baby elephant:



A butterfly:




And that fascinating animal, the narwhal:


These items will be up in my Blue Jacaranda shop as soon as Etsy reopens! (the site is currently down for maintenance)

This and that

Remember the sunglasses case I made a while ago? I really enjoyed making it, so decided to order some more frames. I still have lots of pieces of lovely commercial fabrics from my early quilting days that are just waiting to be used for small projects like these. So here is the first one, a sunny butterfly case - now for sale in my Etsy shop!




And some news: a while ago Meta Heemskerk, a Dutch fiber and mixed media artist whose work I really admire, asked me if I would be interested in showing and selling my work in her online gallery Galleribba. This gallery will be filled with small work, to fit in standard sized frames like the Ikea Ribba frame (hence the name). Of course I am interested; and flattered to be among artists like Linda Colsh, Cherilyn Martin, Saskia Weishut and many more! The little Sand piece that I showed in the last posting here is the first piece on my page, and I hope to make a few more small works soon.

Today I have been screen printing with some new thermofax screens that arrived this week (yay!). It's too dark now to make photos of the prints but I hope to show them to you tomorrow.

New work

It was a public holiday here today and very cold and wet outside. So I was perfectly happy inside, quilting! I made a little monochrome quilt for Art Quilts Around the World which will be revealed on 30 June, and I made this little piece, something I had wanted to try for quite some time now.

The fabric is actually more yellow than orange. I added a double layer of thick polyester batting (left over from my early days of quilting - I much prefer a thin bamboo batting nowadays) to create the impression of a footprint in the sand:



I think the backside looks good too!



It's a small piece - only 17 cm / 6 3/4 inch square. Just a fun thing to try out something I had been thinking about, after making a photo of a footprint in the sand last summer.



This is a sneak peek of the monochrome quilt for AQATW. I love how this little quilt has turned! It is already hanging in my studio, but I'm afraid you will have to wait a few weeks to see it in full!

Busy

Eight days since my last posting and nothing new to show! How terrible. (well, I did make a few items for the shop) What can I say - I have been busy with other things. It looks like my contract at Queensland Health will end on 30 June, so I am looking at other jobs... There is also the possibility of another position for DH, in another place, which of course needs to be discussed... We are in the process of applying for Australian citizenship for our boys (they can have dual citizenship - we adults can't, unfortunately) which involves a lot of paperwork, phone calls to the Netherlands etc... and most importantly, we have been planning our holiday to the Netherlands!

In 22 days (yes, we're counting) we will be flying to Kuala Lumpur, spending one day there, and then on to Amsterdam!!! We are so looking forward to seeing our family and friends again, meeting our little niece for the first time, visiting the places where we used to live, riding bikes, eating licorice and herring...

And - I just booked flights to Zurich, Switzerland! DH has a conference there in July and the two of us will spend 4 days there, while the boys stay with their grandparents. I have never been to Zurich before and am so looking forward to discovering a new city! The photo above shows the city and Lake Zurich - looks good, doesn't it?

Of course I can't do any sewing or quilting while we are on holiday (no, hand stitching is definitely not my thing) and I will close my shops during that time, but I do plan to take lots of photos and I may try my hand at some writing...!

Anyway - still 3 weeks to go before we leave and I do hope I will be able to show you some quilts in progress in that time. Maybe I can do some quilting tomorrow, if the dentist doesn't keep me to long... And I really should have my sewing machine serviced... *wanders off, muttering under her breath*

Coffee?

And here it is, my coffee sack quilt! Quilting it was a bit of a nightmare - do not try this at home ;-).



I used another coffee sack for the backing. (no batting necessary)I had wondered about the binding, but realised I could just fold over the finished edges of the sack:



I am now trying to decide if I will add some stenciled letters to the quilt or leave it as it is...

Update

To be continued...

Burlap... quilt?

If you have been following my blog in the last few months you will have noticed that I am slightly obsessed with burlap at the moment. After buying some coffee sacks at Reverse Garbage here in Brisbane I have been making pillows, postcards, ACEO, bookmarks, coasters and a bookcover with it. I have used a strip of burlap in my Indonesia quilt - but what about making a quilt out of nothing but burlap?? The current challenge theme at Art Quilts Around the World is monochrome, so it would fit in very well!



I cut strips roughly 3 inch wide from the four sacks I have here - they all have a different texture; some are very loose, others quite tightly woven.



Because burlap frays terribly I used a zigzag stitch instead of a straight stitch to piece the strips together.



This is the result so far - to be continued!



I love burlap and its texture - but working with it does leave a terrible mess!



I also made two new bookmarks to add to my Blue Jacaranda shop. Have to make one for myself as I really like them!

New: Flag Cards!

When I was making my Country Quilts for the Australian and New Zealand Art Quilters group, I thought it might be a good idea to make fabric postcards in the colours of various national flags. I finally followed up on that thought and here are the first two Flag Cards: the Netherlands (of course) and Ireland.



I've added them to my Etsy shop, thinking they might be just the thing for your Irish grandmother or to announce a city trip to Amsterdam to your beloved!

Flag Cards for France, Germany and Italy will follow soon, and after that I hope to add more countries. It's fun to make these cards and a great way to use up small scraps of fabric. I am not a hoarder but I do have trouble throwing away scraps of my precious quilting fabrics - especially the handdyed ones!



I didn't do any quilting on my day off, because I had a custom order - a mum of two boys in California asked me to do this series of three calligram cards for her sons' room. What a lovely idea that my creations will be hanging there, on the other side of the world, soon!

Sunglasses case

We have had some very busy weekends in the last few weeks, so instead of a Mother's Day present I asked for some me-time in my studio (and for the boys not to fight for one whole day - they made it until 30 minutes before bed-time, sigh...)

Here in sunny Queensland you always need to have your sunglasses with you, and I have been looking at some gorgeous kiss-lock eyeglasses cases on Etsy. But of course this is something I could make myself, so I just bought a frame on Etsy (they have supplies as well), dug up one of my favourite Thea and Sami fabrics and made this case!



The lining is a plain red cotton. Do you like it? I absolutely love it! :-)



I also sandwiched the new gymnastics quilt and hope to start quilting it on Wednesday, my day off.

Gymnasts and coffee

Not much to show this week - I did add the large gymnast to the blue piece I showed here earlier, done in Paintstick. What do you think?

And I made another burlap coffee quote card and added it to my shop. I am so enjoying making them! (although cutting those freezer paper stencils is a lot of work...)



Sunday is Mother's Day and I have asked for some 'free' time to make the gymnast piece into a quilt. Hope all you mums out there will have a lovely day and be really spoilt!

SAQA Oceania Studio Blog Hop

Welcome to my studio! Today it is my turn in the SAQA Ocania Studio Blog Hop to show you my workplace - and here it is, in sunny Brisbane, Queensland, in the subtropical region of Australia.



We rent this house, as we still do not know if we will stay in Australia for good, or go back to the Netherlands at some point (or somewhere else). We have been living in this authentic Queenslander since 2008.



My studio (which also serves as as our guest room and study) is this lovely, light room. On the desk my simple but beloved Janome sewing machine - I bought it before I started quilting but it is still serving me very well. In the corner to the right of the desk are my screen printing, textile painting and dyeing supplies. On the left (visible in the first photo) is my fabric stash.



My ever-growing collection of magazines and books on quilting, textile art, screen printing etc. The books in the large bookcase on the right are mainly medical ones, from the other partof my life ;-).



The ironing board in front of the doors to the deck; taking advantage of the light:



Screen printing is an important element in my work. This is my screen printing room, aka our dining room:



Fabric dyeing is done under the house:



Thank you for having a look at my workspaces! I hope you will join us for the rest of the blog hop as well. The next stop is in Perth, at the other side of this vast country, with Dale Rollerson from The Thread Studio. She also has the full ist with all participating artists on her blog - click here.

Screen printing

This is the result of my screen printing session today. It's inspired by this photo I took of my gymnast son in September 2010 - still one of my all-time favourites:




The plan is to add something more... I will keep you posted!


I also made this card and added it to my Etsy shop - I am planning a series of burlap coffee quotes cards and am having a lot of fun searching for appropriate quotes!

Burlap Bookcover

Here is a burlap bookcover I made this weekend for an A5 notebook. I quite like how it turned out. It is for sale now in my Etsy shop.

The SAQA Oceania Studio Blog Hop has kicked off today, with Mel Forrest here in Brisbane being the first one to show her studio. Sue Dennis is next on May 3rd, followed by Lisa Walton on May 5th and yours truly on May 7th. After that there will be eleven more artists showing their studio this month - you can find the full list on Lisa's blog, and I will give directions when it is my turn next week. I'm looking forward to seeing all these creative places and hope you will follow us!

Speaking about creative spaces - tomorrow is my day off and I am planning a big screen printing session. I have just prepared my silk screen with a new hand cut stencil and as soon as I have dropped the boys off at school tomorrow morning I plan to get going. Hope to show you the results soon!