Retrospective opening, Rainbow Maze, writings

Councillor Elect Cheryl Gaedtke opening my 'Retrospective of Patchwork and Textile Art'.
I was excited to see so many friends there.
More photos

Rainbow Maze

This is Brigitte's Ring.

How beautiful is that!

Such gorgeous colours and great workmanship!

I can't wait till my Test Team has caught up to where they are ready for me to teach them Machine Trapunto Appliqué!  I'll do the demo at one of our weekly Glen Rock Stitchers days. All welcome!

Added to my To Do is a How To on Shadow Appliqué for this blog. 

Writings

Sometimes my words fly out of my mouth without going through any kind of thought process.

'I'll write you a manual for the next Art Awards' I said to my SASI committee colleagues. 

This was while still on a high from the incredibly successful Somerset Art Awards 2015. 

To be honest, it doesn't seem such a fun thing to do at the moment. Part of it is that I am not totally happy with the format but I don't know how to fix it.

Maybe my graphic artist friend Ros can help when she gets back.....

My Novel

Gosh, I was so pleased to have found Aeon Timeline to keep track of  events and characters. The programmers have brought out a new version and I am getting tired of constantly having to relearn updates of programs. I am not even sure the new version will suit me as well, but unless I learn, how will I know? 

Bought the paperback version of:  Hex, Vex, Smash and Smooch.

Most surprisingly was the speed it arrived: one week from the US. It is a great book for anyone who is interested in the English language, how it developed and how to use it.

Re rules:in a living language(unlike Latin) the spoken word happens first, rules are created i to try make sense of it. 

First Ring, Frankie Mag, books

Here is the first progress picture from my Rainbow Maze Test Team.

Mary has chosen a monochromatic colour scheme that goes from white to black on a grey background. Flowers will add red to it later. Can't wait to see more.

Finally bought Frankie magazine. I have picked it up many times, always putting it back because it is more expensive than most and I wasn't sure if it was worth it.

I love it!

It is very different to any other magazine and takes a little bit more attention. 

A bit like the difference between ice cream and a perfectly cooked steak,

One you can swallow without further effort, the other needs some chewing, but then you can enjoy the flavour and texture much longer. 

I left the article on Data Visualisation for days, it looked too complicated and what the hell was this?  Art? Technology?

This was Mr. Google has to say:

Data visualization is the presentation of data in a pictorial or graphical format. It enables decision makers to see analytics presented visually, so they can grasp difficult concepts or identify new patterns.

Yawn......

Except, Giorgia Lupi and Stefanie Posavec did the visualisation, which is really a fancy word for drawing, by hand on postcards in coloured pens and pencils..

No link in the article, but here it is 

I'll keep watching the progress and put the book on my wish list.

Thank you to my intrepid team of testers!

Thank you Brigitte, Mary, Helen, Carol, Trish and Lesley who are now making sure the instructions I am writing for this quilt are the clearest and easiest to follow they can be!

Loved what I saw of your versions today!
Will take photos next week to post here. 

The quilt was received well in Melbourne and the instructions will definitely be in time for next Quilt Market. 

Thank you Victorian Textiles for your support and encouragement.

What else did I do: I updated my website, with a bit more to go, I changed  my facebook name Hetty Vb to  Hetty van Boven....

New project

I am so excited to be creating a new Double Wedding Ring project for Victorian Textiles, to be ready in time for the Australian Quilt Market next month! No pressure ...
I have been working on the design for a while, but today the gorgeous Bali Pops  arrived: 2.5" strips to use for the arcs in beautiful rainbow colours  and Bali Snaps, 5" squares I will use for the flowers, plus the background, a colour called 'Dewdrop', soft hand dyed of blue  splotches and swirls on a white background. 

The idea is 3 x 3 rings, but the centre is just a plain circle for some appliqué, which of course I will do in my favourite machine trapunto.

Some arc pieces

Here are some of the arc pieces. This Bali 1895 fabric is so lovely and crisp, 

a pleasure to cut and sew. 

The Double Wedding Ring  will be cut using the super templates by Victorian Textiles.

Here I am cutting the Melon shapes: note the smaller cutting board, it allows me to turn it instead of having to turn the partly cut patch and maybe shift the fabric. 

Can you spot the difference between these two images?

On the top each ring consists of four arcs, each in a different colour group.

On the bottom, each ring repeats the same arc four times.

At the moment, I prefer the bottom one...