Progress?

What did I do since my last post?
I tidied up the cupboards in my sewing room, re-organising the fabrics so I at least knew what I had and knew where to find it.
I expect my power bill to be way up, as stood there for days on end ironing each piece of fabric.

It not only looks good, I enjoyed meeting up with these fabrics again, some that have been in my stash for a long time.
I also sorted beads and anything else that comes into making textile art.

I visited family in PNG and taught a patchwork class there for the local ladies. I'll do a separate post on that.

Next I wanted a new design wall. What I had was a sheet of Masonite, covered with a padded and gridded piece of calico.
I wanted something larger and lighter and covered a 5 x 190 x 120cm piece of polystyrene first with bleached calico, then pinned a gridded flannel sheet on that.
I wish the sheet was white instead of medium grey, as the colour shows somewhat behind thin fabrics and make them look a bit darker.  Apart from that, it works well. The patches adhere to it and if necessary, I can push pins right through. The whole design wall is light enough to move it around and will fit behind the sofa bed in my sewing room when not in use.

What you see here is 2" squares and on the right is the border fabric.
It is more a colour wash than a Trip Around the world, I don't mind it, but once I stitch this together I don't have enough light coloured background for the actual design.
So I'll sew these up, but it won't go into the ACE quilt and I will buy a single background fabric on Wednesday at the Craft Show in Brisbane. I have some gorgeous cream background fabrics, but not enough of any of them.
I may even get another border fabric, if I can find something with apple green in it.

And this, dear reader, is how my design process goes: two steps forward, one step back. I am grateful for having been given carte blanche and not have to submit a final design for approval.

Trip Around the World version 2

This is 'Trip Around the World' V2.
With 1" squares, I needed 18 fabrics that gradated from white to medium light and I couldn't make that happen.
V2: squares are now cut 2" and will be 1.5" when finished. This means I need only 11 fabrics to get to where I can start going just a bit darker.

I am happier, but I am still concerned that the total look is too dark to be a background for the flowers. I would also like that white centre to be much larger, probably at least another 2 if not 3 rows of fabrics...
Note: all these prints are used on the wrong side of the fabric, to give me that soft, slightly blurry effect that I need.

 





I am going to insert a few more white fabrics in the centre and move the others out and continue with it, because I start to like this look.

This is the same image converted to greyscale:

As a gradation, it really isn't working. As an impressionist style patchwork, it is quite effective.
If anyone wonders, why doesn't she just get a piece of background fabric, well the answer is: what's the fun and excitement in that?
Fabric #6, counting from the centre, seems too dark. I'd love to use it as it is such a pretty design....
Back to work

The ACE Quilt

After ignoring my blog for four years, I will document the making of the ACE quilt here. What's the ACE quilt?
I was fortunate to be commissioned to make a wall quilt for the ACE ward at Ipwich Hospital. (Queensland, Australia). The letters stand for Acute Care of the Elderly.

Here's the brief:

• It is to be a wall hanging and will not be framed. While framing protects the textile, there is a charm and immediacy in a wall hanging that will fit in well with the purpose of helping to bring some beauty into an acute aged care ward.
• Maximum 1m x 1m
• Something pretty with flowers
• It will hang on a cream wall 

My idea to use the letters as a design source, with vines, leaves and flowers through it and coming out of it was accepted.

What next?

I made some quick sketches, printed the letters out and made a full size lay-out on butchers' paper to see how they looked.
They looked best simply centred inside a square. Finished size of the quilt would be 40" x 40" (most quilters, no matter whether their country has gone metric or not, find inches easier to work with and many tools only come in inches anyway). 40" x 40" is close enough to 1m x 1m

The inside panel would be 35" x 35".  No doubt inspired by the  Quilting Arts issue I had just bought a week ago, I wanted to background to show a very pale 'Trip Around The World' colour wash pattern.

This is a partly coloured sample of what a 'Trip Around The World' pattern can look like.

Keep in mind, this is the pattern, not the colours I will be using. They will be much softer and lighter, but becoming darker towards the edges.

Having lots of confidence in my sewing skills, I decided these patches will finish up 1" x 1". Total number of squares: 1225 YIKES!

However, if I stitch those in blocks of 7 x 7, it should not require me to tear my hair out. The effect I am looking for is that there is a subtle progression from white in the centre to dark at the corners that will create a kind of 'lit from within the centre' behind the flowers and letters.

I drew the full size grid of 5 x 5 squares on a piece of butchers' paper, each 7" x 7" , pinned it on my design wall, covered it with some fine Pellon that works like a flannel board.  Because the patches are cut 1.5" to allow for seam allowances, I have to overlap them and in spite of the lines, they do go crooked.



I think I will stitch  progressively, rather than wait till all the 1225 patches are on the Pellon, although that means I have to be happy with the fabrics.

Once the background is complete,  the letters and flowers will be appliqued in bright colours. I will definitely have to make sure there is a clear contrast between the background and the design. Worst case scenario: I have a beautiful 35" x 35" colour wash Trip Around The World quilt top, which doesn't quite work, but there is always the fabric shop to get a nice background piece, right?

The flower patterns I will use are those from my book 'Shadow Applique' and while the selection and placement of the flowers won't be exactly like those on my Shadow Applique Quilt, they will be in the same style.

Like this:

ATCs swaps

I have been swapping very happily through 2 yahoo groups: Art4mail and Surface Design.
I am also a subscriber to Atcsforall and thought the illuminated letters looked like something I would love to do.
These had to be hand drawn or handpainted.
I struck nothing but obstacles: I tried it on canvas paper and they looked seriously crappy.
I need a US$1 note and can't get 10 anywhere. Not the postoffice, not my bank. Then I did the hand drawn ones, they are here and I am disappointed in them as well.
Oh well....I haven't put my ATC label on the back, so now I have to wait till maybe someone whose first name starts with E, F, G or H has a birthday!
Deep sigh: should have stuck to my medium of choice although I have to say, I did enjoy making them, I just don't think they have been done accurately enough....

Paper-cloth

I went to the Craft Show in Brisbane yesterday which was terrific and very inspiring.
Of course, had to buy some beads, some  packets of luscious fabrics, threads, book.
One book Stitch Alchemy shows a technique to create sheets of paper-cloth.
Basically, you put a piece of fabric on some freezer paper, slap some diluted white glue on it and cover it with strips of paper. The resulting sheet can be used to paint, stitch, embellish, cut..whatever.
I did 3 today.
#1: gold tissue paper and the handmade paper our washing came back in when we were in Bali many years ago plus some junk mail.
#2: a no longer required dressmaking pattern
#3: I used pastels to colour ordinary printing paper and added a paper serviette and some coffee crystals.
The sheets are about A3, but I could only scan part of them.





#3

 


#1







#2



Unfortunately, I cannot seem to control where this pictures go.

What can I do with these sheets?

If I want to add stitching, these are nice and firm and need no further stabilizing.

Maybe I'll make some bookmarks? Some ATCs? acrylic paint? 

Mungo Dreaming

And here it is!
Thank you Tessa and Neville Wright for taking the photograph.
I am very happy with it. It does what I want it to do: tell a story, pull people in, wondering what it is all about. When they look closer, they wonder more: what is it?
Enjoy!
The frame is pretty cool too and I was happy with that as well and a photo will be posted.
Although....does anyone read this blog?????

Down to Earth

Whenever I am "told" I have to make something for an exhibition, I usually start by feeling annoyed and like " I don't want to do that". But often, those events were the start of work I was very happy with.
And this is what happened this time.
The outdoor exhibition is called "Down to Earth" and you have seen the tree art that I made.
But slowly another idea started to take shape and this time I just went with it without too much pre-planning or even drawing.

I had some hand woven wool that I frayed and layered. There was going to be a line that indicated the division between under and over the soil and from there I let myself be inspired by my "stuff".

I rolled some paint on the wool before I attached anything and even did some monoprinting, where I created grass on allfoil with acrylic paint, then turned it over onto the wool and rubbed the paint down.
You really need to see the closeups of the "digs" the right one has small piece of bones and even some teeth.
Well may you ask: teeth of what?
I don't know: we found a little skull, maybe it was a wallaby or maybe a hare. I took some of the teeth out and sewed them on.
On the left hand side are pieces of shell.
The stitching I did was very free,  after my spell trying to learn painting, it turned out to be like painting with thread: stitching some grass for example, then adding shadows and highlights.
This is the most fun I have had for years with a project.

I bought a picture in a frame on the market and I will use that to frame it, but it needs some work to make it look "earthy" enough. I probably will use impasto gel medium, find sand and maybe some other stuff and I will be a good girl and test the process first on a board I have.