The AQC 2015

I went to the opening day of the Australasian Quilt Convention yesterday. I mainly went because I wanted to have a look at a new sewing machine and there are many of the suppliers with stands there. I don't need a lot of the things that the really big, fancy machines do so I targeted my looking.

I spent quite a lot of time at the Husqvarna stand, getting good one-on-one attention. I really like the machine I was shown. I decided not to go to all the other stands as I would just get overwhelmed with the differences that will be fairly minimal. My old machine is a Husqvarna (bought in 1982, we think) and I have been very happy with it. So I am hoping that the company still has the same good quality workmanship (workwomanship?).

After that I had lunch and wandered around the stalls, wending my way to the exhibition. There was a lot of beautiful stuff on sale! But I had decided that I do not need anything new at this stage except, possibly, a new sewing machine so I didn't look very closely at the stalls.

There were several exhibitions on display. I started looking really closely at the works, taking photos and trying to be a good textile student. But there were so many that I then decided to just enjoy the quilts and take the occasional photo.

Here are some images that I got.
Of course, I had to take a photo of the beautiful building. Apparently it is the only building created for international exhibitions in the 19th century that is still used for exhibition.

The True Blue Challenge (you can see all of them here).

Denise Griffiths

I took this of the group, mainly because the face was not at all obvious from close-up. 

A selection of Jan Irvine-Nealie quilts.
I remember going to a talk by her at the Victorian Embroiderers Guild and was awestruck by her work, as I was this time too.

Then there was the Gallipoli Quilt, a 12 metre installation of quilts, also amazing.  All done by the one person, Lucy Carroll.

Of course, there were many other quilts there, this is just a small sample.

I found some of the quilts inspiring and can't wait to start playing around with ideas - which enthusiasm may well dry up once I have a working machine again.

TAG meeting,felting and other stuff

I finally attending one of the TAG meetings at the Embroiderers' Guild in Melbourne last Monday.  Unfortunately, the ladies who have been organising these talks are not going to be able to do so in the future.  This might mean that the talks will cease for the time being although some volunteers may take up the challenge.

The artist presenting was Jan Irvine-Nealie and she was very interesting. Her work is beautiful and she  explained the underlying meaning of most of the pieces.  She said she needs to have the thought process going as the running stitch takes a long time and she needs to be thinking while doing it, otherwise it would all be a bit boring. The small examples she brought were wonderful - I feel quite inspired to attempt some of her technique.  She airbrushes her designs onto the fabric and then enhances it with running stitch.  I will not do the airbrushing but I would like to try the running stitch as such an important part of the design.

I am getting a bit anxious about the final work we have to do for our graduation show.  It is due to be handed in in the first week of November and I haven't got a design or technique nailed down yet! Maybe I should stick to a technique I am familiar with and leave the experimenting till after the show.  But the subject IS called Experimental Textiles, I just think that maybe I should not be still experimenting at this stage.