Taking a visitor around Melbourne

My friend had a visitor from Chicago staying for a few days and I went along on some of the excursions.  One day we went for a walk along Gertude St, Brunswick St and Smith St in Fitzroy.  Our visitor had dome some homework and we limited some of the places she had on her list to one area.
I did a little bit of research and came up with an interesting blog to visit.
Then we moved on to the State Library and saw the Love and Devotion exhibition.  There was some seriously fine work there - they must have painted with a single hair!  It was an exhibition of Persian works from the 11th century on.  There were some European books that were based on the Persian stories too.
Then, on another day, we visited the Royal Botanic Gardens.  What a lovely place.  It was a beautiful autumn day and we just wandered.  Some of the trees are enormous!!

This one looks a lot like the trees that were planted in our street about 10 years ago.  I hope they don't get this big!

There was some amazing texture to see on tree trunks too.

All in all, it is a good thing to have visitors, it makes you think about what is around the city that they might enjoy (and that you will also enjoy).  I am feeling inspired to go out a bit more, see more of my own city.  There is plenty to see and do.

Annamieke Mein exhibition at Brighton.

Annemieke's work has inspired me for so many years and today we got to see some of it.  Even though I knew, theoretically, that it was quite big, it was great to see the actual size of the works.
She also did lots of samples before making one and they were also on display.  She actually sewed her notes, rather than handwriting them.  The notes are sewn right on the background fabric, in there with the thread swatches, the drawing and painting and the fabric and stitching sampling.  It was wonderful to see.
She did lots of drawing with her sewing machine too, apart from machine sewing that gave the birds feathers, the water ripples, etc.
The current exhibition is in Brighton, at the Bayside Arts and Cultural Centre, but there will be another in Ararat in May.  I think I am inspired to make the effort to get there to see it.  Hmm, maybe I will do some research and check that it will not be the same as the one we saw today.
We weren't allowed to take any photos, so no images today.

Coming up with the design for the quilt

As I said in my last post, I had thrown in some pictures of eucalyptus blossom that I have taken over the last year or so.  They were in a visual diary that I took along at the last moment.

These aren't the exact photos I used, I had printouts of some of the pictures I deleted last year (still anguishing over that - occasionally).  I am finding the occasional lost picture in various places but still am missing a lot.

We had to observe the flowers in their various stages - buds, flowers, seed pods.  We also had to look closely to see how the petals and leaves were arranged - did they grow in threes, fives, etc?  Do the leaves grow opposite each other or are they placed alternately on the branches?  What shapes are the leaves, do they have any distinguishing characteristics? What colours are the branches, the leaves, the stamens and pistils, etc?  What are the proportions of the various plant parts in relation to each other?  Then we had a go at drawing what we could see. I quite enjoyed this part of the process, it is rather relaxing as you are concentrating on that so much that nothing else much impinges on your consciousness.

I've been busy!

I have been to the Ballarat Fibre Forum for 2012.  It goes for a week, doing the one workshop, giving plenty of time to learn techniques and practise them.  I was lucky enough to go to Jane Sassaman's class.  I chose it because the first few days were devoted to designing using flowers as your inspiration.
It was advertised for the 'drawing impaired and tragically literal'.  Not that I am totally those things but I can always do with some help with drawing and design.
We did a few exercises where we really looked at the flower we had chosen as our inspiration and worked out what shapes we could see, what pattern is in the design of the petal placements, etc.
I took lots of lovely pictures of canna lilies and poppies.  I had spent ages going through my pictures. I even went to the Garden and Flower show.  Then I put in fabrics that I thought would be useful.  Oranges, yellows and reds. Greens for the leaves.  Maybe some browns would be necessary.

These are the images I planned to use.

                      

I also threw in some contrasting colours in case I decided to go abstract.  Thank goodness I did!  The pictures I chose were totally different and I only had them because they were in a visual diary I threw in at the last minute.
I'll post more about the drawing and designs next.

                                 

More Stained Glass Windows

As I said previously, I have been playing around with ideas based on stained glass windows.  A couple of years ago I walked around the neighbourhood, taking photos of people's windows and doors.  Yes, I did get a few suspicious looks. That's why the photos aren't that good - I was feeling intrusive, taking photos of people's windows and doors.

But, here are a few that inspired me.

We also have an old round window from our childhood home that I would like to use one day.

Stained Glass Window Effect

I have been playing around with some ideas for a design based on stained glass windows.

As I wanted it to be translucent, like stained glass windows, I used polyester organza.  I layered the pieces and pinned them to a piece of dissolvable fabric on which I had drawn the design.

I then free motion sewed the outline and cut away the layers.  That wasn't quite as easy as it sounded, the layers were hard to see at times and I did nick a couple of layers that I had not meant to cut through.  I also decided to do some lines on one part but forgot to do the cutting away before I sewed, so there is a colour in there that doesn't see the light of day.  Oh well, that is the advantage of doing a small test piece.

I didn't do it in a hoop and I found that it shrank by about a centimetre.

Here it is, in front of a window so you can see how translucent it is.

The plan had been for it to be 15cm x 15cm, so I left the area around the sewing to make it closer to the size I had wanted. It is not very obvious in this image but there are a lot of fibres waving around, the fraying of the polyester.  I quite like the effect so am not going to do anything about it at the moment, especially as it is just a sample.

Essendon Quilters exhibition

A good friend of mine, who is not into textiles at all, discovered that the Essendon Quilters were having an exhibition at the Incinerator Gallery in Moonee Ponds this weekend.  Then her husband saw an article in the Moreland Leader, so he encouraged her to remind me about it. We went along to have a look.  It was quite a large exhibition, taking up several rooms.
There were quilts that were the results of workshops, challenges and just because the makers were interested in particular techniques.  One of the themes was Flights of Fancy and these works were 3D.

Some of the quilts were huge, some were limited in size due to the parameters of the challenges.  It was fascinating to see the variety and the very precise work that was on show.
We agreed that we both prefer the geometric designs but that the hand turned appliqué, and machine appliqué, quilts were lovely also.
It has almost inspired me to design a cot quilt for a great-niece - she was born a while ago, so I had better get a wriggle on.