Our Tapestry Groups Grows

We had our third meeting and eight people attended.  The group has increased each meeting which is very pleasing.  
Hopefully it will continue to flourish.  We actually had 6 looms up!  It turned out to be a bit like my tapestry classes - lots of talking and not much weaving.  But we did share ideas and encourage each other, always a good outcome.

As you can see, afternoon tea is good too, thanks to a couple of members.

Will this wool eventually be used for tapestry?  We'll have to wait to find out.

We will not be meeting in December as the 4th Saturday of the month is Christmas Eve.  We hope to meet in January with lots of work done for show and tell.
I have managed to weave a bit, pull it out, weave again, pull it out and now have a few centimetres on the loom. I hope I won't want to pull it out when I return to it and look at it with fresh eyes.

Moving Right Along

After taking down our work from the Graduate Exhibition, a friend and I went to the quilt exhibition at Box Hill Town Hall.  It is in the Whitehorse Art Space.  It is an exhibition convened by the Australian Quilters Association (Victoria), the exhibition is called Quilts in Public Places and the theme was Forest Threads.
There was a whole range of techniques, sizes and interpretations.  We had a lovely time looking at them, drinking a cup of tea provided in the space and then voting for our favourites.  It is a lovely venue, one I visited last year for the same event.

close up of the one below

The exhibition is on till December 21st and you can see some of the artists working on Saturdays at 2.00pm.
While we were there a professional photographer was taking photos of the quilts and they should be online in a while.  I look forward to seeing them then too.

School of Fashion and Textiles Graduate Exhibition 2011

I was going to title this post Well. That's It Then but decided that seemed a bit off-hand.  It is now time to admit that the course is over, we have had our graduate show and now we all need to work out what we are going to do next.

The graduate show was well attended and there was an air of excitement at both evenings.

The range of work was amazing and our section, the textile and design part, had an interesting variety of techniques and disciplines.

There was so much work I couldn't take photos of all of it.  Hopefully there will be a link on the RMIT site soon.

It was great to see everyone's final work, presented so beautifully.  It was also a little sad to realise that we might be seeing some of the people for the last time, that we would be moving into new areas.  It was reminiscent of other times in life where a change occurs and you have to let go of some things while embracing new ones.
It has been a great journey for me and I feel like I am about ready to start ... I suppose that is what a diploma course should do, get you ready to develop further.  I just hope I can keep up the commitment and discipline and make myself keep producing.

Yet another felting workshop.

I don't know what it is about me and felting workshops but I am attending yet another.
This one was by Sachiko Kotaka, at Beautiful Silks.
Sachiko showed us samples of her work which includes a variety of techniques, almost too many to think about.
One special thing about Sachiko's work is her use of cut-outs as the motifs.  These were very similar to the snowflakes we used to make at school as Christmas decorations - and fine motor skills.  First we practised using paper then we did some using prefelts or fabric, depending on the technique we were using first.
I decided to start with fabric as my base and use prefelt for my motifs.

My usual colours.

Some of the other ladies decided to try different things we had been shown.

Previous work cut up, woven and other sections added.

Prefelt as the main part, holes cut and fabric laid in the space, fabric cut to be the motif.

So far none of the work has actually been felted, we have looked at samples and been busy laying out our designs.  We go back tomorrow and I will attempt to not only felt this piece but learn more techniques.  Who knows, one day I may use all this knowledge.

Box Hill Graduate exhibition

Today a friend and I went to Eckersley's to see the graduate exhibition for the textile students from Box Hill Institute, it is in a lovely gallery space at the back of the shop.  We managed to rush past all the wonderful artist supplies and only look at the exhibition.
It is wonderful!!  There is a great range of ideas and techniques.  It was inspiring to see all the talent and technical skills come together.  Congratulations to all concerned.
Unfortunately is finishes on Saturday, so you will have to hurry if you want to see it.
There was one series entitled Bark, by Robyn Bayliss, that especially appealed to me (if you know me you will know I have been working from photos of bark all year).
My obsession with bark aside, there was a wonderful array of work to look at and drool over.

Women's Salon: Voice

Tonight I went to the opening of the Women's Salon annual exhibition at the Counihan Gallery in Brunswick.  I know several of the artists whose work was accepted into the exhibition.  The artists are all connected to Moreland city. The theme this year was to celebrate the centenary of women achieving the vote in Victoria's Legislative Assembly elections. Joan Kirner opened the show and gave an inspiring talk.

Carla and Dana with their work

The works were done in a variety of media and the artists' statements were especially interesting in this exhibition, many relating to women in our state or the artists' personal history.

Not only did I know some of the artists through my RMIT textile and design course, I knew some who are parents of past students of mine - it was a bit shocking to hear how grown up some of the children I taught as 5 year olds are now.  How time passes quickly!

There was also performance art, music from the Brunswick Women's Choir - wonderful.

Never throw anything out!

I am showing my age here but ... I have some graph paper from when I was at school and it is in the imperial measurement ... inches.  I knew I had kept it somewhere and this evening I found it.  I wanted it because I am trying to design a 12 inch square art quilt (for an online group thing).  Quilting tends to still be done in inches and so I have kept some of my old stuff - rulers and graph paper mostly.

I don't have an imperial measurement ruler, just one that has metric and imperial.

I was being lazy and not bothering to translate the measurements and now I have my reward for never throwing anything out. Reinforcement for a good/bad habit (it depends on your viewpoint, I suppose).

When did we transfer to metric measurement, I hear you ask.  I have looked it up and it was ... well, not when I thought, according to the articles I found, Wikipedia and wiki answers.
I seem to remember 1966 being an important date. It turns out it took many years to be fully implemented.  I have to admit that I was at school when the changes started which may have made it easier.  It was much easier to understand why we had to learn our 12 times tables when we had the imperial measures.
Actually, I remember driving in miles and having the speedo in mph, so I had left school before that metric measurement came in.  I don't remember that long drawn-out process, now I am just used to metric but have some flashbacks, especially when quilting.

Who remembers how long a cricket pitch is?  I am guessing here - and not looking it up.  I seem to remember that it is a chain long.  How useful is that knowledge??
Ok, I couldn't resist looking it up and I remembered correctly.  Not that I have ever had the need to measure a cricket pitch.

I wonder if we will ever have metric time measurement.  That would be amazing.