Reviewing past workshops for new ideas

The Embroiderers Guild, Victoria, is having an exhibition in October, called A Secret Garden.
I have had ideas swimming around in the murky recesses of my mind, not really developing.

Today I decided that, as I cannot do my weaving once the daylight has gone, I should use the non-weaving time to be developing my ideas with some experimentation. As it is just after the winter solstice, there is quite a bit of non-daylight time at the moment. And today was particularly dark, due to rain clouds. Still, I can't complain about rain, we still need it.

I have looked at some Pinterest sites - too many things to look at!!

Then I came across a You Tube video of Kim Thittichai doing some painting of what she calls Bondaweb and we call Vliesofix, here in Australia.

It reminded me of the wonderful workshop I did with her at Ballarat a few years ago. I loved the workshop, did some more playing around once I got home and then forgot all about it - as is my wont.

So now I feel inspired to have a go again. I will have to tidy the studio again - it gets tidied reasonably regularly recently. I must admit that it makes it easier to keep track of things if I actually put them away properly - amazing.

I loved the process of tearing up paper, dyeing or painting it, tearing it up again, etc. I am hoping to make a background that will either be a door or a wall that is hiding the secret garden - a bit obvious, I know, but that is where my thinking is at the moment.

Then I had the thought of looking through a keyhole. I found some images on 123RF and have more ideas floating around, not really connected to previous ideas. I really need to actually start, then things might gel better.

Anyway, ideas are floating around - that is an improvement.
I am thinking of using some gardening type books as my base, maybe I can paint on the paper, rip it up, etc.
I will need to find all the equipment that is involved, that will make a bit of a mess, but it will be a productive mess, hopefully.

Here's hoping something comes to me.

Can't resist the date.

Just saw the date - 16/6/16 - have to post!
16/6/61 would be better but I'd be very old by then. So today's date will have to do.

So, what to post about?
I am actually working on a tapestry. I thought I had made a reasonably simple design … wrong!!
It is very fiddly and I am having trouble knowing where I am at. I haven't marked my warp as well as I could have, apparently. We had one of our group meetings recently and one of the participants noticed that I was having trouble. She told me to mark the warp all the way around and you don't lose sight of it.

I decided to give it a go - but it was taking ages. And not co-operating. Maybe because I already had some weaving done (probably not). And I wasn't feeling very patient. So I am persevering without the extra marking. But I will definitely take note of that tip next time.

I must have been in a strange mood when I warped it up, it seems to be too loose and I am having trouble making it tight enough. But I am soldiering on. And I think I have put the loom together crookedly. Oh well, it is all a learning process … as I am always telling students. I should be past these sorts of mistakes by now!

Fortunately, my piece is intended to have texture, so I can claim that any knobbly weaving is intentional. I am putting in some deliberate texture and I am also using some knobby yarn. Here's hoping it all works out.

Old habits

I took Penny out for a walk this afternoon. We returned to Warringal Park and saw lots of sights we have seen in the past. I still was inspired to take photos.

I'm not sure if you will be able to see it but I saw a frog face in the clouds.

I decided it wasn't that obvious so played around in Photoshop a little. Maybe it is clearer now. 

Then there were the birds. It was a very still afternoon and most of the birds were just sitting around. This magpie let me get quite close.

And the colourful bark. I am reminded that I could be doing some more dyeing of fabric.

A lone flower in a sea of dandelion plants. Another reminder of dyeing fabric, still to come, when the flowers are prolific.

Surely I could do something with this image!

Finally, a double rainbow, when I stopped to buy some things at the nearby supermarket.

Pretty plant, interesting date.

It is 1/6/16. How could I not post today?

Yesterday we took the dog out for her daily walk. It started off a cold day but was lovely by the time we got organised to go. So we visited a cafe near where we walk and had a bite to eat. Penny waited patiently under the table, hoping some interesting crumbs might fall - a few that resembled dog food did manage to get through the holes in the table.

There was a lovely grevillea growing beside us. It is such an interesting flower, I am sure I must be able to find something interesting to do with the images - one day.

It Shouldn't Have Taken This Long!

I am currently working on a small art quilt for an online group that I belong to. We are a new group and thought we would make up a challenge to have done by early June (not that far away now).

I have finished the main part of the work and was going to finish it off today by putting on the border.
It took ages!!

I wanted to make the binding match the colours of the work and decided to join the various fabrics on the diagonal.  This was easy for the first colour. But, being spatially challenged, I could NOT get the second colour to be the right way round. Then, when I had managed that, I realised that I had not allowed for the diagonal join and it didn't sit where I wanted it to.
After unpicking it, I rearrange the pieces and sewed then together again - in reverse of what I wanted, the join on the top instead of the bottom. Aaargh!

Once I got it sorted, I pinned it and sewed it on.

On to the other side. Same problems! Unbelievable. I had to unpick, rearrange the length of the pieces and fiddle around some more.
Eventually (two and a half hours later) I had put the sides on.

The quilt is now finished. We are having a 'reveal' day, so I suppose I had better not put up the finished image till then.
But here is the back. I had intended to put another piece of fabric on the back to hide all the mistakes and messy sewing but there wasn't any worth worrying about.

Fabric collage again

I have been playing around with fabric collage again.
As I was preparing to demonstrate at the Embroiderers Guild last week, and as I am in an online group that is having a challenge piece due in June, I decided to combine the two events.
The theme of the online group is Gondwana. This is a huge topic! Gondwana stretches from the southern hemisphere to the northern. It is often associated with Australia as we were part of Gondwana but it is much bigger than that.
Still, I live in Australia and have lots of photos of local landforms. So I decided to try to do something relating to geology.
I was in a medical waiting room recently and came across an Australian Geographic magazine that had wonderful photos of Prunululu. So I have decided to have a go at something based on this.

I also found interesting images at 123RF.

As it was part of my demo, I thought I would document the process. I have done some fabric collage recently and have enjoyed it.
This time, I thought I would use wadding in the middle, rather than doing it on adhesive interfacing. I also thought I would put on a backing fabric as I find that the wadding does fluff up the inner workings of the sewing machine if it is the back layer.

The image is rather intricate, so I put a copy of it under the top layer of fabric. I put Vliesofix on the top layer so that the pieces could be ironed on. But the pieces turned out to be tiny and they kept moving around before I had a chance to iron them on.

Then I remembered a product that I had used once before. It is sticky on one side. I ironed it onto the Vliesofix and then the sticky side was up, ready to hold all my little scraps. The whole thing is very well adhered!

I could still vaguely see my outlines under the several layers of fabric and product.

I have spent hours laying it all out. Some of the pieces are very small.

When I measured the piece, to ensure it will fit the challenge, I realised it wasn't high enough. Disaster.
So I decided to make the mountains bigger, higher in the sky. I also made the bottom a bit bigger in case I need to cut some off.

I redrew my image onto Solvy, with the idea of using it to assist me when I come to sew. I am not convinced this is a good idea and may not use it for that. But it was helpful with the laying out of fabric.
It looks like one mountain, rather than a series but I think I can live with that. I found, as I was working on the piece, that the initial image became much more distant from the final laying out of the fabric pieces. It is my inspiration but I have moved away from it to some extent.

The Solvy is over the image, the lines are very hard to see and don't line up all that well with how I have laid out the fabric. Oh well. I was thinking that it would be a nuisance to have to wash if off, so now I won't use it after all. 

Old Haunts

Yesterday, I took our dog for a walk at Darebin Parklands.

I haven't been there for months. This is partly due to it being a site for tiger snakes and I don't take her there much in the warm weather.
Summer seems to be LONG these day and it is only now approaching cooler temperatures. There are signs around the place, warning of snakes between October and April, but I know that snakes are often seen between September and May. Even today, it is windy but warm. Roll on the cooler weather.

Anyway …

We went to the park and I took lots of pictures. My brother was visiting and he was interested in seeing how the park has been developed from when he was a boy and had lots of adventures down there.

I am currently working on a piece that is to do with the geology of Australia. I am fairly sure that this is the end of the lava plain that makes up most of Victoria (I attended a geology talk several years ago and think we were told that then).

There is lots of geology to see in the park. So I might be able to use some of the images in the future.

This is the cliff face that I have taken LOTS of photos of, and have even made a tapestry based on it. It is not as purple as my original image. I must have been lucky with the image on that day.

One interesting thing was that there is now a path under Heidelberg Rd. It is only recently opened. I hadn't realised that they must have narrowed the creek until I compared photos from the past with what it looks like now. 

The path under Heidelberg Rd at the moment.

The path didn't go under the bridge in 2011. 

The path didn't go under the bridge in 2011.