April already!

I have been busy the last week or so.
I managed to get to the first day of the AQC and saw some lovely works.

One of my favourites was in the Korean Style Quilt section. I love the design, reminding me of looking down at a city from a height.

Kayoing Ahn.

Once again, the ladies who develop their quilts from collages were there. Collage to Stitch. I am very interested in this technique but find that you can't just sit down and make good collages - more practice needed, therefore more organisation and space needed.

I made a small piece for the Self Portrait exhibition. The quilts had to be 25cm x 25cm, not very big.

I had a piece mostly made from years ago.
I have been doing some blind contour drawing of faces.
I also saw some lovely blind contour wire portraits while I was overseas. Both mentioned in this post.

So I did a blind drawing of myself, including torso. I sewed it onto soluble fabric and attached it to the base. Then I put the borders on and entered it. I was very chuffed to be accepted and see it on display in person.

It is titled Hollowed Out.
The statement is: Sometimes following the rules is too exhausting.

Collage to Stitch Textile Exhibiton

Once again, I attended the AQC. I left it a bit later in the day than usual, so didn't have much time to go around the stalls. This is not a bad thing as I have been trying to reduce my stash and use up what I have.

My favourite thing was the Collage to Stitch Textile Exhibition. Two of the four ladies involved were there and talked to us about the whole concept. It showed the development of their concept, from collaging a postcard sized piece, one a day for a year, to making an A4 sized fabric piece, to then making a small art quilt. Suzanne Gummow and Maxine Fry were there and very generously spent quite a bit of time describing the whole process to us. It was very exciting and inspirational.

They got together once a month, for two hours, and showed their postcards. Then they sorted each other's works into piles that they thought could be developed. Then they went home and worked on a small textile piece based on one of the collages. So there was some design and colour discussion to assist with the development of the pieces. It sounded very collaborative and organised.

They agreed to make a collage every day, based on a theme a month. They didn't all have the same theme, they chose one that pleased themselves but stuck to it for the month. The collages were all on display - some on the wall with the sample textile and the finished textile, the rest in huge folders.

It was fabulous and, as I have already said, inspirational. I'll have to talk to some of my groups and see if anyone is interested in adapting the idea to suit us. Or I could do it in isolation but that seems less exciting.

There were the usual wonderful quilts on display and I had a lovely time wandering around being awed and inspired. Of course, the Exhibition Building is a wonderful space in itself, it is always a pleasure to be there.