Must be going out time.

I have also been to a couple of other exhibitions lately.
A) I went to the Craft and Quilt Fair last week. It was busy!!
I resisted most stalls but did buy some lovely cottons for machine sewing. Gorgeous colour range.

The quits were amazing, as usual. Some I had seen before, at the AQC but there were new things to see also.

Modern Quilt, Amateur, winner of two ribbons. By Karen McGregor.

This one by Neroli Henderson.

B) I visited a retrospective exhibition of Rosalind Byass' at the Box Hill Town Hall. I had done a design class with Ros, through the Embroiderers Guild, Victoria, a few years ago. It was lovely to see her work. Many of her pieces have won awards at various textile art exhibitions around the state.
It was interesting to be in a class with someone who works so very differently from me. That is one of the benefits of workshops and courses, there are people with varied takes on the same topics and it stretches you greatly.

C) I visited Bundoora Homestead to see the One Step Further exhibition, organised by Quilters Victoria. There was a very interesting floor talk. Some of the quilt were not quilts - that is the idea of One Step Further, I realise. But they were far from being quilt-like. All of the works were wonderful, even the quilty ones!

Unfortunately, I can't remember who did this one!

Elizabeth Dubbeld

Rebecca Wolske

Maybe all these exhibitions are what has inspired me to post again. I hope my enthusiasm remains. I like documenting things here, as I have said before. It really is a good record for me.

First of August, 2018

Well, I have to post today - 1/8/18!
I have been a bit busy, will try to be succinct.

I went to a few events in the last week or so:  the Craft and Quilt show, The Winter Warmers exhibition at the Alcove Art Shop, the travelling tapestry show at the Handweavers and Spinners Guild and ... The Buda bi-ennial textile exhibition. I put in two pieces and one of them got a certificate of commendation - very chuffed!!

I have also been playing around with some ideas for the upcoming Embroiderers Guild, Victoria, show - Art Deco Now!

I have been struggling a bit to come up with a workable idea. In casual conversation with another member today, I think I hit upon why it is so hard - I was saying that I don't want to do representational/pictorial images but that I have trouble not doing them. Then I realised that Art Deco Now! is a very NON-represetnational/pictorial theme and that is probably my problem. It is very graphic and design based, not something that I usually do.
Now that I have come to this realisation, perhaps I will be able to cope better. I hope.

I am also going to be the presenter at the Creative Play Day this month. I am going to be working on folding books. I am trying to meld that with the Art Deco Now! theme and it is causing some angst. But I have tried a few ideas.

Using tulle, so it will stand by itself, I have done some hand stitching on different layers to indicate a sort-or Art Deco design.

These are two ways of standing up a design that is machine sewn on interfacing. I don't know how I will develop it - if I do. That is still 'in development'. 

They are not great but they don't have to be, they just have to give the members some ideas. Whew!
I will continue to play around with ideas for a few weeks, till the presentation.

Who knows, one of them might become an entry for the actual exhibition. That would be good.

Winter Doldrums.

After posting about the Winter Delights, I find that I have been in the winter doldrums. Not that I mind the colder weather, especially as it is not all that cold yet. I can't really blame the weather, I think it is me that is causing the doldrums. Not to worry, I am sure something inspiring will happen soon.

I went to the Craft and Quilt Fair recently. It 'almost' inspired me to start doing something with the fabrics I have lying around. Lots of them! There were some absolutely stunning quilts on display.

Unfortunately, I didn't get the name of the quilter, or the quilt. 

Night Flight, Pamela Brockwell.

Arabesque

Kiwi Warriors by Dianne McDonald. It reminded me of some of the tattoos and doodles that I have seen so much of recently. 

Persian Panolpy by Jan Frazer.

Rings and Roses by Janet Treen

Abstraction by Cathy Jack-Coupland.
I think this was my favourite, so different from the others, quite textural.  

I have plenty of pieces of fabric from old workshops, including some online ones, that I can now see could be used. There were some works that used lino printing, or variations of printing, that inspired me greatly. So the visit was well worth it - as well as providing me with a lovely day out with a friend I don't see that often.

Dijanne Cevaal (whose online lino printing workshop I did) was there, with her Sentinelles works. They were beautiful and inspiring. I resisted the opportunity to take part in the her next idea, I have plenty of things to finish off.

I have been cleaning up, going through old containers and came across several unfinished quilt tops. Now I have to decide if I will try to quilt them myself or pay to have them done professionally. That is in the too hard basket at present. I don't feel much like getting out old work and quilting it, I would rather be working on something new.

I have also warped up my loom!!!! I do so little weaving that it is always a very slow process, something to be given serious thought as I remember how to do it. My idea is simple - I hope. But the idea is in my head, no cartoon. It will be interesting to see how it develops. I haven't quite decided how to do it and am going to make decisions as I go. Hope it works.  More on this soon - I hope.

Why blog?

I haven't blogged for over a week now.  I have been in a bit of a creative slump, in terms of doing my textiles and in terms of blogging.
It is not as if I haven't had inspiration, in the last two weeks I have been to the Bendigo Wool Show, the Craft and Quilt Fair and the Monet exhibition at the NGV.  All interesting and inspiring, in different ways.
Here are some pictures of one of the challenges at the Quilt show, it was based on a plate.  There were many lovely and interesting ones.  These are just two I took photos of.  The first one reminds me of crockery my mother had and I felt a twinge of quilting interest reviving.

Judith Williams

The second one is quite humorous while commenting on the pest that rabbits are in Australia. 

Anne Sushames

I have been dilly dallying about getting the final part of my current assignment done - it is supposed to be a machine embroidery 3D object with some hand embroidery included. I had been working away very happily on experimenting with the samples required, including hand embroidery.  That latter requirement slowed me down but I have got it almost done.

But making a 3D object has been preying on my mind - with no good ideas developing.  I have finally decided to just do something and hope I can make it into a 3D object.  More on that later, when I eventually get it made (I hope!).

After I decided on an idea, based on something I had done in the past, I was very pleased to be able to find images and ideas about it quite easily - because I had blogged about it!!  I have lots of visual diaries on the shelf but I had no idea where some of my images and articles are.  It was daunting to think of going through them all, looking for particular ideas I know I played around with.  But the blog is searchable - what a bonus.

I have often thought of my blog as a visual diary and now it has proven to be very good in that respect.  I read another blog where the person was wondering why she keeps a blog and I was beginning to wonder if I should keep going. Now I am feeling inspired to continue.  Finally being back experimenting and creating is good too, I feel more likely to post. Blogging makes me look at things around me slightly differently - so I hope the inspiration continues to revive.

Not in London

I have been home for nearly a month now and am, eventually, settling back in.  I went to the Craft and Quilt Fair in Melbourne on the weekend.
It is over now but you can still read about it here (I think).
I spent about 5 hours there on Friday and could easily have gone again on another day.

I attended a talk on making a quilt using one fabric, not a whole cloth quilt which depends on the quilting for its design but a quilt made of one patterned fabric cut to make patchwork-like designs.  It was very interesting. Margaret Kirkby, of Logan's Fabrics, was the presenter.
It seems to be necessary to know how to find the repeat in a fabric, measure it, cut the fabric out (in the correct layout) and then cut that into a square.
I was pleased that I knew how to do that - one of the benefits of having done the Studio Textiles and Design course at RMIT.
You then cut the fabric diagonally into quarters and put them together to make the pattern. It is obviously more complicated than this but that is the general gist of the talk.
Margaret showed us various examples to demonstrate how different fabrics can work, including a stripe or border fabric.  She also showed us some pieces that she had cut out before really thinking the process through, that had caused some problems.  She showed us how she had attempted to work it out and the various designs that had resulted.  It was a good talk in that she showed us the 'mistakes' she had made and how she had solved the problems.

Now all I have to do is find some fabric that I think is suitable (I have quite a large stash to look through), remember how to do it and get going - without making too many mistakes.  But, before that, I have to do my assignments for the courses I am doing, make a cot quilt and generally catch up with work.  Hmm, I'd better try to find my notes from the presentation and file them well.