The Date - again!

 It's been so long since I posted that I almost forgot how to log in!!

Today is 22/4/26. 

I haven't been all that creative recently but am working on a tapestry. It has taken me weeks and is not that big but who cares?? I am doing something. 

The tapestry is, hopefully, for the Bendigo Wool Show later this year. The theme is something about Echoes from the Past (not sure that is it exactly) and I have been visiting Darebin Parklands for many, many years. So I have used a photo of a small bridge over Darebin Creek. It reminds me of the many times I have visited the park - it is at the bottom of my street, not a big excursion. 

                                           

Anyway, I have used a recent photo of the bridge and am trying to come up with a tapestry. There are problems with the interpretation but I am happy to just be weaving again, not that bothered by exactitude.

I have been taking photos when I have actually given it some time - to let me see that I am making progress. 

The photos have come in reverse order - something to do with Google not being able to upload - I am sooo over technology!

I have used a photo but am making up the last bit - I am prone to to that, just make it up. I realised that the cartoon is not accurate so am using the actual photo instead. The big disadvantage of this is that you can't really see the differentiation between areas as clearly. But I have decided not to worry about it - I am not going to provide the image with the finished piece, so no-one will be aware of the differences. I hope.

Next artist to inspire us ... Hundertwasser.

As I have already mentioned, our machine embroidery group at the Embroiderers Guild, Victoria, is working on a small A5 piece each month, inspired by a different artist.
I thought I would love this month, it being Hundertwasser but I have actually found it a bit difficult.

He has the most amazing colours, brush strokes, hidden faces, immediately-identifiable trees, etc. But I was just replicating his work, which I had promised myself I would try not to do.

So I waited a couple of weeks. In the midst of other things, I have been playing around with trying to do some collages. I found a visual diary that I had used before, for a tapestry based on the theme of My Place.

I realised that I might be able to adapt it to this challenge. So I got out my tiny pieces of scraps of fabric and fiddled around with them.  Eventually I laid them out according to a map of the local area.
I have used images of Darebin Parklands before (a lot, actually).

 

Here is the piece in its infant stage. It wasn't particularly reminding me of Hundertwasser. Then I came across a tiny scrap of fabric with some circles that reminded me of his trees. After much searching (thank goodness I did some sorting a little while ago) I found a larger scrap and could cut out some little pieces that I thought would do the trick.

Now I have finished, it is not something that you will say "Oh, that looks like it is inspired by Hundertwasser" but I know that it is. And now you do too, because you have read this!

You  can see the little trees cut out and put in the park area. 

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.

                         

The water isn't supposed to look like that!

For one of our exercises, we have to do a drawing, using line, that is in three parts, horizontally. Air, water and land. I have been struggling with this for a week now but had an inspiration late one night - these late night inspirations don't always turn out so wonderfully in the light of day but I thought I would persevere anyway.

I remembered that I had used my photo of the cliff in Darebin Parklands as inspiration for a tapestry, then as a black line drawing using patterns.

So I thought I would go back and take another picture. My original photo is quite purple and I haven't seen those colours for a couple of years. This photo has not been touched up, it really came out looking like that.

It is much browner now. I am not sure if it is because of the time of year, different weather or the clean-up of the creek that has been done in the meantime. It is not nearly so colourful now but it is still interesting.

I took Penny for a walk today and we ended up in the same park - it is wonderfully local, off-lead in places and very peaceful - usually. Today there were trail bikers there, they are not supposed to be there and they were very noisy.

The creek was a peculiar colour too! Whatever was in the water was making its way down the waterway. It didn't smell but it certainly looked bad.

So, being a good citizen, I rang the number and reported it. When the phone was answered, the person on the other end said "You're reporting Darebin Creek?" I think they must have had quite a few calls, very few people go out without their phones these days!

More drawing

I have spent several hours on yet another image of the cliff at Rockbeare Park (Darebin Parklands on the other side of the creek).  I decided to try the new drawing technique and see if I could come up with an image I liked.  It is not quite what I wanted but I suppose I should remember that I have only just started with this style and be happy that at least I am drawing.

I did a drawing on Friday while visiting a friend.  She said I now had to TTT.  What???  Pardon???
Take it To Textile - I think that's what she said it meant.
So I have been trying to think of ways to do that.  So far I have had some thoughts about blackwork embroidery but I think the designs might be too intricate for that.  (Actually, if you look at some of these images, you will see that it might suit really well.  It might also be very slow!) I have booked into beginner classes at the Embroiderers Guild for the next two Fridays so can ask about it.

Then I thought about the work I did with Jane Sassaman and how she wanted us to use the elaborate stitches that are available on the sewing machine.  Not that I took the cogs with me to have many available - it is a very old Husqvarna that uses cogs to change the stitch designs.
The different stitches can be used to get various effects with colour and to make the quilting more interesting.  So far I haven't tried the various cogs so there isn't a great variety.

My next thought is to see if I can master the various stitches on the machine and then try using them to do some of the patterns.
Using the machine may mean that I have to abstract the design even further, something that I would love to be able to do - this could be a whole new area for me.
I suppose then I will have to decide on whether to stick with the black and white or to start utilising colour.  And another element could be the thickness of the threads.  So many ideas, so many decisions.
Now all I have to do is actually try some doing of these ideas. And I will also have to decide which technique to do - I have been thinking lately that it would be nice to be doing some handwork that I can carry around with me, so maybe blackwork will get a trial.

Windy days

We seem to have had some windy weather lately. I didn't think it was all that windy yesterday but a big branch fell on our and our neighbour's power lines.  Fortunately the surrounding trees kept it from pulling the lines out but it was still a nuisance.
Then we decided to take the dog for a walk.  While we were walking along the track we heard two branches fall.  As the walk was under a lot of trees, we decided to go home.
Then today we went to Darebin Parklands.  I remembered being there last year when a big branch fell.  I couldn't remember if it was the branch that I had photographed earlier (the one I am using for my current tapestry) or if a branch next to it fell.  That day it was hot and still, typical weather for eucalypts to drop their branches.

This is a very long branch!

As we walked further along we saw even more broken branches.  It may have been a combination of the recent rain and wind that made them fall.

There have been trees falling in other suburbs, so I suppose we were lucky it was only branches. It seems to have all been eucalypts that have fallen too.

Working on a new tapestry

As my sewing machine is out of action for a couple of weeks, I have had to redirect my energies.  Thank goodness for the mild summer we have been having, I actually have some energies.
I took a photograph a few years ago at Darebin Parklands.  Fortunately, I had put it in a folder of possible ideas for a tapestry so didn't lose it when I deleted all my photos from iPhoto (still not happy Jane).
I played around with the photo in Photoshop and made it less pictorial - slightly less.  I also cropped it.

I didn't fiddle with the colours, I seem to have a history of getting this purple-blue colour down at the park.  I am using some of the wools that I used for my cliff-face and it is looking remarkably purple again.  Oh well, I liked the colours in that and the greens will hopefully make it look different. I also have a tendency to mix my colours as I go and to adapt the design, so it won't look too much like the photo in the end.  Hopefully it will still be recognisable though.

But that didn't seem enough of a challenge - I also decided to take photos of it as it progressed with the aim of making another small stop motion animation.
Have I mentioned all the things you have to take into account when taking photos for an animation?  Things like having the camera at the same precise angle, the loom at the same angle, the lighting not changing, the camera and loom at the same distance each time, etc.
This is all a bit hard to achieve over the time a tapestry takes to weave, especially when you take the loom with you to other places. I am attempting to make the images the same size in Photoshop but it is proving to be a little challenging.  However, if I am not too bothered by a jerky animation, I may succeed.  I will continue working on it and see how I go.
One benefit is that I stop from time to time to take a photo - and that reminds me to get up and move, much needed. Then I can see the progress I have made which is often much more obvious on the camera than on the loom.

Note the difference in the photos, they are going to need quite a bit of work to match them up.  But I can see how much I have done, very pleasing.

Boxing Day

After the storms of Christmas Day, we went down to the local creek to see the damage. We couldn't get in our usual way, the bridge was under water and had a lot of debris caught on it.

 We walked along a bike track further along the creek and saw the walkway from in the park - quite a long way away from where it should be.

A snake used to live under this walkway, I wonder where it has gone.  Actually, we were a little nervous about walking down at the park as it has a lot of snakes and we were a little worried about where they would all be, assuming they were washed out by the floods.

The floods will hopefully have cleaned out the creek, there was a lot of silt deposited on the flood plain also, maybe the plants will benefit from this and the good soaking - those that are still rooted in the ground that is.  It was fascinating to see the different areas the flood had come to and how different things had accumulated in various areas.  I feel sorry for the park rangers who have put so much work into the planting and renovation in the park, there is a lot of cleaning up to do.

We were very fortunate at home, only a little bit of water go in.  Some of my friends were badly inundated.  Best wishes to all those who were affected by the deluge.

About the felting

I had to post today, the date is 9/10/11.  Love those dates.

The theme I am working on - still - is based on Darebin Parklands/Rockbeare Park.  I keep trying new techniques based on the theme.  The two ideas that I work on are the rock formations and the tree trunks.
I spent a day last week working on the tree trunk idea, using felting.  I tried to incorporate two workshops I have attended.
Both methods use a prefelt as a base and then you design on top of that.
The first one I tried was based on the LeeAnne Davis method of sewing fabrics that will not felt well, using wool or some other thread and then felting it onto another layer of prefelt, then embroidering further.
I have blogged about her before, here and here.

Here I have used a silk loom end, scrim and some synthetic fabric.

The pink bit here is an old piece of 'silk paper' that I made last year.  The other bits are scrim and more synthetic fabric.

More scrim, silk ripped into strips and synthetic organza.

I used left-over bits of tapestry wool for the sewing down as I thought that would felt well into the prefelt.

Here are some pictures after the final felting.  I have not embroidered them again as they did not please me that much and they are only samples anyway. I may get enthused and do some embroidery but it will depend on how much spare time I have - not a lot at present, I am trying to work on my graduation piece.

The silk strips looked ok.

The silk paper did well and I don't mind some parts of this, it has possibilities. 

The silk loom end lost a lot of its lustre when the felting came through.  The synthetic gives good texture.

I actually remembered to measure the pieces before and after felting and it did shrink about a third, in one direction.  I'm not sure if I rolled it more in one direction than the other or if the sewing caused some of this differentiation.

I have just looked at the preview of the blog and think they are not that bad after all.  Maybe I will try again, see if I can get some good effects and use embroidery to enhance the pieces.  That's the problem with me at the moment, I can't come up with a final technique or design!!  I'm still experimenting - which is fun and interesting usually but causing some anxiety at the moment as I have to come up with some work.

Summer in Australia

Well, I am sitting here enjoying the cool summer days we are having at present although it has been muggy today, not something we are used to here in Melbourne.  Then I turn on the news and hear about the devastating floods in Queensland and New South Wales and the bushfires in Western Australia and think about how lucky we are here at the moment.

We seem to be coming out of our drought, we have lush gardens (that didn't like the couple of hot days we had recently) and it is raining intermittently.  Wonderful. Hope it lasts.

Here are some pictures I took yesterday afternoon, of storm clouds over the city.  Bring on the rain, I thought, but then all I heard was flood warnings for parts of Victoria too.

Here are pictures looking down into Darebin Parklands from the same vantage spot I used two years ago.  Much greener now.

Here are two from March 2009, one with the city almost obscured by the smoke of bushfires.

Now I am just hoping for moderate weather, without all the disasters that are happening in other parts of Australia.  The size of the floods, and the devastation, are just so hard to comprehend.  

Happy Christmas

Happy Christmas to you all.  It has been a lovely day here in Melbourne, overcast and a comfortable temperature.
We took the dog for a walk this morning, her first swim in the local creek since her operation in September!

It was very quiet down at the park although we did meet a few others taking their dogs out before the big day of visiting.  It is one of the few times Penny has been off-lead since September also.  The park has a good off-lead area that was freshly mown - easy to be sure that there were no snakes around, we hoped.

Couldn't resist taking a picture of all the different greens.

Said Hanrahan

Can't help thinking of the poem from our school days when I think about the weather we have had and are having. So appropriate, especially at this time of year and in terms of recent years.
I mentioned it to someone recently and it appears that the younger generations don't know about it, what a shame.  All those poems and stories from our childhood not taught anymore.

Warringal Park in the 2009

Darebin Parklands 2009

Darebin Creek

Darebin Creek 

 I used to walk regularly down at Darebin Parklands with our dog.  Since she has had cruciate ligament surgery, we have been down there less often.  But it has changed to a green park lately.  Amazing difference.