New Month

 Where does the time go?? Now it is June, approaching the winter solstice. 

However, I have been ignoring this, due to the lovely weather. Yes, the days are shorter but winter is not upon us yet. I have posted previously, I think, that we have 6 seasons in Melbourne, at least. And currently the weather is enticing us out. 

I went for a walk along the Yarra (again) today. I am sure I can find almost identical pictures from this time last year, when we were in lockdown and only allowed to go out for an hour of exercise. It is the case again today - but will change from tomorrow, I think we will be allowed our for 2 hours. Sounds exhausting. 

Todays' image: not that different from last year, and the many months since then. But still a lovely view. There may be a kayaker in the photo, I am not sure if I caught him in this one. 

Anyway, I am working on a new project. It is based on one I did years ago (2012 to be exact) and I am trying to be as free in my design as I seemed to be then. It is turning out to be a challenge, I am finding myself doing rather restricted designs. I will leave it for tonight and have another go tomorrow. Hopefully the leaves and stems will free me up a bit. 

It has only been a week since lockdown but I am having to deal with using what I have - again - rather than going to the shop to get the right fabric. I think this background will be ok, it will have to be, really. I will work on it again tomorrow and see what I come up with. Hopefully something that will be ok. 

I did a workshop with Jane Sassaman in 2012 and am using the piece I made then as my inspiration. The links I have looked up are rather old, so I don't know what she is up to at the moment.

 I don't really know what I intend to do with the piece so the size is a bit amorphous. But I am working on it, something that hasn't happened all that much recently. 

I have laid our some of the pieces but will wait until I have done some branches and leaves, then see what I think. 

I found images that I took in 2012, thank goodness for digital photography! I will see if I can understand what I took images of and why. I think there is something about cutting out extra layers where possible. 

The shared tapestry is almost finished!

 I thought I should post today, it being 12/5/21 - not a wonderful date but still ok. Visually. The 12th of November will be better. 

I have been looking for notes I made at a Jane Sassaman workshop I did years ago - I think it was in 2012, that seems to be when the photos and other blog posts are from. I haven't found the drawings I was looking for but I was able to find some stuff due to the wonderfulness of the blog which is searchable. It gave me something to think about and a date to look up old photos. 

I have a glimmering of an idea for a new piece. It won't be big and I may make it into another bag for my tapestry loom. This was inspired by getting my small loom back on the weekend, due to our shared piece finally being finished. 

I looked it up and we started it in early 2019. It has been to several weavers and is now finished - ta da!!

We didn't rush. We could blame it on Covid lockdowns but I doubt that it would have been much faster. 

We had a cutting off ceremony with our small tapestry weaving group at the Handspinners and Weavers Guild rooms last Saturday. Not all the participants could be there but it was lovely to see most of them. And other members of the group who could not participate in the project. 

The weaving was done on a rolling warp, meaning you can move it around the loom to make it longer than the loom. I have yet to get my head around how to do this! Someone else set it up for us. 

And here she is braiding the warps so it won't all fall apart. 

The piece has gone to one of the weavers to be tidied up and made ready for hanging. The person who volunteered says she loves tidying up - not my thing at all but I am grateful that it is hers. 

Then we will have to decide what to do with her - who will have her, who will have room for her, where might we display our wondrous work, etc. (I couldn't work out where to put the question marks so that I didn't have to put full stops, so left them out.) 

I won't post a photo of it finished, in all its glory, till we have decided what to do with it. We may enter it in an exhibition that doesn't allow you to have published images previously. Watch this space (but don't hold your breath). 

Now I have my favourite loom back, and the bag it has been travelling around in. So I will have to put away the one I have been using lately and it needs a bag - in my opinion. Mind you, that doesn't mean I will make one, just that I am thinking about it. 

I Can't Resist

As I may have already said, the hollyhocks are gorgeous - and prolific. They keep flowering ...

and throwing beautiful spent flowers on the ground where I walk. I just can't let them go to waste!

Consequently, the freezer is getting more and more full of flowers. It's lucky we live near two supermarkets, there isn't all that much room in the freezer for food.

I keep picking the flowers up and photographing the beautiful patterns on them. I have also MANY photos of the flowers.

Can you see the cute little face in the white part? Or is it a monstrous face??

Now I have discovered the pretty little seed pods.

I even found some seeds lying on the ground today. 

I will have to start designing!

The shapes make me think of a workshop I did a few years ago with Jane Sassaman. I will have to go back to my notes and see what I can do with the ideas floating around in my head.

I also have quite a bit of fabric, dyed using the hollyhocks. They aren't all the correct colour for representing the flowers but that doesn't matter, one of the good things about Jane's class was the stylising of the images. I can use whatever colours I want, it doesn't actually have to look like hollyhocks, they are just my starting point.

If I ever get around to doing more than looking and thinking.

You can find a downloadable PDF, and video, at Quilting Arts, about this design process.

One UFO got rid of!!

I have had this Jane Sassaman workshop piece hanging around for ages. (I did a workshop with her in 2012, at the Ballarat Fibre Forum.)

Here it is before being quilted - at the end of the workshop but before having time to work on it some more.

I did bring it home and work on it some more, till it was quilted but not bound.

One day I noticed that it is much the same size as my small tapestry loom. Hmm. I wondered, can I make a carry bag for the loom?

I decided that I really need to be DOING something. So I got out this UFO and decided to at least put some binding on.
Then I realised that that will not be good for a bag making exercise. I just made another little quilt the same size - not that well quilted, just threw some scrap fabrics together to use them up.  Then I bound that too.

Now the two pieces have been sewn together and a handle has been put on. It fits my small loom beautifully. I will be able to sling it over my shoulder and carry it to my group meetings with ease.
As there are quite a few faults in it, the quilt police probably wouldn't like it but who cares??

Now I won't be juggling all those hanging bobbins, moving the warps and generally having trouble with getting it from the car to the guild rooms. Hooray.

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.

The Next Step in the Design Process

Back to the week at Ballarat.  After we had come up with some drawings of our floral inspiration, we then had to try to draw elements in various shapes that distorted them.  We started with one leaf and tried it in various geometric configurations - circle, square, triangle.  We could also do it with several leaves and then the flowers.  This made us abstract the design but also see the elements that were important to that flower or leaf.

Jane has a book about the design process.  One thing she emphasised was to exaggerate the image.  She told us to enlarge and reduce (I never remember these sayings correctly, it was something like that).  It means to enhance any special features about the shapes you have observed (e.g., spiky leaves) and then to reduce the number of elements (not as many spikes as the actual leaf has, for instance).  I am going to have to practise this a lot more.

Then we drew elements of the flower in less distorted ways but still abstracted or stylised.

I really enjoyed this process.  We were not designing a quilt top yet, just observing and drawing out the elements of the image.
Jane took us through everyone's designs and pointed out different aspects of what was working, how they could be developed further, etc.  It was really valuable to see how others were working and what was going well and what needed changing, and how that could be done. Jane set up a relaxed and trusting environment so that we didn't feel too anxious about having our work looked at by the whole group, it was really wonderful.

Coming up with the design for the quilt

As I said in my last post, I had thrown in some pictures of eucalyptus blossom that I have taken over the last year or so.  They were in a visual diary that I took along at the last moment.

These aren't the exact photos I used, I had printouts of some of the pictures I deleted last year (still anguishing over that - occasionally).  I am finding the occasional lost picture in various places but still am missing a lot.

We had to observe the flowers in their various stages - buds, flowers, seed pods.  We also had to look closely to see how the petals and leaves were arranged - did they grow in threes, fives, etc?  Do the leaves grow opposite each other or are they placed alternately on the branches?  What shapes are the leaves, do they have any distinguishing characteristics? What colours are the branches, the leaves, the stamens and pistils, etc?  What are the proportions of the various plant parts in relation to each other?  Then we had a go at drawing what we could see. I quite enjoyed this part of the process, it is rather relaxing as you are concentrating on that so much that nothing else much impinges on your consciousness.

Taking pictures of flowers

I am going to do a workshop soon with Jane Sassaman.  It is based on designing from nature and we have been told to bring images of flowers.  When I heard that my sister was going to the Melbourne International Flower and Garden show, I thought I had better tag along. The timing seemed to be perfect.
The weather forecast was for sunny and warm, which it was.  Sunscreen slathered on, we took our time wandering around all the displays and stalls.
It is a very big show, taking up the Carlton Gardens and the Royal Exhibition Building.  There were a lot of people there too.

I took photos until my batteries ran down - I really should have listened to myself when I said I hoped they wouldn't run out today!

I wasn't that disappointed as I had taken quite a few photos and was starting to think that maybe I should start thinking about what I wanted to do at the workshop.  I need to choose a colour palette and focus on some of the flower photos I have, not take millions.  But it is so hard, there are so many beautiful shapes and colours.

Not having my camera working also made me look at the show rather than rush around only trying to take photos of flowers.  Isn't it strange how we stop looking when we have a camera, we focus instead on trying to get the best shots.
Fortunately I had my phone and could take the emergency, must have, photos on that.  The ones inside the building are from my phone.
So I obviously didn't just enjoy it, I still had to take photos.  Must try to get over that - but then it would be so much harder to blog.

There were lots of stalls and displays using vegetation as well as art shows, jewellery based on flowers, craft work and other things I ran out of energy to see. Everything had a flower or garden theme of course.