A 'work in progress' back in work.

I had to actually go away for the weekend to see if I could get back into my tapestry.  I decided that I would have nothing else to do and would get right into it. I had planned to spend quite a few hours on it.
However ...
There were lots of twigs and bark lying around and it is that little window we get, between the wet weather and the summer.  We were allowed to burn off on Saturday, so we spent the day collecting the fire fuel and burning it off.  No tapestry weaving done then.  Too tired later.

Sunday, another beautiful day.  Time to take the dog for a walk.  Lots of photos of huge trees, towering tree ferns and various mosses and fungi.

As we walked along, we saw so much bark hanging from the trees - no wonder the fires run straight to the tops. Definitely not the place to be when bushfires are around.

On our return, it was time for lunch.  Then visit with the neighbours.

Then ... set up the loom.  Aha, it would have been good if I had kept good samples of how I mixed the colours when I was working out what to do on the tapestry.  I did keep a few but was making it up as I went along - so more time spent not weaving as I had to go through my cones of wool and try to match them to the back bits.  Lesson probably not learnt, I am not good at that sort of record keeping.

I eventually got started and remembered why I had stopped - it is a tricky bit getting the proportions right, especially as I am just using a roughly drawn outline from two photos.

But I have started again, now all I have to do is set it up again at home. If you look closely, you will see that there is another VERY tricky part to do on the side - I have been putting that off.  Hopefully it won't take me another couple of months to get going again.

Missing My Teachers

Well, it's time to try something new.  I got out my book from Image to Stitch, by Maggie Grey and she had this simple-sounding thing to try.
It is using a photo-imaging program to produce an interesting layered textile work.  The description sounded ok, so I found a couple of images to play around with and set out to give it a go.

Path along the Yarra at Warburton

Lights reflecting on the Yarra in the city.

Well ...
It isn't as easy as she says!  You have to actually know something about what you are doing.  This is when I realised that I am going to have to read the books, the online tutorials, etc and not be able to take it to class and ask the teacher for help.
Out came the book I bought years ago (Photoshop for Right-Brainers by Al Ward), thinking I would be able to use it.  It is for people with some knowledge of Photoshop.  I had some knowledge, I thought when I bought it.  Not enough though.  It got put on the shelf and browsed through rather wistfully on occasion. But today I was pleasantly surprised to find that I could actually do one of the examples in Chapter 1 (well, I think I have done it properly).  I didn't use the provided disk, I wanted to use my own photos.  This complicated things.  I wasn't sure what I was doing but I persevered.

So now I have several images.

Tomorrow seems soon enough to think about how to get one onto fabric and then what to do with it. I am feeling good about having made some progress and the images are interesting, I think.
There are several ideas in from Image to Stitch that I can try.  That's for another day.

O'Shannesy Aqueduct Trail

I have been at Warburton for the last couple of days - no need to worry about the fire danger at present.  It rained most of the time we were there.  We went up Mt Donna Buang to a spring water spot to fill up a container and it was 7 degrees and the clouds were coming in.  We were starting to get worried about snow - apparently it did snow on Mt Buller.  Not the sort of weather you are expecting a few days before Christmas.  It was warmer at the base of the mountain, 15 degrees.  Still not what you expect in early summer.  I loved it, I am NOT a fan of hot weather.
We saw a couple of lyre birds on the way down the mountain - very exciting.

Today we managed to get out for a walk.  We went along part of the O'Shannesy Aqueduct Trail.  We started at Millgrove and walked for an hour or so.  It was our dog's first time at Warburton since her cruciate ligament operation, so we were very excited to be there. This walk is a fabulous one - lots of magnificent scenery, a flat walk that is well maintained and plenty of birds to see.

I took a lot of photos to show my en plein air tapestry friends that it might be a good place to work.  There are wonderful panoramas, the forest surrounding the walk is wonderful. I found that I wanted to take photos all the time (I did take 60!) but everything is so big that it is hard to get it into the shot or to show the relative size.  So now I have quite a lot of photos that do not do the place justice.

Finally, a person to show some proportion of the size of the plants.

Rings around the moon

Recently a friend and I went to Warburton for a weekend of tapestry weaving.  We were trying to catch up with the work required by our course.  We had a lovely time, we could probably have done more if we had not been together but we certainly enjoyed ourselves.
One night we saw a magnificent ringed moon.  We were also practising with her borrowed camera and were able to take this photo.
She is thinking of buying a similar camera and we were impressed with it - it is not an SLR but takes good photos anyway.  We had to put it on a very slow shutter speed, so used a 2 second delay so we wouldn't be touching the camera when it actually opened the lens.