25/6/25

 Not as good as 25/5/25 but still not bad. 

It keeps me posting. I started posting years ago as we were learning how to use a blog as we would need to teach it to our students. I have found that online presence has moved on enormously but I don't much feel like trying to keep up! 

But when people talk about the older generation as being not technologically savvy, I ask who they think taught them about it! I just can't be bothered with some of the new stuff that is totally irrelevant to my life!

However, it is good to have this blog as a visual diary - I have lots of physical visual diaries at home but they are hard to search!! Also, I am trying to downsize some of my stuff - not very successfully. But having the blog means I can search better - if I have remembered to put in the proper labels. 

I have finished the tapestry, have sewn up the loose bits, put on a backing and now only have to take it to the HWSG so that they will take it for me, and bring it back! It is a very helpful and useful thing they offer members. 

I am also trying to come up with an idea for the EGV annual members exhibition - not due till late September but I need to come with an idea that I actually want to do!!

The theme is Magic - it is not speaking to me!

But I am going through some books (that I have resisted giving away) that have quilt ideas, optical illusion  ideas, and some old calendars that I have - I used to get dragon-themed ones each year. Dragons can be magical. 

I am also thinking of my fascination with how colours seem to change depending on the background colours. So more thinking is necessary before I commit to an idea. 

25/4/25

 ANZAC Day. Lots of stories about the world wars and other wars our people were involved in. Some amazing stories! Many sad stories. 

But I took the day off and tried not to get involved in all the stories - and the upcoming election!

I am working on a small tapestry. The theme is about Where the Road Leads. Initially I wanted to do a road leading to a grave - after all, that is where we end up.  But I decided that was probably too depressing. 

So I am working on an image that has road signs that indicate the trials of our travels through life. Lots of warnings, turn arounds, etc. 

I was having trouble doing all the signs so have reduced the number that I had thought to use. 

I decided to make the background grass - we are currently in an unofficial drought  - not sure why it isn't being declared. So I have been influenced by that! 

I have also tried to use up some of the bits and pieces used in other pieces. Therefore, the green is a bit random. 

Here is an image of the piece so far. 

Moving right along

 I finished the quilt. I have done the quilting - basic stitch in the ditch, which showed me that not all the ditches matched up! Then I put on the border. I had considered doing orange, as with the interior border, but decided to use the main fabric.

I sewed it on and then hand sewed the back. I am always amazed about how long hand sewing can take! 

It is not quite square but is approximately 1 metre.  A good size for a baby - I hope. 

Now to move on to another project - even if it is just coming up with ideas. I still have to finish my tapestry and it is occurring to me that I might like to do a small series related to the current piece. Time will tell if that is a good idea or not. 

20/02/2020

Well. I can tell exactly how long it is since I posted - the dates give it away.

It has been strange weather, hot and dry, hot and humid, now it is cool and wet. More summer forecast to be with us in a few days.

I have been working on a small tapestry, for one of my online groups. Every year they have a call for entries on a theme. This year's was Wind in Motion. I had several ideas going at first, not all of them appropriate!

I started on ideas last year. I was inspired by a satellite image of a hurricane that I found on 123RF. 

There have been lots of weather images around lately, with all the fires, smoke and then storms that have been coming though. The maps have been scarily coloured - maybe that is just a reflection of the media's inclination to scare us. So I feel as if my image is rather calm, compared to what we have been seeing - even though it is of a hurricane.

The tapestry is on its way to the organisers. I am looking forward to when it comes to our state and can be exhibited at the Handweavers and Spinners Guild rooms in Victoria. It is going to New Zealand and around Australia, so it will we well-travelled when I get it back.

Online visual diary

I have finished the tapestry and have even sewn in the ends and put a backing on. Yay!

Actually, this has been done for a week or more, I just haven't done anything with it since then.

I have been working on several ideas lately, mostly in my head. One is for the upcoming exhibition at the Embroiderers Guild, Victoria, with the theme Art Deco Now!

One is to lead a Play Day group at the guild, making folded fabric books. I have not done that for ages and am trying to work out how to make them so they can have some texture but still fold.

I wanted to see how I had done something (the folded books) and the best place to find it was ... here, in this blog. I know I started it to be a visual diary (and to learn how to blog - so long ago!). I have dropped off lately. I used to try to post at least once a week. Now I am being productive if it is once a month.

Facebook and closed groups there have sidetracked me a bit. There is a lot of sharing of ideas, prompting new ideas, techniques, challenges, etc. So I have been distracted by that. And then you get even more distracted looking at stuff you had no intention of knowing about. Or wanting to know about.

So I think I will try to be a bit more self-focussed (in a good way) and start blogging a bit more often - really just as a visual diary.

I have this tendency to try various things and then forget how I did it, once I have moved on to something new. I also try to meld ideas from various workshops, books, discussions, etc and need to keep a record that is easy to find. I do have folders with examples, but it is cumbersome to find them, locate the exact bits you want and then see what use it might be. Here, you can put in a search and, if you have put in useful labels, it comes up rather quickly.

On the other hand, going through the old folders can be great - you come across things you had totally forgotten you had played with and get re-inspired.

So ...

Onto the current project. Actually, it is one of several things that are occupying my mind at present but I will try to just do this one.

One of my Facebook groups has set a challenge to come up with 4 more textile art pieces in the coming 12 months. The first one was due this month. Not sure of the date and it really doesn't matter as it is not for any deadline other than an arbitrary one.

The 4 pieces are to be 12"x12".
The overall theme is Micro/Macro.
Not sure how I will interpret this and expect things to change over 12 months.
The first one is to be rather monochromatic - approximately 80% the colour and shades of, the other 20% to be another colour.
I have photos that I have played with and played with and then not used, of the hollyhocks in the back yard.
One of the photos is of a close-up of the flower. That is my macro (or is it micro? It may depend on whether you are talking cameras or not).

I am going to stick with my current technique derived from Kathryn Harmer Fox's workshop in 2017.

So I have lightly outlined the image and then covered it with little bits of fabric. Due to my recent work with being Inspired By Van Gogh, I am tending to use that technique that replicates the brush strokes. This has caused some of the pieces to be very small indeed. But I have managed to roughly sew them all so that they are attached, even if some of them are barely attached.

I have put a frame with a 12" hole over it, to give me an idea of where the edges might be.
I liked the raw edge effect of my other Van Gogh pieces, so will try to do that. I think.

The next step will be to decide how to sew the fabric in, how to make it look more like I envisaged, more a part of the overall fabric.

Getting rid of stuff

My local tapestry group participated in the Christmas exhibition at the Johnston Collection last year. I had started by doing a fairly large (for me) piece, based on a photo of Mr Johnston looking into a mirror, so I had a profile of him. Unfortunately, my original tapestry about Mr Johnston was a failure and I abandoned it before finishing it.
It has been languishing on my loom ever since. It has hours of work in it but is just unusable  - until now!

The Textile Art Community, of Banyule, is having an exhibition using UnFinished Objects (UFOs), not to be confused with Works In Progress (WIPs), repurposed. Mine was not still in progress - it was definitely unfinished, never to be finished.

Anyway,  I have hitched of where I was up to, cut it off the loom and am ready to get rid of it! Hooray.

Mr Johnston is shown behind a privacy screen, as he visited India frequently. The idea was that we show one aspect of ourselves to the world but we have many hidden aspects that are not always seen. 

I'll deliver it tomorrow, all being well.
I will be very interested to see what can be done with it. Their exhibition is called Unfinished Business. I'll be sure to attend.

I have found some other bits and pieces to but they weren't as stressful as the tapestry - it was taking up the loom but not being at all helpful in inspiring me to do anything about it. It has too many hours for me to just get rid of it - then I heard about his wonderful project.

Another day, another gallery opening

Last night the Hatch Gallery, in Banyule, had its opening of the exhibition, States of Being, the Elemental Importance of Water. 
It is a lovely space and has amazing exhibitions.
Last night's was very well attended with a lot of commitment to the problem of water in Australia - we are a very dry continent, liable to the largest extremes of weather of any continent.

Works were from various visual arts techniques and were inspiring.

Of course, my favourites were the tapestries.

Rosemary Crossthwaite had a selection of 6 tapestries, all depicting aspects of water in the centre of Australia, notably, Lake Eyre. They were wonderful.

Due to the large crowd, I will have to go again to see all the works properly. But, not to worry, the exhibition is on until September 9th.

My Tapestry Is Not White Anymore!

I have decided that my white tapestry (you can see it here) has been out in The Elements long enough.
I went out and took it out of the flower pot it has been resting in recently - maybe not resting, maybe it was developing.

Anyway, today seems like a good day to have a look at it and see if I think it might be possible to put it in the exhibition. I suspect it may not look that good but who knows?

 Here is it in the flower pot. Note that it is under the hollyhock plant and the flowers do really fall on and near it. Then I help it along by putting the ones that miss the pot into the pot. It has built up quite a layer over the last few weeks.

 You can just see the edges and small patches of the tapestry. Two of the edges have curled up, not sure why.

 This is the back. I shouldn't have been surprised to see wildlife living on it but I was! Now they are all safely back in the pot, back under the layer of rotting flowers. 

 This is the disgusting-looking underneath of the flowers, which was in close contact with the tapestry.

 The top, definitely not white anymore. 

Wonder what it will look like when/if I rinse it. 

I will leave it out in the sun for a while to let it totally dry (the underneath was actually damp) and then decide if just brushing it will be enough or if I need to wash it out. 

 I put the flowers back to protect the creatures that were living under the blanket of flowers. 

 The back seems lighter.  

Note the pretty purple warp yarns. Wonder if they will survive washing. 

Between Projects

It may just be that it is that time of the year. I am between projects, not feeling very enthused about anything at the moment.
Summer is approaching, although we had a lovely cool night last night. The weather is changing on a daily basis and I think that enervates me. Any excuse.

Anyway ... The tapestry disappeared from the clothes line and is currently residing under some fennel greenery in the compost heap. And the temperature in the compost has risen in the last day. It is now approaching 60 degrees, something that I have been assured it to be desired (for compost).

The tapestry is only just under the surface, so not exposed to the full heat - yet. I will try to contain my interest and tendency to fiddle with it. I will leave it for at least three days (maybe!) and then put it down deeper.

I have also been trying to finish off a machine embroidery piece I started early in November. It was supposed to be going to be for The Alcove's summer sale/exhibition but I didn't get it finished. A familiar story.

Not the finished version, still a work in progress. 

It is based on a photo I took a few years ago and have used previously. This piece is slightly larger than A4.  I am thinking of doing another frame making course before trying to complete the whole piece.
(You can see how I have used the photo for a much smaller embroidery here.)

I have realised that it could fit the Ebb and Flow theme of the Embroiderers Guild, Victoria. This exhibition won't be till October but I probably won't do any great things for it in the near future, so it can be my failsafe piece. And we are allowed to put in up to three pieces, so I can still work on the idea.

Continuing on.

I noticed the date: 12/12/16, so had to blog.
Nothing of much interest has occurred. I have left my little tapestry piece in the garden, under the hollyhocks. Some flowers fell on it and it was damp in the morning, due to the dew. More flowers have fallen but they have dried out as it was hot today.

But there is a little colour from the petals. They are also tending to disintegrate in the heat, and with handling, so that may be an issue.

It is supposed to be hot again tomorrow but there is rain forecast for a couple of days hence, so I will try to be patient and not interfere with the process in the meantime. It is quite possible that the tapestry will get wet as the household gardener might water the plants. Not a natural element I suppose, but still water. Just not rain.

Something new for me.

I was going to blog on the interesting date, 16/11/16, but I didn't have anything interesting to say!
Now it is the 24th - hmm, maybe my life isn't that interesting at the moment.

Anyway, I am working on a small tapestry at the moment, based on the idea of The Four Elements. I am not sure my image is going to work. As usual, I had an idea and started before I had really worked it all out. So my image was a lightly coloured pencil thing (I used two images from 123RF, a copyright image place, if you pay for the images.)
Then I started weaving and instantly began with bright colours! So I am having to make colour decisions as I go, as the cartoon is only a vague suggestion of what I want(ed).

I found that I had woven a small section and didn't like how I had done it. I wanted to change the colours slightly, make them stronger. It is a curving piece and I would have had to pull out some of my weaving to get to the piece I didn't like. I have pulled out more on this piece than I have EVER pulled out in one tapestry and that may have influenced me in my decision to just pull out the offending part and see if I could fix it without having to pull out all the other bits.

So I pulled out the bits that were at the top, lifted some side bits to get at the curve and then pulled it out.

Then I used a tapestry needle to 'sew' the new colour in. It seems to have worked, probably because it was a very small section and didn't need a lot of manoeuvring.

I am not confident that the final piece is going to be altogether successful. So I am considering making a very simple piece, maybe just one colour. Then I can put it out in the weather, bury it in the compost heap and maybe even burn part of it. That should cover the four elements - water (rain - we are having plenty of that at the moment, maybe I had better hurry before summer eventually arrives); air (wind);  earth (compost heap); and fire (could be the heat from the compost, the sun or just a candle).

I'll wait to see how the first one goes. It seems a lot of work to weave a piece and then let the elements have their way on it. But it would definitely suit the theme. But I would have to hurry to finish it, so that the elements will have time to work on it before it is due to be handed in to my tapestry group.

I am even thinking of using different weft yarns, maybe wool, cotton and linen, to see how they react to the elements. It might make the actual weaving a bit more interesting too. Not that I am definitely going to do it.

Out and About in Wangaratta

Having been to North America so recently, I was interested to be looking around in Wangaratta with my tourist's eye.
One of the things I noticed in every small town on my overseas trip was a tattoo parlour, no matter how small the town. Lo and behold, there was one in Wangaratta too.

I took LOTS of pictures of bridges while I was away, so I had to take this one.

And the railway station had to be included, it is so lonely looking.

The tapestry in the cathedral also demanded to be photographed.

Gerda van Hamond artist talk

I was lucky enough to be able to attend Gerda van Hamond's artist talk today.  She has a show on at Hawthorn Studio and Gallery.
(If you follow the above link to her site, use the links below the image to see more or her work, the front page has nothing on it at present.)
You can see images of her work on the gallery website here.  Not sure how long this link will last though.

I asked for permission to take these photos for this blog and she said yes but to remind you that her work is copyrighted.

It was interesting to hear how she works and how long it takes her to do her tapestries - 500-600 hours each for the large tapestries. And that is just the weaving, not the art work, designing and dyeing of wool - yes, she does that too!

Actually, it was great to hear that she doesn't stress too much about getting exact colour matching with her dyeing because of the way she blends her colours on the bobbin and the way she designs her work. It is not essential that the colours match exactly.  Mind you, she has been doing it for a while now and probably knows what she is doing so that the colours will be similar anyway.

Gerda began by working with oil sticks and making artworks of approximately 24cm square, on paper. This show was also made with the gallery space in mind.  She said that she knew she could have several large tapestries with accompanying small ones, two for each large piece. For most of them, she worked on the large piece first and then did the smaller ones. The smaller ones are larger than the original artwork but not by a lot.

Gerda also said that she prefers not to work on a theme for all her work and so there were works with different stories behind each.
I loved hearing about the ideas behind the images.  The titles give clues but to hear the back story makes them even clearer. It is great hearing about the thinking that goes on behind the work, that you would never know if you weren't able to go to an event like this. It is also more personal to hear it rather than read it in a catalogue, as you can do at some exhibitions.

What was also interesting was hearing what people saw in the works and how sometimes that had nothing to do with Gerda's story but more to do with how the viewer was approaching the works. 

Opening of Mountain to Sea travelling tapestry exhibition

We had our 'opening' of the exhibition at the Handweavers and Spinners Guild rooms in Carlton North today.  It was so much fun!
There were people there with whom I studied the textiles and design course, people from our tapestry group, people from the online group which called the challenge, people from our smaller, local online group, people from the guild and complete strangers.  Quite a good crowd.
Marie Williams, one of the guild's vice presidents, gave a welcoming speech and Cresside Collette, one of our past tapestry teachers, officially opened the exhibition for us.  She commented on how good it is for her, as a tapestry teacher, to see past students making the effort to keep practising and encouraging each other, and how the online group that mounts the challenge gives us added impetus to keep weaving. It is true, it really helps to have a theme to work towards, with specific size limitations. It is also great to know that we will have a chance to see how others have tackled the challenge and get the opportunity to look closely at all the works.

The tapestries are wonderful. I have seen them several times now and see something new each time I look.  It is amazing how different they can look up close and then from further away.  Sometimes you wonder why the weaver did a certain thing and then you move away and it all makes much better sense.  It is such a chance to see how people attempt the same theme and how they manage to achieve very different effects.  It is a great learning experience to participate but it is also a great learning experience to just look closely at all the works.
We are very grateful to the guild for allowing us to to use their gallery for several weeks.

Ooops

I thought I had posted about this tapestry earlier but found that it is still in draft form.   So ...
This is the post as written a couple of weeks ago (November 26th, to be exact), I hope it still makes sense.

I had plans to twist and turn the slits and make it all join up - in a very 3D way.  Those plans are on hold for the moment because of the exhibition.  The way I planned to sew it together would make it very different from the other two small tapestries I have done, so I have taken the curator's advice and will leave it in its current state - almost.

When I hold it up, the weaving develops a slight curve.

It is very messy at the moment and will stay pretty messy.  But it was suggested that I could dye the hanging strands of warp thread to make it more interesting.  I can see that it could look very much in tune with my other work.

I decided that I wasn't that happy with how I had finished off the weaving, as I had been going to braid it.  So now I am doing the (very!!) tedious job of double half hitching using cotton, with the work off the loom.

I have been a bit concerned about how to dye the threads without having the dye getting onto the actual weaving, or wicking up the threads.  I have had several helpful messages, suggesting water colour paint, food dye (not sure if you can get black, assume so) and procion dye.
Then I went with a friend to visit Kraft Kolour and Bonnie, lovely lady, got out some cotton yarn, some black sun dye and painted the yarn there and then.  It took the dye well and didn't rub off.

I decided to try some leftover warp threads before launching into working on the actual piece and painted them with the sun dye.  I left it in the sun for a while.  It says on the bottle to heat set the dye (when using it on fabric) but when I washed it, no colour came out.  So I will be big and brave tomorrow, if the sun comes out (it is forecast to be thundery), and paint the warps.

I am hoping to cut them off later, braid the ends, and sew it up as I had originally planned, so I don't want the dye to go all the way up to the weaving.

My Tapestries in Suspension

It was my turn to sit at the Tinning St gallery today.  There were a few visitors but there was also some down time.  I have a new camera and I took the book along to read.  I took the camera too, of course.
So here are a few photos of my tapestries from varying angles.

My work was based on the idea that we have times in our lives when we are snuggled up cosily in our little cocoons but then things happen (whether caused by outside forces or from within) and we have to move on, change our directions, etc.  Then we start again in another cocoon and the journey goes on.

The thought behind these pieces is that the front of the tapestry is what you see from the outside and the back represents what is going on out of sight.  So there are bumps and rough patches visible from the outside but inside is more complicated and messy - there are soft spots as well as rough spots but it is not the same as the image we present to the world. It is not necessarily worse, it is just different.

You can see this one on the loom, and just off the loom, here.

It is the same one as the above image.  It moves gently in the moving air.

 Here is a link showing the back tapestry on the loom.

The front tapestry is here. 

 This is taken from below, experimenting with the camera settings. 

Another taken from below.

My pieces are the cocoons along the window wall and the three tapestries hanging in the distance. The afternoon light was lovely on the teardrop pieces.