Knee Deep in Thesis

Just taking a very quick break to update this blog.

I have a deadline of this Friday to produce a few thousand coherent words for review by my supervisor on the thesis.

The Sea Angels are finished and on display at the Johnston Collection. We are not too happy with the display at that end of the room. The tree and angels were supposed to be displayed in a group, the tree flanked by the angels. However it was too crowded due to the furniture arrangement so they have dropped the tree down the step and split the angels off to the side. Then the step was a safety issue so they have place two plinths with big, ugly, empty, white urns on them in the central position. It is horrendous. Hopefully the ‘interior designers’ will rectify such a disgraceful placement. Even taking the urns off would make a difference. After the months of work spent planning and constructing it is very disappointing.

I am flitting about doing a few little items in between thesis writing but also extremely busy at work at the moment and hoping to start preparations for xmas soon. We have our Creative Group on Saturday so will post photos on Monday.

Check out this great giveaway on Candy’s blog and new website, she has some delicious hand dyed pieces.

Photos are from my morning walk

Cheers

Stitching, Reading and Op Shopping

The stitching is on-going as I add little extras to the sea angels; here are a couple of snippets (I have been powering through the romeo for all the metallic lace):

I am into buttons at the moment (after the workshop making some) and I’m currently reading this really interesting and informative book on the history of buttons:

And this one on making all sorts of interesting buttons (some of which may find their way onto the rose sea angel):

Now for some bargains picked up from the local Op Shop, handily opposite the furniture warehouse where I was checking out beds for youngest son. This would have to be my favourite op shop for picking up great stitching supplies. For $14 I scored over a metre of good quality wool gaberdine, 2 metres of a silky polyester (feels very similar to the fabric in my favourite Basque dress and would look sensational printed with a gold motif), a fat quarter of a toning batik cotton (also good quality) – I can see a bag happening here, 4 new zips, 2 silk ties, a chiffon scarf, large piece of red synthetic felt, assorted buttons, a reel of a very nice variegated pink cotton, a spare bobbin case for my Janome (I can now use this for fiddling with the tension), a thin strip of velcro and over a metre of hand crocheted cotton edging.

What a haul!!

Yet again we have missed out on tickets in the Geelong Footy Club ballot so we will be watching from home; at least we won’t get wet!

GO CATS

Cheers

Fabulous fun with fabric

Or Dyeing with Dijanne.

Today I was in Leopold for a dyeing workshop with Dijanne Cevaal, textile artist from Gellibrand in the Otways (organised by Geelong Sewing Centre). Dijanne specializes in the most beautifully designed and executed machine and hand embroidery over her own printed and/or dyed fabrics. We were able to view and touch her beautiful artworks up close as she brought a huge selection of finished large and smaller pieces to show.  It was a small group of seven which meant plenty of personal attention, lots of room to spread out and much sharing of information. Dijanne was very generous in sharing her tips and techniques and all participants had a wonderful selection of dyed fabrics by the end of the day.

One of the techniques demonstrated was that used by Dijanne to produce her wonderful forest piece. Here is my version, 146 cm long x 77 cm deep.

This one is a smaller piece which I pleated diagonally and scrunched a little before dyeing:

Some moody blues:

And a variety of red/pink/orange:

Finally this is the wool I dyed a couple of weeks ago as the hair for the sea angels. I was very relieved when the colours came out perfectly toned for the rest of the bits I have done.

Cheers

Birthday Giveaway

Sewjourn is having a birthday giveaway, be quick it ends at 5pm tonight.

I have just downloaded my September copy of WOW, great inspiration there and well worth the miserly subscription. I am about to incorporate Julie Smith’s wonderful article on making a mermaid’s purse (or cuff actually) into my sea angels. I have just about finished all the machine stitching and will spend the next two weeks with the hand stitching.

Here is another taster.

 The first is the twin needle stitching on the neck of one dupion silk gown:This is the other gown painted with a mixture of acrylic, opulence ink and dyn na flow then sprinkled with salt:

I painted some pearl cotton with the leftovers but they are a bit stiff, even after being in the dryer. They might be okay in a twisted cord or couched on. This is in the wet stage, it actually dried much lighter and will be toned down with overlays.

The last photo is another of the wing pieces. On the corners I have stitched using the Maggie’s technique from the Perth workshop. I’m hoping these will look like fragments of fishing net once dissolved.

Sorry about the flash off the glass cooktop.

Cheers

Progress- of sorts

Firstly, I have been playing with paperclay and have made my first sea angel head. This is for a Christmas exhibition at the Johnston Collection, a collaboration of all the arty groups in Geelong. I began with a foil base on galvanised wire:

Following a tutorial here, I added the paperclay, beginning with a basic shape and then adding the details. This was great fun and Claudia joined in, making a Little Miss figure.

As you can see I have not yet added the ears, I’m wondering if they are necessary as she will have long hair. The pictures of ship’s figureheads which I have are the inspiration for the sea angels, and they all have ears so I had better add them. She is not quite symmetrical, but I plan to paint her in colours of the deep (a la Maggie Grey), not realistically, so I think she will look fine. Most people have slightly wonky faces anyway!! I have another to do as yet.

Here are my ‘killed catalogues‘ in progress.

This one I plan to embellish with gum tree type features; leaves, gum nuts etc.

This has a combination of quink, moonshadow mists, starburst stains and shimmering mists sprayed.

The next one I embedded some gauze and lace fabric in the gesso, then painted the same as the one above.

I was inspired by Heather’s fantastic chessmen and the gap in the middle for this one. It will be based on Alice in Wonderland/Through the Looking Glass and have text and WSP heads. A friend has a concrete statue of Alice just the right size, so I hope to  borrow it to do a paper cast.

Next month at the Creative Fibre arts group we will be playing with water soluble paper and paper clay so hopefully I’ll have all these finished to show.

Cheers

Slow and Steady

…..wins the race.

I love the idea of slow cloth, takes the pressure off completely and makes the whole process so much more enjoyable (as long as it doesn’t degenerate into procrastination). It’s all in the mindset, I find. If you look at the process of mulling over the possibilities in a positive way it becomes a constructive thing to do. Of course there is still an important place for the frenetic when inspiration comes pouring out, because work that is totally spontaneous can have fantastic results.

Most of my current projects are of the ’slow’ variety.

I am still working on my ’sea angels’ and finding many possibilities opening up as ideas are sparked from viewing lots of creative blogs.

I am also still working on my ‘killed catalogues’, a new idea for which was sparked off by Heather’s fantastic chessmen.

Here are a couple of great ATC’s we have swapped.

On the left is Gillian’s first try at ATC’s, very interesting textures, and on the right the amazingly talented Ebony’s sent to Claudia.

Claudia’s return ATC to Ebony, which should have arrived by now (which I can’t find a photo of, whoops) was part of this random felting she did at our March textile group. Claudia used her ATC window to choose the sections she wanted to cut out. She chose some colours of machine embroidery rayon and had fun FME’ing the circles and outlines. I always make sure Claudia puts on the safety glasses for this stage in case she breaks a needle. She also chose one to finish and send off to Val (forgot to scan that one too!!)

Here are a few more of Claudia’s in production.

I have been also slowly continuing with the Stitch Explorer for April and May. April was Casalguido embroidery and May was needleweaving. These two are complementary styles of stitching so I decided to combine them for this sampler.

The first stage, casalguido or padded raised stem band stitch, shows stranded cotton laid down, couched with sewing thread and then satin stitched with more stranded cotton. The perpendicular stitches are then placed in the second photo and I will try some cotton a broder to cover this with the final layer, stem stitch.

The base is four sided stitch using two strands of DMC. I will be doing some needlewoven autumn leaves in a hand dyed variegated pearl  bought from Sharon to finish off.

I found Effie Mitrofanis’ book a wonderful guide to this stitch, with clear directions and some inspiring contemporary embroidery.

I have also ordered Effie’s needleweaving book from the library as well, so I’m sure that will also contain some more great ideas and instructions.

Time to get off the computer and finish the housework, so I can sit and stitch!!

Cheers

Sculpted Books

Not a great deal to show on the textile front as many projects are still progressing.

We had a Johnston Collection meeting at the Guild this morning and the pieces being worked on are just amazing. There are some truly talented embroiderers. However the pieces cannot be shown because they will be exhibited later in the year. The sea angels are progressing with the bases begun (just waiting for the final paint coat and being stitched together) and some hand stitchery on a practice piece of dupion silk.

Today I called in to the Geelong Art Gallery to see a fantastic exhibition of sculpted books by Nicholas Jones from Melbourne. Nicholas doesn’t seem to have an active website at the moment but this link will take you to a great interview and photos. The exhibition, called “the garden of forking paths” (the title of short stories from the 1940’s) uses books recycled from various sources and sculpted in a variety of ways. Nicholas kindly gave me permission to show some of his works here.

 

These photos do not really do them justice as they are taken through glass cabinets with my phone, but show some of the amazing range of Nicholas’ pieces, well worth a visit if you are able to get there before the exhibition finishes on Sunday.

The girls and I are off to Melbourne for a couple of days, it’s becoming an annual girl’s trip, to see the penguins at the aquarium and visit some other sites and of course, shopping.

The latest update is on the Creative Fibre Group blog for the April meeting and details for the Next meeting on May 9th.

Cheers

Angels and stuff

A progress report on what’s been happening. I have been working/out/socialising so much there hasn’t been much time to ‘art’.

I have signed on for a six week challenge at the local gym. We have bootcamp sessions Monday and Friday at 6am, keep a food diary, are expected to do weights sessions another three times a week and some form of exercise on the other two days!!! To fit this in around work, four children, uni and arting is quite a feat (but I’m working on it). I have managed to do some of this but I’m not at peak capacity yet. It’s a matter of utilising every spare 40 minutes and squeezing it all together. Thus I’ve done a weight session on the way home from work, after dropping children off, prior to picking up etc. Also needing to fit housework and cooking in there somewhere. Luckily the eldest daughter is very good at grabbing a load of washing and hanging it out (thanks Carlz).

Last weekend eldest daughter and I  toodled off to Melbourne with SIL and niece to see the stage show ‘Wicked’, a sensationally beautiful show and a fantasical story. We went to a great Japanese restaurant in Fed Square for tea and then to the Regent Theatre. We all enjoyed it immensely, though I was glad I hadn’t taken Claudia; it was a bit too scary and ‘old’ for an eight year old.

Now to arty progress. This is a mock up of the body for the ’sea angels’ (corn flake packets come in very handy for this sort of thing) standing on my wooden cheese board, which is the size I planned for the wooden base. 

I have cut the triangular pieces from pelmet vilene and have been looking for a source of ‘builder’s scrim’ sometimes called cotton tape by the plastering fraternity. Most plasterers today use fibreglass (ezy tape) which is self adhesive. I assume the cotton tape is used mainly for renovating older homes. I have decided not to use quink ink as it is a little dark, so I’m using a technique from Angie Hughes’ new book, Stitch, Cloth, Paper, Paint, which I borrowed from the library. The clearly displayed process uses tissue paper and scrim PVA’d to the vilene followed by machine stitching, gesso, paint and hand stitching.

Now a couple of photos of some op shop finds. Nikki is about to release a new laptop bag/satchel pattern (for which I have been waiting). Nikki’s bag patterns are sensational, both in style and the detailed notes which amount to a workshop on how to make each bag. At the op shop I picked up two bags, one brand new, for $2.00 each. I will cut them up for the buckles, rings, bag feet, and zippers with gorgeous zipper pulls. The webbing strap with fittings will make a perfect strap for my laptop bag. I also picked up the two macro suede pieces for footstools or cushions and the ribbed fabric for placemats (matches some I already have) for $1 each. The larger book is for Maggie’s workshops and the smaller is an interesting historical look at textiles (c1968): weaving, tapestry, spinning, batik, printing, lace making, embroidery etc. I have been following Helen Cowan’s blog on the history of English embroidery so this will be a good adjunct.

I’m off to prepare for a day in Melbourne. I have to go to uni first and then to the Australasian Quilt Convention. I’m looking forward to a few workshops to try out a variety of sewing and embellisher machines.

Cheers