When I returned from my recent week of RnR with family in Rockhampton, a parcel from Jo S was waiting for me:
It was Jo's "Ticket to Ryde" my part of the great Quiltie swap on one of my groups.
Jo's explanation of her 6 inch fabric art square was:
"The background was of my train tickets printed on fabric;
The braid made good tracks and the ric-rac represents the sometimes rugged journeys I sometimes endure on my way to work.
The tangled lines are self explanatory............"
Jo's piece was timely,as my journey to Rocky was via the super fast Tilt train (VBG)
which seemed to spend more time on side rails to allow cattle and coal trains through;never maxxed at more than 103 k/hour and was 45 minutes late arriving in Rocky!
Thanks Jo,I appreciate your work!
As from May 5 (USA time) some 200 plus collages are available for sale /bids
to raise money for FiberArtfor a Cause.............in this case Cancer Coucil/
http://www.virginiaspiegel.com/CollageMania0815.html
So many pieces have been submitted as homage to friends and family that have fought the fight,and in some cases,WON a battle against Cancer.
Can you help?
Last Saturday, I was privileged to participate a workshop with Cynthia Morgan at her home in Caloundra.(Q'ld)
I chose her nature photograph of a gorge in the Kimberleys,W.A. as my inspiration,and am trying to interpret it in fabric.
There were eight of us in the group,and we each chose a different inspiration photo as Cynthia prefers not to have everyone in the group competing over the same scene.
Apologies for all the white dots,but I'm still auditioning scraps of fabric for a good effect, and they being so small,need an awful lot of applique pins to keep them in position.
I'd like to add another couple of Australian fabric landscapes to my collection,
but will persevere with this in order that it doesn't succumb to the dreaded UFO-itis !
It was a wonderful day with Cynthia as she shared her tips and tricks of the trade,and also showed us her dyeing area....and to see up close and personal so much of her work:
landscape and flora was truly awesome.
As the forthcoming swap on the ArtUMail groups is themed for "your favourite landscape"
I thought I'd play around a little and to to employ some of the tips that Cynthia Morgan shared at her Landscapes Workshop last Saturday
:
The first one represents two large rocks in a sea scape:
The fibre I used to represent froth and foam didnt work as I'd hoped,so back to the drawing board.
The brief on the Craft Forum was to create a (finished) six inch square "Quiltie"
featuring "something" on both the front and the reverse.
I chose to work "outside the square" of traditional P&Q.
The "front" I formed using wool tops ,cotton muslin and my Janome Xpression machine to form a piece of machine n/f felt of lime green,rust and a small patch featuring lavendar,gold and green.
After a recent foray into a scrapbooking shop,I found an interesting piece of shaped card,of which I cut a small sqaure which was then painted with Lumiere metallic sunset acrylic.
This piece was anchored to the felt by using sequins and bugle beads.
I then added two dyed and split silk cocoons,which were anchored with green sea shell fragments.
The reverse or backing features a cluster of leaves,super- imposed with a hot glue motif!
The motif was a result of a challenge on the "yahoo textile challenge group",which was overpainted with (sunset) metallic Lumiere acrylic paint.
The shape was then "rubbed with gold embossing for further definition
My point in this piece was to demonstrate that a "quiltie" need not be a traditional P&Q piece
.
I LIKE thinking; "What if? Why not?"
whether my fellow swappie agrees,remains to be seen.
But I had FUN......and enjoyed what I did.
C'est la vie!
The fat lady has sung: The edges have been bound and the two landscapes are as complete as I can make them.
(Please ignore the daisy pins
holding the hanging to the rod :-( I forgot they were there when I took the photos)
The upper pic is totally fabric: machine appliqued.
The pic with the black (fabric) "frame" was worked using wool and some silk tops.
The settler's hut/cottage is of machine appliqued fabrics.
Both were based on the same small watercolour postcard: they were my first attempts at a 'true' landscape,and yet to me,both are so different.
At the present,I'm working on a quiltie: a six inch finished square...........one side consists of a square embellished onto a piece of cotton scrim,and further embellishments added.
The reverse side will feature a batik style fabric embellished with a hot glue effect(courtesy of a challenge a while back on the yahoo Textile challenge group)
I'm trying to work outside the traditional quilting square!
Interested??
Watch this space.
As I was needing some themed paper fabric for a special project I got to and fabricated some paper fabric today;
The upper pic is themed with sheet music,lavender from a paper serviette and blue & lavender coloured tissue paper.
As the piece is 12 by nearly 30inches, and I only require a piece 6 by 8,I'll have plenty for others---a series,maybe?
The larger lower piece was made to have ready for embellishing when the desire arises.
Apart from these pieces, I frog-stitched the hand quilting on the "Simple shapes
" of a couple of weeks ago and more firmly anchored the shapes with an invisible blind stitch.
Now to start quilting again.......if family circumstances allow .
Let the sunshine in!
The back and side gardens: after
I attacked the Rosellas.
In the lower photo you can see the pile of plants after the hair cut!
Tomorrow,hopefully I'll have time to prepare the pods for jam making.
Last year,about May 1,I blogged pics of the state of the "garden".....
Today
,Saturday March 22, 2008 
this is how it looks :
Photo 1: is the view along the back of the house;the jungle nearest the house wall are the Rosella plants I planted as seedlings last November.
I have just picked another bucketful of Rosella fruit for jam making,so these will be removed very shortly.
Photo 2 My pot of Cooktown Orchid is covered in buds. I'm hoping the present plague of grasshoppers don't have it for dessert.
Photo 3
: Taken from near the Orchid pot and looking northwards,you can see the shady part of the garden,with Cordylines;Acanthus, Syngonium;
Cardwell lily,native Ginger Golden cane palms and Iris.
Photo 4: Is what my neighbour refers to as "the day of the triffids"...
where the rosella and the Lab-lab beans have turned feral !
(You wouldn't think there had been a severe pruning here about three weeks ago would you!)
Well,it's time to be ruthless and remove the rosella and again trim back the bean plants.
In all the years I've grown Rosella it's the first time I've had them grow to the house gutter height.........what's that! Over two metres.I must have fed them too well.
Anyway,with summer heat hopefully finished,the plants hiding behind all that shelter can venture out again.
(No, it's not mine!)
But do take a trip over to visit with Dana at Old Red Barn and drool over the vibrant quilt that's on offer.
She is making this gesture to celebrate her 200th blog posting.
If you do leave comment,would you mention that you found news of it via my blog ,please!
Today I finally got around to using scrim as foundation for a needle felted piece and this square was the result.
The white areas visible in some areas is the result of punching from the 'wrong side':
When punching on the reverse side, there's a tendency to cause the base mesh to loop up through the felt,much the same way that incorrect tension on a sewing machine can leave 'loops' on the right side of fabric.
After cutting the square from the perpared piece,I then embellished some (silk) thrower's waste across......reminds me of the Stingers sometimes seen in Moreton Bay.
After skimming through my new quilting books:
Gloria Loughman's "Luminous Landscapes"
Maggi McCormick Gordon's "Quilters guide to Pictorial quilts"
Valerie Hearder's "Points of view"
and Jane Davila & Elin Waterston's "Art Quilt Workbook"
I thought I'd get back to basics!
Hence the current work in progress:
Simple geometric shapes on a plain background.
And,I'm doing it "my way" using a klip lok type of quilting frame;
I want to see if I can quilt without basting , pinning or spraying.
I'm using an overdyed pearl thread and hand quilting initially around the shapes.
What happens after that?
Who knows!
But I am finding that the frame seems to be working as I hoped,and keeping a reasonable tension on the quilt sandwich. The finished piece should be about 15 by 24 inches.
The upper photo is the machine needle felted landscape with a fabric hut replacing my attempt at a lake:
it gives the scene more focus I think.
So now that the hut pieces are vleisofixed in position I'll anchor them with stitching and a wee bit more needle felted foliage.
The lower photo is the fabric appliqued landscape: and I think it's ready for its final tweaking and mounting.
And then,with a free conscience,I can enjoy working on Doreen's CQ block.
..........I'm actually over here:
It's just that in the past turbulent six months I haven't actually got my act together........
I've forgotten so much!
When sometime last year I changed the format of my blogger KenmaursCorner I lost all the links etc I had in my sidebars ,and I haven't got round to researching and replacing.
(Has anyone got a spare Aladdin's lamp??)
Well,today's mail delivered me a new book "The Quilter's guide to Pictorial quilts" by Maggie McCormick Gordon,so I think I'll go do some reading,and dreaming!
Nite all!
The lower area in the middle of the piece is where the settler's cottage "should be";
But...........the patch of WSS peeking through kept on murmuring "water" to me.
So,using some silk and glitzy fibres I momentarily filled in the void.
(That's ok,because if I still proceed with applying a fabric cottage,it will need a stronger backing than WSS stabiliser)
Of course the 'water' is pretty basic at the moment: it would need reeds,reflections and
more shadows around the banks.
At this point,I'll stop a while and ponder what to do next.
