Lovely day out

had a lovely day out yesterday with my friend Nic and her mother Joan,
Nic picked me up and we headed down to Nowra, about 80k's down the coast to the opening of the Moroogal Woman's Art Prize as Nic had a piece in the exhibition.
Meroogal is a historic homestead in the region and has been owned by many generations of women and is now a museum, the exhibition is on at the Nowra Art Gallery and there were some amazing pieces from a vast range of mediums, unfortunately Nic didn't win a prize but her piece called "Nexus" was very impressive on the deep rich blue wall.
We stopped in Berry on the way back for lunch and a bit of a wander, I wanted to go into the shoe shop there as they sell Crocs and I wanted some adornments for my latest hot pink crocs, now that was a mistake as I not only came out with some sparkling jewels I found a new pair of boots, more on these another time.

here she is with her piece


and I got a late birthday present from Nic

a fab book "Masters Art Quilts" lots and lots of inspiration in here

and to round off the day nicely my footy team "The Sydney Swans" had a good win which I watched in the comfort of my comfy chair in front of the telly and the heater

Miss October

I got a copy in the mail this week so I can finally show you
Colour My World that was accepted for the Down Under Quilts 2009 Calendar,
if you want to order a copy go to http://www.creativelivingmedia.com.au/store/magazines/down_under_quilts/down_under_quilts_2009_calendar.html


the smaller sparkly pieces are silk paper that I've made and the larger pieces are Lisa Walton's wonderful hand dyed fabrics.
I've quilted it to death with 2 of my favorite thread drawing designs.

finished ACT's

here's a few of the ATC's (Artist Trading Cards),
I was so surprised that from 2 fat quarters of fabric I was able to get 75 ATC's, I've turned one over so you can see the tulle pocket on the back that I slipped my business card into.

ATC's

You may remember that I've talked about my niece Tani's shop Blue Attic http://blueattic.com.au/ before, well her first birthday is coming up and she is having a party on the 29th, she is making up goodie bags for the party and was asking for business cards etc from the artists to go in them so on the spur of the moment I decided that if I was going to promote myself and my wares in the shop why not make some Artist Trading Cards so they can all get a little piece of art, so over the past 2 days I quilted up a couple of fat quarters.

here is the first one it was a fun one to do, all of the strips came out of my scrap bag, it was almost a shame to cut it up.

the quilting on the back doesn't show up very well here

This piece of fabric already had silver glitter on it, I vlisofixed some silk paper leftovers down and couched down a fancy yarn then proceeded to quilt it to death

the quilting shows up better on the back of this one

I have cut them all up and almost finished zig zagging around the edges, I have put a piece of tulle on the back to create a little pocket to slip my business card into.
Hopefully I'll show you the finished cards tomorrow.

this week

Sunday Mackenzie and I headed 100k's down the coast to Tomerong where our friends live as it was Kerry's 50th birthday party.

I whipped him up a quilt and here he is with it.


We had yummy food and mmmmmmm chocolate cake

I've decided I don't have enough "rubbish" for my recycled sculpture so Ive decided to detour via the big Op Shop on the way home from art school each week as we finish early on a Wednesday.
My boot is full of old frames, a wooden tray and lots of wooden stuff ready for me to cut up and do some fun things with.
Yesterday I found this little glass bowl, most of you wouldn't know that I have a huge collection of depression green glass and I had stopped myself from collecting more but this little bowl was all alone and half price so I couldn't leave it there now could I.....

and these 2 great bags had to come home with me also, don't you just love the handles on the pink one

Travels with Gladys

A lot of people have been asking what Gladys has been up to lately, so here are a few of her adventures


Gladys can't help herself and has to help my students in the class and thought this was the best machine to hang around

Gladys came to help out at the Dapto Art and Craft Show recently and thought she should have taken some of these necklaces home with her

She also thinks she needs to be in charge and supervise the quilting machine

and here she is just hanging around in my backpack on our travels listening to the Ipod........

sculpture bits

Have had a busy week at Art school this week, I'm currently working on some soap stone carvings so will have some photos soon but here are a few found object/recycled pieces that I finished recently.
All of these photos are taken in the sculpture studio so unfortunately no clean white background to set it off.

This piece is door knobs and chair bits,
on the ends of the tin strips are silver arrow heads that I believe go onto shirt collar points, this is a pretty lethal piece as they sway around in the breeze.

It may not stay like this




more of the door knobs and strips of tin on a curved chair arm


I was experimenting with Tyvek in the studio and it was more an exercise to show the teacher what it is/does, so this is what I did with all of the pieces

books

It was my birthday earlier this week so I ordered myself some books and they turned up yesterday, it was very hard to not just stop everything and read.

This book is The Shining Cloth, Dress and Adornment That Glitter by Victoria Z Rivers.
It says inside the cover that it is an encyclopedic array of dazzling garments, accessories and objects.
Besides all of the glorious photos it has a lot of information and history of cloth and fibres that I can't wait to read.

I just love Monet's water lilies and can't wait to make more pieces based on them.

and what can I say about this book - people that know me, know that I'm stuck in the 70's

weekend in Melbourne

Early last month I went down to Melbourne with our friend Tony for the weekend to see Circus Oz's final show before they headed to Edinburgh for the Comedy Festival.
My husband Tim had spent some time with Circus Oz a few months ago training up the teaterboard troupe so we decided to catch the last show so I could report to him as he didn't get to see the act as he'd already gone overseas before the show opened, though he is about to pop over to Edinburgh in a couple of weeks and catch up with them.

This is Tony and I looking very weary at the circus as we were up at 4.30 to catch a train to the airport for a 7.45am flight down to Melb, luckily it was an afternoon matinee show cause I don't think I would have stayed awake for a night show, as it was it was a fight to stay awake and watch Dr Who back in the hotel room after dinner.

We were staying near all of the Asian restaurants and had lunch and dinner in different noodle restaurants, I had this really bizarre drink which I think was semi frozen grape juice topped with lychee's and sultanas - had to have it as I lurv lychee's

The beauty of Melbourne is the fact that they have turned all of the little lanes and ally ways into cafe strips, this is where we had breakfast the next morning before we flew home, this was taken for Tony's wife Kirsten as he was trying to describe the atmosphere to her.

and this is the view from where we had breakfast, I had pancakes with maple syrup and strawberries, yum it's making me hungry just remembering it.......

it was a great weekend with great company - old friends are worth hanging onto

lots of scarves

I have been soooooo busy of late, down to Melbourne twice in the last month, down for the weekend with our friend Tony to see Circus Oz, will post photos of that later and the week before last to work at the Melbourne Quilt Show.
When in Melbourne I stay with my niece Tani who has a shop called Blue Attic and I took down a handful of my goodies for her, below are the knitted or crotcheted scarves and shawls I delivered but silly me I forgot to take a photo of the silk bowls I left there.