challenge 29

I participate in a group challenge called the Fast Friday Fabric Challenge, on the 3rd Friday of the month a challenge is issued and we have a week to make a piece to be published on the groups blog by the following Friday, life kept getting in the way and I was never able to complete my pieces, even enough to show partially but this month I succeeded.
This months challenge, No 29, was to use Analogous colours, they are colours next to each other on the colour wheel, my piece uses yellow, yellow/green, green, blue/green & blue, I know that orange isn't right next to yellow and that yellow/orange is next but it was the only colour that worked from my fabric palette.

It doesn't have a name as yet, any suggestions?



This is a design that I have used several times before but it's the first time I've done it in fabrics, last year in our colour and design class at Art School we painted paper then had a play, last year I also used the design in screen printing and made xmas cards, printing it in pink on green.

Below are the 3 pieces I did last year from the painted papers using analogous colours

late night thoughts

some late night thoughts from last night that are still running around in my head this morning, I'm reading 3 books at the moment and 2 of them are about assemblage artist's, my bed time reading is a biography of Joseph Cornell called "Utopia Parkway" and he refers to his father as a magician with references to vaudeville, the book I got last week called "Secrets of Rusty Things" by Michael de Meng refers to his grandfather as a magician and this got me thinking, both my father and grandfather were magicians, (grandfather also a ventriloquist and father a fabulous jeweller) and I'm fascinated/obsessed with assemblage art and just want to collect every bit of rubbish - sorry "treasure" just in case I can use it, now I'm not putting myself anywhere near their league but just got me thinking about connections to our roots and somehow maybe magically making something out of nothing - sorry, I think I'm getting to deep here.........

back to reality, here's a snippet of a piece I'm working on for my exhibition, trying to find the time and energy (first to clear the table) to baste so I can start quilting it



also I think aliens came and took away my son last night, he has started showering every night and even changed his school shirt on the second day but the killer came last night as I was telling him about a show that I was thinking of going to in Sydney next week and when I said it was on a school night and that he could sleep in the car on the way back from Sydney be said "well this year is really important and that may not be a good idea" I NEARLY FELL OVER, he's actually excited about this years subjects and came home yesterday excitedly sprouting all this stuff that he'd learnt about Germany in the second world war - who is this child........

my garden

I'm getting in early today, even before I have breakfast.

this is what greeted me yesterday morning, a beautiful lily in the pond on the back verandah, every time I tried to take a photo the fish hid under a leaf

can anyone tell me what this bird is?
we think it's a Butcher Bird but it doesn't look exactly like the one in my book, so I'm not sure, I was talking to it in my yard then it swooped down at my toes then flew off - don't know it it thought they were worms..........

while I'm on birds, this is one of many glorious King Parrots that live in my friend Lorraine's back yard

and this is what happens when you leave your camera sitting on your table and your husband comes in and takes your photo without you realising till you down load the photos.............

lunch in Kiama

Mackenzie has gone back to school today YEAHHH so maybe I can get back to a more regular posting routine, also Tim's computer is at the DR so back to sharing again.
I down loaded 60 photos from my camera a few days ago and haven't had the chance to show any so here are a few from the weekend,

a few of us got together for lunch down at Kiama so here we are enjoying a coffee and each others company after a fabulous lunch

this is the old primary school built in 1860 (I think) now part of a hotel chain

this was our view from where we had coffee

more of the fab view, I could sit there and look at it for hours

what more could I want water and more trees to photograph

last few days

the last few days have been varied but fun, yesterday I went up to Sydney to get my hair cut, you may ask why I go all that way for a hair cut well, David has been doing my hair for just on 30 years and I always catch up with different friends either side of the appointment for morning tea then lunch and with the way the heats been it's great to have gone really short again.
Mackenzie and I reluctantly cleaned out his room the other day and as any of you that have teenage sons know that they are not a place to enter un prepared......... but we survived - just
I finally was able to get my embellishing machine out again for a bit of a play,
It had been to long, so I just started off laying different bit of old scarves and bits of organza and gauze on to a piece of commercial felt to re acquaint myself with how they all perform then laid down some yarns and wool tops, it was interesting to see the turquoise metallic yarn start to disintegrate in places.
I don't know whether to just keep this as an example or to maybe bead it and mount it on a canvas, what do you think?



I was on a roll so on this lovely silk scarf that I'd picked up at the Op Shop for a couple of dollars I experimented.
I had a "Sensational Silk" play pack that we sell at the quilt shows on the Unique Stitching stand, that I decided needed to go on the scarf, I used a silk hankie, throwsters waste, silk rods, seracin fibre and cocoons.
I was very happy with how it turned out, I may still run the rest of the scarf through the embellisher in spots to distort it in patches.



here's a close up of one end



I just had to have this book, "Secrets of Rusty Things" Transforming Found Objects into Art by Michael de Meng, right up my alley this one, I discovered that he is one of the artists feature in the other book to, so double bonus, I just want to stop everything and read it but it will unfortunately have to wait a while for my full attention.



Living the Creative Life was being talked about on the Quilt Art list recently, the author talks to 15 artists to find out why and how they create, so I went searching and decided I had to have it, it fit's nicely into my bag so it was great to loose myself in it on the train trip up to Sydney yesterday, with my Ipod on I was able to drown out most of the other passenger noises, so with inspirational scenery, ocean on one side, escarpment on the other and the national park, a great way to top and tail my trip.



now back to some boring paper work that HAS to be done before I can do anything else today

100 ATC's

my new bus cards arrived this afternoon so I have just put them into the backs of my ATC's ready to post off to the shop
I'm really happy with the way they turned out

11,000 visitor

hey I just clocked up my 11,000 visitor, who were you?
let me know I'll send you one of my ATC's

been busy

school holidays are a strange time, I enjoy them because I can sleep in (I'm not a morning person) but then get annoyed at myself as my day doesn't get started till mid morning once I've had breakfast and attended to the daily stuff on the computer etc, I enjoy not having to fight Mackenzie off his computer to go to bed at a reasonable time but I can see the usual problems of getting him back into a school schedule sleeping pattern next week.
These past few weeks I've been head down bum up and been very productive, did about a 75% clean out of the studio, didn't have time to keep going as several deadlines were looming but at least now I have a clear cutting area and can get to more that 12 square inches of the design wall.
I had a class sample and a magazine project to whip up and completed the first top for my up coming exhibition.
Once they were out of the way I needed to make 100 yes thats right 100 ATC's, my niece Tani is having a big "do" with her shop Blue Attic http://www.blueattic.com.au/ at the end of the month and is making up 100 goodie bags and instead of just sending her my bus cards I make the ATC's with a net pocket on the back and slot my bus card into that, so they get an extra special card.
So to be able to make up a lot I calculated that 3 fat 1/4's would give me the numbers, so here are the pieces before I cut them up.



and I didn't have to piece this one, it's a great piece of fabric


they have now all been cut up and edged, just waiting for my new bus cards to arrive from the printer then I'll show you how they look

OUCH

I have just had the annual boob squashing ritual done - that machine must have been invented by a man, I'd round off some of the corners for starters..........
I thought a nice photo of a rose from my garden was appropriate to put me back in the right frame of mind,
as I couldn't find a photo of ROAD KILL

xmas round up

a late Merry Xmas to you all

we have had a busy household these past few weeks with the usual build up to xmas and Tim and Callan came home from tour mid December and we were descended on by a handful of Callan's (big) mates that we have in varying numbers staying over at varying times,
here they all are with their lap tops consuming our small kitchen/dining area,
there are 2 others that I couldn't fit in the photo


the few days leading up to xmas we always have a big seafood fest at our house,
here Callan and I have been enjoying ourselves with a lobster and a big bag of prawns, the night before Tim made some wonderful Oysters Kilpatrick - hmmm just thinking about them I WANT SOME MORE.......
why do my eyes always disappear when I have my photo taken

couldn't resist taking this photo of the mini xmas puds at a quilting xmas party

and Zelda just lurvs paper and thinks xmas wrapping is just for her

and what would xmas be with out my trifle



and a happy new year to you all, may this year be as creative and exciting as the last one