Editorial discretion

Entries for Sydney Quilt Show 2007 are coming in thick and fast now so yours truly is spending a lot of time at the computer keyboard doing data entry - an important but mind-numbing exercise.

For a bit of light relief, I went blog surfing and was amused to read about Sion’s efforts to get her entry in by the deadline. I only hope that others are as diligent about keeping to the 40-word limit for the description for the catalogue. Some people do go on so! it wouldn’t be so bad but often they have appalling handwriting and even worse syntax. It takes a lot of effort sometimes to limit my editorial/ secretarial intervention to correcting spelling mistakes.

Reading my latest issue of the Copacabana Neighbourhood Watch newsletter, I sure wish the editor would exercise a little restraint and at least stop leaning on the CAPS key of her keyboard. Here’s a typical paragraph:

STREET VIOLENCE occurring in CITIES, COUNTRY TOWNS and COSTAL [sic] AREAS without any “PROVOCATION” is TOTALLY unacceptable and terrifying, and what is worse can happen at any time of DAY or NIGHT, and often victims are YOUNG people attacked by other youngsters. Best NOT to “HANG OUT” on the streets, car parks, shopping centres, cinema complexes etc”

Scary stuff - apparently it’s wild out there!

And those of you who recall my intense frustration with so-called customer service telephone trees, this article by Mark Coultan in the Sydney Morning Herald suggests that I am not alone!

Trading places & the comfort zone

Last night we had a couple of prospective home exchangers come to visit us. Despite being from the United Kingdom, and living most of the time at their establishment of gites in the Poitou-Charente region of France, they happened to be in the neighbourhood and took the opportunity to check out Casa da Praia for their Christmas holidays.

When we do a home exchange, only the main residence is available to our guests - my studio and David’s workshop are off-limits with separate locks. Somehow the idea of a studio exchange, as mooted recently on the quiltart list, doesn’t have the same appeal. I like knowing my way around my own stuff and my own stash - knowing exactly what I have at my fingertips. I don’t think that I could readily transplant myself into someone else’s creative space for an extended period no matter how well designed and located. Would you be willing to move from your comfort zone?

Safe arrival

I am pleased to report that the Pohutukawa quilt was safely delivered to England shortly before baby Emma emerged into the big wide world. Here they are together:

Theory & practice

Thank you to Sarah Ann Smith for her informative review of A Lively Guide to Design Basics for Artists and Craftspeople
by Steven Aimone. I’d heard about this book on the quiltart list but now I have pulled out the credit card to actually buy it:

As a quiltmaker with no artistic background and no formal training in art and design fundamentals, I welcome resources that allow me to address this gap in my knowledge. Sometimes reading the theory simply reaffirms something that I have discovered in practice. Other times the theory provides real insight why a particular design works and another doesn’t. Either way I like to think my quilting output improves however incrementally.

Colour and Composition for the Creative Quilter by Katie Pasquini Masopust and Brett Parker in an excellent introduction to basic design terminology and concepts and includes a series of lessons to put these concepts into practice.

One of the exercises, Composing with Line, involves making black and white compositions by fusing black shapes onto white negative space. In a similar vein, Nancy Crow advocates that her students build up their composition skills by working in black and white fabrics before introducing colour. You can see this process at work in Robin’s recent post and you will recall that Unplugged went from this:

to this:

(You will can see the more details about the evolution of this quilt in this post.)

One of my quilting resolutions for 2007 is to undertake more black and white compositions. Theory is all very well but, as Katie and Brett, say “to increase your artistry, you must DO the exercises”.

Quotes from Quiltmakers

I’ve been getting back into data-entry queen mode as I process an initial tranche of entries for the Sydney Quilt Show 2007. In addition to submitting entrant details and the vital statistics of the quilt, entrants are given the opportunity to include a 40-word description for inclusion in the quilt show catalogue. Some entrants are excruciatingly literal (”I added green borders to the pink floral blocks”) but others give you an insight to the inspiration or quiltmaker’s state of mind. Here are some of the gems so far:

• “All the tedium of piecing this together was well rewarded with the result. 1565 pieces.”

• “This surprise quilt has been made especially for our son’s wedding but, true to form, this show came first.”
• “This quilt embodies the circle of life. Commenced 4 months after the death of my first daughter, sewn throughout the pregnancy of my 2nd daughter and finished off during the conception of my 3rd daughter.” [Very moving but the final words suggest a very committed quilter!]
• “Nice rounded shapes made it relatively painless.”
• “A childhood dream to make my own patchwork quilt. Never thought I could do it - fantastic!”
• “My delusion of grandeur was to make a queen size quilt when I attended the course, but was not disappointed with the [smaller] outcome.”
• “What sane person would give me 2000 2-inch squares? Four hexagons could be cut from each squres. 1801 hexagons later I stopped. I swear that I’m not obsessive.”

Mellow Yellow

I am most attracted to saturated colours but I do admire the subtlety of the pale yellows, creams and greens in these cactus flowers:
        

fishnet

My fishnet quilt started out as a possible entry for last year’s Down Under Quilts calendar competition which had the theme of crossroads. The quilt had other ideas and ended up like this:
fishnet now features as a project in Issue 106 of Down Under Quilts. Look for this cover in your newsagent:

Serenity

Our local lagoon is teeming with fish at the moment so, ever-opportunistic, the pelicans have returned. I took my camera on my morning walk but, even with my zoom, the pelicans were too distant. This white heron was much more obliging:

The perfect holiday [vacation]?

One of the thought-provoking questions in the otherwise very silly what colour is your brain? quiz [blue if you must know] is: if you need to get away for a week, which vacation would be the most refreshing?
* A vacation at a remote beach
* An interesting conference
* A quick trip through Europe
* A trip somewhere new… and very foreign
* A week alone in your favorite city
* A spa vacation
The key word here is “refreshing”. Many of the listed activities would be interesting, even exciting, but you might need another holiday when it’s all over. Where’s the option for staying at home?

I think we often kid ourselves that a holiday is going to be relaxing especially if it involves long distance air travel and unfamiliar surroundings. Now that I have done a couple of home exchanges (see posts from May 2006 and June 2006 for stories of our adventures in the French Pyrenees and the Yorkshire Dales), I think this mode of travel has much to recommend it: a wide choice of locations, a comfy home base with room to spread out and your own kitchen for self-catering. And it’s easy on your pocket.

You can read my earlier post on how home exchanges work here. In addition, this new home exchange listing service offers very reasonable pricing (but so far no promising leads):

Sometimes you don’t even need to get away, you just need a break from your regular commitments. Perhaps you need to take a blog holiday - in which case, you might find this article of interest - how to know when to stop blogging.

WA Holiday Snaps

I seem to have taken way too many photos in Western Australia. Here are a handful of clickable, fast loading images. The desert pea flowers were in the fabulous King’s Park gardens in Perth while the lighthouse is at the Port of Fremantle:

   

One of the novelties of Western Australia is that the sun sets over the water. These snaps were taken from Cottesloe Beach in Perth and you can see the ocean tankers lined up in “Gages Road” between the mainland and Rottnest Island:

      
      

The Bussellton Jetty is a famous regional land(water?)mark. The jetty extends almost two kilometres into the turquoise waters of Geographe Bay:

    

    

From Cape Naturaliste to Cape Leeuwin, there were plenty of seascapes to enjoy: