Humouring Helen

I am not a great fan of memes. Generally I would prefer to stay silent than descend into inanities meander off-topic. However, today is a slow blog day and since Helen tagged me, I’ll humour her with seven weird/random facts about me:

1. My blood type is O-negative, the only blood type that can be transfused to patients with other blood types. I strongly believe that blood donation is a civic duty but the only time I tried to donate blood, I fainted and went into such severe shock that the Red Cross made me promise never to return.
2. As the eldest of six children, I seem to be inherently bossy and sometimes think I walk around with a sign “big sister” flashing above my head. Because of the age differences and spacing (my youngest sister was born when I was at university and the rest of us were born an average of 3 years apart), there was never aonly a short time that we all lived together [at weekends]. Knowing my siblings as fellow adults is one of the greatest joys in my life.
3. I was once a commercial lawyer specialising in regulation of the energy and infrastructure sectors. I dated a client and eventually we got married. To this day, we rarely talk about work matters at home despite our overlapping professional interests.
4. I go for a haircut infrequently. It’s not that I’m worried about the results (my hair grows like a weed so a bad haircut is never around for long), it’s just I have to psych myself up for the small talk with a stranger.
5. My middle toe on my left foot is, for want of a better word, deformed and sits above my other toes. I can always work out which are my footprints in the sand and shoe shopping is occasionally problematic.
6. I excelled at academic subjects at school but struggled with art and sewing. Go figure.
7. My desire to pursue ocean swimming was curtailed by my propensity for motion sickness. For the same reason, I stay well away from most fair rides.

Normal quilting content will resume tomorrow.

Use it or lose it?

I first started playing around with Procion dyes back in 2002 when I started a City & Guilds online course with Linda Kemshall. The thing is that I have some dye powders that go back nearly that far. Definitely time to use them up or throw them out. I opted to use them in a rainbow set. The gradations are uneven because I got sloppy with measuring:

I also did a variation on triad dyeing with some leftover dyes and attempted some earthy tones:
  
Unfortunately, despite using urea and doing lots of whisking, there were undissolved particles in the bottom of the red dye jar and this spoilt the triad set. I welcome suggestions on how this can be avoided or is this to be expected with dyes that are several years old?

Gearing up for Autumn

Whether you claim that autumn starts on 1 March (as many Aussies do) or equinox, there’s no denying that the days are getting shorter and cooler. Very soon, the first quince of the season will appear in the markets. I’m ready! When I was in the city, I found a 6.1 litre cast iron casserole dish for $89.70 at Victoria’s Basement. Some of you know, from my earlier post, that I love my Le Creuset cookware but I’m willing to give this budget model a trial with my favourite quince paste recipe.

A Garden of Inspiration

Yesterday I joined Erica at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney. Our free guided tour was a little idiosyncratic but the rambling anecdotes of our volunteer guide gave me time to contemplate the lines, shapes and colours of the plants and flowers:
  
  
  

World Beach Project

When you skim as many blogs as I do, it’s not surprising that it can take a while for some things to penetrate and coalesce.

Earlier in the month, I was reading Sarah Ann Smith’s blog and she wrote about her two contributions to the World Beach Project organised by the V&A Museum in London:

The World Beach Project is a global art project open to anybody, anywhere, of any age. Building on the experience many of us have of making patterns on beaches and shorelines, this project combines the simplicity of making patterns with stones with the complexities of shape, size, colour, tone, composition, similarity and difference.

As we don’t get many stones on the beach here at Copacabana, I didn’t think much more about it. Then yesterday I was reading Robin Ferrier’s blog and she referred to the work of Sue Lawty. As I clicked through the images, I recognised some pieces that had impressed me when my sister Amy and I explored the textile collection at the V&A in 2006. And then as I read some more, I realised that Sue Lawty is Artist in Residence at the V&A and actually devised the World Beach Project. So now I am off in search of stones…

Something from Hungary

In November and December, my Mum and my youngest sister Delia went on a great adventure to many countries including the USA, England, Poland, Hungary, Switzerland, Germany, Egypt (see my sister Amy’s blog for photos), Bangladesh and Thailand. Mum found this lovely handpainted silk scarf in Hungary as a gift for me. Thanks Mum!

Improvisational Projects

My Firebrand quilt features as a project in Issue 118 (March 2008) of Down Under Quilts and Ripples is referred to in an article “Liberation through Improvisation”:

  

It seemed a little ironic to be writing pattern instructions for an improvisational project but hopefully readers will take the construction guidelines and make their own unique quilt.

Reflections on The New Quilt 2008

Erica’s report on The New Quilt 2008 reminds me that I have not yet written about the exhibition myself. So here are some reflections.

There were very few large quilts in the selection but there were some interesting dimensions including two long, narrow horizontal pieces and the rotund shape of Dianne Firth’s pineapple-inspired work Cell Structure #7 that, for now, can be viewed on the Manly Art Gallery website. Contemporary quiltmaking seems to be dominated by smaller works and, although I’m not suggesting works should be large for the sake of being large, it would be a real treat to see some pieces by premier quiltmakers on a grand scale.

Like Erica, I particularly admired Rosie White’s Invisible Landscapes: Domesticity, a transparent quilt that was lit sympathetically to enhance the shattered glass shadow effect of knife motifs. This was the quilt chosen for the catalogue cover and other publicity materials and can by viewed on the Guild blog 29 November post.

While I think some entries were let down by poor finishing (and you know how obsessed I have been about quilt finishes lately!) and workmanship that did not match the strength of the design elements, I was very impressed by the precision piecing of Barbara Macey in her graphic log cabin-based quilt Mist 1 that can also be viewed on the Gallery’s website.

Michele Eastwood’s Dressed in Memories V1 has a wagga-based background made from wool blankets and suitings in a limited palette of grey, black and pink. It is overlaid with a stitched outline of a debutante dress worn by Michele’s mother in the early 1950s. This gives the work an ethereal quality that really stuck in my mind.

At first, I didn’t “get” Sarah Tucker’s Journal March 28 – June 15 but when I saw it the second time, I better appreciated how the stitching is like a code that records day-to-day events, impressions and thoughts.

I daresay that if I returned again, other aspects of the exhibition would speak to me. The exhibition continues until 24 February and I encourage you to view it in person if you can.

Free & Easy

Long time readers may recall a design exercise that I did with some high school students back in 2006 to create a bright quilt top. My plan has always been to quilt it up and donate it to charity. With Quilt Camp (which collects challenge quilts for Camp Quality) just around the corner, it’s time to knuckle down and do some quilting.
  
I decided to take this opportunity to practise some free motion filler patterns and also some “scroll vines” from the Vines & Leaves Volume 2 DVD by Patsy Thompson. I’m using up some variegated rayon thread that is not nearly as nice to work with as King Tut but I’m pleased with some of the results.

Quilt & Book Talk at Woy Woy Library

It’s a few weeks away, but here is early notice of my forthcoming presentation here on the Central Coast in New South Wales, Australia:

I will be sharing a selection of my quilts (including some not shown online!) and talking about some of my favourite quilting and design books.