Quilting frustrations

Do you ever feel frustrated when you can't get to things that you just want to do?  I find life gets taken over by things we have to do daily some of which is really not important but in our lives we live necessary.  I am reminded of a song by a New Zealand artist Brooke Frazer a line in the song reads ....

'70 thousand  things to ponder today the most significant the bottom of the list'

I feel housework is one of these things.  Necessary but in the whole scheme of things not really important.  My quilting over the past week hasn't really been happening in the studio because of those necessary things.  Every time I walk into the studio  the phone rings,  dinner beckons or another family crisis looms  which turns out to be something important like such and such a body has taken my.........  I am itching to be creative.   

I did get a chance yesterday to attend a quilting exhibition.  It was wonderful.  I didn't get any official prizes for any of my work but I did get a lot of unofficial prizes of lovely compliments and joy at my work.  I bought some new fibres for felting with and lots of yummy threads and material.  I think it is good to go and experience something you love on a regular basis it does rejuvenate the soul. 

I hope this week to get a few minutes to create but........... the first one of my children breaks up from school tomorrow for the summer holidays so we will just have to wait and see.

Photography-in jounalling

The expression a picture paints a thousand words becomes in more meaningful in Journalling.  A description of a view can take a long time but a photo or drawing can describe the same view in a very short and instant time.  When something special is happening or I have been on a trip I try to take photos to instantly describe the images I have seen that day.

The joy on my boys face would have taken a long time to describe and I probably wouldn't have done it justice.  It is important to record with the photo though so that future generations and other people would know the background to this photo,  who was in it and what was happening.

This photo was taken on Tuesday the 26th of October 2010.  The 2 boys and I had gone out on an exploring day.  We ended up exploring all the coast from our house to Waiuku and here we found a beautiful duck pond to feed all our old bread too.  My wee man was captivated by the ducks hunger and found it very amusing to see how much the birds all wanted the food.

This photo was taken on the same day and on the say exploring trip.  This is a view of Glenbrook steel mill taken from the Glenbrook beach wharf. 

Try

• Recording expressions on faces
• a view from a point you visited
• Taking shots from different angles of a ordinary event IE a birthday party.  instead of all the photos being of the child unwrapping the present photograph those who are watching or not watching
• Thinking of ordinary events in a day that other people might find interesting IE. Me sewing at my machine,  eating lunch on the deck,  Making a meal,  children studying
• Photographing a place where something very special happened to you or you had a special sweet peaceful feeling when you visited one day.

quilt challenge-52 cards in a year

Week 22

I chose flowers again for this weeks challenge card.   This time I have experimented with  layering and used buttons to explore the theme.

I began by putting a fine black netting over the back fabric and sewed pockets for each button to go inside.  The yo yo puff I also layered in netting and put more buttons inside the layers.  I then attached the puff to the backing fabric and machine quilted the card together.

I love the richness of this piece and how you get a sneaky little look at the buttons through the netting.

Quilting sketchbooks

A long with my new filing system I have started to set aside time each day to use my sketchbook.  This has been something I have wanted to do for a long time but have never seemed to have got around to it.  I am going to start with my personal journal and make this into my art journal.

After reading The decorated page by Gwen Diehn I have made up 2 wee origami star boxes for layout ideas and processes to try in the journal.  Before each page I draw one slip of paper out from each box.



Each evening before bed I will do the messy wet part I.E. painting,  inking etc.  Then in the morning when it is all dry I do the journalling and drawing part.  I'm finding this is working quite well.

Here are a couple of my pages.

Challenge yourself to become creative with journalling...I would love to hear how it goes.

 

quilt challenge-52 cards in a year

Week 21

I have learnt how to make paper fabric .  A very interesting technique.  I love how this idea supports recycling and still comes out with awesome results.

2 artists that I love are Kelli Perkins  http://ephemeralalchemy.blogspot.com/ and Beryl Taylor  http://www.beryltaylor.com/index.php they use this technique in their work.  I learnt the techniques after viewing a workshop by Beryl and after reading Stitch alchemy by Kelli Perkins.  It involves layering scraps of paper and tissues on fabric and gluing them in place.  Then paint is added and further surface design can be added.  I then add stitch as the final layer.

This piece is a reflection of flowers and leaves.  The background is quilted in a leaf and frong patterns.  The flowers are made from air dry clay and then gold is rubbed on top.

quilt challenge-52 cards in a year

Week 20

This small art work is an exploration of contrasting colour and layering fabric.

It was made from machine quilted cotton fabric,  coloured with shiva paint sticks and stitched together with embroidery floss.  The little koru was made with air dry clay and oil paint sticks rubbed onto it.

I was inspired by the paua shell colours and patterns and the koru/frong on a ponga fern tree.  A beautiful tree found in the bush of New Zealand.

quilt challenge-52 cards in a year

Week 19

This card is an exploration of different colours of thread creating a 3D effect.  I used a very broad colour palette,  working from dark blue to yellow to create the effect of a globe. 

My inspiration was the sun.  From the earth it all looks one colour but when you look at it closer it is so much more.  I used paint sticks to emphasise the shape more.