sydney views

Looking out from the 15th floor of the Citigate Hotel, Sydney.

The long shot doesn't really show the small heritage buildings that still exist tucked away between the tall modern buildings

This is the roof the building which is the restaurant to the hotel - taken from the 15th floor but looking down.

Daintree dreaming

My challenge in the new year is to transform this into and (embroidered) canvas work. It started life as a charcoal drawing i did some time ago. I photocopied it and then over painted it. I have been stuggling with how I will transfer the pattern. The penny dropped - photocopy it again and cut up the copy for templates.

I have been hoarding some baramundi leather which I bought in the night market at Cairns ages ago. I am finally ready to cut it up and will apply it as well.

There is a lot of black in this drawing and i am contemplating painting the canvas with black drawing ink in some places rather than stitching it.

Playing on the internet and not stitching

Have changed the template and added a little to the blog - decided that I am not making new years resolutions this new years eve but affirming old ones:

• theme
• sample
• visit my work each day
• draw
• create a body of work
• have fun

gerbera sampler

done. now need to work this into a large piece. maybe a vase full of flowers

more drawing

Love playing with charcoal - the life drawing class I have been doing has given me a lot of confidence. Here is a drawing done whilst others were watching TV.

yellow daisy

+

sampling gerberas

Haven't done much of late in the stitching line. I took this somewhat blurry photo quite some time ago but have just started sampling the idea of stamens and petals.

The flower centres are so suggestive of french and colonial knots I could cry. Detatched daisy chain would alsowork built on top of its self .

I have taken a photo of a sampler started using scraps and straight stitches - I haven't got very far yet but I will keep on going.

I will have to vote for boring DVDs so I am not distracted by them. Last night we watched a movie called 'Brick' - a low key American movie of the non mainstream variety- it kept me rivited and I didn't take one stitch.

Anyway - here is my sampler as it is at the moment.

something fishy

I did this little quilt quite some time ago. I went to town with chain stitch for the scales. The photo doesn't quite reflect that I used two sisha mirrors for the eyes - they make the fish look like it is wearing sun glasses.

eggs

Lovely yellow yolks in a black china bowl

Drawing ink

I have been doing a life drawing class - needless to say none of those efforts will appear on this blog. The teacher has exposed us to a number of different media - one was drawing ink.

I have one attempt to use it in the life drawing class and the result left little to be desired। But I have been playing with it on paper with squiggles and colouring in the gaps. I also photocopied and minimised and set the smaller copy into the larger.

patchwork landscapes

West Gippsland - south of Warrigal. Click here for more photos.

Arabesque

Arabesque can mean either a geometric pattern or a swirly "S" shape. This was the theme of the quilts created by Filament which are being hung in St Vincents Hospital gallery corridor next week. They will stay there for a month, Here are photos of my pieces. They are machine pieced, hand and machine quilted, hand embellished and red and yellow quilt has a little paint on it. The yellow stars are raw edged appliqued as are the blue circles.

Both quilts are a play with tile patterns anfd the secondary patterns which are revealed when certian apsects are high lighted.

For want of anything better I called this Arabesque Red. The star patterns is very clear and, sadly, overshadows the tree of life I have machine drawn over the square red and yellow tiles.

The other quilt which is detailed above is called Arabesque Blue.

Now I have done these I will put all the patterns I collected on the back burner so to speak and let them peculate away. After a month or two of stitching these I am heading back to working on sea shells.

still looking at sea shells

This wonderful image is from the site created by Des Beechley, Senior Fellow at the Australian Museum. There is a fantastic collection of photos and information about sea shells of New South Wales. I have added a link here and on my "other links".

I am still working on sea shells (or bones of the sea) as an idea for some embroideries and art quilts.

Playing with paint and paper

I bought some cheap water colours and painted over a photocopy of part of a charcolal drawing I did some time ago. I have reworked copies of this drawing a coupel of times now and soething different happens each time. I will keep playing with it and reduce it to stitch at some stage in the future.

Sea urchins and sea shells -more drawings

I have been continuing to work on my drawings - the first is yet another sketch of a sea urchin (in charcoal), the second is pen drawings of a few shells. I am still playing with how I can express the shell form in stitch without creating a replica.

The shells are mostly white with a few markings so I find them difficult to draw.

I have just finished reading an interesting, small autobiography by a painter, textile designer and manufacturer Bernat Klein called Eye for Colour (Scotland and Collins, London 1965). I was particularly interested in looking at the paintings and how Bernat Klein interpreted the colours in his woven fabric.

In his book Klein attributed the following quote to Klee:

The object of a painting is not to reflect the visible but to make the invisible visable.

Pop Music

I spent Saturday last at the Guild with my friends from Stitchers Plus. Took all day to chat, catch up and lay out some fabric on felt to start a embroidered abstract wall hanging. At the moment I am thinking I will call it "Pop Music" It has that feel to it - much, much more work to go before it becomes anything. Already I am wishing I hadn't use cheap commercial felt as a backing and that I had made it smaller - it is about 75 cm square.

I have since done some big stitches in purple to hold down the purple line and stitched a purple shadow in one place - I will work it across the row and trust that it falls into place as I envisage. I have also done a couple of yellow swirls in the yellow area in the middle but they are lost at the moment - might need some grape or ruby to bring it out. I will add another pic when I have done more.

sea urchins

I have been working on a sea shell theme - patterns from the sea. Got plenty of source material from all those walks on the beach - and pleanty of shells to incorporate if I feel the need.

Buoyed with encouragement from Jean Draper (a wonderful woman with many positive things to say) I have managed to get myself actually drawing/recording ideas and sampling!!! Hard for me as I always want to jump right in with the idea and then wonder why I am not happy with what I have done.

Jean is a UK embroiderer who (in my mind) acts a mentor rather than a teacher. I first met Jean in 2007 when I did a class at the Embroiderers' Guild NSW and she came out to Australia again this year.

I have posted a few photos to show you what I have done so far.

playing with printing

I have been playing with some lino block printing. Did some doodles/drawings based on mendhi designs. Then I transposed some of it to a lino block and printed it. Great fun. I will now try and do one so that it is reversed so that the lines are printed rather than the spaces in between. When I get to that point I intend to print onto fabric and embroider over it. If it works I will move onto a bigger piece with a repeat pattern.

WRAP unwrapped

The exhibtion opened on 28 June 2008. Here is my wheatfelds quilt - representative of car trip memories as a child

Hawks Nest

WE spent a week at Hawks nest in the thrid last week in June. It rained. And rained. And rained. Havn't seent the like for a long time.

We did walks in the rain, drives in the rain and looked out the window of our hired house - which was right on the beach front but, yes, you guessed, we couldn't see the beach for the rain.

Not that I am complaining - it was very restful and we overdosed on DVD's and reading. And the sun did shine towards the end of time there.

A ferry trip across the bay to Port Nelson meant that I saw dolphins in the wild for about the thrid time in my life. The shore and river was alive with birds and we took many photos - I have put some on flickr - see the linkmore.

Busy busy

doing this and that. Been madly working on my WRAP peices - the D Day is the 17th and then I will be done.

Yet to finish my brther in laws quilt with family photos added to it.

This is my neice and one of the images, which I cropped still further and have added to the quilt.

All the piecing is done. I need to quilt and bind it and it will only be 18 moths late!

Hanging on the wall at last

Plane Trip to Cairnes 2007

Climbing the wall

Each year the Boston Ivy on my neighbour's house puts up a wonderful autumn display. This year it has been a particularly wonderful colour - blood orange springs to mind. Sadly she doesn't get to see it - but is is right outside my kitchen window so I do. It really is a weed and climbs up her house and over out adjoining fence. I am ever hopeful to do something in my garden but time never seems to permit it . So, I am thankful that she lets this bit run wild.

Ivy also runs rampant over the back steps - this has just been cut back to permit safe journeys to the laundry and back yard. The camilia is still flowering and the tree fern just does what tree fersn do - look stately and green. It is best this time of year as it is a bit exposed in summer and suffers from the heat and sunburn.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM

Sorry we are there to celebrate the day with you. Virtual flowers for you XXX

Happy birthday K

Well the day has been and gone and you look gorgeous in your new hair

weekend troubles

The weekend was spent trying to finish one of my quilts for the WRAP exhibition ( see link for more on that) and my machine played up no end. I will have to reback it as it's a real mess. Further woe when I rinsed an embroidery and the over dyed threads ran. So I washed in a run removal product and lost most of the colour in the embroidery... will try and over sew with more colour... but if that's the worst that can happen I guess I can count my blessings.

Much excitement as K turns 18 on 28th... she can't wait tot get to the clubs!

Cone flower

My current wall paper - this is a flower from Northern America but the photo was taken at Coffs Harbour Botanical Gardens in March this year. There has to be a quilt in this one ... it has a wonderful spiky head. A few more photos of the gardens can be found here

Fresh start

Hi have deleted my past blog entries and started again.
Felt so embarassed about large gaps ...know i shouldn't but am off to a fresh start