Lady Cilento

I am incensed by the tiny little man who I am not going to name decided to remove the name of Lady Cilento from the public children’s hospital at South Brisbane. What can I do ? Stitch the outrage onto vintage french hand woven textile. A kitchen cloth that I have dyed in the Coreopsis I have grown.

I have stitched it in 100% wool for tapestry that I had sourced from op shops over the years. I think she would have liked that

Stitched on

I have finished the Cat patch and stitched it onto the travelling pinny. Johanna is modelling it with the back view showing. So wee cat is sitting up there on the wearers shoulder like a cat would do. Now to package and send it off to. Victoria for its next destination and new patch in this wonderful world wide project for Deb of @raspberrytreats. 

I am really enjoying stitching onto vintage textiles with my own designs , free hand , naive, images from the sketch book or traced images from my own photos.

Traced of the pattern for the pinny today as I had some large sheets of dressmakers tissue paper that I had purchased from Lindcraft awhile back. 

Cat face

One of the Instagramers I follow had started a travelling pinny. @raspberrytreats . Where friends can add a piece of stitching or embroidery or other piece of textile as a patch. It has been to South Africa, the US, Britain and now back to Australia.
So this little cat face is on a wee nine patch stitched by hand over papers using Liberty fabrics.

The face was stitched free hand and I think it gives it a lovely naive look to it. The pinny itself is white and made of soft cotton. I am going to draft a pattern of it as it is one I have long admired and wanted to find a pattern for. It is a Japanese style that crosses over the back.

Gardens of the Heart

This is my piece for an India Flint Exhibition in Adelaide next year. The exhibition is Gardens of the Heart. Three line poems and I was  allocated line  one. It will be hung with different artist lines 2 and 3.
At the opening in February some of the three line poems will be read

I decided on my line when the blood moon was around. So had to include the moon and then wanted to include something from my garden that speaks of a typical Queensland back yard. What could be more so than a mango tree. The background was ecodyed in onion skins and eucalyptus leaves and avocado. No mordant and the cotton wasn’t treated before bundling and boiling. I wanted to say

‘Through mango leaves
A blood moon rising’

But it was a bit long as I did it free hand so letters started out too big.

Collages

Working some collages in Sacred Vestment online course with Kate Thompson.

Torn lace , stamped silk organza , gel medium skins. Just playing about with images and shapes at the moment.

Angel in my Pocket

Making a sacred vestment . Then it needed a background ,so I have used a scrap from a painters pocket that was a left over sample from the Cas Holmes workshop I was in at Lismore in April.
I dyed it with onion skins and eucalyptus leaves.

A small icon face at the top led it to being an angel. Transfer skins, scrap from a scribble sketch, plastered lace scraps and stamped silk organza. Lots of stitching to keep it altogether.

A Tale

Feeling a bit judgemental of my work lately, comparing to others, listening to negative thoughts, pressure on myself to focus on one direction and need for order in the chaos of my ‘studio’. So I thought I would relook at some pieces to reflect on where I’ve come since I started to do my own thing rather than follow a pattern and choose fabrics from a quilt shop for it. This then is an early one from 2006. It is a tale of three sisters. Using the same fabric cut the same size but then the embellishments made them all different. Some bleaching, some black tulle and a few cuts and resewn areas add to the story.

Noticing the machine quilting! Can’t believe I did that. It is not something I turn to, enjoy or even really like the look of today.

Backgrounds

Making some backgrounds using vintage linens and Lacey bits. On the top is some skins made from the photo transfer method using gel medium. Lovely pieces in all their crusty worn patinas I hope to further develop as I go. Still have Margaret Olley in the back of my mind as I work on these.

 

Painting

I have been following Kelli May  Krenz and so made these little snowy owl. Painting on black card with acrylics. Much prefer fabric and thread and being able to put down at any moment. But with the paint I can’t leave until finished as the paint dries quickly and I needed to scrape away paint to show the black under neath.

The black card is bookbinders papers. It was given to me from a retired persons stash. Has a beautiful mottled texture on one side which can’t be painted on but the texture shows through on the other. So these are painted on the back side . The texture especially shows through on the gold background. They are 4 inches square.

Still going

Getting my Margaret Olley inspired works ready for Broadstrokes exhibition. More stitching needed on them all until I’m satisfied. I have about 8 pieces in all at various stages of completion.

This is ecodyed silk with a botanical print of rose leaves. Stitched roses and hand stitched words of Margarets about her thoughts on flowers. As she was prolific in still life paintings especially in her later years. There always seemed to be some floral element in these still life’s. Roses , Australian natives , lillies, garden flowers so she was often asked about flowers. So these quotes are her answers.

Goatiness

Last weekend I went to a workshop by Phyllis Cullen from Hawaii. Using her pattern I enjoyed the collage process of bringing to life this goat with a bit of that stubborn goatiness about him. Planning where to place the light , medium and dark fabrics to bring out his features or shadows. A piece of tulle over the top which is machine quilted helps hold it all together. Great way to spend the weekend, in the zone quietly concentrating on the work on my table. Just getting it right, mindfulness. I found it really useful to use the red plastic Perspex that helps show up the values of the fabrics.