Tea Cosy

It's winter here in Oz and it can be quite cold in our Queenslander house. To warm up we often drink a nice cup of tea - and now that the boys all like a cuppa as well (with lots of milk and sugar) I needed a bigger teapot than the one from Zinnia Pea that I got for Mother's Day a few years ago. Unfortunately Zinnia Pea seems to be out of business, so I bought a cheap one at the op shop. It does its job, but is rather ugly... However, Spotlight had some lovely teapot fabric, so... I made a tea cosy!



The lining is a very sweet teacup fabric and in between is some Insul-Bright wadding. A quick and fun project!

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Up and Away

You may remember that I showed a sneak peek a while ago of a new quilt that I was making with cotton, silk and velvet from Dyed and Gone to Heaven. The quilt is finished now - I've called it Up and Away :-). It measures approx. 35 x 53 cm (14 x 21 in). I love the different textures of the fabrics, although they are hard to capture in a photo. Here is a close-up image:



This is a new way of working for me (abstract, and I have tried to let go of the straight edges). I have enjoyed it very much and plan to make at least one more quilt using cotton, sil and velvet.

Would love to hear what you think!

Wordless Wednesday

Blogger's Quilt Festival Spring 2013

Amy from Amy's Creative Side is hosting the Blogger's Quilt Festival and I have decided to enter my favourite quilt into the art quilt category.

Cycle of Life was made in 2010, part of my sports series. It is a whole-cloth quilt, the background fabric is a handdyed piece from Dyed and Gone to Heaven. The cyclists are screen printed and their shadows are stencilled with a Paintstick using freezer paper stencils. The quilt is machine quilted. The dimensions are 48 x 107 cm / 19 x 42 inch.



I used photos of my sons and my husband to make the first three images. I am especially fond of the third image: my middle son riding his bike without the trainer wheels for the first time (see here):



Cycle of Life was juried into the State of the Art quilt 11 in Brisbane, a finalist in the Fall Expo 2011 at the Infinity Art Gallery, and was exhibited at the SAQA/SDA Conference 2012 in Philadelphia, USA.

As I said, this is my favourite of all my quilts; it hangs in our living room above the piano!

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Cotton, silk and velvet

At the Stitches and Craft Show in March I bought a turquoise triple treat from Dyed and Gone to Heaven: three hand dyed fat quarters of Silk/Rayon Velvet, Silk Dupioni and crinkle Silk Chiffon. I combined the velvet and silk dupioni with turquoise and orange hand dyed cotton sateen, also from Dyed and Gone to Heaven, and pieced a quilt top (not knowing that you should use interfacing when using velvet and silk... I will definitely do that next time!) I've started quilting the top and am enjoying the way the different fabrics look when quilted. Here's a sneak peek - to be continued!

SAQA Benefit Auction 2013 quilt

This is my donation to the SAQA Benefit Auction 2013. As you see I have gone back to my black and white optical illusion quilts. My quilt is on page 3a on the SAQA site, along with a number of other quilts from SAQA Oceania members. Later in the year we will do a blog hop showing how we made our quilts.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Opening of SotAQ13

Yesterday was the opening of the State of the Art Quilt 13 exhibition at Gallery 159 in The Gap. The exhibition was juried by Lisa Walton.  It is a beautiful collection; I am honoured to have my coffee bag quilt included!



There were 20 quilts altogether - these are my favourites:
Sunrise Sunset by Helen Kidd (this piece consists of two quilts!):



Great Southern Land by Julie Tasker:



One Red Thread by Kate Oszko:



They will be on display at Gallery 159 until 27 April. After that you can see them in Caboolture, Capalaba, Townsville, Brisbane and Bribie Island (a full list of dates and venues can be found here).

Black and White Expo

Yesterday I heard that my Zebra quilt was selected as a finalist in the Black and White Expo at the Infinity Art Gallery. There were 129 entries, so I am very happy to be among the 44 finalists!



You may remember my gymnast son, who inspired some of my quilts - yesterday he had his first competition of this year. His coach advised he skip a level and he is now competing in Level 6, where at just 10 years old he is by far the youngest. He was very nervous (and so was I!), but he did well and passed his Level Test. I'm so proud of him! (in the photo he is doing his practice run on rings)

State of the Art Quilt 13

If you are in Brisbane this Sunday, you might want to come to the opening of the State of the Art Quilt 13 exhibition in Gallery 159, The Gap, at 3pm. A number of participating artists, including yours truly, will be there to speak briefly about their work.

Wordless Wednesday

Handprinted: a fabric swap III

You may remember that a few weeks ago I printed some fat quarters for a handprinted fabric swap organised by Leslie Keating. I have now received all fabrics from my swap partners. Monique in South Australia made this awesome chimp print, and she also send two gorgeous stamped fat quarters. Thanks Monique!





Melanie from Brisbane send this beautiful fabric:



Astrid in Texas made this stylish fabric, inspired by a Mary Oliver poem:



And Hollye from Los Angeles send this lovely fabric:



Thanks for swapping ladies, I love them all!

There is a flickr group where you can see lots and lots of handprinted fabrics from this swap. Very inspiring!

Wordless Wednesday

Handprinted fabric swap

Yes, these are Dutch Houses, but not the ones you know! These are stamped, not screenprinted. I made this fat quarter for the third handprinted fabric swap organised by Leslie Keating. But first I did a stamping workshop with Lisa Walton at the Stitches and Craft Show here in Brisbane on Friday:



We each got a square of this soft, easy to carve material and a fat quarter to play with. I carved a Dutch house and made a rubbing with an oil pastel stick:



I liked the process and the result, so I bought a large block and at home I made this stamp:



It is loosely based on this photo, that I took in November 2010 in Groningen, my favourite city in the whole wide world:



And then I just stamped and stamped!



For the swap I had to make four fat quarters, in the preferred colours of my swap partners:



This morning I folded them and bound them with a scrap of my Dutch Houses wrapping paper (Spoonflower offered wrapping paper for a short while last year):



And here they are, ready to be send off!



At the bottom of the pile is my quilt for the SAQA Benefit Auction 2013, which I also finished this weekend. (yes, I am feeling quite smug!) I am not showing it yet, as it will be part of the SAQA Oceania collection and we plan to do a blog hop later in the year where we will show the quilts.



I took this quilt, The Final Round, home on Friday; it was part of the State of the Art quilt 12 exhibition and returned to me by Suzanne, the curator. I gave her my SotA13 quilt in return - yes, one of my quilts was juried in! More about that soon.

The Final Round is now for sale in my Etsy shop; you can find it here. I like it, but I just don't have enough walls to hang all my quilts!