Back at the beginning of the month I put up a drawing for a Pyed Oyster Catcher and said I thought it would make a good mini quilt. Well here it is finished. (12"x12")
I just love the quilter's tweed from Robert Kauffman that I used in the border. I will have to go back and get some more of that fabric.
I am working on a quilt for the new baby and have my machine set up in the dinning room.
This used to be the old kitchen and in those days everything was cooked on a fuel stove. We have removed all that and blocked off the bottom end of the chimney but I keep hearing scratching noises. Last time I heard that a possum had fallen down and was trapped and we have had a carpet snake there as well. We have taken the cap off and there is nothing there. I wonder what it can be?
I had trouble getting in close at this exhibition as there were so many people trying to see it. Also, the gallery pictures at the website give you a good overall picture but they miss the detail. Like the quilting on White Cockatoo by Julie Haddrick.
Or in the background of Jenny Bowker's piece.
You also miss all the texture in Mel Forrest's work "A Hundred Tales" where she uses fabric and paper and printing.
And you miss the delicious detail of the stitching in "Traversing the Land" by Dijanne Cevaal.
I wonder if the photography knows it is the detail that people who work with textiles are looking at not just the overall effect?
Being out of action for the past 8 weeks has meant that I haven't been able to go shopping. Not at a retail centre anyway, so that has only left an on-line option. There is huge debate here in Australia about how on-line shopping is destroying the retail shops. As I don't shop much on-line I haven't taken a lot of notice of it. But with the arrival of a few parcels my eyes have been opened.
For example I bought this selection of threads from Stef Francis in the UK. The postage was less than $5.00AU and I received 22 hanks of thread for less than $2.00 each. Yes they were on sale so it was a reduced price but I have NEVER seen anything like that here.
The fine perle thread is destined to be used in some blackwork designs I have in mind.
I also purchased some patchwork fabric. I try to support my local patchwork shops but I must say that when you are offered fabric at $4 -$10 a yard and no freight charges, it is difficult. Especially when the same fabric costs around $25 a metre in your local shop.
So why is there such a difference in price? I am not purchasing from 3rd world countries, although I suspect that the fabric and thread were produced in China. It has to be made up of on-costs of middle men and government charges. This, together with the great exchange rate at the moment, no wonder so many people are forsaking the shops.
When stitching my Feather Stitch TAST sampler this week I remembered that the last time I had used this stitch was on little sleeveless shirts I made for my babies. I thought they had all been thrown out but I found one in the cupboard. I didn't have a working sewing machine at that time so they were all sewn by hand.
I drafted my pattern so that the only seam was at the shoulder. Hand rolled hems at the neck and bottom with blanket stitching around the armholes.
All the buttonholes were hand stitched ,
then a bit of embroidery to finish off.
Most had feather stitch around the armholes, neck and hem. Although this was washed and ironed before I stored it I see that 'baby dribble' has discoloured the neck.
I made seven for each baby and another seven to give to the Nuns at the hospital for another mother that didn't have enough clothing for her new baby. The only reason this one survived was because it was girlie, no feather stitch here.
This video on the V&A site was very interesting. I bought the book about the Quilt exhibition but actually seeing one of the quilts like this was fascinating. I think Tracey Chevaliers new book she is researching is pretty interesting as well.
http://www.vam.ac.uk/channel/people/personalities/tracy_chevalier_quilts/
I found a pack of pre-cut squares so pieced them together for a cot quilt. Not bad but it needed something more, some applique.
I photocopied the design from one of the fabric squares, isolated two designs, the bunny and the flower and played around with blowing them up.
I cut out the photocopies I made and placed them on the pieced background to determine the best position. Then line quilted the squares and placed the appliques pieces over this. These I raw edged appliqued so that they would be a bit fluffy around the edges.
I think I will go back and quilt the edges with circles. But the process works well. That is taking a design in the fabric and building on that.
After finding the Rainbow Serpent I went looking for information about what the river was like back in 1825. I believe I might find some images at The State photo collection held in John Oxley Library and photo and cuttings files at the Queensland Historical Society but that will have to wait until I am back on my feet.
I did find some wonderful descriptions of what was found by those first Europeans.
From Dr Ros Kidd's report for the PA Hospital
In 1825 the lower reaches of the Brisbane river were described as a ‘veritable garden of Eden.’1 Dense vine-clad jungles festooned with blue and purple convolvulus adorned both banks
and perfumed salt-water lilies floated on the tidal edges.
Around the site of the future Brisbane primeval forests of gums, bloodwood and ironbark clothed the ridges, and the flats nurtured patches of thick pine and figtree. Fish, reptiles, bird-life and mammals abounded.
And from Archibald Meston, a supposed expert in Aboriginal matters who arrived as a youth in Brisbane in 1870,
The city site was covered by thick scrub, and the botanic gardens area filled with tulip trees or Maginnchin.
South Brisbane was clothed in dense bush fed by several small creeks flowing from nearby swamps. Men crossed the river, fishing from bark canoes made from broad sheets of stringy bark or casting their heart-shaped towrow nets to encircle shoals of mullet. Others used vines to climb the trees for possum and koala which were despatched with stone tomahawks. Women and children dived in lagoons for lily roots, dug yams and collected the edible fern roots. Some sat on the banks weaving their baskets and bags from the pink and green swamp grasses while youngsters frolicked in the shallows.
The primeval forests on both banks of the rivers nurtured staghorns and elkhorns
and fragrant orchids
while bush turkeys foraged in the shadowed scrub. Flocks of parrots raided the blossoms while pelicans fished the sandbanks.
Ducks and swans in their hundreds trawled the waterways.4 Kangaroos abounded on the southern bank later named after them.5
It must also be noted that Brisbane was set up as a penal colony for repeat offenders. It was a harsh brutal place. The triangles were in constant use for beatings from the lash. The convicts hated the gailors and the gailors hated the convicts. It would be diffictult to appreciate beauty under these circimstances. When free settlers did arrive they came for all kinds of reasons. The Irish to escape the famine, the Scottish who were displaced from the Highlands, Germans fleeing religious persecution and others just wanting a better life.
An early painter of Brisbane was Conrad Martens. He had been the artist on board the Beagle Joining the boat in Montevideo in July 1833. Also on board was the British naturalist, Charles Darwin. Martens and Darwin forged a close friendship which would last a lifetime. He painted this watercolour in 1862 sending it as a present to Darwin. He painted this from the street I live in at the spot where all the pythons were living last year.
I have spoken to several elderly people here in Brisbane who can remember when the river was crystal clear.
Now you wouldn't let it touch your skin or clothing and if you do you carry the smell.
Only remenants of the bush, the birds and animals remain. The indigenous people were rounded up and place in "protective custody" 260 Km away. The river was "developed".
In such a short time it was all gone.
1 A convict transported from Redcliffe in 1825, quoted by ‘an old Brisbaneite’ in the Brisbane Courier, 22.3.1930.
4 Meston, A, ‘100 Years - Black Man to White Settlement’, The Daily Mail, 1.12.23.
5 Meston, A, ‘Moreton Bay and Islands’, in Handbook of Excursions, Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science, Pole, Outridge & Co, Brisbane, 1895:20.
So, after the mock up I decided on the size layout of the quilt. It is 150cm wide and 60cm deep. The background and backing fabrics were designed by Yoko Saito for Lecien. (Collection etoffe uuprevue de Yoko Saito it Lecien) Most of the other fabrics are from Distressed Threads.
I had this image in my minds eye of the river raging through the landscape. I found an aerial photo only a couple of days ago and I find I wasn't that far out.
I came home to Australia thinking that I had all the answers about how it should be quilted but also with internal injuries from a fall. Everyday events over took me and the quilt has been waiting. I don't think it liked what I was going to do.
At the moment I can't stitch but I can think, muse and ponder. I have been wandering some strange paths.
The workshop I took with Cherl was titled "Inspired By". We were asked to select an artist we admired and collect images of their work and research that Artist in preparation for the workshop, which was over 3 days. I chose Rosalie Gaisgoine. I came across her work after seeing an Interview with her on TV back in the 1990's. Something speaks to me in her work and her life. In the interview she was asked how she became an artist and her reply was;
"I didn't ever become one, I was one. I was that sort of animal."
(Screen Australia has a copy of this interview for download if your are interested.)
I see in my sketchbook that I have written about her that she is able to
"find beauty & poetry in ordinary things that represent & allude to the changes in terrain & climate".
Image source:
http://www.roslynoxley9.com.au/artists/15/Rosalie_Gascoigne/298/29496/
In the workshop we deconstructed the work of our selected artist and then formulated our own interpretation of the work in fabric. As my piece was to be about place, climate and terrain I felt even more drawn to the way she worked.
My first small mocks-ups were these.
You can see more of Rosalie Gascgoine's work here.
