Fabric stacks

Last week I spent some time organising my hand-dyed fabrics. I used to keep them in crates, and I would have to pull them all out and make quite a mess to see the full range of colours. Now I can easily scan them to see which colours I have and whether I need to dye new colours for new quilts... I love how they look on the shelf!

Alone in my sewing room

Phil worked at the block today, and all three children had an afternoon sleep in anticipation of the Australia Day fireworks, so I got a bit of sewing done! I also made an exciting step in my quilt designing process by colouring one of my quilt designs in Illustrator for the first time. Up till now I have done this by hand with pencils, which doesn't make it easy to try various options. My Illustrator skills are very limited, but I would love to learn more, and am very happy with how useful the program is already proving for me - so easy to see how varying the background colour of the quilt will affect the overall effect of the quilt, for example.

Beginnings

The beginnings of a new quilt... If my 'quilt' posts seem unrelated and a bit mixed up its probably because I usually work on several quilts at a time, at various stages of progress, with several more quilts brewing in my mind!

To church

The baby animals are going to church to be baptised. Ask Hannah for more details ("you can tell that they are just out of their mummies tummies because they are all laying down and not sitting up!").

Cardboard

Well, I promised a photo of our castle but it has since fallen into disrepair...
But it is being recycled - into a car, and a road (of course) while Caleb devours the remnants.

A new house

Yes, we are finally in the process of building our new house. We bought our block two years ago and have been busy since with designing, drawing plans and getting council approval. Anyway, work began on January 1st 2009! This is quite exciting for us. Pictured below: Dad and Phil discussing upcoming work at the block.

Tying the threads

I spent a peaceful hour or two tying of the threads on this small quilt this afternoon, while Caleb slept and Aaron and Hannah happily drew house designs for the house Daddy is going to build them when they are big - its currently looking more like an adventure playground than a house!With every quilt I make, I bring all the thread beginnings and ends to the top of the quilt as I am quilting, so that once the quilting is completed, the surface is a mess of threads. These are then tied together in pairs, threaded onto a needle and threaded between the layers of the quilt, to give a neat finish. Although this takes a long time it is relaxing to do.

Pieced

Piecing completed. A small quilt depicting forest foliage. I'm not sure what to think of this one yet. It didn't turn out quite like I wanted. I'll wait till its ironed and maybe even quilted to decide whether I like it.

Wet paint

Just completed: self portraits by Aaron and Hannah, while Caleb tries to make his escape! If only it wasn't so hot outside, Caleb!

Meanwhile, I did some little portraits of Phil and I based on our grade 1 school photos.
On the subject of childrens artwork, I love what I have just discovered here - books for preserving your childrens masterpieces!

Rembrandt and the Bible

A special gift from special friends! I feel very spoilt and can't wait to sit down at leisure with a cuppa to read these. I think they were a limited edition print, and they have beautiful cloth covers.

To be pieced

Hello there,
Obviously I am new to blogging, so please bear with me as I get the hang of this.
I have started this blog in order to share some of the things I am busy with.
I am a textile artist, specialising in quiltmaking at the moment. I know there are people who check my website every so often for new work. However, my quilts can take quite a while to complete. Also, usually I like my quilts to show up in a real-life gallery before they go onto my website. So I thought this blog might be a good forum for updates and sneak peeks of work-in-progress.
I'm also hoping that this blog is a good tool for me to develop my written expression, rather than avoiding putting thoughts and ideas into words. Also on a personal level, I want this blog to be a bit of a record of what I have been busy with - to remind myself that even if I don't have completed quilts to show for my work, I have still been busy drawing, making, sewing and doing (besides or while being wife, mother and housekeeper of course)!On that note, here is our most recent project: a princess gown. We also have a king's robe and a 'real' castle in which to reign! The castle is still in progress - hot weather got in the way! We'll post more pics soon!