Someone else has discovered how great our swing is...

Remnants

I am loving my growing collection of upholstery remnants. I have loads of sewing planned for the new house and look forward to getting stuck into it soon... (right after my Quilt National entry has been completed)...

Making for me

Here's what I worked on last week......and here's what I wore today...
Very happy with both of these! The scarf is the 'deconstructed cowl' pattern found on ravelry, while the tunic is made from black chambray, using a Knipmode pattern from some years ago... Now I'm thinking it might just need some jewellery from here to finish it off nicely...

Mindmapping a journey

I like to produce my quilts as a body of work, so that, while each piece is complete on its own, it also fits in to the whole collection I am working on. That's how I worked with my eucalyptus quilts. It meant that displaying these quilts in a solo exhibition was the perfect finish to my work on this theme. As you probably know by now if you've been visiting here for a while, I am now exploring childhood in my quilts. More specifically, I am trying to capture the wide-eyed wonder of little children discovering this awesome world, especially those little/everyday things which we big people easily take for granted. I have completed several large pieces in this theme, as well as a few smaller ones.

Because I would love to eventually see this body of work displayed as an exhibition, I like to 'take stock' as I go, of how my artworks are working together (the number of them, their sizes, their subject). A mind map (pictured) is great for this - although my quick sketches and notes are very rough, they let me know where I'm at, and help me to picture where I'd like to head with future pieces. In this body of work, the subject of each quilt is especially important to me. I want each quilt to capture some element of this 'childhood journey of discovery', but the whole body of work has to capture this much more fully. I also want to have a range of sizes - a good number of large quilts (I love piecing these large ones together!) but also a collection of smaller quilts, to keep it interesting. The smaller quilts are proving more challenging for this collection, as it's much more difficult to piece a 'scaled-down' person than a 'scaled-down' eucalyptus leaf.

I still have so many ideas to develop for this collection of quilts, but I'm just not finding half as much time as I would like, to work on them (what with a houseful of little kids, and a housebuilding project to keep me challenged). I am going to keep sketching and stitching away at leisure for now, with the goal of planning and working towards another exhibition once we have moved into our new house. Can't wait! In the meantime, there are curtains, blinds, cushions, upholstery and bedlinen to cut, print and sew, so I shan't be bored!

Caution: bookworm at work

We had a big win afterwards, which shows just how far things have come in the last month or so - he tidied them all up very agreeably at bedtime!

P.S. This post relates very nicely to the biggest quilt I am currently working on (and which, of course, I can't show you). Just in case you wanted to know...

Golden Afternoons

One more thing before I leave you for the weekend, I was just reminded that The New Quilt opened today, including my quilt 'Golden Afternoons':
The exhibition is open until 25 July at the Manly Art Gallery and Museum (NSW).

Spoiled!

We've been spoiled by dear friends, with this fancy hamper! Personalised hand-made bookmarks...
...a train book for Caleb (just the thing!)...
...a 'LOOK' bag...
...and red wine and chocolate - there is no late night treat that Phil likes better than a glass of red wine with chocolate! Thanks, guys!

I won't be checking in here tomorrow (not that unusual, I know) because I am heading out to work for the day! Yep - Phil's Mum has been contracted to look after our kids while I go out and work one day a week. My job? To be an extra pair of hands for Dad and Phil up at the new house. Things are rolling along really nicely there at the moment, and there are lots of little/easy jobs that I can do, so that Dad and Phil are freed up to do other things. We'll see how it goes. Thankfully there is a glass of red wine and some chocolate to relax with at the end of the day!

Quilt hack

This week I pulled out some small quilts I 'finished' last year.
I was never entirely happy with them, so I played with a mount to select a section of each quilt.
I have since hacked into them and framed them. I'm still not entirely sure about them, though. I really like the two children looking over the wall (inspired by Aaron and Hannah in France three years ago. Every little village has a fountain in its square, and they had to go and inspect each one - Hannah could just barely see over the edge). Still thinking about the other two.

More WIP

This is not the one with the screen-printed letters. I have quite a few pieces going at the moment. That's how I like to work, but I hope I don't confuse you!

I love letters and words

One strategy I use to make progress in my quiltmaking is to break up the process into small tasks, and as much as possible, to schedule at least one small task each day. Sometimes things go well, and I can do more. Yesterday I debated with myself for much of the day as to whether or not I could still fit some screenprinting into my day, or whether that would be stretching myself too far. Then, while Caleb was still sleeping at 2:30pm, Phil offered to take Daniel with him to pick up the kids from school while he was out running other errands. Oh, yes, please! With a bonus hour to play with, I whipped out the screenprinting supplies and set myself up on the dining table. I'm always amazed at what can be achieved when I have an uninterrupted hour! I had just washed the last screen and cleared the table as Phil and the kids stampeded back into the house. Another completed task to cross off the list!

Work in progress

Drawing bags

Here's a little project from a couple of weeks ago - drawing bags for the kids for when we go out. I used bits of fabric which I had screenprinted previously. Each bag contains an A5 sketchbook, a drawing pencil and sharpener (Faber Castell has some great little ones out which contain the sharpenings and also have a little lid over the hole where the pencil goes in), as well as a pack of good quality (Faber Castell) colouring pencils. They have been a hit so far - we have tried them out at the cafe with Grandma, visiting newly born Nadia in hospital, waiting at the doctor's surgery, and filling in time at the house-building project! I like it that I can just grab them and go, without having to rummage around for all the relevant bits when it's time to walk out the door.

So very big

OK, so apparently he's big enough to 'do cardmaking'. And he's big enough to curl up in Dad's chair to read books just like the big kids.
And just big enough to cut paper...... so I challenge ANYONE to tell him that he is not yet big enough to play Monopoly...Aaron and Hannah are not silly. After ongoing cries of "Caleb'th ditheth" and "my turn", they found him another pair of dice, and he was over the moon! When he left this morning to spend the day at Oma's house, he was quite determined that he was going to play Monopoly with Oma today. Lucky Oma!