In the Shadow of Pic St Loup Traveller's Blanket

I have been house sitting in outer Melbourne and whilst doing that I thought I would try and get as much stitching done as possible. So I have started doing a new Traveller's  Blanket with the working title In the Shadow of Pic St Loup. As well as having  an exhibition of my Traveller's Blankets at the Sydney Quilt and Craft Fair in June this year I am also part of the group Crossing Oceans so some of my traveller's blankets will be doing double duty- I simply don't have the time to make extra as in march I depart for Europe to exhibit at ChARTtres from 10 -25 March. I am really excited about exhibiting there again as I love Chartres the small city, and I love participating in this event.

So I printed up some fabrics with grape vines and and french roadside weeds. I wanted to capture the feeling of those morning walks with Nesta the dog amongst the rows of vines and the fascinating  weeds. I thought this would be a really greenish piece but it seems not- it has lots of colour in it- and when I think about it- as I walked each day i noticed the tiny changes of colour. i did the same walk every morning, so I really noticed the changes in the vines , in the weeds and the colours.

The bunch of grapes is actually a woodcut I had made in India. The other print is a linocut I made when I was housesitting in Le Triadou.

During the week I taught at open Drawer in Camberwell, and was really chuffed to receive Deirdre Hassed's beautiful book Illuminating Wisdom from Dierdre herself. Deirdre is a calligraphy artist and she has illuminated many quotes that she and her husband have sourced and provided commentaries on. I am sure it is a book I will be dipping into many times! The back of the urchin quilt seemed to really complement the cover of the book.

I have brought all my quilts with me because of the fire risk at Gellibrand. I realised that I  had never shared a photo of the finished quilt I made for the Through Our Hands exhibition at Festival of Quilts. I am still nto sure what to call it but it contains many techniques I have used  over the eyars. There is both machine and hand stitching.

This quilt is for sale for $1,000AUS and measures 130 cm x  100cm. if you are interested please email me.
If anyone in the Netherlands or Belgium is interested in my teaching a workshop  early April please let me know, as I will be teaching a workshop at Amstelveen

Urchin Traveller's Blanket

This Urchin Traveller's Blanket has been inspired by early morning walks on the beach at Atauro Island, it was the only time of day you could walk because it was very hot the whole time I was there. Each morning I would hope to find an urchin- I just love the shapes and patterning. There is a zillion colonial knots  as the piece measures 60cm x 85 cm .I wasn't looking to make them anatomically correct- just the feeling that they inspired. The background stitching is done with a feather stitch in a very thin silk thread as I did not want the stitching to overwhelm the urchins.. When you hold this piece in your hands it feels amazing and matched my delight and amazement of encountering the urchins on the beach.

There is still time to join the online  Traveller's Blanket class which starts on 21 January. I will be  joining actively into the stitching this time as I have many traveller's blankets to make this year for an exhibition at the end of June.  The class fee is $75AUS and will encourage you to tell your own story using simple shapes and simple embroidery stitches. Email me if you are interested in joining and  I will send an information sheet.

The photo below is of the back of the  TB. I am  really quite chuffed with the back- it has a very different feel to the front , and I like the way things have become a bit more abstracted. The last two photos are closeup so you can perhaps see the texture of this piece.

 Now onto the french roadside weeds and grapevines travellers blanket. Have to print some fabric first and then  more stitching!

Travellers Blanket On-Line Class

Happy New Year to all my followers, friends and family! I hope it is creative and fun. Last year was very very busy for me and culminated in  a two month residency at Atauro Island which was an unforgettable experience which stole my heart.

 The coming year is going to be almost as busy, but I will actually be in Australia quite a lot more. I hope to be able to build an ablutions shed at some stage this year money and time permitting, as I will have to get a workman to help me do that- having no tools or building skills. I think I have worked out what to do about the skylights in my shed which make it incredibly hot in summer- too hot to work.

But meanwhile I have decided to rewrite some of my Travellers' Blanket on-line class, as my stitching has progressed since I first wrote it and ideas have progressed as well. I will be offering this class starting 21 January and it goes for 4 lessons delivered fortnightly as a pdf file. The cost of the class is $75AUS.I set up a private Facebook group to share information and images and I keep the group opne for quite some time as stitching a blanket takes quite some time The idea of the travellers blankets grew from the notion that if you travelled in times past and you wanted to make a memory cloth to record what you had seen you would snaffle fragments of fabric to  detail your journey. The idea has grown and the blanket I am working on at present is of sea urchins. Urchins studded the beach on my dawn walks on Atauro island and I love their shape and patterning- so in a sense it is a reminder of those walks and the feeling  that watching the sun rise evoked. In a sense anything can be made into a travellers blanket.It is a visual form of story telling which dictates its own pace and reflections. I call them blankets because someone referred to one of my quilt art pieces as a blanket- so that was grist to the stone! Email me if you are interested in joining the class and I will send you further details , how to pay and a materials list.

The images are of work/travellers blankets I worked on in 2017.

  The blanket above was exploring embroidery to encapsulate the idea of communities, in particular indigenous communities  which are whole systems of information.

  The blue travellers blanket is quite large and is a journey through  the years of printing and linocutting I have been doing since I began with textiles as my full time work.

The piece below is inspired by the urchins encountered on morning walks on Atauro island. There is a lot of colonial knots on this piece!