Lazy day

What a bunch of slackers! No-one felt like doing very much today. Perhaps it was the weather, which started out muggy and ended up trying unsuccessfully to rain. Hard to feel engaged with textile stuff, or anything other than browsing everyone's magazines and having a gentle nap, really!

Beverley brought along her finished Language of Threads challenge work, which she called Threads and Flowers. She exhibited it in the art quilt section of her local quilt group last weekend and guess what? It won first prize! Here it is, with its winning labels still attached:

Sorry about the diagonal background, the photographer was in a bit of a rush! Her prize was a delicious collection of Gutermann threads, an interesting Australian quilt book and some sixteenths of fabric.

Most of the day, we chatted and read magazines. Nola was thinking about her Language of Threads challenge, but was daunted by tangled skeins that needed winding before they could be used. Carol was sorting cub scout badges to sew onto her thick coat, which she refers to as "the blanket". She began to sew badges but lost interest. Tricia had her sketchbook but couldn't get started, and Beverley had some stitching but about the same level of interest.

Nola moved on to her Lost Treasures challenge, showing the others the fabrics she'd pulled from her stash to go with the "treasure" she found last time. But none was quite right, so  eventually she pulled out her Setacolor paints and painted some quilter's muslin in a couple of shades she thought might work. She finished off the piece of fabric with some roller marks in blue and yellow paints, blended on the sponge roller.

She wanted a slightly green dark blue. The right side is indigo and ultramarine with a little yellow added but it is still a little too blue; the middle has indigo with more yellow added and is more like the colour she imagined. The plan is to use just a small amount as a narrow border.

None of today's photography is great, because the light was so changeable, but it gives an idea of what we were doing. Such as it was!

Back together again!

Today was our first full meeting after the holidays and the unveiling of our first Challenge, The Language of Threads, set by Maz before Christmas. Four members had works to share.
Helen showed us her completed bag, called Threads of India.
 

The embroidery was done on rug canvas, which was stiffened with pelmet vilene and assembled with calico and braid into a bag. The colours were inspired  by a photograph of dye workers in India.

Carol's Language of Threads piece is called Treasure Islands. She hasn't quite finished it yet.

She began with a felt background, and hand couched hand spun and threads and then machine embroidered. Like most shiny things, it's hard to photograph well, but it looks wonderful.

Maz showed her piece, Impressions, which is also not yet finished.

It's made using fabric lamination of newspaper images and text onto synthetic organza, using matte medium  as the adhesive. If you enlarge the photo, you can see the stitching she's adding, which  gives a lovely rich texture.

Beverley's challenge used her own hand-carved blocks. She carved a positive and negative version of the same image, and stamped it onto different fabrics. She pieced a background from two fabrics and is mounting her images on that background. Some images are a single layer, with frayed edges, while others have been lined. She is adding running stitches, French knots and other embroidery in Perle thread.

We had a perennial visitor to our group this time. Janet Bass from Pittsburgh was making her annual visit to Australia and came to join us. Her task today was to crochet a breast shape from strips of plastic bags, for a future installation planned by a fellow artist.

Here she is crocheting away, with Maz hard at work beside her. Maz was working on a small piece that may become a postcard to swap.

Beverley brought along some little embroidered fragments she has been making. She used an adhesive to hold the elements in place while she stitched them, and used Solvy as the stabiliser.

 Helen was working on another rug canvas piece.

It's very soft and pretty in colour - can't wait to see it finished!

Tricia brought some beautiful roving to spin. Helen was happy to help her manage it, though it did look as if she had plans to make away with it. She does have rather more of it than Tricia, doesn't she?

Tricia is keeping a firm grip on the end, though!



Nola was busy with her orphan blocks project. From leftover quilt blocks and units of different sizes, she's making twelve inch blocks for a quilt top.

Here are some of the blocks she's made already. Today, she was converting a 5 1/2in finished Log Cabin block into a 12in block, by adding double borders - 1 1/2in finished borders with corner posts and 1 3/4in finished pieced strip borders, like the ones in the top right hand block.

Our next Challenge was chosen by Carol. She has set us the task of making a work on the theme of Lost Treasures, to be shared at our first April meeting. So many possibilities! Meanwhile, we're busy making postcards to swap for our next meeting in two weeks' time.