First April meeting

Our meetings in April were rather disrupted, first because of Fibre Forum at Orange and then by Easter. But we still managed to find a time to meet, although we were few in number. Our first meeting in April brought the unveiling of our second challenge, Lost Treasures. You'll have seen some of the pieces along the way, but here is what was unveiled on the day.

Helen's Lost Treasure was a treasure box, made for her, years ago, by her granddaughter. She had collected togather all sorts of tiny treasures in a chocolate box and presented them to her grandmother. There are buttons, a pretty marble, beads, all manner of lovely little things. It really is gorgeous! Helen decided to cover the box in "treasure" fabric and present it back to her now-adult granddaughter.

Nola struggled to get her Lost Treasures done in time. She's making a journal cover, but it didn't come together well. This is what she unveiled on the day.

She's hopeful of things to come....

Carol lost her Lost Treasure. However, she made this beautiful crochet shawl. Made from man-made fibres from a pattern, Exquisite, from Heirloom Afghans for Baby. She had hoped to enter it in a local fair but it wasn't finished in time.


Carol also brought along an experiment she'd been working on.  It was a dye silk cap, moulded over an Ikea vase and stiffened using floor polish. She notes that it's important to use a shape which is larger at the top than the base, or it becomes a probloem to remove it from the mould!

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.

So what have we been doing 3

Maz began making cards as a demonstration at the Open Studio weekend and was finishing them off on Monday. The tree shape is made from small triangles of paper, glued on in an overlapping pattern. It's such a clever idea but you really have to have a steady hand and some patience to get such good results!

She's also been doing more drawing on fabric. This is one she was working on last Monday:

She uses Sharpie pens for line and colour. By Wednesday, she had made a second similar one. Her intention is to make a bag with the fabric.

Nola was also drawing on fabric, as part of her graffiti project. Last weekend, at the Open Studio, she drew this line drawing.

She intended to draw more on it, to fill in the spaces around the edge, but on Monday, she began painting it instead, with Setacolor transparent paints.

By the end of the day, it looked like this:

This is part of an experiment using words, which become obscured and changed by later additions, much as new layers of graffiti change and obscure the earlier layers. More will happen to it before it is finished. The background is a pale lemon colour, which seems to be quite hard to photograph, and varies quite markedly according to the light conditions.

Beverley was working on a patchwork UFO on Monday. It's one of those projects that come out every so often, and are really long term projects.

She's also been making small art textile pieces, some of which were for sale last weekend, and cards. Hopefully we can get some pictures of those to share!

Tricia was using her rare creative time to work on a crochet scarf:

The colour doesn't show up well, but it's subtle and luscious!

Carol began doing some tablet weaving (or card weaving) as a demonstration at the Open Studio and brought it along to finish on Monday. Here is it all set up:

She's using the frame of her rigid heddle loom to hold the yarns. And here are her finished pieces:

I've given you a larger image, so you can see the detail, but for still more detail, click on the image.

So as you can see. we've all been busy on our various pursuits.

Our next plan is to make a series of works, taking turns to choose a theme or link. Maz has chosen "The Language of Thread" as her theme, and we have until February to make a work. In the meantime, we plan to make Christmas postcards for a swap at the ATASDA Christmas party in December. So there'll be plenty happening in the next few months.

What the...?

Most of us, as textile artists, have things in our cupboards that make us say, "what the...?" Those things we bought at a show or workshop and don't remember any more what they are for or how to use them. Those materials that look interesting until we come to use them. And even those projects that have stalled because we can't see how to go on with them. Today, Fibrecircle brought some of those things out of our cupboards into the light.

First, we needed sustaining with much chocolate and coffee.

Then, one by one, we brought out these bottles and jars. Most of them are form of sealants, and I guess our confusion is understandable, since there are so many products like this available. Nearly all of them do much the same thing - give a solid base for painting and provide a clear seal over the top of work. Most of what we brought wasn't something you'd use on fabric, except maybe fabric collages. But they are great for giving some robustness or a clear seal to sketchbook pages.

Then there were the weird materials. (Nola had a good collection of those!) Packaging material - might be good to machine stitch, as long as it doesn't catch underneath ? Probably will smell bad and kill all living things in a kilometer radius, if melted. Several people took samples away to play with, nobly risking life and limb in the search for truth.
Rug canvas, kindly donated by Helen some months ago. She's promised to bring us some examples of what you can do with it, next time. So maybe we might actually use those samples...
Sizoflor - what is that stuff? All agreed it looks like fun to stitch, and overlay, and print, and paint, and of course, zap with the heat gun.
Quilling paper strips - several of us own them but none of us do quilling, what's that about? Nola tried weaving it through the rug canvas but it wasn't robust enough (and it was seriously boring to do). Maybe it would make an interesting base fabric woven on the loom with a cotton or linen warp? One Day.
Lingerie wash bags, with dead zippers - interesting to hand stitch? They are very soft but the holes are interesting. Might take paint in interesting ways too?


Shiva Paintstiks - OK,we can see they take a rubbing beautifully, especially when the texture is large and open. Just...have...to...peel..off ... this.. coating....of... dry stuff first!
Oh, more rug canvas, painted gold. What sort of knots can we use, if we use these strips of fabric? Ah, yes, like hooked rugs only on a bigger scale. I think we'll be seeing more of this rug canvas.
Here's Tricia modelling her gorgeous crocheted wrap.


Do we think it looks OK as it is? (We do!) Should she crochet more on it, around the edges, or do something else to it? (We don't think so.) She spun most of the yarn for this project herself. And, yes, she finished it today!

Prue brought along a sample from a cyanotyping class she did with Barbara Schey years ago. We discussed the differences between cyanotyping and sun printing. Prue has always been disappointed that we didn't get such sharp images with the sun printing. How can we improve the sharpness of the images? Some suggestions were to pick foliage the day before and press it flat overnight; to slit prominent stems and veins to flatten the leaves out; to use lightweight materials like ferns that stick to the fabric when wet; to press things down firmly against the wet fabric; to work on very hot days so the fabric dries within twenty minutes; to use paper doilies and other paper shapes that might adhere a little to wet paint.


Helen brought along her graffiti fabric, which she'd cut into squares and then into sections with another fabric, using gentle curves. How to rearrange them? After some head scratching, we got them rearranged nicely. They look great, don't they? She's planning to cut them again and rearrange them further.

All this plus browsing some of Nola's quilting books took up our day. So what do you think of our "What the...?" ideas? All thoughts gratefully received!

Do your own thing

Today was a do your own thing day. Some of us loafed around reading the books that members had brought to share, and that Nola had bought for the ATASDA library. Helen was working on "this old thing". I don't think she should be allowed to describe her work that way, do you?

Tricia was crocheting a scarf with two yarns and the result is gorgeous.

Carol was working on secret women's business for Prue, who was steadfastly not looking. I can only show you this tiny bit: By the end of the day, she had added a lot more stitch and it was looking fabulous. But you'll just have to wait until the end of the year for the grand unveiling.

Nola knitted a bit on the endless jumper. Prue suggested it must be for a giant! Nearly finished...
Next time, we're having a "What the?" day. We all have those materials in our possession that we've long since forgotten what to do with, and often we have projects that have ground to a standstill. So they are all coming to our "What the?" day, so we can pool ideas. I wonder what we'll see?