Other things we're doing...

Helen has been making another book. The theme of this one is Lemon, Lime and Orange.

 Gorgeous colours, aren't they?

Helen also brought along a challenge piece she's been making for another group. It involved food dyes, lace, thread couching, beads and found objects.

She thinks it may be another postcard.

She was also working on another canvas work embroidery, which is intended to be a purse, when it grows up.

It's going to be a beautiful purse, isn't it?

Yvonne was knitting a boy's jersey for her little grandson.

It's a very modern looking style isn't it?

Carol has also been knitting, in her case a cowl scarf (sorry, no photo!) She was also making flowers, which are prototypes for a journal cover she plans to make.

Last of all, Maz has been travelling the world and here's what she brought back for each of us!

Yep, there's lace and buttons and unusual fabrics. I wonder what these will become?

Next, our latest postcards..

At sixes and sevens

Things really have been in a muddle here at Fibrecircle! We missed three meetings in the last three months due to clashes with public holidays. Even when we did meet, only a few of us could make it., because of travel and other commitments. Things should be way better from now on.

Of course we've still been making things, even though we haven't been getting together so much.


The first thing we made was a collaborative work for the ATASDA façade exhibition at the Palm House at the Sydney Botanic Garden. As we like to make postcards, we decided to make a work  inspired by those old-fashioned postcard booklets showing the highlights of a particular pace or region. Our fictional town of Fibriccerre is somewhere in the Mediterranean and has everything - a castle, galleries, fancy houses, a café, the beach... everything anyone could want. 

Helen has been making things for her group to show at the Embroiderers' Guild State Exhibition later this year. First, she needed to make a lollipop...

And then a church....

The exhibition will be held Friday 26 to Sunday 28 August 2016 at the Concord West Masonic Hall, Concord Rd, Concord West. It shows works from individual members plus works from their groups, like Helen's group. There will also be a display of botanical-related works by members, to support a display by a botanical artist who interprets some of her works in stitches. It's going to be an interesting exhibition!

We've also been learning new stuff. Helen made a book in a recent class. This is the cover...

 .. and these are some of the pages inside.

Did you know what a quincunx is? Well, now you do!

Yvonne also made two books, in a class with Peter Stanford at the Hand Spinners and Weavers Guild Summer School.

Cindy is continuing her online class with Linda and Laura Kemshall.  This time, she was printing with her printer onto tracing paper and adding stamping and other media.

Beautiful!

Nola has been drawing a lot lately and what she's been drawing is... bags.

I guess we'll hear more about this in due course...

We meet again next week - see you then!

Habitation

February passed us by in a blur! There seems to be so much happening at the moment, so blogging has gone to the back of the queue. But we have still be busily making things.

I promised to show you the beginnings of our monthly theme, Habitation. Most of us are working in sketchbooks, but Helen decided to make another kind of book. Here is the cover of her Habitation book.

Yes, it's about birds. That's all I can say at this point - you will hear the story as she makes her book.









Cindy's sketchbook began with a door.

At this stage, what's behind the door is a mystery.

But she went on to make up a story about a particular habitation. It's actually the house her mother lived in as a child, but the story isn't about the real family who lived there. It's the story of the Baker family, John, Brenda and their children.

 And this is the door of their house.

First, Maz made a cover and title page for her sketchbook.

Then she began by researching the word Habitation.

Nola's Habitation sketchbook continued on from her Trees book last year.

 
She has been making prints with foam board as the print plate. These prints were experimenting with changing the texture of the printing medium.

The print design was based on an image of Eguisheim in Alsace.

More Habitation coming soon!

 

 

Happy New Year

Kinda late, we know, to be wishing anyone HNY but we finally met for the first time in 2016. As always, it was a quiet meeting, since January is holiday season here in Oz. But it was great to catch up with each others' news and share what we'd been making.

Over the break, Helen made this quirky book, just for fun.

 It's full of shapes of all kinds and references to places and people Helen has known.

As always, clever and beautiful!









The rest of us have mostly been drawing.

Nola was working on sketches for her section of our collaborative work for the façade exhibition in the Palm House at the Botanic gardens in May. Each of us is making a postcard-sized work about a fictional holiday resort called Fibriccerre.

 

Her section is "posh houses" in the area. That looks pretty posh, doesn't it?

 

Cindy has also been drawing a lot. Here are some of her drawings:



Those cherries are luscious enough to eat, aren't they?

Helen was working on a small piece of canvas work.

As always her work just glows. She has an amazing way with colour.

Maz was working on items for sale in the sales area of the façade exhibition.

I'm not sure what it's going to be but I'm sure it will be gorgeous!

That's it for this time. Sorry it's brief, I think we were all in holiday mode - too busy chatting to be technical! See you next time.

October is a distant memory but...

...due to various complications, our blogger didn't blog at all last month. So here's what we were making back then:

Carol was working on some paper cutouts called Kirigami, from this calendar, which she's been saving for a while.

 

They start with easy ones and get progressively harder. She decided to make them in bright colours to  use as Christmas decorations.












If these are the easy ones, I'd hate to try the hard ones!

Nola was working on a postcard for later in the month. It's one she pulls out of her postcards basket to work on periodically but it never seems to be just right. It's a painted background with various other media used, mostly Inktense pencils.

 

 

 

Later in the month, she was back working on her version of the cereal box book, which we started way back here. Her book was made from a fat biscuit box so it's needed a lot of pages. She's just about ready to star putting in images and memorabilia from her trip to southern Africa last year.



Helen was working on one of her embroidered stones.

They're cute little things and people grab them as soon as she makes them!

Maz has been working on a lot of concept drawings for her work for ATASDA's biannual Palm House exhibition in the Sydney Botanic Gardens, in May next year. The theme of the exhibition is façade, because 2016 is the 200th birthday of the Gardens and artist Jonathan Jones will create an artwork celebrating The Garden Palace, a structure from the Gardens' history. Built for the Sydney International Exhibition of 1879, this massive structure burnt to the ground in 1882. It should be very interesting to see his "ghost building"!

Here are some of Maz's drawings for her work in façade:

Looks very interesting! I'm sure we'll see more of this in due course.

Maz was also working on her piece for the Miniature Round Treasures challenge for ATASDA. The works will be on display at the Epping Creative Centre in December and January.

Isn't it pretty? It's going to be an interesting exhibition.