July in the Emerald City

We've been quiet at Fibrecircle this month, mostly because there's so much going on. People have been coming and going so our meetings have been on the small side. We're looking forward to having at least most of us back next month!

Meanwhile, though depleted in numbers, we've been staying warm and keeping busy. Yes, we've been working on our Tree journals.

Cindy got bored with real trees and decided to move onto fantasy trees. She drew this one with black pen and Inktense pencils.

Maz is still working down her list of top ten Australian trees. This month, it was the Red Cap Gum Eucalyptus erythrocorys from Western Australia, the Salmon Gum Eucalyptus salmonofolia from Victoria and the Red Flowering Gum Corymbia ficifolia from Western Australia.

 

So many gorgeous gum trees in Australia!

 

This month, Nola was experimenting with natural dyeing. First, she painted paper with methylated spirits and clamped it with leaves from the Grey Ironbark Eucalyptus paniculata.



 











The results are quite pale and don't show up well in photos. As a technique, it leaves a lot to be desired.

She also did some with hot water and the same method, which look faintly rusty. Usually these leaves give a brilliant orange colour when boiled.

 
The gum blossoms came out much clearer.

Just a bit of fun, really.

extraTexture exhibition

Our talented Cindy will be exhibiting with the extraTexture girls in August.
This time, their theme is Flight and you can see the process of some of their works over on their blog.

When? 15th - 23rd August 2015

Saturday-Sunday 10am - 4pm
Wednesday to Friday 11am - 3pm
Closing Sunday 23rd August at 2pm

Where?
Balmain Watch House
179 Darling St
Balmain NSW

This is always a fantastic show so make time to see it!

Of course we have been doing other things too!

Helen was doing some handwork on canvas. Isn't it pretty?

She says it may be a postcard one day.

Cindy brought along some very interesting show and tell this time. First, she brought a beautiful piece of Jane Bodnaruk's eco-dyed wool felt. Cindy added embroidery and applique to create this gorgeous work!

 

She also saw a silk scarf she liked, so she bought some silk laps to create a similar one. She laid the laps between two layers of a dissolvable stabiliser and stitched by machine. Then she cut some holes and added adhesive dissolvable stabiliser. She stitched around the holes she'd made and washed out the stabiliser.

Isn't it gorgeous?

This piece is inspired by the Aurora Borealis and is for the extraTexture exhibition, Flight, to be held at the Balmain Watch House in August. It's made from painted fusible web on cotton, with tulle and organza. It will be framed for display. You can follow the exploits of the extraTexture girls on their blog.

Her last work was an experimental art quilt made from an online website, using machine stitching and watercolour pencils.

She's so clever , isn't she?

Nola finished her book page that she was working on back here for the book round robin.

It will be interesting to see this book finished, won't it? You can see where she's going with this on her blog.

See you after our next meeting!

Postcards

It's colds and flu season, so just four postcards were swapped this time.

Nola made her postcard from some sun-dyed fabric. She added some applique stars, some beads and created an edge with couched yarn.

Helen trapped threads and snippets of cloth under organza and machine stitched them down.

Yvonne laid down strips of tulle and hand stitched with fancy threads. Her postcard was mounted on card.

Cindy's postcard had a background of hand stamped cloth, overlaid with organza and machine stitched. Her postcard also had a card background.

So there we are. Once again, all different and all interesting!

I think that I shall never see...

... two trees that are the same in our journals! It's amazing - every time we bring our tree journals, we've done something different.

Helen's tree each month shares the same initial as the month so M for May is also M for Maple. She created several pages with acrylic paints and pen, in honour of this beautiful tree with its distinctive leaves, which provides us with glorious colour in May.

These pages were created from the maple photos in Photoshop.

Gorgeous possibilities here for stitch!

Yvonne was interested in the seeds of the raintree, parachidendron pruinosum. This is another Australian tree, found in the rainforests of the eastern coast, from the tropics to south of Sydney. The seed pods make interesting twisted shapes, with very black seeds. Gorgeous!

Yvonne's drawing was made with graphite pencil and watercolour pencils.

Nola is using her Trees book to try different techniques. This time, she was working with pastels. She coloured the background of her pages with soft pastels, and then painted over the loose pastels with gesso. This softened the colour and fixed the surface. Then she used her paper tree stencils and added more pastels through the stencil and then another layer of gesso. Shadows of contrasting colours and highlights of white were added.The result was very soft.

 

The background of the third page was made the same way, but the loose residue of the soft pastels on the surface of the stencil was dragged into the holes before more gesso was added for stability.

Her last tree was created the same way but highlights and shadows were added with oil pastels, which gave sharper lines and more shine.

Maz continues her research on Australian trees.

 

More trees next month!

And here it is...

... our work for Rhapsody in Blues...

The f that unites the pieces stands for forte in music, meaning loud or strong. But of course, forte also means a person's talent and we are showing out talents here. F also stands for our group, Fibrecircle.

It's always hard doing parts of works sight unseen, when you don't know what others are making. I think this worked out pretty well and it certainly shows our individual approaches to creativity!

You can see our work, along with many others, on the ATASDA stand at the Sydney Craft and Quilt Fair at Glebe Island, June 17 - 21. There will also be lots of brilliant demonstrations of different textile art techniques every day, so we hope you'll visit!

Some other things...

Do you ever get the feeling that the textiles world is an enormous web of connected strands? Very appropriate, for fibre and textile artists, I guess!

Helen brought along a work that she made for Lateral Stitchers. For those who don't know, Laterals is a group of the Embroiderers' Guild of NSW, who have been meeting for more than twenty years to make innovative textile art. They often have challenges and this one is Menu. Members were formed into groups to make works inspired by different courses of the meal and Helen was given Starters.

Helen also brought along  a work she has been doing at Fibrecircle for a few weeks. It's also for Laterals, on the theme of Ancient Civilisations. It's inspired by a tile border on a fishpond in the Alhambra Palace in Granada, Of course, it's canvas embroidery, with embellishments, which came from a bead shop in Covent Garden - she's never seen anything like them anywhere else. They work really well with this, don't they?

Yvonne was knitting a capelet, ready for the EWES sale this past weekend. The EWES are the Epping Weavers Embroiderers and Spinners. They are one of the many groups using the Epping Creative Centre at Dence Park, where they had their sale.



Meanwhile, Cindy was working on her piece for the Untethered group's exhibition out of hand in November. Untethered is a sub-group of ATASDA NSW, and their first exhibition will be held in November, at Wallarobba Arts and Cultural Centre at Hornsby. As three of our members are also members of that group, I'm sure you'll hear all about it! This is just a teaser of what she's making - it's looking fabulous!

  

Carol was working on her postcard for June. It's gorgeous and glitzy and I'm sure you'll see it again!

 

 
While we're still on things handmade, Helen brought us all a present of some handmade paper she bought at the Milk Factory Gallery a while back. It's beautiful, isn't it?  It's too pretty to use...

 

 That's us for May - we'll have more Trees and our finished Rhapsody work in June. See you then!