August

Our apologies, there were a few hiccups with blogging this month!

So what have we been doing since you last saw us? Well, yes, we are still continuing with our trees theme in our journals.
Nola has been making rubbings. "The council came and trimmed one of our trees, and left a slice of tree trunk behind. It had interesting markings on both sides from the circular saw." Nola used watercolour crayon, dry...

 
... Inktense pencils, dry and watercolour pencils, wet...

 

...Inktense pencils, in two colours, wet, and wet watercolour crayon with an Inktense pencil overlay. It's interesting how each medium or combination gives a different amount of detail, enhancing or obliterating the natural wood grain.



 

Maz is coming to the end of her top Australian eucalypts. This time she focuses on Silver Dollar Gum Eucalyptus cinerea, beloved by Australian eco-dyers for its brilliant orange colour; Scribbly Gum,  Eucalyptus haemastoma, which has wonderful scribble marks on its bark left by moth larvae; and Spotted Gum Corymbia maculata.

 

 Cindy made some tree drawings with watercolour pencil in her journal.  

 They'll be the basis of some wonderful work one of these days!

July postcards and other stuff

Only Helen and Nola made postcards this month - it was that kind of month.

Helen's postcard was a beautiful embroidery on canvas.

 Isn't it gorgeous?

Nola's postcard was also hand embroidered, inspired by Elizabethan/Jacobean designs, with a double picot edging.






Helen brought along her work for the Lateral Stitchers group challenge, Ancient Civilisations. She says the work was loosely inspired by the Sutton Hoo helmet.

Nola showed us some prints from impression printing plates she made with Claire the week before.

Robin was wearing a top she made with beautiful fabric from Tessutis, that source of gorgeous things.

It seemed to be a knitting day at Fibrecircle. Here's Carol knitting a headband from her own handspun yarn...

... and Robin was knitting a cardigan from a rayon-cotton blend.

Helen was knitting too but she wouldn't show what she was doing...

So now you know! See you next week.
 

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!