Food, glorious food

From fish tank to plate, this barramundi tasted so good with the tomato, caper & walnut dressing.

Colour & shape

From the Little Saigon Supermarket- packed with great things to eat but also lots of visually pleasing arrangements.

Leaving on a jet plane

Leaving on a jet plane, in the rain.

Don't know, when I'll get to my destination.

Christmas Greetings

Thank you for your support throughout the year, dear blog readers. I have enjoyed posting the snippets about my work, life & travels & making new friendships with you through this media. These threads of friendship bind us together & enrich our lives.

Sending warm wishes for the Christmas Season to you & your loved ones where ever you may be. I hope 2010 is filled with many happy creative pursuits, laughter & friendship.

I will be taking a holiday break so the posting will be erratic for a time, but please stay in touch.

Be Creative by the Sea

If you are looking for stitching/quilt/surface design related activities for next year, have you considered the Be Creative by the Sea Retreat? Wendy Martin has put together a great program for 2010 with 2 retreats on offer in May & July with another planned for 2011.

The reason I'm telling you this is that workshop bookings open on-line on January 1, 2010. And yes, I'm happy to say I'm one of the tutors in May. Happy to be invited back to teach & enjoy the great coastal scenery & inspiration at the Opal Cove Resort, Coffs Harbour in New South Wales.

"One for the Road"

This is the book by Janelle McCulloch, an Australian author/ journalist who specialises in design, architecture, travel & style. It took me to new places in the United States, [some I don't wish to visit now] in a delightful light hearted, succinct observational writing style which made me keep reading late into the night & chuckling out loud in dentist waiting rooms.

I'm doing some reading research for my trip to the US next October. Can you recommend any books on the South West, the desert regions or Native American culture?

The bag

This is another view of my bag, being worn, to indicate scale. Hope this helps to explain it Diane. The spikes are soft & the bag is made of a moulded vinyl, a bit like wet suit material. The strap allows me to convert it to the shoulder if desired.

My bag

Talking about spikey things yesterday made me realise that the bag I'm curently using falls into that category. It has been called many things by those who see it- some unkind words have been said about 'the beastie', but he is out for the summer & lives on my back.

Made by Canadian designer Simon Trudeau of Anemone, I stumbled across his stall at a craft fair in New York in 2007 & loved all his bags.

Nature & art

This work is also by Subodh Gupta, at APT #6, using chapati tongs & is installed on the wall. Sorry I didn't get the name of it, but it reminded me of other forms in nature. Also perhaps an echnida, hedgehog or porcupine.

APT #6 continued

This is the iconic image being used to advertise the Asia Pacific Triennial- 'People holding flowers' by Ji Wenyu & Zhu Weibing.

The brass pots are a detail from 'Line of Control 1' by Subodh Gupta & I was itching to get some fabric & oil sticks onto them. This scupture reaches to the ceiling like a mushroom cloud & the pots are spot welded together.

Kurilpa Bridge

To get to the gallery we walked across the new Kurilpa Bridge, which gave good views down the river of the freeway & city skyline. The bridge is decorated with ship like masts, which at night are lit. They were blue/purple the night we passed.

APT #6

PixCell-Elk #2 by Kohei Nawa is part of the Asia Pacific Triennial # 6 at the Queensland Gallery of Modern Art. It is a wonderful opportunity to be exposed to art from our Asian neighbours & be inspired to look at the world through their eyes.
Thank you to everyone who sent messages of congratulations for our anniversary. We shake our heads in wonder at how time flies, as we recall the experiences over the years.

Anniversary

Bob & I celebrated our 34th wedding anniversary with lunch in Brisbane. Often we have been apart on this day due to work committments. I'm a 'sweet tooth' so couldn't resist the plethora of chocolate desserts & the huge chocolate fountain.

More Christmas table decorations

These are some of the other Christmas decorated tables that were part of the Queensland Quilters Christmas Party.

The green fabric tree was made by Nancy & the silver tree is a palm seed frond repurposed.

Rusting fabric # 3

If you need more imprint, the fabric can go through the process again. The 'right' or 'wrong' side can be used depending on the look you're after. Detail of 'Outback Communities Thank Reverend Flynn' showing the rusted fabric used for the main background area with machine writing, hand stitching & monoprinting.

Do you use rusted fabric in your work?

Rusting fabric # 2

After 24 hours the iron oxide from the rusty nails

is working its magic on the wet fabric, top L. Another 24 hours sees a darkening & further spread of the colour. When I'm happy with the colour & patterning, I remove the fabric wearing gloves & rinse it in half a cup of salt dissolved in 5 litres of warm water. I then rinse in fresh water several times & finally wash in the machine. The last photo shows a double layering of fabric as the objects can be placed under the fabric or on top.

Kimberly Baxter Packwood has great advice on her site for rusting & natural dye use.

Fantastic Christmas at 2Q

The theme was for a 'fantastic' Christmas party at Queensland Quilters, so I took it literally & got the fan quilt from 1994 out of the cupboard. Barbara added the decorations for the centre piece & with help from Sunnybank members we arranged our beautiful fans. We won Best Decorated Table- yeah!! first time ever. L-R Bev, Sue, Barbara & Denise, some Sunnybank members before the party got underway.

Rusting fabric update tomorrow.

Rusting fabric

A few years ago, while at Mt Cuthbert in the bush for 3 weeks, I decided to make some rusty impressions on fabric, using the old objects discarded & abandoned from the last century of mining in the area.
It was a discovery process for me, but now I can recreate some of this at home. Here is the first stage- wet white fabric in a plastic tray- rusty nails placed on top- a splash of vinegar to help the process- cover the container & wait for the magic to begin.
If you already enjoy using rusted fabric in your designs Rust-Tex are orgainising a juried touring exhibition to premier at the Spring International Quilt Festival in Chicago April 16-18, 2010.

Bubbly world

The 50 bubble machines started their magic at 11.30am yesterday in the sculpture forecourt of the Queensland Art Gallery & along with many visitors we watched in awe & excitment as the wind picked up the single & multiple bubble clusters & dashed them into the walls & onto us!

Other flying things included this mountain of flying machines made from recycled materials.