Into the mountains

We toured a small part of the coastline to the north of Taipei then climbed and climbed up, up to the Jioufen village, an old gold mining area now a tourist attraction and with views like this it is little wonder.

Many interesting tea houses and eateries dot the steep streets that are overrun with excited tourists.

Chinese brushes made with horse hair and fox.

An old tea house with a beautiful wood interior. 

On the streets of Taipei

The clean streets of Taipei with the scooters neatly lined up under an avenue of trees.

This elderly flower seller approaches a potential customer. Love the conical bamboo hat he is wearing.

Panda love

The Taipei Zoo, which was established 102 years ago has a Panda enclosure and they were delightful to watch as they ate their snacks and stripped bamboo or rolled around with huge ice blocks that held  a tasty treat in the centre.

The gardens were very tropical and well maintained. We are finding Taipei is clean, people are kind and helpful and the traffic obeys the signals!

These were the colourful doors in the ladies toilets. Aussie and Taiwanese bonding!

And a super message for us all.

The Joy of being Green

The Joy of being Green is my latest quilt from the Viewpoints 9 monochromatic challenge set by Kate Themel. The reveal from all the artists is happening now so hop over to the V9 blog [link above] to see the wonderful quilts.

 

Not on our menu

One delicacy we didn't want to try was snake. We saw a couple of snake restaurants in the area near the Longshan Temple with large carpet snakes and even a cobra.

The small white snakes are in the cases on the bottom while their dinner is above them.

Taipei, Taiwan

We are in Taipei for a few days and have discovered it's all about the food here! The choices are endless and variety also amazing with cafes, restaurants and night markets plus street vendors all competing for our attention! It is hard to decide but this stall with everything on skewers caught my eye, although we didn't try one of their pieces.

Loved the colour.

When you ordered it was then cooked in a deep fryer. This stall was at the Ning Xia night market.

This was my dessert another night. Sweet potato, the orange colour, with green Matcha jelly and Mocha balls, the brown ones [glutinous rice outside with yellow custard filling]- yum!

Off on holiday

Holiday time approached for us and we will be travelling to Taiwan, where will meet up with a group of artists going to Taiwan International Quilt Exhibition 16. This is all very exciting and I hope to be able to post photos and stories here, on the blog, along the way. In preparation for a month in Vietnam after the Taiwanese travel, I dyed cotton fabric which a friend had given me. The cloth holds stitches and threads from a past life.

I like this and was thinking about the recent history of Vietnam in the 1970's when I coloured this 'conflict' cloth. Am taking the oil paint sticks and 6 fabric squares to play with. 

Fiber Art Now magazine

The Spring issue of Fiber Art Now magazine is out and I am the 'contents' girl! My quilt Midnight Garden is on the left above with Susan Else's figures on the right.

We were asked about what had changed in our work or outlook since our work appeared in the magazine in 2011.

Gorgeous cover, Pollinating Biotope by Amy Gross. This is an American publication and full of great inspiration.

 

Farewell Mongolia

Thanks for the friendship, sharing and welcoming me to your community! I have had a wonderful time during the Winter months in Ulaanbaatar. I hope I can return, in the future, during Summer to enjoy Nadaam festivities. Happy stitching!

Crazy patchwork in silk

Ideas from paper into reality, with the creative energies of a team and stitching skills of experienced sewing women from the Mongolian Quilt Centre, made us all feel very happy.