By sion, on September 8th, 2010%
… it has been a while. Hecticnessicity plus. Quilt show was a success and is now, thanks be, over for another two years. I suspect I will leave them to it next time, because I just don’t have the energy to spare if I’m going to be doing even passing well at school (and by then I’ll be approaching final assessment, too!). I had loads of fun talking to customers, which is probably what I should concentrate on rather than trying to please (or at least not totally piss off! Which = inevitable FAIL) the official Naysayers of Doom. Anyways, all the pics are still on mum’s big camera, which I of course forgot to d/l, so at some stage I will have to post some photos. Mum won the challenge again, btw, and Carter’s quilt won equal first in its category, so we’re both quite happy with ourselves. Photos at some stage, I promise …
ceramics is a blast. Muddy stinky fun. I did make a few more solid pieces, but lately I’ve gone a bit berko with piping …
(scuse cruddy mobile pics)
*yawn* ok I’m off to bed … tomorrow = desperate attempt to catch up with some housework before heading off to Coffs for the quilt show (at the Racecourse) this weekend. SO TIRED. Come see me – bring me coffee or guarana drinks and I will be your friend forevermore!
By sion, on August 16th, 2010%
 yesterday Denise came over & we did a bit of playing with various media – neocolour & inktense pencils, india ink, paint & and some exhausted dye. My little pencil landscape jobby is lame proof of how much I hate trying to do landscapes. My desire for realism (or at least truth & meaning) falls into the black hole of my laziness/impatience, hardcore. A teeny tiny fragment of a landscape now – a rock, perhaps, or a bit of bark – that I could get right into (so why didn’t I? Because I’m an idiot who only just thought of that approach to landscape and who only now realises that this is how, in fact, she relates to landscape generally. And maybe life. Little bits of treasure; the big picture is boring). Anyway.
 Playing with ink to get impressions of landscapiness was much more fun – squirting water onto paper to set up paths for ink and then spraying ink over top & seeing what it does; THAT was cool. I got some nifty little bits to draw over/into. Messing around with old dye was cool too.I need to experiment & see if I can get fabric to behave the way the watercolour paper did with the dye – I’m guessing I’ll need to stretch it, but how cool would it be if I can get it to work?
 Then today, Dianne came over and we messed around with clay and then dye. She brought over a few molds for hands & feet & we cast them so I can mod them & make my own molds. Fun, and they look lovely when they come out of the molds (I daresay the ones I make from paperclay won’t be nearly as delicate & pretty heh – which really is the idea anyway, since I’m aiming for spirits of the earth). While they were drying out we started on fabric – Dianne wanted a big tree to stitch up as a wallhanging, so I mixed her up some DR-33 (like alginate; thickener stuff) and gave her a few pointers & let her have at it. Miss E decided she wanted to do one too, and since we were using brushes I let her have at it – and that’s her effort over there on the left. Cool, huh? I couldn’t get up much enthusiasm (I don’t know what’s up, but I’m not well; think I’ll go to the doc tomorrow) but before the weather went stupid did make up a landscape piece. Not sure, having done it, whether I’d want to sell pieces like that. I’m sure I could sell it as fabric, perhaps even as expensive fabric, but I’m more inclined to see it as a painting (one I might stitch on, but still). Quandaries.
By sion, on August 13th, 2010%
 not finished, but I’m tempted to retain the sort of fading-to-nothing effect of the rough placement lines rather than painting it all solid … shall see. Equally tempted to put it aside for the time being and paint the completely-dead shrivelled thing it is now, but having issues with the other canvases the same size as these two. Word to the wise: don’t buy cheap pre-printed canvasses thinking you can gesso over the design. Not even for crappy practise pieces: those designs are printed in some magic stuff that just keeps showing through umpteen coats of gesso. I’ve slapped some gel medium on & will gesso again tomorrow, but it’s getting a bit ridic. Wish I’d just bought more of the regular cheapies in that size :/
anyhow, meanwhile …
house: shambles
challenge entry: not even started yet … ok I’ll be honest; not even designed yet
weeks days to Macleay Quilters exhibition: um … 13, crikey
days til paintings, painting diary & drawing assignment (24 drawings) are due: 3
on the other hand, most of the other stuff I need to do for the exhibition is either done or necessarily has to wait until a few days before (ie printing). One last meeting to get through without yelling at anyone this Saturday morning, then Denise & I are having a painty/drawing afternoon, then on Sunday I’m intending to dye some more fabrics & finish up drawings etc & print crap out & stick it in my diary. Latter part of next week is set aside for the challenge, and then I daresay I’ll be doing all the printing etc over the weekend. Hope Geoff isn’t planning to work us too hard right off the bat; once the exhibition’s over I’ll be free to focus a lot more, but that week is going to be crazy.
By sion, on May 12th, 2010%
awesome diagram. ‘Scuse norty bits.
I’m just back from a school excursion to Sydney for the Biennale, so I’m too buggered (and in demand from the small blonde person) to write a proper post. Had a ball though :)
By sion, on May 5th, 2010%
Anyone going up? As of today, Wendy Martin has her hot little hands on (amongst other things) a stack of Betta patterns and some of the specially-dyed fabric to make them with. We also sell the same fine cotton poplin we make all our dyed fabrics with in black for the Betta background, so if you’d like some let me know ($7 +p&p for the 70cm required for the pattern, and $6 +p&p for 60cm of vliesofix).
It occurred to me the other day that given a few hours I could workshop the Betta pretty easily, so I think I’ll do that at our quilt show. If it’s not too late to rejig the workshop schedules at the Coffs Quilters exhibition in September I might approach them too – I’m already booked in to do a few shorter demos/mini-workshops, so it might be possible. Wotcher think … would you be interested in taking home a wallhanging top (ready to stitch/embellish/quilt) for the cost of materials (pattern, fabrics, vliesofix) and a couple of hours?
By sion, on April 9th, 2010%
Macleay Quilters Inc is inviting people to participate in the challenge for their biennial exhibition, this year themed “Spectacular!”
Anything goes so long as it conforms to the basic definition of a quilt (ie 3 layers held together with stitch), fits within the size reqs and gets in on time. No larger than 30” X 20” (76cm X 51cm), no smaller than 14” X 16” (36cm X 41cm). Cost is just $10 (membership fee) + your return postage. There will be two prizes awarded, one judged by Paula Tamblin and one viewer’s choice (prizes themselves TBA). Deadline is
August 17th (postmarked) or August 20th (delivered).
All the gory details are in a pdf here (if you try and it’s broken, let me know please!)
By sion, on March 9th, 2010%
just popping in to say I’m LOVING school even though it’s wiping me out too much to post. I’ll try & remember to take a camera in so I can show what we’re all playing with. I also need to take some pics of what my daughter’s been up to – last weekend she suddenly decided she wanted her nana to show her how to embroider, and she really did a lovely job. It’s not really surprising; she used to beg needle & thread from me (I’d give her blunt darning needles & plastic canvas at first, but she was careful even at 3-4 or so so I gave her real ones and proper fabric) so she could “sew sumpin’ like mama”, so I guess she was bound to do something more serious one day!
okay I’m going to take my poor arthritic, aching-from-cutting-cardboard-for-embossing-plates fingers to bed. Something more exciting soon, promise :)
By sion, on March 3rd, 2010%
In case you missed the attempts at resurrection with accompanying explanation: somebody hacked the blog and replaced it with one of those wanky little graffiti pages bragging about how much the hacker roolz. I reinstalled several times, but every time I uploaded a backup (all from pre-hacking, I’m not that stoopit) I’d get locked out again. Tedious as all get out. FINALLY got it to work by editing the hell out of the SQL, and then when I went to upload all the image files I had (I THOUGHT!) downloaded ,discovered I only had some of them. I do not know why. I can only assume that the download was interrupted without me noticing. So, at the moment there are only a bunch of images from 2006, and you’ll have to bear with me while I find & upload the missing pics and then edit the links to them. It doesn’t bear thinking about, how long that’ll take. I really hate hackers.
This will take even longer than it otherwise might have because (ta da!) I’ve gone back to school. A long time ago and far far away I did about half of a diploma of fine arts. This year I started again – I was going to try and join yr 2 of a program that started last year, but in the end opted for starting over. Largely because it’s been 18 yrs since I was anywhere near a printing plate or an etching press, so revision I needz it! Anyway, I am loving it. LOVING. Awesome teacher, really nice group of people, and most of them are even “mature age” so I don’t feel like an old fart in a sea of teens. Most of them also seem to have done a cert IV or something last year too, and even the two youngsters are fresh from years of highschool arts, so there are no real newbies and everybody’s just leaping in. It’s pretty exciting :) And tiring; man I’m exhausted, especially after the two days on-campus. And drawing is totally kicking my arse – if you’ve never done life drawing on an easel you have no idea (and I’d forgotten!) how physical it is.
Onyroad. So, you can probably expect to see more non-textile art here for a while, at least until I con them into giving me the run of the place so I can do some printing on fabric etc ;) My imagination’s gone a little wild with possibilities …
By sion, on November 24th, 2009%
even in the appalling heat of late … I just don’t seem tohave a lot to show for it! Some gifts, so you won’t be seeing those for a while, some random stuff, some xmas stuff, and other than that it’s been experiments (some failed, many worked – so far – but are stage 1 of 3 or something) and doing some mini postcard workshops and the quilters newsletters and working on the website and so on. I made some gorgeous silk fusion and not-silk fusion (hemp, paperbark, pima cotton, soy silk, wool, etc) to be used for some small works, but I don’t have pics of any of it yet (not sure there’s much point … silk fusion doesn’t look nearly as awesome in pics as it does in real life, and you’ve all seen it before). I’ve done quite a bit of hand stitching – nothing spectacular, but certainly enjoyable.
I was totally head down bum up getting work finished for the upcoming exhibition, until Judypaint rang me to say “um, er, um, I’m an idiot, I booked the gallery for NEXT year not this” … I was so very glad I hadn’t gone ahead and ordered the roll of batting and other stuff I’d procrastinated on that day! lol So now I get a whole year to finish what I started and also do some work that I had wanted to include but knew wouldn’t get done by deadline. Yesterday I dyed two of at least 4 pieces of fabric for a series that’s been percolating for quite a while and finally got sketched and annotated recently; am hanging out to get started on those. I also got stuck into the official website, which is painful given that I’ve forgotten more than I remember about php and so on … then I had to stop that to concentrate on the newsletter and dyeing orders and a workshop, so I didn’t get very far on my modifications :p Have I mentioned before how bad I am at juggling? Bad. I am not the kind of woman people point to as proof of that theory about women and multitasking. I am a bury-myself-in-it girl, which is not at all possible with kids and dogs and phones and so on, and the older I get the less able I am to get back on track. I’ve been thinking about talking to the doc about my meds, see if there’s any chance trying something different might de-fog my brain. I did used to be sort of smart and even quick-witted at times, believe it or not!
Here are a few glimpses of the WIP in the workroom …
By sion, on October 16th, 2009%
 I got sick, got a puppy, changed meds brand, and somewhere amongst all that got some of my old energy back. Everything still hurts, but at least I don’t want to sleep all day. Not sure the energy is related to any of the above happenings, but I figured I should take advantage of it while I could and got stuck in. I was going to maintain radio silence as part of my efforts to keep the momentum up, but I’m feeling a bit lonely so here are some sneak peeks at what I’ve been up to. Sorting through lots of fabric, picking out pieces I lovelovelove, letting it talk to me, sewing, changing direction, going with the flow, experimenting, saying “what the hell, why not?”, thinking/daydreaming/remembering in that mindful meditation way that makes art exhilarating and sometimes therapeutic, handstitching in front of the teev, sketching and writing notes to myself, going nuts looking for the needles/thread/fabric I just HAD a moment ago dammit …
 
 I also did the newsletter and had a houseguest and hosted a few of our allegedly-elite sewing days and have been doing show committee stuff and guild stuff (actually chaired my very first meeting the other day, which is pretty freaking amazing for someone who normally loses her voice – for real – if forced to do anything like public speaking). And of course I’ve also been yelling a lot at the insanely wilful squealy child and the cluelessly eager chewy-bitey puppy, because this is me we’re talking about after all. If any of my neighbours have stumbled upon this blog, I sincerely apologise for the screechy girlchild, barky pup and bellowy mum. She really is the most delightful child in some ways, but OMG so headstrong and so screamy. I’m pretty much over the school holidays, I tellyouwhat lol
FTR, the above are all roughly FQ-sized, and the below are F16ths (from the same FQ, actually, so you can see how hopeless my camera is colourwise!)
  
By sion, on September 11th, 2009%
I feel like that guy on the xkcd comic, the most boring [edit - least interesting, sorry] guy you’ll ever meet:
… okay, so I’ve got more than four posts, but I feel a bit like all I do is apologise for not posting more, lately (and now I have a complex about how boring I am; THANKS SO MUCH XKCD!)
 Anyway … erm. Have been a little busy. Sewing, shows and show prep, trying to get two new patterns ready for sale (finished <– this one tonight. It needs blocking, can you tell? lol), so on & so forth. Oh, that’s right, and messing around with the club newsletter, and dyeing SO very much fabric (and good golly miss molly is some of it to die for. I like it when my own fabric makes my mouth water! *G*) and trying very hard not to freak right the hell out about having agreed to participate in a month-long exhibition with 3 other textile artists. There, cat’s out of the bag, now I HAVE to do it! lol
Off to bed. Doing a mini workshop/demo thing tomorrow, sat & sun at the Coffs quilt exhibition (at the racecourse, near the airport, if you’re in the vicinity) … don’t ask me how I ended up being first every day; Wendy Martin doesn’t know me very well hey ;) Bleh I’m nervous.
By sion, on August 6th, 2009%
 I don’t know why I went incommunicado. Just felt unbloggy. I didn’t even read blogs for weeks there, which is downright weird. Been working on a bunch of different things, from newsletters (did I mention that I’m now both editor of Macleay Quilters’ newletter and a VP?) to quilt patterns to blah blah whatever. School holidays happened in there somewhere, and I finally got inspired and designed MY quilt. I don’t have a quilt on my bed, which seems a bit remiss. Remember these? –>
Yeah, I finally designed something for them (and for the umpteen pieces I’ve added to the Big Pretty Thing stash since then). Someone brought a William Morris quilt along to a get-together recently, and someone else said we had that book in the club library, so I borrowed it and started tracing bits that I liked, planning to cobble something together, and then changed my mind and went back to the source. I spent a week or so drawing motifs from William Morris wallpapers/tapestries and from the sort of Indian and Moroccan and medieval work which (I assume) inspired him, and then I put it all away and sat down with Corel to draw something me-flavoured.
 There’s a bunch of symbolry of personal importance and a bunch of stuff that’s just plain pretty – the centre is a mandala built around a hexagram (star of david, satkona yantra, etc) with flowers and fruit and leaves and so on; it sits in an on-point square which will be framed in the gorgeous paisley that started the whole thing. The next level out (squared) will have more applique in the corners, probably involving tree of life symbols & special animals. It’s intended to be hot and spicy and busy and complex; it’s surprisingly difficult to make myself put applique down on patterned fabric, which is weird since I just love that over-the-top hyperdecorative pattern-on-pattern glory you often get in Indian textiles. Anyway, so < -- there's a very small sneak peek at some of the motifs and a glimpse of the layout diagram.
I can't go without grandbaby spam:
By sion, on June 28th, 2009%
I did finish it in plenty of time (shut up Judy) but only got the label put on today, and I didn’t want to post pics until they’d seen it. Now they have, so here it is:
 The Lion Sleeps Tonight Hiding in the quilting are a couple of crabs (he’s a Cancer) & a couple of other critters, lots of leaves & a tree or two, som bamboo & grass & a hut on stilts, and some lyrics from one of the most awesome songs ever.
a few detail pics:
 giraffe  hefalunk  forggle [caption id="attachment_1423" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="toitle"]  [/caption]  label
By sion, on June 1st, 2009%
now I just need to figure out how to quilt it …
and these guys at least have a watery home, even if I haven’t decided what’s happening next:
By sion, on May 30th, 2009%
the girls were over today for our Saturday gig, all but me (and Loz,who wasn’t well so just enjoyed the company) working on a Ricky Tims convergence top. Wendy took off before I could take a pic, but here are the other three:
Judy (auditioning frame fabric):
Rosemary (more subtle and moody IRL):
Mum:
By sion, on May 25th, 2009%
I finally got a bit of a spurt on with the baby quilt – I’ve been stalled on it for various reasons, so I spent the last few days fiddling with strips of fabric on the design wall while I listened to the river roar until things started to click. I now have many many strips of many many fabrics which I’ll have to come up with an alternative use for heh. There’s still applique to go in the two empty panels, not to mention quilting etc, but it’s looking orright, yay & whew.
heading over to mum’s now for dad’s birthday dinner and whatever … an exciting evening of TV, no doubt :)
By sion, on May 22nd, 2009%
 I rather fell off the blogging wagon there, didn’t I? Seems to have been one thing after another for nearly two months now, and I sit down in front of the computer with about enough brainpower to play a mindless facebook game or two. Birthdays, visits, two shows, I woke up one morning to my laptop giving a very good impersonation of an expensive doorstop and while it’s come good I expect it to be cactus any day now, my usual panicky rush re deadlineblah blah blah, and then to top it all off mumble suddenly started giving a distressingly convincing impersonation of a cat dying of old age and I had to butch up & take her to the vet. I buried her next to Black Cat over at mum & dad’s place. She was super old and was definitely OLD for the last couple of months so it wasn’t unexpected, but it’s definitely a bit sad and it’s very weird having no critters at all. Anywhere. Aaron & Stacey took birdiegirl back, and even Boris is off with Ross & Lisa, so there’s not even a stupid nephewdog to pat. It feels wrong – I can’t think of the last time I didn’t own a pet, even if my accommodations meant it was temporarily housed elsewhere.The idea of getting another critter so soon after mumble’s departure also feels wrong though, so I guess I’m putting up with wrong for a while.
Anyway, so, bah. Miss E is sick, and we’re having weather of biblical proportions AGAIN, and my house looks like a special kind of bomb – maybe the opposite of those smart bombs that only take out people? – hit it, so I’ve been cheering myself up a little with some lairy fishes. No idea what I’m going to do with them – the main idea was to showcase our fabric for shows – but there’ll probably be patterns/kits for sale once I figure it out. I’m not sure whether it’s ok to post a pic of the challenge entry, so I won’t for now.
By sion, on April 15th, 2009%
 my baby girl turned six yesterday. She woke me up over the moon with excitement, opened presents, had breakfast, opened more presents, I finished the skirt I’d drafted wrong ~6 months ago so she could wear it to lunch, where she got more presents. We went shopping and socialising after lunch, then home for a few more gifts from her dad, dinner, and a few hours of playing with her new books. Very cool day, all in all.
By sion, on April 9th, 2009%
Sorry I’m being boring and/or absent lately. I’ve been spending heaps of time at kindy, absolutely fascinated by all those little minds fairly VACUUMING up all the knowledge you can throw at them. Bugger the sponge analogy; these kids are veritable Dysons! Really awesome to watch; seems to be the intellectual equivalent of a the physical development fast track babies are on. I guess there have been a few stages like that, but you don’t usually get to see a whole bunch of them doing it at once and inspiring each other to new heights. Unless you’re a teacher, I guess. Which I’m not interested in being, since I’m absolutely knackered by lunchtime and besides I have a really hard time not saying shit (or worse) in front of the whole class and then there’s all those weird snippy notes the more peculiar parents send in …
anyhow, lest you think there’s no textiley sort of stuff at all going on, I would like to enter these into evidence:
 
These being 1) some very inexpert hand quilting/embroidery I’m doing on a piece of fabric whose colour hasn’t got the zing its pattern does, which E has dibsed for a cushion cover, and 2) some felt in need of fulling, made at the end of a demo by Dianne at the guild last Tuesday. Tres fun. Tres hard work, the fulling part; works a set of muscles in my forearms that I obviously don’t use for anything else. Not sure I’ll do very much of it (apart from anything else, wool makes me crazy itchy), but if it’s fun to stitch on I could be tempted.
Right now it’s just going to sit there waiting for Easter, two birthdays, 3 separate sets of houseguests and one 6 yr old’s birthday party to be over.
By sion, on March 28th, 2009%
Today we got to give one of these a test run:
Stupid name, fairly nifty gadget. Took a bit of getting used to, that’s for sure – it would probably be easier to get the hang of it if you’re a freemotion novice, I think. I had to keep shaking myself out of stuff that’s become second nature, and I don’t do nearly as much quilting as some! I did quite a lot of swearing at first, mostly because I kept jamming up against the limit of the opening (eventually I figured out how easy it is to move it along to the next section. Duh. It’s really easy) or was putting too much pressure on and it was obediently skating away. Once I figured out what you’re supposed to do (um yeah no, I did not RTFM, which actually is not like me, so yes it does serve me right) it was fun. I decided to give some twirly vines a la Patsy Thompson a whirl, and sacrificed a semi-ugly piece of fabric and a buttload of thread to the experiment.
 
Far from perfect, but it looks pretty good (better than these pics would indicate, actually). I think I’ll turn it into a cushion.
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