An Inspiring Week

Hi everyone - have had a good week of inspiration so thought I'd share it with you :-)

First up was our Rose City Quilter's birthday meeting on Monday with Gloria Loughman as our guest speaker. She is a very talented quilter from Australia and she spoke to us about her landscape quilts and her process for making decisions about design, colour choice and construction along the way. Check out some of her quilts in the gallery here. And this Youtube video shows her talking about her work in 2007.

She has written a couple of books and I own her second. It is fabulous.

Have a peek inside via Amazon

She also has a new publication due out early next year which I might just have to purchase. It will have this quilt on the cover which is just divine in person (well it's pretty divine in the photo too!)

Fern Pool by Gloria Loughman

Then on Thursday it was time for another play day. I did an experimental course with Sandra Meech in 2009 and 3 of us dug out the transfer paints again for another try.
First we painted onto paper - here they all are drying.

Then we tried ironing some of the papers onto different fabrics. The colours look completely different once they've been transferred.

Above the dark red on the left is the paper, next to the transferred more pinky colour on some satiny fabric. And the dark green paper looks lovely transferred to the lutradur which shows lilac and soft green.

I really like the transformation of the above ribbon - originally white velvet.

Fabric left, paper right

I think if you were going to use transfer paints regularly, you'd have to make some colour charts!

The above combination shows the dark paper, with lovely transfers to pelmet vilene left, lutradur below, and sateen to the right.

Rock salt is always fun to try on wet media too....
The other bonus is that at the end of all the transferring you're left with lovely papers as well as the fabrics when you're done.

It was a fun day. Sandra's blog is worth a look for gorgeous photos and sketchbook inspiration. She has published 4 books (her most recent this month) which explore  inspiration, quilt design and workshop methods.
I'm stitching some more 6 inch blocks for the banner so will share more of that during the coming week.
Don't forget to leave a comment for my Giveaway before the end of July. 

Giveaway

Hi everyone -- I've always thought it would be nice to do a giveaway but somehow just never got around to it. I started my blog 2 years ago this month, on the 13th of July, but that date was in our winter school holidays so just escaped me....now I am ready to celebrate 2 years of enjoying blogging and all your visits and lovely comments.

I had so much fun making my taped book which I shared with you yesterday, that I went ahead and made another...and you could win it!

The cover of the giveaway journal is 5 3/4 inches high x 7 1/2 inches wide and it has various size pages taped inside.

I have added another slideshow at the bottom if you want to see details of the pages.
Leave a comment on this post before the end of July and I will do a draw and announce the winner next Wednesday : 1st August NZ time.
Good luck - hope you like it enough to enter! ;-)

Creating a book a month : July

Using my papers from my previous post and instructions from the Letter Love course, I've created a taped journal...

Above is the front cover - I glued 2 pages together so the cover is a little sturdier

All the pages are taped in

No stitching...Various washi, decorative and duct tapes used

I love all the different size pages

And that butterfly stencil

I wonder how the pages will change once I start using it....visit me again tomorrow for a giveaway!

Prepping pages

I'm still keen to continue to make a book a month and although I am not up to the lesson yet, I know that there are instructions for making a taped book as part of the Letter Love course. I had a tidy up of papers in my studio the other day, and came across my original attempts at spraying with silk paints in 2010. This is a selection of papers from that day (click here for that original playday post and a look at more of the papers)

I had only sprayed on one side of them, so I set to spraying the other side. The challenge was to make them all look the same to collect together in 1 book, without having the same silk paint sprays. Luckily, my home-mixed golden airbrush sprays and permanent ink sprays give a very similar effect.

I used most of the same stencils as well to give some unity but can you spot the lovely butterflies on the below right page?

This is a new fav - from crafters workshop

I think you'll agree that the pages all look like they belong together.

Look forward to showing you a completed book very soon.

Stitching and Reading

A couple of weeks ago I was asked to speak to a group of women about my quilts and mixed media creations. I was asked how many quilts I've made over the years and had no idea so had a count-up when I got home :: was surprised to find that I've completed 47 quilts! and that isn't counting the 3 charity quilts that I've quilted and bound, or the neonatal quilts I've made that our club donates to our local hospital, or my small journal quilts. I started my quilting journey in 1999, so I can say I've made almost 50 quilts in 13 years. I was especially productive in the 3 years of 2007-2009 when I made 21 quilts.

My thoughts have now turned to our next quilt club show at the beginning of September. There are a couple of challenges which I am considering doing at the moment. In the meantime I have been working on these 6" blocks for a banner which showcases different quilt techniques. We are supposed to choose 1 colour for all of the blocks - no surprise to those who know me that I chose purple :-)

Applique by Machine

Piecing and fabric manipulation for the middle of the bow tie.

Hand applique

Fabric manipulation :: pleats

Foundation piecing

3 more blocks to go and I can put them together and quilt the vertical banner. I think it will look quite effective. Hopefully there will be a range of different coloured banners on display from club members.
If you need a fiction recommendation for summer in the north, or tucked up by the fire in the southern hemisphere with me, I LOVED this book - off to find more of Maggie O'Farrell to read

And I will leave you with a link to some stunning photography - if you want to see more after that, here is Kirsty Mitchell Photography.com

The need to stitch

I love all the art journalling and paper-based projects I've been doing lately, but I always get a hankering for fabric and threadwork when I've been away from it for too long. I recently satisfied my urge to stitch by creating a soft stitched cover for my doodle delight sketchbook

You might recognise my sitching idea from my original post about the Doodle Delight class with Alisa Burke.
Wasn't very inspired by this

Very keen to do more in this :-)

Maybe I have some other journals that need new covers.....Hope you have a productive week :-)

Beach inspired

Following Alisa Burke's advice that you should find inspiration from your surroundings, I took a couple of photos at the beach last Saturday (see my previous post) that have inspired some new doodles.

Really happy with my feather sketches

And my new graphitint pencils even got a workout

Very happy with their subtle effect

Rejuvenate

What do you do to recharge?