Dye a little every day

I've been using the hashtag #dyealittleeveryday on Instagram for about six months now.  It was my aim to dye little and often to build up my supply of hand dyed fabric without having to do marathon rinsing efforts (my least favourite part of the process).

No, I haven't managed to dye or post a photograph everyday!  But I have built up my supplies like I wanted.  And there have been other benefits to a regular dyeing practice.  I've honed my studio practice at the dyeing bench to produce fabrics without too much fuss and bother.  I also have worked out methods that suit me and processes to get quite different looks depending on what I want.  Basically, I've been increasing my skills.

There are lots of benefits to a regular creative practice.  I keep meaning to start a regular sketchbook practice but haven't quite got there yet.  I've seen people start daily photo practices or challenges, weekly mini-quilt challenges, printing, scrapbooking, painting, you name it - people will have done it.

Cynthia Morris, over on Original Impulse, wrote a nice blog post on regular creative practices.  She talks about how doing it can develop your skill, help you recognise your style, and learn to get pleasure out of the process.  It's worth heading over to read.

Do you have a regular creative practice?  I'd love to hear about it and how it works for you.  Or have you started one that fell by the wayside?  What do you think went wrong?

Happy creating everyone.

SAQA International Artist Webinar

Well hello there blog readers!  Nice to connect again.  It's been a while (a month to be precise) in which the Christmas Crazy has been and gone, camping has also been and gone - a little shorter than usual due to weather issues - and school summer holidays are still in progress.

Coming back to the blog after a break is hard.  What do I write about?  The stuff I did a month ago or the stuff I'm doing today?  It's almost a bit paralysing.  So I've decided to just start (now there's a piece of advice for all things difficult - just start!) and write about what I did today.

Today I was a panelist for the SAQA International Artist Webinar - Oceania Region.  Ok, so today was a little out of the ordinary, I don't do something so exciting every day!

(SAQA is short for Studio Art Quilt Associates.)

It was a pretty cool experience.  When Deborah Boschert, the webinar coordinator first contacted me to invite me to be a panelist, I was thrilled, but also a little taken aback.  I describe myself as an emerging artist and when I learned the my fellow panelists were to be Brenda Gael Smith and Jenny Bowker, both very established and well known textile artists, I was sure Deborah had made a mistake.  But she reassured me that she wanted artists across the spectrum and people with different styles and experiences, so I said yes and I'm so glad I did.

I put together my presentation in good old Power Point.  It works really well for presenting a slide show of photographs.  We were asked to talk about what influenced us as artists, especially in regard to our location.  It wasn't hard for me to show my influences; my work is pretty figurative and very much related to the natural world and what I see around me.

It was pretty informative for me to look back at my work and try and work out what was influencing me when I made it.  It's helped me get a clearer idea of my personal style and my artist voice too.

I also talked about moving to live aboard MV Cerego and how I ended up with my studio and art gallery.  I could have kept talking for another half hour (I've never been accused of having nothing to say) but our time was limited of course!

Apart from a few nerves as we were beginning, the only real stress for me was finding an internet connection with a good enough speed to make the whole thing work.  We had a practice session the week before and my internet here on the boat wasn't quite up to scratch.  I uplifted my computer and plugged in at my mother in law's up the road and luckily it worked without a hitch (and I bribed the kids with a special movie and threatened them with beheading to keep them quiet - it worked like a dream...)

SAQA members can listen to any of the webinars anytime by logging into the SAQA members resources page, and clicking the mentorship webinar recordings under the professional development heading.  

If you're not a SAQA member, perhaps it's time you were.  This is an example of one of the resources they offer to their members.  Aside from the International Artist Panels, they have webinars on writing proposals for grants, selling your artwork, organisation and productivity and finding your voice as an artist.  I'm working my way through the older ones and learning heaps as I go!  

So happy new year everyone and I look forward to journeying through 2016 with you.

A Day Sailing on the Bay

The R Tucker Thompson is a tall ship that works out of Opua, where I live.  During the summer season they take paying guests for day and evening sails and they use this money to help subsidise youth training trips the rest of the year.

I was lucky enough to have a voucher for a Day Sail for two adults and two children so last weekend my Mother in Law, myself and the two kids made sail!

What a fantastic day!  The crew gets the guests really involved in the sailing of the ship.  The kids hauled ropes, climbed rigging and sat out on the bowsprit like pros.  To give you a bit of perspective, the top of the mast is 20 metres from the waterline.

The morning was spent sailing out through the Bay of Islands.  They gave us yummy cream scones for morning tea and then we anchored in a little bay and spent some time on a beautiful beach.  

I've taken the photo above from the dinghy, the person halfway up the rigging is my 8 year old daughter and my son is up on the yardarm - but you can't really see him.  I had the other guests commenting how brave they were but the kids just thought it was fun!

The Bay of Islands at it's best.  The beaches out in the bay are just gorgeous.

The Tucker is a traditional gaff-rigged schooner.  She's so pretty when you see her sailing around and sitting at anchor.

There was swimming and swinging to be done before a wonderful barbeque lunch.  The fresh air gives you a great appetite.  And they have drinks available for purchase, so you can have a glass of wine if you wish.

I was intrigued by the 'boat bits' as I called them.  Lots of weathered wood and copper and complicated knots, pulleys and bits and pieces.

My son is particularly keen to get back on board and go for one of the youth training week-long trips.  He has to be at least two years older, and he can't wait!  After he's done a trip like that, he can be a volunteer crew.  Because the Tucker is run by a trust, they use volunteers when they can.  One of our crew this trip was a 15 year old that the kids knew from their school.  And he was confident and competent - great to see.

Oh yeah, did I mention we saw dolphins too?!  So lucky!  We had a good breeze that was great for sailing, we had nice weather which made it pleasant and everyone had a fabulous time.  What a perfect day.

So, if you are ever up this way, check out the R Tucker Thompson and book yourself a day sail.  I would thoroughly recommend it

Interview with Mary Hawke - Best of Show Winner Auckland Festival of Quilts 2015

Mary Hawke was the proud winner of Best in Show at the Auckland Festival of Quilts 2015 with her quilt 'Dear Jane'.  A big thank you to Mary who spent half an hour of her time chatting to me about making 'Dear Jane', her love of small blocks, how she gets things done and lots of other quilty goodness.

'Dear Jane' was made from the book written by Brenda Manges Papadakis.  Brenda drafted the 225 block patterns from the original design of the 1863 Jane A. Stickle quilt and it has been immensely popular in the quilting world with hundreds of 'Baby Janes' being made in as many colour combinations and block arrangements as you can think of.

Mary stayed true to the original design of 'Dear Jane' and she also tried to keep the colours as close as possible to the original.  Her quilt was professionally quilted by her friend, Colleen Burr, who made a wonderful job of it.

Here is a link to the Dear Jane book on Amazon:  http://www.amazon.com/Dear-Jane-Hundred-Twenty-five-Patterns/dp/1881588157

Here is a link to the Dear Jane website - there is so much information about making the quilt along with email lists for 'Janiacs', links to photographs of finished Dear Jane quilts and much, much more:  http://www.dearjane.com/newbie_info.htm

Here is a link to Linda Franz' instructions for scalloped borders and binding that Mary used to help her achieve such a perfect quilt: http://lindafranz.com/index.php?sectionId=38

This is Mary receiving her prize of a brand new Bernina sewing machine. Yay! Bernina!  Mary will make good use of this as her second machine, but she also loves her handwork.  Mary confesses to having made two Farmers Wife quilts from start to finish! 

The interview starts about half way through the audio.  To begin with I give you a run down on what's been happening in my quilting adventures, so if you are only interested in the interview with Mary, skip the first 30 minutes or so.

Here is the link to the tutorial on half-rectangle triangles that I talked about: http://athousandneedles.com/2014/05/tutorial-half-rectangle-triangles/

I hope you enjoy our interview and if you have made your own Dear Jane quilt, please give us a link in the comments so we can all admire your hard work. 

(I've been banging my head against the podcasting wall this week, and I can't get an audio player to embed and actually show up in my blog post - sorry!  So I've included links to listen in Podbean instead.)

http://theslightlymadquiltlady.podbean.com/e/interview-with-mary-hawke-best-in-show-winner-auckland-festival-of-quilts-2015/?token=72e07505c6838b8c416620a430372b10

Download this episode (right click and save)

For the love of books

I thought I'd share a few of the books that are gracing my bedside table at the moment.  

I've been searching for ways to capture light in my art and when I opened this book at my library I had to take it home.  Louis Comfort Tiffany - Masterpieces of Art, by Susie Hodge, describes the life and work of Louis Tiffany and then has pages and pages of images of his beautiful works in mainly stained glass.

I knew about Tiffany glass and lamps of course, but to see a whole collection of them in one book was eye-opening and inspiring.  If I can do just a little of what he does I'll be happy.

Te Hao Nui - The Great Catch.  Edited by Fiona McKergow and Kerry Taylor with photography by Michael Hall.   This is an intriguing book about the museum collection at Te Manawa, Palmerston North.  There are some delightful objects that have a history you'd never guess at.

And this pendant is just so beautiful.

This book was another in my search for light in my own work.  Light and Landscape, the New Zealand photographs of Andris Apse.  It is just glorious, page after page of wonderful photographs - sigh.  

Do you use books like these for inspiration?