Onwards and Upwards

Well, I got a disappointing email from the Beneath the Southern Skies convener - my quilt was not picked for the exhibition.  There were 71 entries and 30 were picked so I'm looking forward to seeing the final cut.  Not to worry, I have a place picked out on my wall for my piece "I don't feel lonely".  And I'm moving on to the next quilt!

'Scuse the toes!

This is the start of my next 'art' quilt.  I have a bit of a plan, but not sure how it will develop as I go along.  This is a Nikau frond, painted onto white fabric and I plan to cut it out and applique it.  We'll see how it works!

The front.

The quilting shows best on the back.

I've also been working on this quilt.  It should have been added to my WIP round up the other day, but I totally forgot I had it until I was rummaging around for something else.  The sampler blocks were from my very first quilting class.  Halfway through I decided I hated the colours so remade the blocks I'd done in colours I liked.  Then of course these ones have sat around for seven (!) years.  Now that I've sashed and bordered them I quite like them.  I've got to tie in a few threads and bind it and then it will be off to Quilts for Kids for a little person who really needs it.

School started yesterday and my boy had a great first day back - long may it continue as he isn't known for his attention span in class ;)  We spent our last day of holidays (Monday as it was a public holiday) out in the bay on the boat.  Just stunning weather and all round good fun.

I don't feel lonely.

This year I decided I needed to develop my art quilting.  And so I have several exhibitions and competitions lined up that I want to enter.  The first one is Beneath the Southern Skies, a touring exhibition that is shown in Australia and New Zealand.  The closing date is tomorrow, and today I filled in the on-line application and sent off my photos.  So pleased!

The design brief was for textile artists to explore the title theme using a prescribed size of 40cm (width) by 100cm (length).  

My materials I used were hand-painted silk fabric (heart strings contracted when I cut this, I loved it so much once I had painted it!), cotton fabric, cotton, rayon and metallic thread.  I raw edge appliqued the pohutukawa tree to the silk and machine quilted the piece with a tiny bit of hand stitching done in metallic thread.

The name "I don't feel lonely" came about from the feelings I had as I surveyed the scene that inspired the quilt.

If it's accepted for exhibition I'll be excited, but if it's not, I'm still excited!  I'm excited that I made an art quilt that I really love.  I'm excited that I've taken the first step in developing my art quilting and I'm excited that I can now show it to you.

This is the quilting in the sky as seen from the reverse side - I realise it is difficult to see from the front in some of the photographs.  I wanted Ranginui - The Sky Father*, to be subtle, revealed when you stood closer and took a second look.

The hardest parts of this were - knowing when it was done, taking good photographs and writing the blasted artist's statement!  

"Beneath the southern sky the pohutukawa tree stands silhouetted. It could be a scene of loneliness but I sense mystery, a waiting, perhaps a presence greater than us. Maybe it’s Papatuanuku – The Earth Mother, and Ranginui – The Sky Father. I wait. And watch. And slowly the dusk unfolds to night. Ranginui and Papatuanuku sleep."

* This website has a nice summary of the Maori creation legend that involved Ranginui and Papatuanuku (it's the third one down).

Work in Progress Round Up

I thought I'd do a little round up of all the projects I'm working on at the moment.  Mainly so that in a year's time I can look back and gasp at how much I achieved is still a work in progress! ;)

My current project that I'm working on almost exclusively.  It's called "I don't feel lonely" and is an entry for the Beneath the Southern Skies exhibition.  Must be finished by the 25th of January.  No pressure or anything!

My 'night shift' quilt.  This is slowly turning into something that I really like.  And the vast majority of it has been done in the quiet bits of night duty.  All the rows except one (the one with little bits of paper pinned to it) are sewn together.  Now I just need to work on setting triangles.

A couple of bassinet quilts for the maternity unit.  A friend made the tops and gave them to me to baste (check), quilt (check) and bind (yet to finish). 

This sucker is just so big, it takes up my whole kitchen floor.

My big blue and white quilt.  No hurrying on this one.  It sat for a couple of years without even being touched.  Then I did a little flurry on it last year.  A few more flurries and the applique on the sides might get done.  Then it will be a marathon of flurries to quilt it - it's huge.

This is my hand-piecing.  I last showed this to you in a completely different layout.  I decided I didn't like it that way, took out all the squares that were part of the design and turned the diamonds into doves (or turtles as most people think they are).  Recently I've decided that I liked it better with the squares but I refuse to unpick all that hand stitching so one day I might cut a whole heap more diamonds and do another of the original layout.....one day.

I need to add another round on both these medallion quilts for a round robin sort of thingee I'm doing with my sister.  No hurry on this one, it's taken us a few years to get to this point!

I have a project that I'm enthused about that is still in the design stages and will use lots of my native bird and plant applique designs I've drawn previously.  I also want to make a quilt using some beautiful Japanese fabrics that my sister in law brought back from Japan with her.

There are other WIPs I have floating around, but writing this down has made me realise that I'm never going to finish those ones so they may as well get donated/chopped up/re-purposed.  It sounds like it's time for a UFO purge!

What have you got hiding away in your cupboards?