land(marks) earth pleiades

this is my piece for the latest International Art Quilt Challenge:  it was my turn to choose the theme - land(marks).


this reflects two recurring themes in my work:  the landscape of Central Australia with it's red dirt and dry riverbeds and the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters constellation. 

i needlefelted alpaca fleece from local breeders, Melrose Alpacas (thanks Fiona!) onto silk chiffon and then machine stitched with silk thread. It was eucalypt dyed and handstitched onto the black linen background with silk, perle 8 and stranded cotton.

it's 41x33cm

my time piece

here is my piece for the latest international quilt challenge.

 i wanted to demonstrate a process rather than explore an idea or a feeling so it is about the effects of time and weathering cloth and stitch.

i machine stitched strips of vintage linen, silk and cotton; then hand stitched lines of running stitch in silk and cotton thread. there are also a few loose clusters of french knots as a vague reference to the pleiades - my favourite constellation.

 i then stitched a labyrinth of copper wire which i hoped would weather and verdigris and colour then colour but quite early in the weathering process it became clear that this wasn't going to happened so i intervened with a stout piece of rusty iron. once the piece was rinsed of potential nasties and left to dry in the sun for a day or two i outlined the rust marks with red thread and burnished the centre with some copper and pale gold paintstick.


this piece took much longer than i anticipated:  it needed much more macerating in the garden that i thought and we have had remarkably fine weather for most of the time it was out under the feijoa tree.... here it is before rinsing and gussying up....

time challenge started!

i have started on the new challenge theme: time....

and for once i have an idea that i'm going to stick with, AND i have started - bonus points and elephant stamp please.

 in conversation with Kind Dog on the subject,  i was struck by an idea that is about process rather than form or about trying to capture a feeling or abstract idea. this one is extremely practical.

so far i have machine sewn strips of old cloth - fragments of old linens and clothing (cottons, silks, linens) onto a base ripped from an old cotton sheet. and i am hand stitching now with the most delicious thread that arrived this week from nancy at long ridge farm. 

lumen

here is my piece for 'architexture' ....

 lumen is a three dimensional hand stitched textile piece with layers of sari silk, hand dyed machine stitched cotton and sinemay. it was stitched with cotton and silk thread using sorbello stitch, running stitch and french knots. inside the piece are 'sticks' i made of cotton string soaked in black gesso and paverpol.

i had lots of ideas for this challenge mostly to do with cathedrals, skylines and gargoyles. but none of them fired my imagination until last week when i was surfing around the internet and got into a cross referencing spiral around the theme of liminal space and thresholds (which was another image i was toying with). there was a link to the word 'lumen' which of course, Alice-like, I followed and found the anatomical meaning of the word.

A lumen (Lat. lūmen, an opening or light) (pl. lumina) in biology is the inside space of a tubular structure, such as an artery or intestine.
which made me think of Kind Dog's 'heart event' as the hospital people called it, which happened nearly six months ago. of the inside of his arteries and how they were stitched back together lined with mesh. and how this has certainly saved and extended his life.

so while this is not an orthodox interpretation of the architexture theme it is certainly of a structure, a space, a construction.

it is lumen

moon reflections: through the window

 here is my interpretation of through the window -  i tried a number of other ideas that just didn't work and ended up going with some small pieces i was puddling around with and it became something bigger.

each panel is a piece of linen sprayed with diluted black ink and stitched with silk thread. the moon centre was made by putting a round sponge in the middle of the fabric and spraying the ink around it.

the bottom layer is canvas painted with black gesso and a piece of silk chiffon painted onto the canvas with more diluted black gesso. each panel is stitched on the foundation canvas/silk layer.

the 'sticks' are pieces of cotton mariner's string soaked in a mixture of paverpol, fibre paste, black pigment powder and fabric paint.

a few ideas

heart reflections

here is my piece for the light and shadow challenge. after a few experiments and false starts and a measure of despair i finally sat down and put all of that experience into this.

layered wool/hemp; silk organza; hemp/linen/ plastic transparency. machine stitched then sprayed with ink and some finger painting with red and turquoise fabric paint.