More felting

Life seems to have be remarkably hectic since I returned from Brisbane a couple of weeks ago.  I found time to practise my felting before I forgot what we did in Brisbane, but I didn't make a very good job.  I carefully laid out all the fibres in a lovely thin layer on the silk - all in the one direction - so of course it didn't shrink sideways very much at all!  I will learn my lesson well though for next time, and this will become book covers or something else interesting.

I spent last weekend at another felting workshop here in Mackay.  It was sponsored by Artspace Mackay and the tutor was Wanda Bennett, al very talented lovely lady with a great sense of humour.  There were twelve of us at the course and we all had so much fun we have asked for another workshop later in the year.

This is a photo of some of the things we made.  There were some very talented ladies in the group. The first day we made a 3D vessel which was a fascinating process.  They all had balloons blown up tightly inside towards the end of the process to give them their shape.  Mine is still drying out so I can't pop the balloon, probably tomorrow.

This is a closer photo of the vessels and a few of the bags.  We made those on Sunday, also some little nuno felted bags.  The flowers had traditional felt for the lower layer and nuno felt for the top layer.

I loved the colours and the texture of this bag.  Every workshop I have attended has shown a slightly different method of felting.  I think in the end you take what you want from each tutor and make up your own method.  I will definitely be making another vessel soon so I can hope I can remember the instructions I wrote down and follow the photos I took!  Wanda had a series of different sized vessels with tea lights inside them.  they give a lovely soft glow in the evening.

Just for a change of topic there is a new dog in the family.  A gorgeous young kelpie labrador cross has come to live with our son and his family.  Her name is Sascha, she is twelve months old, partly trained to lead and sit and come when called and Alexander is totally besotted with her already.  He was in trouble for letting her jump up, but he plays with her every minute he can.

Now I need to clean up my workroom so hopefull I can soon start on the Hot Needles, Cool Stitches online course I signed up to do and haven't even looked at the embellisher yet!

Qld Quilters Association quilts

This is the last collage, I hope I haven't bored you too much - you don't have to read it of course if you don't wish to.  The yellow quilt at the top centre is by Linda Robertus who is featured in the latest Quilting Arts magazine.  There were a lot more quilts than shown here and they were wonderful to look at - but I still don't want to be a quilter!
I read on Dale's  blog that she didn't feel the show had the excitement it should have.  I am sad that I am never likely to have the opportunity to attend Ally Pally to see the zing she was talking about, but for someone who is only able to go as far as Brisbane for a show, I found this year's event to be inspiring.  I am so glad they have started feeaturing classes again - last year they had none, and I found lots of stalls selling stuff I had never before seen.  I know the show could be improved but I am so glad it happened again this year, and I certainly hope it continues again next year.  Of course, one of the highlights for me was meeting up with Dale again and watching Jacinta and Dale having fun playing in the Artists' working area.
I need to get back to the nuno felted scarf I have been making today - I have made it too wide, but I have learnt a lot - and I think I can remember most of what we were taught in Wendy Bailye's class!

Circus Berseckus continued

I really hope these photos enlarge for you - there are two views of Kirry Toose's winning entry as well as one of the runner up - the pom pom dress.  She was only 14, and held a pizza party to persuade some of her friends to help make the pom poms!  Sorry I have to put all of these in different posts - that is something elsd I need to learn about Picase, how to post more than one collage per blog.

Circus Berseckus

Well, I have admitted defeat in uploading a slide show so here is a kaleidoscope of some of the entries - they were all very good.  The lighting was pretty horrendous though so the photos are a bit funny in places.  there were extremely bright overhead lights in lots of wrong places - lots of others were complaining too, but never mind.

Vivid Challenge

I will eventually learn my way around Picasa - I would like to have had all these in one post, but so be it!
I won't bor you with too many more photos, but there were some wonderful quilts on display from the Queensland Quilters Association, including one from a Brisbane artist featured in the latest edition of Quilting Arts magazine.  We have some very talented people in Australia.  Scroll down to see what I was saying about this collage before I realised I could only put it up as a new post. 

Tattoos

I do hope this will enlarge. Bernina invited several artists to make an art quilt each, then the image of the quilt was tattood onto the front of a Bernina sewing machine.  The artists were (from left of top row) - Cindy Jackson, Caroline Sarkey, Kim Bradley, Ruth Osborn, then on the bottom, Cindy Jackson' quilt, Stephanie Newman, Cheryl Bridgart and Val Moore.  They looked really superb, I am not sure what is happening with the machines now.
I still haven't had time to work out how to upload the video but I have another collage of small quilts from ATASDA for a VIVID challenge - this is only a small selection of all the quilts which were entered, they were mindblowing in their diversity.

Quilts at show

Grrrrr, I am frustrated, I want to show you the Circus Berserkus which I have made into a slide show, but I can't manage to upload it in a working order!

My sister and I did a nuno felting class with Wendy Bailye which was fantastic.  Here are a couple of photos of the scarves which were produced in the three hour course.  I want ot have a go at another one tomorrow - hopefully pictures later

Here is a collage of art quilts made by Julie Haddrick, a South Australian textile artist. Her work is lovely.
Time to go and get clothes off the line and do some watering, but I was determined to master at least some of the photos in Picasa.  Tomorrow I will have another go at uploading the slide show.  Hopefully these photos will enlarge if you click.

Textile Art Festival

Here is a collage of a small selection of the altered cloth swap.  I will post more photos tomorrow, but I am trying to learn Picasa so that I can make a slide show or video clip or more collages to show you more of the many many photos I took.  I am not very good at any of it yet.
We had an absolutely fabulous weekend, the weather was quite okay for what we were doing - I missed the really miserable weather in Brisbane and left it behind in Mackay - how good was that.
There was so much to see and do, we ran out of time through sheer exhaustion, my credit card took a beating - Dale will be happy!  The Thread Studio saw quite a bit of my money.

We had fun watching Dale and Jacinta at play in the Artists at work area, found many stalls with products we had never seen or heard of before, met up with Shirley and her friend Dianne, which was great fun, attended a couple of classes, and even ventured into the scrapbooking hall next door - too many people and too hard to find anything which interested us - the textile hall was much more fun.

I am going back to learn more about Picasa so I can post some photos of the wonderful Circus Berserkus Art U Wear competition.  Kirry Toose won with a very bright  exciting costume, but the lass who came second was only 14 when she made her entry.  She is very talented and will go far I suspect.  More tomorrow (I hope).

More swaps

Only a very quick and short post tonight. This is the page I have sent Ati for the Fibre Fever swap for June.  Her theme was an impression of our favourite painter.  I am not sure that Sir Sydney Nolan is necessarily my favourite painter, though I do like many of his works, other than the Ned Kelly series which don't inspire me at all. 

This is the painting I was using as my page.

This is a birthday card I have sent to Helina, which she has now received and likes.  I am using up some of my old samples and adding a bit extra to them - much better than letting them languish in a drawer.

Not much time for blogging just now, I need to write up some minutes of a meeting to send out tomorrow, then a book delivery for the library and then pack!

I am off to Brisbane on Friday, yippee.  Should have lots of pictures to show you next week of lots of goodies at the Textile Fair.  Some of the pictures I have seen of the Art U Wear competition for this year look spectacular, can't wait to see them.