Lessons with Catherine O'Leary

Fibre Forum in Geelong was a real blast. Had a whole week working with Catherine O'Leary - my favourite felt artist!! It was such a treat. We learned to do three dimensional felt sculptures.

Experimentation with Eco-Dyeing

It seems that the water, together with the time of year that leaves are collected and a hundred myriad of other possibilities affects the colour that you can get from indigeneous vegetation. So I have posted a couple of pictures to show what I have achieved to date!

India Flint workshop

Recently went to an India Flint workshop at Beautiful Silks in Fitzroy, Melbourne. It was a revelation! I am now experimenting with a friend using eco-dyeing techniques. We are having a wonderful time. Haven't been able to achieve any consistency yet with the colours but am working hard to achieve this!

More dyeing experimentation

Here are the other dying experiment photos.

Playing with dye

Last week a friend and I played with some new dye techniques. We were trying to create interesting and appealing designs on tissue silk that we could then later use in hard nuno felting. I will take these pieces to Canberra on the weekend to use them in a workshop with Catherine O'Leary. I am really looking forward to learning some new skills! I have included some photos of our dyeing efforts.

We tried using silk paints on the tissue silk that need steam to set them. We tired both wet and dry tissue silk. The effects were interesting as the tissue silk is so fine. We found it very difficult to control the "bleed" effect of the dye on the silk.

Next we carved some block prints and brushed the block prints with Textcraft dual purpose paints and placed them on the tissue silk. This was easy to control, but the final look was very predictable due to the prints we had cut.

We also tried some Lumin Arte polished pigments mixed with fibre fixative which we painted onto the tissue silk. The effect was beautiful. But we found that the first heat seal did not prevent all the colour from leaching out of the silk when washed! They needed to be heat treated and then washed before being heat treated again. This seemed to set the colour more effectively. It will be interesting to see if these colours stand the felting process!!

Latest Designs for "Undercurrents" Exhibition

Our recent Fashion Parade and "Undercurrents' Exhibition for the Eurobodalla Fibre Textile Artists were both huge successes. The greatest ever number of people visited the exhibition and we had a full house for the fashion parade.

These pieces were displayed in the Exhibition. The first red piece is entitled "Electric Currents" and is a merino and nuno sleeveless jacket with stand-up collar that had free-hand machine embroidery on it in silver threads. Next are hand embroidered harem slippers. I create my own pattern and made the fabric from different pieces and hand-stitched the pieces together with gold embroidery. The piece is title "Bedroom Undercurrents". The blue sleeveless blouse is made from fine silk, hand-dyed in indigo dye, hand pleated and steamed, titled "Sea Currents". I cut the pattern whilst a friend of mine modeled the fabric - so it is truly an "original" piece. Lastly is a hand sewn shibori piece. The dye was removed from the fabric revealing the fine drawn stitching. Finished off with found objects and entitled "Surface Undercurrents". I hope you like them!

The fashion parade pieces will be put on this blog very soon.

Summary of our first full year at Potato Point

We can’t believe it; we have been here for almost a full year. It has been a very busy, full, exciting and pleasurable year!! We both decided to approach our new “retired” life in very different ways. Peter joined just a few things and I joined everything!!!!!

My aim for the year was to “find my place’ in this new community. At first it was quite daunting – where do you start??? Well I joined heaps of things; Tai Chi; EFTAG (Eurobodalla Fibre Textile Artist Group); SAGE (Sustainable Agriculture and Gardening in Eurobodalla); NSW Rural Fire Fighters; Book Club; Montague Choristers; Bodalla Embroiderers; Sewing with students at Narooma Primary School; volunteering at both Bodalla and Narooma Primary Schools; and YAKS (don’t know what it stands for except the Kayak bit) so we canoe as well with some people - all very diverse groups. In addition we entertained heaps of people!!

Going from a very stressful life with huge responsibilities, challenging demands and full calendar to “doing what I liked, when I liked”, meant that I lost the plot!!!! I couldn’t get myself organized, didn’t want to do much, felt too tired, forgot people’s names – it was incredibly embarrassing!!!! People would invite me to things and then ring up asking where I was, when I hadn’t turned up. My friends started to get quite worried! Then I realized what the problem was – I could no longer run just my own schedule, I had to factor Peter’s schedule in as well and I needed to keep a well-organized diary! (Just like I always had done before, but now wasn’t doing!) So back to the trusty new computer ….. YES!! A scheduling program……. And YES a contacts’ list ……. And YES a reminder program……

This year, there was supposed to have been a focus on making art!!! Some activities have gotten in the way ….. I will really have to do something about that for next year!!!??? But which ones need to go????????? However I have managed to create enough art to be involved in 2 major exhibitions and one River of Art market stall. Artistically, I feel that I have grown and have a much deeper sense of design. The first time my work was on public exhibition (at the River of Art Market stall), I was very nervous, but I sold a bowl, to be followed up by the sale of another bowl, a short time later. The latest EFTAG exhibition has resulted in the sale of 7 items. All items have been purchased by practising artists – which is hugely encouraging!

We were very fortunate to have Marianne Little come to work with the group to create paper from natural fibres. This has led me on a new tangent with hand made papers becoming very important. Basket-making and Felted vessels workshops have capped off a very satisfying and enjoyable time of learning, making new friends and fitting into a new community. What a wonderful year!!!!!!!!!!!

It was very sad to have to help our friends Brian and Warren pack up their home of 35 years to move from Potato Point to Bomaderry. It took some time and everyone was quite exhausted by the end of it all. I’m sure they learn to love their new home, which they have now made really cosy and welcoming!

We have loved having friends and family to visit – and treasure the precious time we have spent with them. Zalea and Nigel, as well as Mum and Dad and Zalea’s boyfriend, Johnny, will spend Christmas with us, which we are looking forward to immensely. Zalea is “blitzing” it at Uni with top scores in every subject. We feel very sure that she will again, in 2009, be in the elite top 15% of all university students, Australia-wide. Nigel continues to work in the gardening industry in Melbourne. Both kids have rented a small unit in Burwood East where they seem to be coping reasonably well and not getting on each other’s nerves too often.