Cat's quilt from "The Amelia Challenge Quilt"

Here is the finished quilt top of Cat's quilt that she made in The Amelia Challenge Quilt. Those of you who have read the book will know she was inspired by the tessellated tile floor in the arts building at Melbourne University. This top has been pieced using the English paper-piecing method in order to maintain full fabric pieces for all the elements i.e. I didn't want any joins in pale grey fabric. The quilt is not particularly large at 43" square and is intended as a wall hanging. Every piece is directional, except for the border.

Laurel Birch Xmas Quilt

Not the best photo but here it is, finished at last. I bought the fabrics at the very first Australasian Quilt Convention (how many years ago is that?). They were in 10" strips but after I washed them I only had 9.5" of usable fabric. I saw this pattern and knew it was perfect for these fabrics and had it sewn in no time - then it sat waiting to be quilted. One of my school mates, Kay Hocking quilted it for me recently and did a terrific job. I then bound it with the remnants of fabric, colours on two sides and white on the other two, just like the blocks. I originally meant to put the colour binding on the opposite sides from the blocks. It would have looked better that way and if I was a truly dedicated woman, I'd take off the binding and do it again. But I've moved onto the next thing already...

Open House Melbourne

Last Saturday Melbourne hosted a terrific event called Open House Melbourne. 100 buildings in and around the city were open for the public to explore free of charge. Some of them hosted behind the scenes tours that required a ticket via a ballot system. We would have liked to see Federation Square behind the scenes but missed out on the ballot.
We saw 5 fantastic places - Melbourne Council Chambers, Scots Church and Hall, St Michael's Church, Myer Mural Hall and inside the gatehouse, Northside, at the Melbourne General Cemetery plus a short cemetery tour. It was all wonderful, despite the cold and the rain.

 Scots Church Hall

 St Michael's Church

 Myer Mural Hall

Melbourne General Cemetery

And YES! I did find quilt inspiration at the Melbourne General Cemetery ...

Reflecting Vanity, Art U Wear 2012

At last I can reveal the outfit I made for the 2012 Bernina and Expertise Events Competition, Art U Wear. I decided to enter this competition last November, as a way of kick-starting my creative energies before I began my Textile Art course. As usual, my ideas far exceeded my abilities, and twice a gave up on the project. My daughter took my face in her hands and told me to "Just Finish It". I did. Just in time to take some photos and send them off for the competition.
I expected that to be the last of it. The outfit was packed away, unlikely to come out into the light of day for quite a while. But then I learned I had been chosen as a finalist. I was astonished and proud. I sent the outfit to Sydney for judging, but was not selected for any of the prizes. It doesn't matter, I achieved far more than I expected to achieve. I'm a winner.
Two days ago a Bernina rep told me my outfit was being returned. Only a select few are going to tour the country to all the Craft Shows in the capital cities. That's quite what I expected to happen. My outfit is very difficult to put onto a living person, let alone a mannequin. So I've learned that next year I must consider ease of 'use' when planning an entry.
I'm very proud of what I've achieved, and learned a lot along the way. I hope you enjoy the photos.

 

Art project for school

My, oh my! I can't believe how long it is since I last blogged. Someone told me recently she had missed my blog posts. Hello Sue! I'm back.
Here is my latest stitched piece. It is not the best photograph  - a little dark around the edges despite a light shining on it. Interestingly, in a way that has achieved my aim. The idea was not to use black fabric, even though I wanted a black background. The answer was to use a very deep maroon silk and hand sew seed stitch all over it to darken the look. I think I have achieved that quite well.  The centre has satin stitched droplets done by hand with the lines sewn by machine. The shading was done using an Inktense pencil and a brush to soften it at the edges. That piece and the red satin have been needle turn appliqued in place, but the two pieces of velvet, the deep maroon and white, have been set in place using vliesofix (spelling??). It is not 'meant' to be anything in particular - just pleasing shapes. I hope you like it.

Artist Trading Card swap complete

Here are the Artist Trading Cards my classmates made. Enjoy.

My First Artists Trading Cards

Recently I made my very first set of Artists Trading Cards when one of my class mates made the suggestion that we would have fun doing this as a group project. There are 9 women participating in the challenge, so I made 9 cards.
I chose to relate the cards to my first book, The Maria Challenge Quilt. I gathered all the scraps left over from the quilt I made, the one which appears on the cover.

 

Then I sewed the scraps together into a rectangle, as best I could. 

 Once all the pieces had been incorporated, I slashed and sewed, slashed and sewed in different directions until the fabric piece was made of smaller pieces of each pattern.

 Next I cut up 9 cards, 6" x 4" as instructed to do.

 I hand stitched the letter 'M' onto each card, using chain stitch (because the theme of the book was the convict women transported to Australia in the early 19th century). 'M' is for both Margaret and Maria.

 The cards were quilted onto a stiff polyester wadding with a hand dyed yellow/orange fabric for the backing. This backing fabric was hand dyed by my good friend Lisa, who edits my books - another connection to The Maria Challenge Quilt. The quilting was simple straight lines to represent the bars of a gaol.

 Each card was finished off with a machine zigzag stitch around the edge.

 I wrote my name on the back along with my email address. The finishing touch was to sew a key charm on each card. This is symbolic in two ways - there is a key on the cover of The Maria Challenge Quilt, representing both incarceration and freedom, and secondly, my official surname is Rowe-Keys, so the key is the extra bit of my name. Above is a single key, but I like the bunch of keys on the card below. They look more like a gaoler's set of keys.

We make our swap tomorrow. Am looking forward to seeing what processes my class mates have used.

Mothers Day

My daughter gave me wonderful Mothers Day gifts which included Jinny Beyer's book, a chocolate tulip, earrings and a card full of the most beautiful (and superlative) words. I was also able to spend the day tucked up indoors out of the rain and wind and cold, and do what I felt like, which included homework for my classes - I made a couple of colour wheels, one using acrylic paints, and began a stitch sample. We also watched Little Women, the version with Elizabeth Taylor in it. I can't believe how much it is like Anne of Green Gables in storyline, and how many lines from the Anne miniseries are identical to those from Little Women. I cried - of course.

UK Friend

Eagle at entrance to Healesville Sanctuary

We've had a friend visiting from Leeds in the UK. I haven't seen her for 26 years and it was SO good to spend four days with her. My itinerary was full and exhausting and we didn't quite make it to the end of my list of things to do, but that was okay. We had a great many laughs along the way, usually at my expense! We tried to give her as comprehensive an overview of our part of Australia as we could, going to Healesville Sanctuary to see the Aussie animals, the Patchwork Tea House (my happy place), Sovereign Hill, Clunes Booktown, Melbourne arcades, market, Shrine of Remembrance, Botanic Gardens ...
We all ended up foot sore and weary, but happy. She's gone to Sydney now, and I miss her.

BIG NEWS about - The Amelia Challenge Quilt

For those of you who still don't know the big news, The Amelia Challenge Quilt, the fourth book in the Australian Challenge Quilt Series, is now available. Contact me by email for all the details on how to order your copy: rowekeys01@optusnet.com.au

Balance?

Why is it that life seems to give, only to take away? Yesterday I made a serendipitous find when driving around to a friend's house. I came upon this public art piece in  my neighbourhood. This is nothing new, I know, but whilst I have seen plenty of pictures on the Internet of this type of knitting art in public spaces, to have it in my own neighbourhood was a real treat. I went straight back home to fetch my family and take them around to see it, to share my joy.
Later in the evening we had a phone call. The news was bad. A friend has lost her husband, suddenly. We've not even reached 50 yet. I don't know exactly how old her husband was, but it would be about my age, and I don't think I'm old. I cannot even begin to imagine how my friend must be feeling. I cannot associate with her in this dreadful time of sadness, and there is nothing I can do to ease her pain.
So why is it that whenever I take true and pure delight in my life that something always happens later that very same day to take away the joy?

Warrandyte

Here I am at Warrandyte, sitting by the Yarra River sketching the rocks. It was a much needed afternoon away from the house to sit and relax in the fresh air. The day was quite magnificent, neither too hot nor too cold, and the river provided plenty of inspiration for creative photography and a little bit of drawing.

More drawings from class

I feel like I'm getting back into the swing of drawing now. I even feel more motivated to get out there and try to draw, yet I'm still not creating the time to do this, despite the desire. Not sure what's holding me back. This time I tried working in pastel, selecting red, which seemed to help - it's my favourite colour and colour does affect us very powerfully. I'm still lovin' my course. :)

Textile Art Course, Drawing Class

I have returned to school this year, to study Textile Art. This is something I have wanted to do for years (was on my bucket list) and now it is happening and I'm loving it. Drawing is the first class for this semester. I haven't drawn for nearly 3 decades yet I wasn't frightened about getting back into it. Our teacher is wonderful and very encouraging. She would have us draw every day and that is my aim - to make sure I spend some time every day with my visual diary, drawing. I find when I do sit to draw I enter another world, I become calm and serene, and exist only in the moment. It makes me feel good.

My talents are not great. Nothing comes easily to me but I'm not displeased with my results.

The following was an exercise where we had to draw using only straight lines. I confess to a little trouble getting things to sit where they should in relation to each other.

 For this exercise we blackened the whole page with charcoal and then had to take 'off' the black, using a kneadable eraser, to produce the image by concentrating on the lightest areas. I hated this task as I was doing it, and did not like the method at all, but have to say, of all my drawings so far, this is my favourite. How weird.

 This drawing came from a simpler exercise which was  to draw what I saw using charcoal, looking at the dark areas for heavy shading compared to the light areas.

 I like the contrast of the very dark and very light areas.

Busy with Amelia

I haven't blogged for ages because I've been so busy working on The Amelia Challenge Quilt, trying to get it ready for readers who have been desperate to read the next installment. My head has been down and my tail up! Meanwhile, I've had sample chapters printed. These will be sent to shops who stock the books, so customers can read the first chapter without damaging the actual books (are YOU one of those people who bends covers in bookshops?!!).
This past Friday I had orientation at Box Hill Institute. I have begun my Diploma of Textile Art and am SO excited by it all. I will keep you all posted on my progress. The only homework so far is computer work. Nothing to share there.
I do want to share with you that Amelia is, in my own opinion, the best book yet. I have enjoyed writing it, and my characters have really surprised me with what they're getting up to. You'll love it!

Owl Apron

Before Xmas DD and I were in Spotlight and saw a shop assistant wearing this owl apron. DD loves anything with owls these days, and we luckily found the bolt of panels as we were leaving. It has been sitting near my sewing area for weeks because I didn't have the quantity of plain red fabric in my stash that I thought I had. I sat down and considered what I could do differently, looked in my stash and found this rooster fabric. DD is extremely keen on chooks, so this became the obvious solution for the lining. Now it's a double sided apron.

As she will be using it for bookbinding, I anticipate it will be covered with glue by next Xmas.

Another Quilt from "The Amelia Challenge Quilt"

One of the characters makes this quilt in the next novel - The Amelia Challenge Quilt. Can you guess who it is? Unfortunately it's not a great photo and my red design wall doesn't help matters much. The colours are very rich and golden. The fabrics are from a range called 'Florentine'. Am not sure how to have this quilted yet.
P.S. re the possum we saved last week. The vet put him down. They said he had an injury to his stomach area and he wouldn't have recovered well enough to survive in the wild. We didn't notice any such injury and think he was put down because he was a brush tail possum. :(

Possum rescue

Bad luck turned unto good luck for this little fellow. I came home mid morning to find this furry ball curled up in the middle of the back lawn. He is a brush tail possum, probably a teenager because he is not full grown. They are very aggressive compared with ring tail possums so I wasn't keen to pick him up. My daughter rescued him for me. Without fear she patted him and he must have been too sick to care. He did not appear injured, but the neighbour had poured citronella into her pond to keep away the mosquitos and perhaps this possum had drunk the water. Maybe he had a very bad stomach ache. While he waited for DD, I put a box over him to give him a dark space and popped a plum on the grass in front of him. He ate it. Then he was taken to the vet where they'll fix him up and put him with a wildlife carer until he is well enough to go bush again. And even luckier for him that this all happened yesterday when it was a pleasant day, for today has been a multiple of deluges, with fast, driving rain and plenty of wind. Good luck little possum.

New York Beauty

The five days before Xmas were my second marathon as I made this quilt for my Mum. I had done a class at Michelle's Sewing Basket in Ringwood, with tutor Lesa Seegel. The aim was to improve my curves. I learned that I was better at it when sewing by hand than by machine, but still rather poor workmanship. Fortunately Mum loves anything I do. These were the best photos I could get considering I was on my own at the time. (Haven't trained the cat to hold up a quilt for me yet!) This quilt was made using scraps of blue fabric from my blue Giant Dahlia.

Table Runner for Horse Lovers

Happy New Year. I love a new year. I always make lots of plans, write lists and set a lot of goals. I bought a fantastic new diary called "Mi Goals Diary". Check them out here. It's the best diary I have ever had.
There has been a lot for me to blog about lately, but I haven't made the time. I'll start with a few catchup blogs. Two weeks before Xmas I had a 3 day marathon in which I made a table runner for people who are horse lovers. The dresden star has folded points (the white pieces) sewn into the seams. It's a lot of fun to make. I included these blocks in my Quilt for Japan earlier in 2011.