Post 2016 Textile Trip

It has been a busy couple of weeks since I returned from the SE Asia textile trip. I had arranged a few activities prior to my travel. The activities were of fun things to do, one of which was to visit Australian Quilt Convention, AQC. The Australian quilt show is not as big as the one in Europe or the US, but to me it's big enough! I don't go to many of these shows now, but at this one I wanted to go and say hi to Victoria Findlay Wolfe. When I met her in Seattle last year I told her I would meet her in Melbourne and I've kelp my word. Victoria was teaching, but she spared the time to have a chat with me when I got there. Her workshop was so colourful and lively. I loved what her students were doing with Victoria's modern twist of double wedding ring blocks. 

While I was at AQC I had a good look at the quilt exhibition as well. The ones that caught my eyes were Wartime quilts made mainly by men during the wars. Also the red and white quilts. 

On Sunday my colleagues and I visited the National Gallery of Victoria to see 200 Years of Australian Fashion and I did squeezed in dyeing on Sunday afternoon. Below are photos from many activities in the last two weeks.

The view of AQC from the balcony

Repost this from Victoria's Instagram

Wool quilt, all hand pieced.

Quilt made by men

Image from a magazine article

Simple red and white quilt

Another gorgeous red and white quilt

Victoria Findlay Wolfe's MOD wedding quilt

Some images from 200 Years of Australian Fashion showing at the National Gallery of Victoria. 

Results of the colourful dyed fabric from the dye batch. I've received a lot of inquiries from my Instagram feeds how I get such vivid colours from my dyes? My answer is always the same, time and patience! 

Hanging them out to dry

I also attended a two-day workshop on Seedpods Art with Sophie Munns. Like all workshops, once you get there you always learn something new and become engrossed in whatever comes your way. I can't say I learned how to draw anything complicated. It was a fun workshop and I highly recommend it. 

Sophie's drawing and some seedpods

My attempt at drawings

My colourful painting

The group paintings

Returning from the workshop with leftover seedpods. I had an urge to make ink out of them. I had some Eucalyptus base leftover from dyeing so I added the seedpods and started boiling it for hours.  

Here they are, seedpods ink and walnut ink. 

Well, I'm keeping myself busy with what life throws at me. I don't have long enough time to just sit and finish any project in a hurry. I've come to accept that what make me most happy is when I create! I have many quilts and textile pieces I made, but they stayed hidden in the closet and rarely get used. 

I'm happy to inspire people to create. So if you read my post and have any questions regarding what I do please do not hesitate to leave me comment with your reply-able comment and I will be happy to get back to you with the answer if I can.

Until next time

Nat

Vertigo - Ménière's disease

A few years ago I had never heard of the word Vertigo or Ménière's disease! Suddenly last week I came down with this Vertigo disease. Now the word Vertigo sounds like my best friend to me! Vertigo knocked me literally flat on my back for a week. Every time I opened my eyes the room would take me for a spin for a long moment! The only way to stop the ceiling from spinning was to keep both eyes shut tight. Imagine having to do that for a week. Not fun, not at all! As doctor ordered I was off work for the whole week. I really needed that too. 

I felt a little better on the fifth day. I was able to have a shower while holding on to something. I found a cold shower helped to knock out Vertigo. It's definitely a warm weather disease! 

No question about attempting to do something fine so during my visit up at the treehouse I found some old doilies I has collected to make pincushions. I decided I would make a couple of them. They were long overdue on the must make list. The next day I felt even better so I put on a batch of dye. Dyeing doesn't need any fine tuning skills or concentration. I could do that even when I was light headed!

Pincushions turned out lovely.
I should make a few more!

Dye bundles resting the following day

Gathering odds and ends for dyeing

Little beauty from a friend goes splendidly
with my dyed fabric. 

I'm now well again so returning to work is a must. I only spent half a day for the first day back. Half a day was spent explaining to all my caring colleagues what was wrong with me that made me take a whole week away from work. It was touched to get all that attention and care from friends and colleagues. I'm so lucky to be part of such a wonderful working environment!

Until next time

Nat

Autumn/Fall Colours

A few activities plus some outings happened these last couple of weeks. First of all, I finished a quilt I started in 2013 and posted here and here. It's now on a bed in our guest room. I called it Red Star & Blue Sea a simple name for a simple quilt. I would be jealous if it was not mine, but it is! I'm so happy. I had an outing to the Australian Quilt Convention at the Royal Melbourne Exhibition Building a couple of Saturdays ago. I went alone on the spur of the moment and thoroughly enjoyed it. I stopped at Ziguzagu for the warehouse sale; can't miss that! I got a few goodies from there. 

ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) commemorates it's 100th year this year on Apr. 25th. I had a small part in the commemoration by making red poppies, Anzac biscuits and made a display of old photographs and documents from WWI in 1915. Another thing I did was to go on an outing to Alowyne Gardens in Yarra Glen with Mr Notjustnat. I have been there once before.

Last but not least, I put on a large batch of dye after we got home from Alowyne Gardens. I gathered some autumn leaves from there and I was itching to dye with them. Below are some photos from the various activities. 

Red Star & Blue Sea quilt nice spread on the bed.

A woollen quilt by Segolaine Schweitzer,
exhibit at AQC

Double Wedding Ring Quilts Tradition Made Modern
by Victoria Findlay Wolfe

The nation commemorated the centenary of ANZAC Day on 25 April this year. The idea is to try to remember those who lost their lives in WWI, and in the Gallipoli campaign in particular. 

Red poppies represented ANZAC Day.

ANZAC biscuits I made on the day.  

Persimmons from Alowyne Gardens

Another shot from Alowyne Gardens

At the visit to Alowyne Gardens I gathered some autumn leaves to dye with that afternoon. With the Eucalyptus leaves I gathered during the week, I was ready to wrap and roll! 

Dyeing alone is never fun! Over dyed
with Grevillea tree leaves

Colour is seeping through after steaming.

Bundles bundles!

Juvenile blue gum leaves on wool.

Grevillea tree leaves on silk

Blue gum leaves on vintage silk.

Nettle and Prunus leaves on vintage silk.

Some vintage goodness from Ziguzagu
Warehouse's sale.

Lucky find: My lucky find for this post are these fine porcelain cups with hand painted blue cherry blossoms. The porcelain is so fine and translucent you can almost see through it. A nice set of three perfect for a cup of green tea. I found them at ZiguZagu's Warehouse sale along with other goodies above. 

Autumn or Fall for some is well settled here. The leaves turn from yellow to red and brown. A beautiful time of year. I love Autumn/Fall! 

Some exciting news here is that I have ordered a blog book. I have put a lot of thought into my blog lately. My blog is really my journal. It is a journal of what I have made and done over the last 6 years since I started blogging. I have recorded everything I made in my blog. Recently a horrible thought came to my mind of possibly losing my blog forever! After looking into a few blog-to-print services I choose to go with Blog2Print and printed one year to see how it would look. If I'm happy with it, I will print the other years since 2009. I'm excited to get my first blog book. Hope it comes soon!

Until next time

Nat

Happy Valentine's Day, Dye Results and Friend

Happy Valentine's Day everyone. I hope you are all having a lovely day. Mr Notjustnat and I are going out to dinner tomorrow instead to today. Today I have arranged to have Jacky over for our first stitching with friend in the Tree House for the first time. I'm so excited and looking forward to it. 

I mentioned on my last post that I did some dyeing using fresh herbs that one of my friends brought to the Tree House studio opening party. I added some Eucalyptus leaves I collected from my work. The results of the dyes are very pleasing. Please see some photos below:

Extra large heart shape pendant I wore today with the black and white blouse. I took a partial selfie of myself this morning! 

In the dye batch I did both bundles and jar dyeing. After steaming the bundles I only left them overnight when I opened them. I'm happy how all the pieces turned out. I left the jars to stand for over a week before I opened them.

Some of the pieces drying over the railing

Some lemon verbena, eucalyptus leaves and
madder root pieces.

Left cochineal. Right eucalyptus leaves
and madder powder. 

Various eucalyptus leaves on silk. 

Eucalyptus leaves on silk

Juvenile silver dollars on wool. 

Eucalyptus silver dollars on wool.

I invited Jacky to come over for stitching in my Tree House today. We are trying to get together once a month if we can. We stitched for most of the morning then went to lunch and coffee at my local mall. In the afternoon I took Jacky to the Waverley Antique Bazaar which she had not been to.  

Jacky in the Tree House: I made us both a healthy drink with water melon, ginger with fresh mint. I also brewed us a pot of roasted green tea. We stitched and chatted for most of the morning. It was lovely to get together with Jacky again.

Jacky stitching her "red stitch for protection" a piece she has been working on. She added the word Tree House on her stitching as well. 

Lucky find: I haven't posted any lucky finds for a while now so here is my lucky find this week. A Japanese tea pot with bamboo handle and indigo blue cherry blossoms on the side. It's a perfect tea pot for green tea. Do you want to know how much I paid for it? I paid $3.95 for it! It was really a lucky find!

I have been busy planning our around-the-world trip since the beginning of 2015. I'm happy that I will be meeting some of you during our travels. I wish I could visit you all, really!  

Until next time

Nat