Post Exhibition Exhaustion!

Now we have come to the end of Touched and Felt and it has exceeded expectations. New friends have been made,  and as one visitor was heard to say, "everyone's talking about it". Each of the artists sold several items. We managed to cover the rent  with money donated, with some over for charity.It has brought us in contact with a lot of local artisans, and people are saying "When's the next one?" Megg and I are in a haze of exhaustion. It is surprising how tiring it is to run an exhibition, and you run on adrenaline and excitement a lot of the time. Now is the time to retreat home, clean my much neglected home, give my long suffering husband some attention, catch up on chores with horses and cattle, and water and weed the garden. The sewing room of course is a complete mess again with all the stuff from the show going back into it.
Once the dust has settled it will be time to think about the next challenge!

Touched and Felt Exhibition up and running!

We are now four days into the show and it has been a very busy and exciting time.
Setting up all the quilts and other items  took a long time and  it has taken awhile to assemble all the price lists and information. We are feeling quite exhausted. But there has been  a constant stream of people coming in,  and it has been interesting talking about art and craft all day.
What surprised me was how many artistic people are living in our area, working away at home , not part of any particular group. They are all coming out of the woodwork to view the show and talking about their work, a lot of which sounds free and wonderful.

The first picture is a crocheted rag rug made of recycled sheets, made by one of my students
This van was seen parked outside the exhibition
Below, Adi's wonderful felted cape and hat, against a background of one of my 1880s quilts "Atlanta", with an exquisite double wedding ring quilt in the  background,
and below, one of  Megg's tiny felted pictures  photographed at the entrance door of the hall.

exhibition just a week away!

in exactly a week, we will be attending our exhibition opening
My sewing room  looks like a bomb hit it, there is fabric everywhere, my husband is making quilt hangers and Megg has been  running around town putting up posters.
The local paper is taking photos of us and our work tomorrow.
A very exciting time...

Sun bonnet sue is in the quilting frame, a lovely 1930s quilt top that I am working on

There is also a stitch and flip table runner which I  will be teaching in classes, and  20 hand pieced blocks which I  have joined into a quilt, backed and quilted.

Not long now...

Fibre and Fabric exhibition, Murwillumbah Nsw Australia

A group of 4 of us, fibre artists, are exhibiting in Murwillumbah fromOctober 10th to 21st.
The  exhibition, "Touched and Felt"showcases  quilts, beanies, capes and other textile works of   four  creative women.
There will be a variety of classes in small quilting projects, crocheting and needle felting.
See our Facebook page for our "Virtual Show"
www.tinyurl.com/TouchedandFelt
Location - old Salvation Army Hall , Queen St, Murwillumbah
Opening Hours  9 am to 5 pm daily
Exhibition opening night Thursday October 10th 6-8 pm.All Welcome.

This is  a detail of one of the vintage quilts I will be displaying at the exhibition.
These old quilt tops, put away and forgotten, have been restored and completed by adding backing and wadding, and creatively quilted.
They provide a fascinating history of fabrics and techniques of quilting from the late 1800s to the 1950s.

An inspiring week...

This is  a foundation pieced small quilt I did  some time ago. Easy technique, very eye catching in the black and multi colour.

The  most exciting quilting thing that happened this week was that my friend Louise bought one of my quilts at a charity auction, and  wants me to enlarge it  from double to queen size by adding a border . It was very encouraging that someone liked my quilt enough to actually pay MONEY for it.

Also went to the Craft and Sewing Show in Brisbane on the weekend. Most impressive were the "Under the southern Sky" quilts,banner shaped quilts  depicting many aspectts of Australia and New Zealand.  Another interesting thing  at the Show were talks by the woman from the Punch with Judy  stand about "upcycling" or re shaping or embellishing plain T shirts and sweatshirts to make  new clothing. That is exactly what I am interested in at the moment.

Off the sickbed and back into the routine

Hello, back again after illness and a short stay in hospital. Nothing serious, all better now.

this is just a doodle where I started in the centre and just kept adding. I have noticed a theme  in my doodles  of repeated shapes connected by bars.

This photo below is the portrait I have been working on.  It looks quite strong and compelling in a photo.  I have overlaid some beige satin on the highlights of his face, ready for some free motion machine stitching.

My journal has lapsed a bit also. It's so easy to get out of the routine. But I am making the effort and trying to do the daily drawing again.

fabric journal cover

This is a fabric journal cover that  I made, using leaf themed fabric and appliqued leaves drawn from real Australian gum leaves. Inside the covers the fabric forms a pocket to hold the covers, and the top and bottom edge are bound in satin stitch .