Category Archives: Spinning

Burnt tree trunk.

This tree was burnt during our recent bushfire. It is far from dead though, and will sprout all the way up the trunk. Riscy and I will go back up there in a few weeks to record the progress of regeneration.

I’m cutting out the design for my quilt right now. I get a little RSI in my right arm from this… which balances out the RSI I get in my left arm from typing and knitting. Not bad, just a niggle. Ahh me aches and pains… I do turn 29 next week you know LOL.

Riscy and I are on a roll with movies, we are going to see Brokeback Mountain tonight after we go out for Thai for dinner Yum!
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Fabric dyed. I’ll use two of theses pieces for the Dredger quilt. The gusty breeze made this shot fun to take.

I will need to overdye the dark value fabric as I really wanted a blacky colour not the denim blue I ended up with. Some of the lights are quite nice though, really subtle and mottled.

Last week I was excited to receive an email from Fulvia Luciano. Fulvia had come across my blog and noticed that we have lots of common interests including kayaking(!), wool and most importantly Art Quilts!!

I was intrigued because I remembered her name from my days on the QuiltArt list. When I clicked onto her website, her quilts were instantly familiar to me. I love her work for combining imagery, line and colour in wonderful complex layers.

These are two of my favourites Haiku II and Illustration 3 Although it is hard to choose just two to link to, so if you can, set aside some time to browse through all her galleries.

We are going to see Syriana tonight. Mmmm George Cloony in a beard, yeah!! I’m just hoping it doesn’t make me too angry (as most things involving the US and the Middle East do), I’m verging on the edge of sick with a scratcy throat and slight nausea (I took this afternoon off work), and getting worked up about this stuff probably wont do me any good.

But before I go, I thought I’d post another rose photo I took this afternoon:

Molineux Rose – The blooms seem to be smaller than normal at the moment, I should probably water the garden.

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Today was beautiful. The sun was out, and it was a great day to spend in the garden catching up on all that weeding. Riscy mowed and I commented that the garden REALLY did look brilliant.

Then the back neighbour came over and wanted to start replacing the back fence today!! which meant that I had to trim all my plants well back from the fence. I mangaged to save everything, but it doesn’t look as good… not by a long shot.

Riscy and Reuben enjoyed the whole thing, I’m a little dubious about the shed which the neighbour is building right up to the fence. He is going to paint it and put lattice up, so it will at least form a base for my climbing roses… That’s a positive.

Reuben got to meet the dog from beyond;

I weeded and weeded and weeded and kept the little boy from next door amused by helping him dig holes and making him smell flowers. This was also blooming

In addition, I went on a mission this morning to find balsa wood. I had never actually worked with it before and I’m rather hooked, it cuts sooo easily.

My test piece didn’t work too well, but I have a few ideas which may sort out the technical difficulties.
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After months of discussion, Riscy and I bought an new digital camera on the weekend. Canon 30D Digital SLR. I immediately took many brilliant photos of my leg:

I’m not an educated photographer, having a good camera lets me get away with a lot. Our old Nikon Coolpix 995 is still wonderful, but it was time to update to more MPix. We’ll have to invest in some lenses; I prefer a macro lense and Riscy wants a wide angle. It’s times like this I really appreciate being a DINK.

Anyway, back to the weekend review. Friday Night we went out to dinner to celebrate Riscy’s pay rise 🙂 Discovered that very expensive champagne isn’t worth the expense, but caviar and oysters are heaven.

Saturday we spent exploring some more exhibitions at the NGV at Federation Square, buying the camera, eating seafood in the David Jones Food Hall…

Saturday night we saw a contemporary dance performance by the Shen Wei Dance Company. The two peices contrasted beautifully with the frantic ‘Rite of Spring’, dancers zipping around in a – traffic in the city – type movement and ‘Folding’, a slow, meditative dance, very beautiful.

Afterwards we went along to the Artist’s Bar, it was part of the First Timers package. We were the only first timers there I’m afraid but we had good conversation with another couple and a few glasses of chardonnay to help the awkwardness.

We took advantage of our passes to the Famous Speigeltent afterwards and danced the night away, well to 2am anyway, the latest I’ve stayed up for a very long time.

The next day we headed out to Newport to catch up with my friend Lynne and her partner Roger. A lovely brunch in Wiliiamstown and a stroll along the beach really finished our weekend off on a fantastic note.

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Our weekend in Melbourne was heaps of fun only marred by Riscy having to work on Thursday night so he missed the performance of Theatre du Soleil – Le Dernier Caravanserail (Odyssees) at the Royal Exhibition Building. It was a very powerful experience, having grown from stories told by refugees, snippits of story of their journeys.

It was amazing that I was allowed in. I was rushing out of the hotel room when I realised that I’d left my tickets behind in Traralgon. I quickly rang the ticketing office and explained my situation, they were VERY understanding and ensured I got my seat. I purchased the tickets as part of the First Timers Package, so they had a way of verifying who I was. The performance was sold out with a rather long queue for non existant tickets.

I was very chuffed with the hotel I found on www.wotif.com. We had a refurbished one bedroom suite with full kitchen for very cheap. It’s on the CBD fringe, so very close to everything.

The next day I had a fantastic time visiting the National Gallery of Victoria at Federation Square. I particularly enjoyed the contemporary drawing exhibition, check it out if you have a chance.

I indulged in quick manicure at David Jones, a little ritual I have, and tried on hats, a big feature of Melbourne shopping at this time of year due to the spring horse racing carnival.

Met up with Riscy then headed to the Australian Centre for the Moving Image to see White Noise.
An exhibition of abstraction in audio visual art. ACMI always delivers. I wished I lived in Melbourne for that alone.

More in my next update.

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I ventured into the garden in the fading light this evening and was delighted to find a beautiful rose blooming:

E’toile de Lyon is Tea rose, quite an old variety having been released in 1881. In my garden this rose is short and sprawling and currently covered in buds. It wins the ‘first rose of the season’ prize by a country mile although I was getting blooms on Margaret Merrill up until I pruned her a month ago.

I still have quite a few roses to prune. Perhaps this weekend 🙂

Edited to add… !!!STOP PRESS!!!

I just came across this art quilter, Angela Moll (thanks to Wee Wonderfuls). Had to share. Continue reading →

I am exhausted after spending the day in a printmaking workshop with Jenny Peterson at ARC Yinnar.

I go back for more tommorow 🙂 I constructed some collographs today, I am full of doubt about how they will print, I used lots of fibrous stuff which will take too much ink and cause dark blobs, all will be revealed tommorow.

We also explored using found metal to print with. I had found some lovely rusted corrugated iron on the side of the road on the way o the workshop

I had to squash the metal flat then pound the crap out of it to make it suitable for printing. I was very impressed with the results which I will show here tommorow.

Knitting on Kiri continues, it would boring if I continued to post pics of its shriveled self.

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