Bottles and Placemats

Posted on January 19, 2008 by

Before we came here I bought 3 little bottles from Mel Robson, a ceramic artist from Brisbane. For me, they are a momento of our transition from South to North.

I took the above photo with my new macro lens. I’m pretty happy with it!

Yesterday I made some felt placemats. A couple of years ago I bought some pre-felt batts from Fibre Fusion. These batts make this sort of ‘picture’ felting very easy as you can jump right in to designing and cutting out shapes without having to make prefelts first.

These go rather nicely with our little blue dining chairs and the red doors on the adjacent bookshelf. I knew all those home decorating blogs would rub off on me at some stage!

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New Home

Posted on January 19, 2008 by

I thought you might be interested in seeing our new home in the town flats in Nhulunbuy, NT. Chris and I are very pleased with the way the flat has come together as we had been pretty worried that we wouldn’t like living here because of the size and age of the accommodation. I like it as much as our old house, except I don’t have my own workroom.

I haven’t been very creative since I got here, I think I needed time to recover from the stress of moving (and it was suprisingly stressful), and get used to to being in a totally different place and a new job etc.

But have done a little bit of felting and embroidery which I will share with you over the coming days.

 

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Gone to Gove

Posted on December 9, 2007 by

Friends,  We are now living in Nhulunbuy on the far north east tip of the Northern Territory. We are living in a furnished flat until our belongings arrive. 

Our internet access is very dodgy at the moment so I’m avoiding going online.  Hopefully we can get broadband in the coming months and I’ll be back blogging the same as before.

Riscy has a lot more patience than me and is keeping a blog called gonetogove.com which documents our adventures in this beautiful part of the world.  Please check it out!

Take care and have a Merry Christmas.

Cheers

Claire

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India Ink and Acrylic Paint Magic

Posted on November 5, 2007 by

 

Today (instead of getting ready to move house) I tried out a technique that I read about in Quilting Arts Magazine which described how acrylic paint resists India Ink.

The ink soaks into and sticks to the paper left bare and washes off the painted areas.  I need to work on my process a bit more to prevent the paint from becoming too fragile during the wash off.

The above piece is the first one I made and I have another one drying out in the kitchen.  I’m definitly keen to get into this a bit more… so stay tuned 🙂

It is time I shared some great links I’ve found recently:

Peter Sharp is an artist living in Sydney. I had a ‘connect’ between the Quilting Arts article and a magazine profile of Peter. I love the lines in his work, they have a quality that I’ve been striving for and this technique seemed to fit. Reading back over the article it appears he uses a similar technique but with unprimed canvas with acrylic paint resisting oil paint/glazes.

Aesthetic Outburst is the blog of Abbey in New York. In addition to fab links, Abbey creates wonderful drawings and paintings. I’ll be checking back often.

Inspiration Boards is a new blog by Lori Pickert featuring the inspirations boards, wires and walls of featured artists. Each artist is interviewed about their inspirations and artistic practice.

Elizabeth Duffy is a scupturer (a very wierd word to spell!). Her work is inspiring for me as she makes striking scupture out of the most ordinary materials… like sticky tape and lint, or wax paper and wire mesh. This is reassuring given that I’m just about to move to one of the most isolated towns in Australia.

Posted in Books | 6 Comments

Summer Quilt Finished

Posted on October 28, 2007 by

A finished shot of the summer quilt, lounging on our overgrown lawn 🙂

I sewed this binding entirely by machine, knowing that it would probably take me forever to get around to sewing it up by hand.  This was better to be finished than perfectly executed.  I’ve been using it and enjoying it for a week or so now :-) 

Here is a shot of the backing.

I think Riscy likes this side better than the front :-)  you can see the quilting a bit better here, I stitched aorund all the pieces about 5mm from the seam on either side of the seam, and then sewed around some invisible rectangles within some of the larger pieces. 

Anyway, we have been trying to get prepared for the big move.  Last weekend we purchased a little dining table and chairs from Ikea and worked out what we need to buy to make a long and low bench/bookshelf/storage cabinet. We’ll need to pop down to Melbourne again to get them in the next couple of weeks.

We also bought one of those flat LCD TV’s which we can hopefully mount on the wall.  It is rather large, but wil be more space efficient than our old TV.

Lucy spent the night with our friends Wendy and Kim.  A trial run.  There was a reasonable amount of hissing and whining between Mocha (Wendy’s cat) and Lucy, but then Mocha retreated to the bedroom and Lucy found a spot under the couch.  Obviously, we don’t want to make Mocha’s life unbearable by foisting Lucy into his territory, but if they can work something out between themselves then I think Wendy and Kim will take her on.  It is very difficult for me to ask such a big favour of friends.

Posted in Knitting | 4 Comments

News Flash

Posted on October 17, 2007 by

 

Riscy and I will be moving to Nhulunbuy in the Northern Territory in 6 weeks time.

Nhulunbuy is a town located on the Gove Peninsula where the main industry is bauxite mining and alumina smelting. We’ll both be working for the mining company but in different areas Chris will be in the smelter and I wil be managing the housing improvement project in Nhulunbuy.

I am very excited about the move.  We will be right on the coast and will have lots of opportunities for camping and getting out onto the water. Though I am starting to become concerned about crocodiles and I think we should hook up with some local paddlers before even thinking about getting into our kayak.

From what I have read, it is about 8-10 hours drive to the next town, Katherine, when the road is open during the dry season (I don’t see us making this trip very often!!). Qantas flys in a couple of times a day, so it would be possible to go to Darwin or Cairns fairly easily when required but I think this will only be 2-3 times a year so we are thinking very carefully about what we need to take with us.

We’ll be living in a little two bedroom flat and Reuben our Cavalier King Charles Spaniel will come with us. But I need to find a new family for Lucy, my cat of 10 years. Who is currently sitting between my arms as I type.

Happily, we will be able to get broadband internet up there, so I can continue to blog.

Anyway, I took the photo above today. I noticed this lovely californian poppy had popped up in a particularly weedy part of our garden. Such a lovely soft yellow on the inside and a dusky pink on the outside.

Posted in Paper | 8 Comments

Cow

Posted on October 11, 2007 by

I drew this cow in my journal yesterday. The page was already painted the pinky colour with the blue and white smudges. after I finished the drawing I decided to add a the green and blue background.

I should draw more often. But nothing around the house shouts out for my time or attention.

For some unknown reason I had made a rule that I shouldn’t draw from photographs. What a stupid rule!! My computer is chocked full of interesing photos that I’ve taken over the years and it’s really silly not to use them for inspiration.

So, this is a cow. A calf actually.

Looking at it now on the screen I think need to strengthen up the lines around the nostrils and mouth area.

Tagged | 4 Comments

Sponteneous Jewels

Posted on October 7, 2007 by

I dragged out my little stash of buttons this morning.  I put my hand into the lucky dip that is the button bag and came out with this beautiful morsel of plastic. And without much thought made a ring with it.  The workmanship is pretty rugged, but I really like wearing it.

I also finished quilting the summer quilt.  My workroom needs to be cleaned before I feel ready to make binding.

I am really appreciating my garden this year.  We have weeded and mulched half of it, something we didn’t do at all last year.  We were planning to do more this weekend, but Riscy came down with a cold after our trip to the Northern Territory last week so I’m taking the opportunity to veg out :-)   I can’t remember what the above plant is called… it is a bulb that comes up and flowers each spring.  This flower head wil get much larger and each one of those purple things becomes a little flower.

I love my nasturtium patch, it migrates around the garden from year to year.  The flowers are great for picking too :-) 

Posted in House | 9 Comments

On a Jet Plane x 6

Posted on September 29, 2007 by

 

Tommorow, Riscy and I are flying to the Northen Territory.  Three flights up and then three flights back on Tuesday. We are going here.

I’ve been trying to get some suitable clothing together for business meetings in a tropical climate.  It turned out to be an annoyingly difficult task.  A lot of the tops this season have gathering around the bust which I’m sure looks really romantic on some people, but just makes me look like I’m wearing a tent. 

I have been quilting the Summer Quilt a little bit here and there this week I’ve done the bulk of it and now I just have to put the finishing touches on before I trim it and bind it. 

I hate making binding, but I’m psyching my self up for it this time… and I might even make up the bias binding for the queen sized triple irish chain quilt I made about 4 years ago… it was the 2nd quilt I made and it has been sitting in my cupboard unbound … and un-useful for far too long.

The above image is taken from a page in my journal… printed with found plastic.

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Scrap Pile

Posted on September 20, 2007 by

Because of all the fabric ripping for this quilt, I have lots of skinny strips of fabric and tread nests hanging around my workroom.  I love the colours.  So I chucked a pile onto the scanner.   The yellows and blues are the leavings of the pieced backing.

Tonight I’m quilting.  Simply, like I said I would 🙂

 

Posted in Knitting | 6 Comments