Granny's Rocker

It is about 6 weeks since I have posted anything owing to the fact that we have moved house. The move went smoothly and the only thing missing is my pot of saffron bulbs.  I went to great trouble to pot up about 20 large bulbs and I think the moving people must have thought it was a pot of dirt and left it behind.  It was several weeks before I realised it which was a tad too late.  We have unpacked about 80 boxes and still have about 20 to go when the new wardrobes arrive at the end of Jan.  One thing I have unpacked is my great grandmother's rocking chair which took about 40 years to get; a long story.  However, having finally got it, my other half  fixed and stained the wood and I was left  to sort out covering.  I have a roll of antique cotton velour which I dyed in different strengths of dye and asked Mary who does lovely quilting to make a piece of crazy patchwork for the seat and back.

I love the result.  As for my weaving I have clocked up 201 hours and am getting there. I have been doing 6 hour stints and hope to get it finished this month.

November

I have not touched this tapestry for at least 3 weeks but I had done some work on it before that and will post where I am up to.  I am hoping to have a lot of time when I unpack to finish it before the end of Jan.

It is starting to  take shape.

Roses and Visitors

I suppose because I won't have access to this view much longer I should enjoy it while I can.  The roses are lovely this year and the red lilies and nasturtiums in the back ground provide a nice contrast.  Needless to say I have done no weaving; the sorting and packing for a garage sale precluded that. 

One of the things I find facinating about having a blog is the number of visitors and how they find it. It is exciting to have people from all over the world look at my musings; but I was really excited the other day to discover I had a visitor from Hanoi, a city I love and would like to spend an extended time in. One day.

Alice

I have finished a new part of the tapestry and I have called it Alice after our tour around Alice Springs.  At the end of the 2 hour tour Albert Namajira' grave was pointed out almost as an afterthought.  I thought how sad it was that this eminent Aboriginal painter was  reduced to an afterthought by the tour guide. He painted many ghost gums and this is my take on the one on his grave.

 The second one looks lighter  because you can see more of the orange  zebra rock section and I think I have photoshopped the first one.

Colour

I am getting there - slowly. Despite the temptation to do the opposite, I am taking my time which means I probably  won't get it done by the due date.  As my grandmother would say, better to be sure than sorry. I am including a photo of images on the floor near the loom that I refer to often re. colour of the Kimberleys and the train trip.  The thing that surprised me was how much green there was.  I often put pictures up on the computer as I can see how things are progressing with the weaving.

 

I have posted 2 blogs  in 5 days; anything to avoid work.

Accents

Today I am having a day free of house issues, workshops, tapestry weaving and assignments and just  fiddling around - mainly catching up on my life; which is nice.  The last 2 days I attended a workshop at Open Drawer on Patterning - historical traditions and innovative variations given by Ruth Hadlow which I have found very demanding but very useful.  There were only six in the class and the workshop focused on experimentation and a subjective  open - ended approach and exploration of patterning; e.g. we drew with scissors which is very freeing.  At the end of the two days, I have come away with a subject matter to research which I can use in designing tapestries. However there is much research to do and in areas that I have never dreamt of.
In discussing my response to one of the exercises we had to do, Ruth questioned (she asks more questions than I do) why a particular thing worked and it was because of an, unintentional on my part, flick of colour on a white page with black writing.  Which reminded me of a suggestion made to me about the fish shape in my tapestry. 

It was suggested to me that the fish looked blocky and  lacked reference to the surrrounding area and I should add some yellow to heighten interest and enliven the shape. 

I know the 2nd picture is a little lighter, but I think it works.

Faces

The  latest assignment to keep me from weaving the large tapestry due in 6 or 7 weeks is called Interaction between people.  We had to do 4 drawings and select one to do small tapestry  sample.  The drawing I chose to do a tapestry of is one of my beautiful cousin Marj who died last year after a long battle with breast cancer.  When I was doing photography at RMIT we had to do portraits and I took  a lot of photos of her.  She had just found out she had to have a course of chemo tablets and the photos reflected her concern.  The drawing I did reflects my reaction to this news. We had been best friends since we were  8/9 and were constant companions and playmates for 60 years.

The cartoon

      

The tapestry