Violets and Potatoes

Winter in Melbourne has been very cold, wet and grey and I know why people go travelling north.
However, if there is no Winter, there is no Spring and my husband says we need the rain for the flowers (the same one who makes money trees). I wandered out into the backyard last week when we had a nice sunny period and made some discoveries.  The violets under the plum tree are blooming away and I picked a bunch and took them inside.  Violets remind me of my grandmother and when my sister got married, we carried posies of violets which inhindsight were amazing.

The colour purple

I noticed that most of the peas and snow peas are up; I will fill in the holes when we get some sun.  The coriander and the self - sown dill are starting to move and the broad beans are doing well.  We are lucky with the dill as it grows wild.  I usually have a huge crop of self sown parsley too but it seems to be having a holiday this year; maybe it will appear when it warms up a little.  The cumquat tree is on strike as I have not had a crop for the last two seasons probably because I fed it; never again.  However the big suprise was the self sown potatoes.  We must have left a few potatoes in the round last year and they sprouted so I left them be. The frost damaged the plants so we dug them up and got quite a few Nicolas (my favourite potato) and some Royal Blue ones.  What a winter feast!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

More purple.

Tapestry Exhibition

Today the RMIT online tapestry weavers group hosted the showing of the AuNZ Tapestry Challenge at the Spinners and Weavers Guild in Carlton. AuNZ Tapestry Weavers group hosts a challenge each year and this year the task was titled Circles and Squares.  The size of the tapestries is to be no bigger than 20 cm square. It is not a competition and all entries are accepted. Some of us put the exhibition up during the week and we were blown away with the tapestries.  They are beautiful and so diverse.  The quality of the weaving was amazing and they are so colourful. I will upload the flyer which has 4 tapestries from people who are members of both online groups.  I would love to show others but that would infringe intellectual property.

Shifu

A while back I saw that Beautiful silks in Fitzroy were having a Natural Dye Symposium and that one of the workshops was called Shifu and making miniature books. As I very inerested in things miniature, I enrolled without having investigated what Shifu is. Shifu involves cutting very fine paper, lokta, into strips like a paper lantern, then cutting it to have a continuous strip then spinning this to make a paper thread with which you weave to make Shifu.

A ball of spun paper

My first attempt.

As you can see , my first  attempt is not very even due to the fact that paper under strain breaks and I broke several warps.  However for a first attempt I thought it not too bad.  There were 9 in the class and I am very glad I did it as 2 of the other participants were also tutors at the Symposium. The tutor was Velma Bolyard and this was her first trip to Australia from  the USA and the students came from the eastern states of Australia and NZ.  We also made miniature book structures including one called a flag book which when you use different cououred papers is eally interesting.

Diligent  workers.

It was a very intense class and most people would baulk at the thought of spinning paper (it takes hours).
Velma had some gorgeous shifu books and one day (?) I hope to have 1 too. I have put  a link to her blog in my links.

Petites: Some of the Pieces

As I said in my last post, there were 12 or so pieces from ex RMIT tutors and students.

I am posting work from some of those I was able to photograph. The  photograph of one of my friend's pieces was terrible, both of them, but you can see her tapestry at her blog  marymac. in June, under the heading Recording my progress - to music.

Cresside

Esmae

Julie, sorry about the flash; her weaving including seaweed.

Marina

Mine has been  shown.  I have a few more but as I haven't asked permisssion, I had better not show them.

Enjoy

Petites 2012

Last weekend it was the opening of the Petites Exhibition in Wangaratta which they hold on the alternate year to the Wangaratta Contemporary  Textile Award. There were about 120 pieces exhibited  and RMIT ex students were well represented with about 12 of them in the exhibition - including me. The standard of the work was very high and I was chuffed to be in such good company. The tapestry was one I did last year for one of my assignments.  The design for the tapestry came from a photograph I took at the Australian Garden at Cranbourne that I played with in Photoshop and Illustrator; it was called "Water From the Desert". But the best thing was that someone bought my piece of tapestry.  I did a workshop over the weekend about making miniature books and on the Sunday when it was quiet we went into the gallery where I saw the red spot under my  tapestry.  I couldn't believe my eyes; whoever bought my work made me very happy.

The workshop was really  interesting and practical and I made 2 miniatures and started a third which isn't finished; maybe one day when I don't have any homework.

I got into an awful mess making the second one; luckily all the media were water soluable.
I had fun.

Tim's Tapestry FINISHED - nearly

I have finally finished weaving Tim's Tapestry after many months and all I have to do is take it off the loom and make the finishing touches, work for this weekend.   I have kept a record of the  time it has taken and so far have racked up 93 hours.  I used the ATW rule of thumb for costing tapestries and worked out that it would have cost $3, 650 (rounded down) as Tim is family, however it is payment for the loom. That,s motherly love for you; or stupidity. I have been very impressed with the solidity of the loom; it is nice to weave on and the warp maintains it's tension.  I didn't touch the tapestry for about 2 months  and hardly had to change the tension which is very different from my other looms. It is also useful that I can raise or lower the frame with the removable pieces that fit into the base. I wondered about outlining the leaves with embroidery but have so much work to do for my course that I decided against it as it would never be finished.

Thanks for the loom Tim., it works well.

Large Tapestry

After weeks of working on one design for my large tapestry then changing completely to another , I finally have a design that I am happy with.  It will be called Visiting Tim and it includes experiences and memories of our journey that are important to me.  I started using ochre powder which I had been given last Christmas. It took a while for me to find out how best to use the powder.  In Kununurra I asked an Aboriginal woman called Agnes at one of the galleries and she told me to mix it with PVA. However I think I should have used more PVA to get the right consistency.  Tim's partner Karen had organised for me to go to Warmun to work with the artists there but  sadly one of their community died so the visit was cancelled. So after weeks of playing with the ochre design and symbols, I started again. The second lot of designs, done in soft pastel, are very different, more colourful and they too, have taken time to jell.  The whole process  has taken me 5 weeks as I am not a natural drawer. Lucky for me my drawing teacher from RMIT had started to take classes and his help and advice have been invaluable.  He keeps pushing you to refine your design.

I will explain some of the symbols used. While in Darwin, we went to the Military Museum and experienced (I can't think of any other word to use) the Bombing of Darwin in WW2 light and sound show which was very moving; I was surprised at my reaction which was one of genuine patriotism. Hence the aeroplanes. The tree in the red shape comes from the grave of Albert Namajira which we saw by accident and didn't appear on any of the tours we had access to; it s almost as if he is forgotten.  Family featured largely in the trip so I included boab trees  which grow in families. and  finally, I did catch a barra; but sad to say it was about 20 cm long so it went back.