November: Windows on Moreton deadline

So we didn’t get our windows finished….. some did….. Jan, Di, Ryl, and Jill….  the rest of us are behind the post still…. but at least we have ALL STARTED!

The state of the WoM challenge to date (sorry, I don’t have a photo of Di’s as yet ):

Jill

Ryl

Helen – wip

Sue – detail – wip

Brenda – wip

Brenda detail

Donna – wip

Alison wip

Kim

A detail of Jan’s windows

 

Show and Tell was mainly our WoM pieces, and what we were mostly working on was also those same pieces…..  with the exception of Alison  who had begun a new shibori piece, Kim who was piecing hexagons 🙄  (Textile art?) Jan working on her entry for the Moreton Bay Region exhibition “Fresh eyes” , Jill who was working on a lovely cross stitch work for her hubby…. and Donna 🗣 😉

New work:

Jill’s cross stitch

Ryl brought some shells she had made at home following Sue’s mini demo last month

Alison’s new shibori piece in progress

Detail: A sneak peek at Jan’s 17 degrees offering! This girl is a high achiever! wow!

Ryl participated in Sue’s “Life Amongst the Lilies” workshop – this is her finished piece! Well done Ryl!

Jan’s newest work, for the Moreton Bay Region “Fresh eyes” exhibition

October 2018

Great meeting at Sandgate, must remember to get a photo of the venue to show you where we are meeting these days.

As Kim mentioned in the newsletter we had quite an extensive show and tell.

Helen received a lovely birthday card made by Alison

Rly brought along this piece awaiting the fabric shells

Helen made this into a birthday card that Jill received, and she loved it so much she had it framed

Sue received this birthday card made by Jan

Kym showed her WOM piece, a map of the region

This is a detail shot of Alison’s COOTs piece

Detail shot of Jill’s WOM piece

Then the work everyone was doing: Sue demonstrated her fabric shells to three members. Ryl pursued making a few, but had a few troubles with her machine.

Finished shells detail of class sampler

Some of the shell making parephenalia

Sue having forgotten her camera (Yes, true, sadly). Add to this some weird stuff going down with her phone-  amongst other things to do with the mute button, the phone camera did some weird stuff and at one point got stuck on taking photos. (I had to delete 150 + photos from my photostream! ARRRGh. Those dead photos bumped a lot of real ones out…. ho hum….. I don’t suppose it matters…. might need a new phone in the very near future……. )

Miraculously though, there were a few more pics that did work….

 

Detail of Sue’s variegated fairy wren

Jill was adding more quilting to her WOM piece.

breinda working on her WOM

Helen persevering with her boro slow stitching

Kim finally at the binding stage of her tree skirt

Ryl preparing fabric to make shells

No prizes for guessing who this work belongs to…

Di working on her next embroidered box

 
Helen made her usual delish morning tea – ginger kisses extraordinaire and her specialty gluten free chocolate cake – yuumm!!

We all have a deadline to meet at our November meeting… for some of us, that isn’t going to happen because life occasionally gets in the way, and we can’t do everything all of the time! But I am sure we can play catchup over the next few months…

Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. (Lao Tse)

August 2018

August meeting day, you would have found us at a new venue! thanks to the awesome efforts of Jan, who arranged it all, with some input from Brenda as well, we will be meeting at St Margaret’s Ministry Centre in Sandgate for the next six months, and hopefully continuing on after that indefinitely… a pleasant old building with verandah and all conveniences.

Brenda organised a bit of mind mapping that we all found useful and interesting – Kim might give a few more details in the newsletter. We did the usual show and tell, Secret Santas, and checked in on progress on “Windows” and 17th Degree.

Without further ado, photos

Show and Tell:

Life Amongst the Lilies 2 by Sue

Life Amongst the Lilies 3

Jan’s mystical houses for her grandson

This by Jan for her grandson Charlie

Kim finsihed her first Bellbirds piece after all these years!

Kim has made this tea towel into an attractive quilted wall hanging

Kim’s WeatheRed offering

Alison has been experimenting with cyanotype printing again, this leaf donated to her by Brenda last month or so

Another fabulous piece by Alison

Donna showed this felted piece that she is working on

Ryl’s Moreton Bay Windows

Ryl’s felted piece, a work in progress, destined to be a goldfish bowl representation

Ryl is making this for one of her close friends, another work in progress.

 

What we were working on:

More houses for another grandchild, by Jan

Ryl has been redecorating one of the bedrooms at her home

Di worked on making more fabric beads

Samples of painted fabric destined for the beadmaking process

Everyone gathered around to admire Brenda’s rather exciting Moreton Bay Windows piece.

Sue is working on a couple of magical creatures…

July jumble

We were at the Pine Rivers Art Gallery this month, having had a change of venue for our meetings. Whilst it is a lovely gallery, it doesn’t really suit our purpose, so we are still looking at alternative arrangements.

The photos are a dismal failure this month, I am SO disappointed, as we had a nice cosy group around the table at the back of the Art Gallery, and were joined by ring-in Clay artist Joanne Braddy, who was making necklaces, and our ex member Judith also called in to visit and show us her latest felted work, which she is hand stitching  whilst travelling with Gary and visiting friends up here. We missed Di and Jan who are both away on holidays, lucky people! We didn’t have a great deal of show and tell, everyone was working on various items, Sue and Kim have both conincidentally chosen to do trees for their competition pieces (WeatheRED) – Kim depicting a tree in Africa and Sue one on the local red cliffs at Scarborough…. more later! Great minds think alike! of course. The deadline is fast approaching but I am sure we can pull it off in time! …. For show and tell we had Judith’s very colourful felted piece, with lots of embroidery on it, and Sue’s almost completed commission piece. People were working on various projects, see the photos below for what they’re worth, sorry they are so poor:

Judith showed her felted piece

The cosy corner

Brenda working on a magazine project for Quilters Companion

Kim doing some destressing

Jill working on a Commission

Ryl making a “Mummy” bag

Lovely to catch up with Judith again!

Kim’s tree background

Sue’s tree background….

Sue’s Commission piece, “Heartwood”

 

 

Industrious June

People were mostly stitching –  four of the group working on their Windows on Moreton pieces, Helen continuing her boro piece, Brenda was catching up with 2Sew packages to be posted out, Donna and I had to leave early so were not working on anything…. Kim took the minutes, so see your newsletter for more information!

In the news: We have a change of venue for our meetings, as the Cultural Centre are insisting on us gaining registration as a group to continue with the current booking price,  or pay as casuals for the room which is more than double the cost… we, being a group of aging ladies, don’t feel that we want or need to become incorporated, so we are opting out of the Redcliffe Cultural Centre in the future. It is a shame, as it was so pleasant , affordable, and convenient for us. That was the bad news.

Celebrating this month: Brenda ! The good news is that Brenda has had her black and white piece accepted into the World Quilt Competition! Congratulations Brenda, very exciting! Not only that, but she has had two of her fish pieces accepted into Australia Wide 6 (Ozquilt Network members).  Not only that but she also has a great article in the latest issue of Down Under Textiles magazine about seeking permission to make art quilts based on other photographers’ work. Our most successful member currently!

Here are the photos: what everyone was working on

Our last day in the Terry Walker Room

Jill’s Moreton Bay region piece is shaping up

Jan, ever prolific, is working on two wall quilts for her Grandsons

Ryl had her windows in the machine

Helen’s Boro

I managed an advertising shot for Alison’s project…. oops

Show and Tell:

Ryl’s windows looking good

Brenda’s magazine article in Down Under Textiles

Jan’s piece for grandson Charlie

Jan’s windows with gloss added to the crabs

Sue brought in two of her newer parrot pieces which she sold but borrowed back last week

Maytime

Another month another meeting, not too sure where the time goes, but go it does! So… we had almost a full cohort today, Kim is still away gallivanting her way around Europe lucky thing! In the meantime we were all fruitfully employed stitching and chatting and enjoying our morning tea and the camaraderie of the group.

Jill had a very busy time last month, but has still managed some shibori, some monoprinting, and some stamping as well as a quilt almost finished for the Invictus Games coming up in Sydney in October.

Other show and tell included Ryl’s exploration of water techniques, Jan’s wonderful Grand Canyon (I didn’t get a photo of it!!!) and her almost finished Windows on Moreton Bay piece, Alison’s lovely shibori canvas to be donated to 2QAQ fundraiser. Sue had her 100 days project sketchbook to show, and was working on a test sample for a commission. Donna showed her latest fiery piece of felting that she was also working on, and which looks destined to become part of her “Windows” piece.

 

Herewith then, the Show and Tell photos:

Jill’s quilt for Invictus

Ryl’s watery pieces

Alison’s beautiful shibori dyed piece

Jill experimented with shibori

MOre of Jill’s shibori achievements

Another detail of Jan’s windows, loving those soldiers…

A detail of Jan’s windows

Jill also brought some mono prints she had made on a printing roller press

Jill’s stamped image which she coloured with inktense pencils

Donna’s bush fire

Plus  a few shots of what we were working on….. Alison was preparing another shibori piece but the photo was a bit washed out…

Brenda starting a new fish macro view

Helen’s boro is progressing

Di is working on her bottle tree ( a sneak peek at her Moreton Bay windows…

Sue’s abstract

Ryl working on her next water piece

 

April Activities

Leaf printing! What fun! Alison was so kind to demonstrate to us how she does this  – then a number of us went off with our leaves and paints and rollers to try it out! See a slide show of the demo on Youtube .

We had lots of exciting things to talk about during the “Meeting” and Show and Tell! AQC classes that Brenda went to in Melbourne recently, and our 2018 challenge, as well as the plans for an international challenge with Central Otago textile group COOTS (Central Otago Outside The Square) – being part of this will be so much fun! Since both groups have been in the throes of exhibition recently, we are planning ahead for later in 2019 to kick off the exhibition. Thanks to Brenda and Wendy (COOTS) for initiating and liasing!

I for one left the meeting feeling renewed and excited about the upcoming projects – it is so invigorating to learn something new, and to have fun together painting, stitching and exploring new ideas.

The photos:

Brenda’s map practise piece of the Peninsula

Brenda’s work in progress from her class with Valerie Goodwin

Pleasure in Poppies by Di Flint.

Needle Felting by Ryl. She was also hand stitiching on this during the day after doing some leaf printing.

Ryl’s antique silver sugarbowl pincushion, and cotton reel ornament, gifted to her by a very clever friend.

Another of Ryl’s felted pieces, a work in progress

Inktense and quilting by Ryl

Ryl’s first “Windows on Moreton” Challenge piece

Brenda’s background piece from a class with Gloria Loughman, which is to be her Windows on Moreton challenge

Alison was hand stitching on a shibori banksia

Di at work with a glorious pot pourri of yarns

Transforming yarn into luscious vibrant fibre art

Jan working on her “Windows on Moreton” windows!

the Gayundah wreck by Jan

Leaf prints, Ryl

Leaf prints by Jan

Sue’s fern print, thanks to Helen for providing the foliage!

Helen did quite a few leaf prints, and then took a well earned quiet moment leafiing through some inspirational magazines

Sue’s show and tell. 8″ square.

 

Open Day 20 March 2018

What a highly successful day! It was busy! We received so many compliments on our achievements, and Helen’s expression on being informed that her “bedsheet Challenge” piece had been sold was classic! Alison was doing a roaring trade with her glorious cyanotype pieces, and Kim had a number of Bargains on her table… I caught up with an old friend I hadn’t seen for years, which was fabulous. For those I didn’t get a chance to speak with, please accept my apologies! It was lovely to have Kate amongst us again, but so busy there was barely time to speak . Then all too soon, it was all over. The food was spectacular and plenty left over! Donna was a trooper, being first inside the door and with the most colourful table, she drew the crowd, and seemed to be surrounded by interested ladies  much of the time I had a chance to look her way. Brenda was doing a fine job of demonstrating her inktense pencils and allowing ladies to have a go! I was not so organised, just managed a few rows of stitching by machine and the rest was talking! Ryl’s table was surrounded by people too, and Jill eventually managed to squeeze in a cup of tea at a late stage! .Helen had plenty of things on display, her table had oodles of things for people to look at! . Jan and Kate along with Di were on the far side of the room  with a constant stream of visitors surrounding them and see what they were up to. I didn’t seem to see much of Kate who was behind one of those pesky columns holding up the level above….

Here is a meagre offering of photos I did manage to take…

Getting set up

Helen learns of her sale!

Checking out the shibori

Jan and Kate inspect the bedsheet challenge

Is Di in love with Alison’s shibori?

A steady stream of visitors

Jill gets her tea at last

..from TAG…

Kate Ozsko the editor of Down Under Textiles chats with Brenda

18/02/27 Hanging Day

What we were up to yesterday! Hanging FROM RAW BEGINNINGS!

The Brisbane City Scape goes up on the wall

Everyone found something useful to do

Most of the work was done before the camera came out

Pinning on labels was the finishing touch

Tying up wires was another job to be done

Di’s bedsheet challenge flanked by those of Donna at left and Kay at right.

Ryl’s, Brenda’s, Jill’s and Donna’s work looking good on the wall

then the labels needed straightening

Kim might look like she’s doing nothing, but she spent at least 2 hours with Ryl untangling an incredible mess of wires

More sorting out of wires

Dynamic directions looking about as good as we could manage such diversity

 

18/02 Gathering

FROM RAW BEGINNINGS is our next exhibition

Opening on 28th February – one week away! Less than that , in fact. This exhibition is showcasing some of our recent and not so recent yearly challenges that the group participates in as a way to explore new techniques, perfect others, and generally explore the realm of textile art. We either love them or hate them, but they always extend us and we finish each with a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction with a job done, richer for the experience and all gaining insights and inspiration from one another’s interpretations of the theme or topic. Feel free to come along and visit as many times as you wish, and particularly if you visit on our OPEN DAY 20th MARCH, you will be able to talk to and pick the brains of the artists!

Meeting Day activities

We were all helping Di to sew velcro on to the various pieces of the Brisbane City Scape in order to attach them to the fantastic light hinged plywood base made by Di’s husband Steve, no small favour! Thank you Steve! Once completed, they looked great in place, but I will provide a photo once it is hanging in the exhibition.

Everyone was pretty much finished their Bedsheet Challenge just a few of the girls had some finishing touches to complete. I have a few photos in the show and tell album below as well as what new things some of us were doing. A couple of us seemed to be between projects, well me, anyway. Just doodling on my ipad, playing with design ideas. Jan was working on her next landscape, and is already moving on to her next challenge, can’t wait to start, clearly!  The rest of us lag behind. We are still finalising this one I think…. we have a topic and a size, just the nature of the challenge itself to be determined after a little more brainstorming and discussion.

Brenda was working on her SECOND Bedsheet challenge piece

Kim was playing with watercolours

Helen was putting in bedsheet challenge finishing touchers

Di got to work on her next embroidered box

Jan is already working on another landscape, this time of the Grand Canyon!!

Show and Tell

Brenda’s original bedsheet challenge has grown into something different, and is a semifinalist in the AQC Challenge, Borders and Bridges – congratulations!

Alison had an experimental felting day with Donna as mentor – those are to be standing stones, can’t wait to see the finished product

Alison is never idle! These are some fabulous cyanotype prints she has been playing with

After Alison’s recent trip to Japan where she got to try a few new shibori techniques under the tutelage of the Japanese masters, she is coming up with this amazing work! These are cotton! We are all in awe!

Another of Alison’s incredibly defined shibori cotton.

Ryl’s bedsheet challenge, painted and appliqued

Detail from Ryl’s piece.

Detail of Jill’s Dynamic Directions challenge, this is intriguing for it’s use of mixed media! Worth a visit to the show to see the whole piece!

A detail of Jill’s Bed sheet challenge

A detail of Kay’s bedsheet challenge, tilted “Glow”

Detail of Helen’s bedsheet challenge.

Sue showed her latest Lake Kurwongbah piece, a work in progress.

Sue’s bedsheet challenge, titled “Beltane”

Jan finished her “Old Man of Hoy”

Jan also showed her latest work, this wonderful dinghy, another Scottish vista. Love the colours!

 

You can see Jan’s two works, “Old Man of Hoy” and “Clinker Dinghy by the Scapa Flow” at Bayside Gallery but you will need to visit in person as there are no images of Jan’s work on the website as yet!

Have fun!