It's 2 months today since I left my day job in the bank to become a fulltime fibre artist/dyer/craftsperson - I'm not quite sure what to call myself. This coincided with my move to Oamaru on the east coast of the South Island of New Zealand. I had been living for the past 3 years at Lyttelton, about 3 hours' drive north. Why the move? In order to do what I wanted, I needed to be debt-free, and in Oamaru, I could have a freehold home ( a little modernised stone cottage around 100 years old, with fabulous sea and coast views) with the equity from my Lyttelton home. I've planted fruit trees and put in a vegetable garden and started to put roots down. I only knew one person here (another quilter), so it was a big move to make.
Oamaru is a small town of around 13,000 people, famous for its Oamaru stone (limestone), huge number of historic buildings (more than any other place in NZ), and the celebration of its Victorian heritage. It's part of Otago, which is well-know throughout NZ for its artists, artisans and craftspeople. Of course, I still have to run my dye business (Tillia Dyes - www.tillia.co.nz) as well as my quilting, to bring in the bread and butter income. So far, it's been working well, and I've been able to make use of the quiet period over Christmas to make a start on a set of art quilts that I'll be submitting to the "Southern Women, Southern Quilts" exhibition early next year. I'll post some photos of work in progress as I go along. In the meantime, here's me in costume as I appeared in the Victorian Festival in late November each year.
3 comments:
lovely quilts and fabrics, welcome to the webring! i love this photo :)
gosh you're just fantasmo
Shirley, you have an excellent eye for color. Don't you just love to do "Shibori" on silk scarves. I enjoyed the blog.......and wish you were closer. Hope all goes well with your life, it is much like what we did here in Wyoming with my desire to jump into the Fiber Arts totally. May it all work out well for you.
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