Out on a limbo...again

It's a little known fact that I have a bit of a thing for reptiles. Incidentally, New Zealand has practically NO nasty venomous biting stinging thingies. We have a native spider that can bite fatally but it's so rare, most people wouldn't see one in a lifetime. The Aussies have donated some red back spiders that bite but again, these aren't common. We have no snakes, enormous centipedes, scorpions or other nasties. Anyway...I digress...when I'm in limbo (happening a bit lately) I like to do some soothing hand work (I chew my nails too, but you don't want photos of that) and what I have is blocks of lizards and frogs:
They were made some time ago, all on the same background fabric that I can't find any more of. I'm making some more lizards at present (yes, I'm in limbo AGAIN) on Blended fabric, but I'm just not sure what to do with these guys. Any ideas?

As for the Current Situation......as you know, I have recently sold my house, bought another, left my job, found another, moved and all that. Yes, thank you, I'm settling in nicely in Rangiora, it's a very pleasant town. However, I now find myself unhappy with the job I have. I won't bore you with the details, but I don't do a job where I get paid just for turning up. Oh no. I live on commission which can be a hard, hard way to earn an income, but when all goes well, it 's also a good one.

This week, I've been offered the opportunity to buy my own financial services business, MINE ALL MINE, something I had never considered before as I thought it was beyond my means. I have already decided to proceed, but first, I need finance, and quite a bit of it (by my standards). This is what I'm waiting to hear about, and why I'm chewing my nails. But that's not all I'm doing.....inspired by the latest Quilting Arts magazine, I've made (but not quite completed) this book wrap out of rust dyed fabric. Ahhhh......if only someone would pay me to do this sort of thing all day!

Spring in the garden

I know that for many of my readers, it's turning colder and going into wintertime. Here we're revelling in spring, which is my favourite time of year. I love growing stuff, so really enjoy planting and then watching things flourish and flower.
So to brighten up your fall days, here's some mid-spring flowers. I'm not sure what the tree below is, but the leaves have only just emerged a week or so ago, and they are absolutely beautiful - fresh and lime green. This tree is in the front corner of my garden, beside the gate.

Disine inspiration

Yes, I CAN spell! The heading is intended to be a play on "divine" but looks very strange due to the vagaries of the English language. . I quite often succumb to the charms of Amazon.com, and my latest enchantment involved these 2 books on design and...err...mark-making. Books for inspiration, anyway...seeing as we find it in all sorts of places, and it's often triggered by something completely different from what we actually make.

And for the pet lovers.....backlit poodles. All together now.......awwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

Teaching Time

On Friday, I went down to Waimate (3 hours' drive south) where I was to teach a class on Reversible Quilts. I chose these very simple designs because it's a technique class, rather than a pattern or design class. I stayed Friday night with Rhonda, the club president, in their lovely new house on a dairy farm just out of town. We talked about quilting (what else?) and Rhonda was delighted to get ideas from me, though I really didn't think I contributed all that much. The Waimate club is very traditional, mainly older ladies and not a lot of experience, so I think it was just having someone with different ways of doing things that was helpful to her. I gave her some of my Blended fabric as a thank-you, which will work in well as she wants to make a set of 4 appliqué landscapes representing their lovely view over the 4 seasons, and the Blended fabric is very good for landscapes.
The class members seemed to enjoy themselves, especially once they understood how to do this technique - it can be used in many ways provided you're using the same sized blocks or strips on each side. I only had 2 blocks joined together when I went down, rather than the whole quilt as I'd intended, but this didn't matter as I worked alongside the class. Above is the first row on each side - you'll see that I've just quilted slightly inside the cat shape. This is the only quilting that I'll do for this. I have the second row nearly ready, and then I'll sash between the rows. The batik cats look good, especially on the quite plain hand dyed backgrounds. The other side is all browns and raspberry-type reds and pinks.

More photos as I go!

Releasing my wild side

I saw this on DebR's blog and just had to go make my own Wild Self. Click here to go to New York Zoos wild self builder. Like Deb, I didn't fancy not having human arms and legs, though I'm also quite happy to have animal ...err...appendages. Let me know if you've made one of yourself, so I can come and see.

I'm off today to Waimate, about 3 hours' drive south of here, to teach a class on making reversible quilts. Of course, I had intended to have a completed sample quilt to take with me, but will be assembling mine along with the class as I just haven't managed to get furtehr along than quilting the first few blocks. I'll post photos when I get home.

Pay It Forward

I learned about the PIF exchange on Annica's blog Fabulous threads. I thought it sounded like a great idea and decided to join.

This is how it works:
"I will send a handmade gift to the first 3 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog."

So, join the PIF exchange and leave a comment!

Out with the old....

These are some of the pieces of old hand -dyed fabric that I'm selling off. These are crackle dyed fat quarters, made in the usual low water immersion method of scrunching the fabric into a bag or tray and pouring dye solution over. See the spotty one in the middle of the large stack? I was experimenting with spraying bleach on the fabric, using a pump spray device intended for use in the kitchen. I seldom make this kind of fabric any more, as everyone else is doing it. What I do now is this:
Ahhhhhhhhhh......I love this Blended fabric!

Tagged

I have been tagged by Sally from Feather on a Wire blog to do this meme. I don't usually do these, but this is a kinda fun one - it's 7 little known facts about me. So here goes!

1. I spent about a year living in the Cook Islands and Western Samoa as a baby (don't remember any of it) but haven't been anywhere overseas since then.

2. I vividly remember the very first time I ever put my head under water. Funnily enough it was here in Christchurch at a place called Coe's Ford (not many swimming pools around back then).

3. I have chewed my nails on and off ever since I started school.

4. I started work at the tender age of 16 years and 2 months.

5. I didn't learn to drive until I was 32.

6. I have additional blind spots at the back of my right eye due to having measles as a child.

7. I used to be a commercial orchid grower when I was married (plants, not flowers). I still grow some orchids.

I'm not going to tag anyone, but if you'd like to join in and use this on your own blog, let me know!

Red Carbon Footprint

I am not totally up with all this carbon footprint stuff...however, I DO know that mine will be red in future. Yes, I've traded in the wagon (which I grew quite fond of) for a VW Golf hatchback. And it comes with a silly number plate - though "EEK" would have been even more fun. Now that we have 3 letters on our number plates, these make actual words so the powers that be take out all the potentially rude ones. Pity. I consider "DCK" to be an unfortunate combination, so I'm glad I don't have that one.

Cruel and unnatural

"Koru" - reverse applique, marbled and hand dyed fabric, original design.
Not this quilt, I hasten to add, but Life. With a capital "L". It's all work work work at present. This week, I've been training for my new job - not because I've gone to a different occupation, but because the company I'm now working for does things in a completely different way from how I've done it before. I won't bore you with the details, as it's not creative stuff, but suffice to say that my time and energy has all been sucked out into this, and there has been nothing left over for creativity. OK, I'm knitting a cardigan at present, and I'm planting up the garden, but that's as creative as I'm getting.

And that's what is cruel and unnatural. I am a morning person, so do not do creative stuff at night. That leaves me only with the weekends, and there are many other things demanding my time then. Sigh.

Because I've been such a slack blogger (forgive me, readers, if I haven't been visiting you), there isn't much to show you. Once again I offer you some spring flowers from out on my deck. These are tulips and irises.

Lucky me!

I found a parcel in my mailbox yesterday which at first I thought was an early birthday present (yes, I am about to become a year older). However, on closer inspection, the South African stamps alerted me to the fact that this was, in fact, the painting I'd won on Suzi-k's blog. Thanks, Suzi! It's lovely.
And just to show that I still get to see the sunrise here (just not as dramatically), here's one I prepared earlier.

When Real Life gets in the way...

Unfortunately, the need to earn a living and pay the !@#$%^&*!!!! mortgage is taking precedence over creativity at present. Such is life.

In the meantime, here's a shot of the full moon at around 6am this morning. Doesn't that make you glad to be alive?

Let there be light

Because the former master bedroom is now my studio/office ( and a complete mess that I'm far too embarrassed to show anyone), I have made the downstairs bedroom the main one. It has its own bathroom, which is a plus, and means that guests have their bedrooms and own bathroom upstairs. I bought a free-standing wardrobe as the room had none, and yesterday, I had a skylight installed. The room is at the back of the house and the existing windows face south (that's the undesirable way, for northern hemisphere readers) so it didn't get any sun.

Now the cats have sun in the afternoons, and here they are enjoying it. The down side is that it lets a considerable amount of light into the room at night, and I found it quite hard to sleep last night. If I can't get used to it, I may have to make a little curtain for it at night. Maybe even tasteful surface designed ones!

After 4 weeks here, I'm really enjoying Rangiora. I still don't have a day job but I'm close to sorting that. In the meantime, I'm concentrating on my little business Tillia Dyes to bring in a few dollars to keep me afloat.

Using up leftovers

That sounds like a cooking class! I had to dye some Blended fabric yesterday for an order, and had leftover dyes. I tend to not leave dye sitting around in jars as I never remember later what colours are there, so I decided to use up what was left. I started with a metre of PDF fabric and then thought "why waste good unused fabric here, when I could overdye some vile stuff in my stash?". Not my OWN vile stuff, you understand, but fabric I inherited when I bought the business. So here's the results - above is a watercolour piece that was on the undyed fabric.
The next piece was a plain allover turquoise fabric that had faded along the foldlines and so was unsaleable.
These last two were originally a light blue that had also faded along the foldlines (the fabric was folded in four and wrapped on little "bolts" of cardboard.
Unfortunately, it's truly hard to photograph dyed fabric well. This piece is lovely. The pinks are really interesting - there was no pink or red dye, so I assume this came from the Lilac.

Not all my own work. Unfortunately.

Blogger moves in mysterious ways. Trying to upload these images is a constant struggle as to exactly where they might appear. And, of course, the ACTUAL placement of the photos of the blog is not the same as I see on the draft.
As for text, it's anyone's guess where THAT will end up when you're typing in around photos. Anyway, for those folks who are going into the shorter days of autumn (fall for the American readers), here's some photos of our New Zealand spring to brighten your day. If the photos stay put, I'm reading clockwise from top left: my dwarf peach tree that has made 2 shifts (or maybe 3) with me - it's underplanted with with grape hyacinths; a potted blueberry in bloom; lovely white tulips; hoop petticoat daffodils in the rock garden; and my magnolia stellata that travelled from Oamaru with me (yes, A-frames are strange as they have spouting at ground level).

As usual, click on the photos to get a larger view.

Several flokati rugs

Hard to tell where the rug ends, and the poodles start! In a couple of weeks, they will be clipped short and look quite naked. I love them long and shaggy, though they tend to get their fur hanging into their mouths, which isn't so good. They're so lovely and soft to cuddle up with.

After they've been clipped closely, they race all over the place like spring lambs. I guess it feels good to get that fur coat off! Their skin feels like velvet, and their faces look dark as they have black skin under their muzzles, though it's pink elsewhere.

This week, I'm concentrating on sending out a customer newsletter in order to bring in some money as I haven't yet got a job. There's a huge amount of administative work to do in updating customer records, writing the newsletters (2 different ones) and then emailing them out in lots of little batches so it doesn't get caught in spam filters.

I've got all the emailed newsletters done; now I need to copy the newsletter and send by snail mail to those who either don't have the internet or whose email addresses have changed.
This is what I did with the hellebore prints. I'm happy with how I painted them, but underwhelmed by this arrangement of blocks. I'm going to find some suitable background fabric and lay them out in a more spread-out fashion.

Creative Block (and how to pretend it isn't there)

I am suffering from a serious dose of creative block. Also from Can'tBeBotheredDoingStuffitis, but let's not go there. It's not that I don't have a thousand wonderful ideas, it's more than I just can't seem to be able to translate them into reality at present, leaving me frustrated and dissatisfied.

Oh well, you may think, if that's ALL she has to worry about .....no, it's not. I'm unemployed, on my own, with a mortgage and critters to support, shortly to turn a year older so with more sags and wrinkles than I had last year.......have you had enough yet?

While trying to find things in my office/studio storeroom (formerly the walk-in wardrobe, and a very unusual shape it is owing to the A-frame, even has a window), I've come across some earlier work that has never been completed.

Sometimes you look critically at your work (often, in my case) and think "this isn't worth finishing". However, some of it is ok. Here's "Hibiscus Bars" (I typed Bras to start with!) which is quilted with a hibiscus flower design (click for a larger image). It looks better in real life than in the photo, colours are a bit strange here.


This one is called "Radiance" and is just a top at this stage. It's made with a painted background (diagonal stripes) appliqued with positive and negatives sun-shaped cutouts. I started to do cutouts (large and small) when I broke my ankle, as I couldn't do any dyeing so branched into painting instead. This piece is very striking, but I haven't had any inspiration as to how to quilt it yet.

Any ideas?

More fun than working

What a pity someone doesn't pay me to do this! I am enjoying being unemployed, apart from the fact that I have no income.

Today I've been playing with digital images in Photoshop, following on from my dabbling yesterday. Naturally, I haven't done much else. I scanned a Hellebore (winter rose) flower and then set about reproducing it in various ways. My colour cartridge was running out of ink but I wasn't concerned about that, as I intend to paint and stitch over the images. Then I think I'll assemble them into a wallhanging of some kind.

I haven't done anything like this before and it's very exciting. It opens up a whole new world of possibilities for me - of course, other fiber artists have been doing this for years, but I'm a late bloomer y'know. Better late than never!

No, honestly, I'm writing a customer newsletter...

...which I need to do to bring in a few dollars as I'm currently unemployed. However, here's a shot of the table in my office/studio, where you can see (click image for larger version) that I've been altering images in Photoshop and printing them out. Unfortunately I have only a basic knowledge of PS so can't produce the radically re- coloured images yet that I really want to.

Because of the size limitations when using a printer, I'm thinking of working on images with paint and thread, and then attaching them to stretched canvas blocks such as painters use.

I saw the artworks of Charlotte Ziebarth in Quilting Arts mag, and just LOVE her stuff, especially "Return of the Robins". Naturally I don't have any wonderful photos, so am just playing with what I have. This is what I mean by re-colouring images, and I just don't know how to do it, so if you do, please let me know!

If you're a fiber artist or art quilter reading this, why not join the new FiberArts/Mixed Media group? It's so inspiring to have a bunch of like-minded people in the same place, and I'm loving it.

A tribute to Anita Roddick

There are few women that I consider inspirational, but Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop, was one of those few.

Not only did she make great cruelty-free beauty products (that I buy), but she was way ahead of her time in recycling, supporting causes and generally actively doing her bit to make this world a better place.

She wasn't afraid to take a path that others weren't taking, and not just be "one of the crowd". We need more people like her. She will be missed.

The Peach Room and the Turquoise Room

These are my spare rooms which are upstairs. Should any of you overseas bloggers visit New Zealand, you are welcome to come stay with me if you're going to be in Christchurch.

I sleep in the Yellow Room downstairs, but you can't see that until I get the skylight installed and a wardrobe built.

People who know my previous houses (which were one-and- a -half-storey houses, not A-frames) have commented on how similar this house is. I guess I have a thing for pointy roofs and exposed beams.

I'm leading up to doing something new and creative, but what with Sorting The Place Out and Having To Get A Job in order to pay the mortgage, I haven't actually DONE anything yet. And did I mention I haven't found all my stuff yet either?

I went to a local art show yesterday, and while my art appreciation is the "I don't know nuffing about art but I know what I like" kind, I was interested in how a few of the paintings were very similar to art quilts, just a different background medium. Interesting too, to see what kinds of paintings I'm drawn to.

And lastly, thanks to all you lovely bloggers and blog readers who make this whole thing worthwhile. With the computer now upstairs, I'm still not blogging as much as I used to, but hope when I've got the studio part of the Office/Studio in action, I'll be up here more.

The new me

I can't work out how to change the photo on my profile, so I'm posting it here instead.

Moved and back online

Moving is hell. But it's all over now and I'm pretty much settled into the new house. I have only got connected to the net this morning so haven't any photos of the office/studio as I haven't sorted it properly yet, due to lack of aforementioned broadband.

However, I'm always ready with the camera, so here's a photo of the snow-capped mountains I can now see. It was -4 degrees Celsius this morning, so I'm glad I made buying firewood a priority.


















And here's part of my new living room - once you get a few quilts up on the walls and plants here and there, it looks like you've been there for years.

I've also had a bit of a makeover - at least, my hair has, so I'll change my profile photo once I can get a respectable shot of myself.

Floor hazards, a semi-sock and some thanks

Here's another shot of Frodo and Cressy doing their "we are family" thing by lying in a row on the floor. I've had 2 dogs at a time before, but unrelated ones, never 2 from the same litter. Clearly, the fact that they were together in the womb has a strong influencing factor. It never fails to amuse me how they stick together.

And talking of pairs - here's my sock. This time, I intend to knit the other one as well! This is Opal's self-striping yarn. Usually I don't much like their colour schemes, but I found this one in purple shades which is more to my liking.

And thanks to all you lovely bloggers who have wished me well! Love you all!

The New House

Moving Day is getting close, so I just had to share a photo of my new house with you.

The upstairs room with the balcony is going to be my workroom and studio and office.

Apart from knitting myself some socks and hand stitching a block stamped piece of fabric, nothing much is happening on the creative front - it's all practical stuff at present. The dyes are about to be packed into boxes for mvoing - I'm doing all the packing of these plus my fabric etc, so that I know where things are. Well, as much as that's possible anyway!

Finally....

...my house sale has been confirmed, and also my purchase of the new house in Rangiora just out of Christchurch. Click HERE for more information on the area.

While I'm sad to be leaving here, I'm looking forward to my new house which is an A-frame, and bigger than this one. On the down side, I have to have a mortgage (bummer!) so will need to work fulltime for a few years to repay this.

Keeping the theme of work on the walls here, this is a quilted and woven (as in strips of fabric) cloak I made for the Hoffman Challenge (the New Zealand version) some years ago. It is trimmed with feathers and has a cord and bead fastening.

Still holding my breath

...and being a Bad Blogger. I will have no news until late tomorrow about my house sale, and everything hinges on that. So my apologies for the silence and lack of blogging and blog reading.

Thanks to all those who have wished me well. There just seem to be so many things to think about, and my creativity is at rock bottom, what with most of my stuff being packed away.

However, another quilt still hanging at home is this New York Beauty variation, which I have never named. This was from another Donna Ward class. I decided to work outside my comfort zone of colours, and chose Japanese fabrics in browns and indigos (click on the photo for a larger view).

Much as I love the effect of this pattern, I discovered I really disliked the fussiness of paper piecing, being much more of a "random rotary-cutting gal". Consequently it took an entire year to finish this small wall hanging, which I ended up simplifying as I couldn't face all those fiddly points.

In Limbo

Currently I am in that limbo state where I've sold my house and bought another, but neither contract in yet unconditional, I have no control over what is happening, and I have to wait another week or so before I know where I am. I find this very frustrating.

I've taken most of my quilts down off the walls, but this one, Pacifica, is one of the few that remains. I made this in a class by Donna Ward at Christchurch Symposium several years ago. The top and bottom panels were Donna's designs, but I drew the "koru" style (fern frond) applique for the centre panels. These also remind me of the geysers in Rotorua where I lived for 28 years before moving to the South Island.

Keep your fingers (and toes) crossed for me that my sale and purchase go ahead as planned. In the new house, I'll have a separate room to store my dyes and fabric in, as well as a nice big room for a workroom/office/studio. It's upstairs, faces north (the good way here in NZ) has sliding doors onto a little balcony with snow-capped mountain views, and the chimney passes through the room as well, keeping it warm. Currently it's the master bedroom - but why waste all that on a room you only sleep in?

Puppy Love

Ok they're not exactly puppies any more, but they'll always be that to me.

Standard poodles are very loving dogs, and like nothing better than to drape themselves over you (and each other). This can be disconcerting for other people, even those used to dogs who have had different breeds that don't behave this way. As poodles have a coat that's more like wool rather than fur, they don't shed, and they feel lovely and soft and warm. I leave their coats to grow long over winter. When they get clipped closely in spring, their skin feels like velvet.

Manu Waiata

This quilt is called "Manu Waiata" - Maori for songbird. I made this for a competition entitled "Birds of a Feather), for which it was accepted for exhibition.

The background is raw edged woven strips, with the birds appliqued from a mix of Maori design fabric and hand dyed fabric stamped with gold. Click on the image for a closer look.

I chose the bird shape as it has an ancient feel to it, like a pterodactyl.