Beautiful Photos!

I did manage to ring Craft Victoria, only to discover that the relevant person is on leave till Thursday. They didn't sound too optimistic about prospects before Christmas, so I sent off an optimistic email saying to the best of my ability: 'but you'll love my stuff!' I did manage to take the photo, which is the best photo to date. I really love it!

I've also started my little one ball 'necklets', which have sold well on my stall and I haven't made any for quite some time.

Now, is the time, however, to get on with my 'Knitters' Block' sculpture for the Contemporary Sculpture Association's members exhibition, due in on the 20th November.

Have you noticed two names, I must be on a roll. All I need now is a really good name for the 'Woven Memory' offshoots....the beautiful photograph.....!

Disappointment and other stories

Disappointment ended my weekend with absolutely no sales from the 9"x5" market. I was really happy with the way the stall looked and the new items I had on, but, I guess a combination of a small crowd and ???? just meant no-one bought anything. I am at a bit of a loss to both explain and know what to do next. I have a few ideas about changing the display again....in particular, finding a way to display all the scarves without taking up table space???, but I just have to hope that after the election and just before Christmas people will spend in December.

The weekend actually started quite well with Saturday being the day that the Spinning Certificate students handed in all their work for assessment. Four of us spent a good, but not onerous part of the day doing this. It was just great and the work is fantastic and the exhibition of work in December will be stunning...and I haven't yet seen all the final pieces. It makes all the hard work worth while, and it is a real disappointment that it won't run next year.

I will show some of the new work that I managed to finish. I'm very happy with my new set of textile pictures. I did receive some very good responses to these and I think I'll just keep going with them, even though I haven't sold any yet.

My next mission is to try Craft Victoria! Wish me luck!

Judging at the Show

I spent yesterday morning judging the woolcraft for the Dandenong Show. I went out there last year and it was delightful and was so again. They managed to double the entries from the last show and the quality also improved with some really good entries, and a few really difficult sections.


The CWA put on morning tea and lunch. Homemade scones, fresh local asparagus, etc. etc. I also had a look around the main craft display, I always love the cake competitions.

It is really surprising that the show exists, being, as I see it, in suburbia. I am wrong, of course, it really borders the city, as do the Whittlesea and now Berwick shows. This years has been diminished a little, as there will be no horses because of the equine flu, but these are well worth go to see.


Judging is always a nerve-wrecking effort, as you really don't want to make a mistake or upset anyone. One of the ideas I've thought about is that I really want to give prizes. I think this encourages the people who have entered, and hopefully, encourages others to enter. So there always is a winner. I'd love to do Dandenong again.




Textile pictures


I am also trying to finish off as many articles for my stall on Sunday. As you can see the textile pictures are coming along. I'm quite happy with them, but they are quite different from the first trio.


I also managed to get my buttons from Buttonmania in the city. It's always a pleasure going in to her shop and browsing through buttons with their expert help. I paid too much for one button, but it is beautiful.


She's having a sale from 26/11/07 till 1/12/07. She sells her buttons on sale BY WEIGHT. Apparently the black go really quickly. If I can I'm going!


NOTES: Dandenong Show. 10th & 11th November, 2007. Showgrounds. Bennet St. Dandenong
http://www.dandyshow.com.au/
Buttonmania. 2/37 Swanston St. Melbourne Vic.

Melbourne Cup weekend at the beach

Images from Phillip Island

A lovely weekend was had by all. We travelled down in the rain, blessed rain! and then the rest of the weekend was fine. Phillip Island is like that, the only certainty is the wind.

We did finish the weekend by going to 'Chill Island', a concert on Churchill Island which headlined Clare Boeditch, Paul Kelly and Gotye. There were four support bands, we only missed one. There was Tin Pan Orange, who I liked, Tumburumba, who are a very energetic and fun drum band playing music such as the Samba, and a band called Hot Little Hands who hadn't got a CD yet and 16yr old boy thought that they were really good, which is actually a pretty good endorsement.

The concert didn't finish till after 9pm and it was FREEZING! Remember the wind I mentioned earlier. A very late drive back, but a lovely weekend.

Remember those moments when you go, 'is that where it is!". I had one of those, I thought I'd lost a bobbin, hardly surprising with the state of my workshop, but there it was, at the beach with some fabulous tops on it that I'd won at the Experimental Birthday party.

I've been wrapping it around a fine cotton core, after very, well nearly very carefully, splitting up the colours. I think it's a great success, though I did have problems deciding what to do when plying. I'm not, I think I'll just set it.

I also managed to finish all the wire work and clean up for the Woven Memories series. So a good weekend for textiles.

AND, we did have a flutter and a win on the Cup!

Experimental Spinning

Picker fluff!

Yesterday was my Experimental Spinning day which I was looking forward to. Being a very busy weekend for the guild, it was a very quiet meeting. We still had fun using the picker and I taught how to spin on a stick, which proved very popular. I have really come to appreciate the joys of spinning on a stick as it can produce a very softly spun, light and fluffy yarn. It is also very gentle and meditative.

I wanted to pick a dyed fleece that I've had for some time and am very happy with the result. The picker is turning out to be a very useful piece of equipment. Traditionally, a picker opens up fleece in preparation for carding. In particular, fleece that might not be in the best condition. However, we've discovered that it does open up fleece nicely, but also mixes up coloured fleece in a random, but still keeping staples discreet. I'm going to spin mine up as it comes and call it 'Picker yarn'. I don't know what I'm going to ply it with, but seeing as I have 200gms, by the time I get round to finishing it, I should have some idea.


Liquorice Allsorts scarf


AND, last night I finally managed to come up with an idea for my liquorice yarn. A combination of dropped stitches and yrn has created an open scarf, which should mean I have enough yarn, but it still relates back to liquorice allsorts, sort of!

We're off to the beach for the rest of the long weekend, finishing and spinning are the orders of the day.

HWSG Exhibition

After a magnificent lunch with friends at '312' in Drummond St. Carlton, and some running around organising my baby boy, I headed off to the HWSG exhibition entitled 'Home Furnishings - to dye for', which is being shown at Steps Gallery in Lygon st. (just down from Trades Hall). I had been looking forward to this as I knew that the work would be good. I came away, however, slightly disappointed and have been wondering exactly why.


There was some terrific work: I particularly liked a picture, I think it was 'Smoke', and a beautiful roll of Curtain Material, which should have had a title, a great teapot cover, and of course, works that I already knew about: particularly, 'Woman in a Mini Skirt' jewellery tree, and the series of 'Bottle carriers'/Hot water bottles both by friends. And thinking about these, I have come to a conclusion about why the overall disappointment.


Usually, the hanging of a guild exhibition is very good and enhances the works, and also gives a cohesiveness to the overall exhibition. I don't think this happened this time. Small works should have had more space in which to shine. These can be treated as works of art and given their own stands. The wall hangings were hung like paintings, each separately, but without any apparent connection to those around it, and why do we insist on putting cushions down low or on the floor! these are also worthy of either hanging or plinths.


Having seen two exhibitions in two days, each, almost at different ends of a spectrum, both suffered from being too practical in nature, losing too much of the art. For me, it suggests that I've moved on from both and I should start seriously thinking about an exhibition of my own.


Anyway, the work in both is well worth seeing, and I might try and catch them again before they finish.

A new graduate show!

Last night was the opening of this years RMIT Diploma of Art graduate exhibition. I have been making a point of going each year. Usually I've known alot of the students, however, there were only a couple that I knew. It is always good to catch up with staff, some of whom are fellow graduates.

It is an interesting exhibition this year with an emphasis on the practical, rather than the pure art works. This probably reflects the changing staff. There was also not a huge amount of weaving, though, the future looks good with apparently some very good weavers still studying.

I did know the winner of the Studio Textiles prize, Lynne Johnstone, who has also been a long part-time student. Her work on display all used rust and she created some beautiful fabrics. I think I saw the germination of this process having dropped into a class where they were experimenting with rust. It's a fascinating process, full of the unexpected.

My other favourite, for its' subversiveness was a young man who screen printed the usual guns, skulls, etc. and then got his mother to make them up into a quilt. An ordinary, simple block quilt!

Alot of beautiful machine knitting and lots of cushions! It's always good to go this show, as I can feel inspired. Some disconcerting news is that next year it will be a Diploma of Textiles, Fashion and Clothing, rather than a Diploma of Art. This may definitely put a more Industry based take on the work and sadly lose the purely artistic.

I did manage to finish knitting my silk scarves, and weave the last woven memory hanging. Lots of work to be done on my textile pictures. The knitting machine should run hot!