I Dream of a World..........

I popped down to Sydney on the weekend for the opening of this powerful exhibit by my friend and amazing artist Mo.  I only started following Mo in January 20I7, after her vision for this artwork was already launched, so I'd had no idea where it all began. I read back through Mo's blog posts today because having seen the culmination at the opening, I wanted to to put it into some sort of context.

It seems to have begun with a number of to and fro conversations back in 2016 on a blog post about Rebecca Solnik's book Hope in the Dark where Mo made a comment about "looking after our beautiful broken world with kindness "  This phrase pops up a few times in subsequent posts, and then the gift of an old wedding dress, Mo's growing concern for our broken world, and a sign on a building in Newtown NSW, where she lives, birthed the idea for a powerful and important message of hope and healing. Mo decided to cut the wedding dress into pieces, and put the call out for anyone interested to put their hands up to make a pennant, making their mark in some way with their hopes and dreams to heal our world. For those, like me, who were a bit slow putting their hand up, Mo called for small talismans to be made to be attached to the installation., which I'll show later.

Photo credit Mo Orkiszewski

 If you're interested, you can read more about her vision, the planning and process and how she pulled it all together here,  along with posts which celebrate the arrival of the pennants and talismans. 

And so it all came together, and on Sunday we gathered to celebrate this wonderful installation that saw hands, hearts and threads joined across the world.

44 pennants from all over the world - threads and stitch connecting people and making powerful healing energy

(Photo credit Fiona and Bruce Dempster)

awe and wonder 

choosing a favourite

talismans

And speaking of talismans.........that's mine in the middle.  And below are close ups of it, front and back.

Talisman - 1.5 cm ( .5 inch) square, handmade felt. It's a little pouch, and inside on two pieces of  handmade paper I wrote .... I dream of a world..... and a Sanskrit prayer. 

 A shisha mirror for protection and reflection of the good we do. A tiny green heart is nestled in the soft wool fringing.

On the back I embroidered an Aboriginal symbol for meeting place.....for Mo's blog and this project have been  a meeting of hearts, minds and intention......and the colours of purple and green symbolise the power of women joining together to help heal our world.

I can't begin to describe the wonderful feeling of seeing all the pennants, talismans and the structure to hold it all that Mo dreamed into being and created to display and anchor them to the veil and train of the old wedding dress. It was possible to stand underneath it, and feel the energy and harmony created by the thoughts and prayers stitched into the work, and feel contained and held by the soft light filtering through the fabric.

As someone else said today describing it .......what a buzz!

Congratulations to Mo.....for bringing us all along on this wonderful journey of love.

If you'd like to see more of the pennants and talismans and their maker's stories, go here to see the amazingly beautiful catalogue.

***

Scraphappy Day February

On the 15th of every month Kate and Gun host ScrapHappy Day, an opportunity for us to show the myriad of ways we've used our scraps, whether they be fabric, yarn, paper or something else. All scraps are welcome.

I'm a little late, but my scrappy project this month shows my progress on the redwork blocks I posted about here. For a variety of reasons, including the fact it's been too stinkin' hot to sew, and I've been having the laundry renovated.....it's hard to keep the momentum going when it seems the tiler or painter are popping  their heads around the door every 10 minutes to ask 'can you come here for a minute?'....... I haven't done as much I would've liked, but a cool change has kicked in, so sewing is happening again. And the renovations are finished, thank goodness.

To start, I bordered the blocks log-cabin style using  a variety of 1.5" strips I had left over  from another quilt.  When I ran out of these, I cut strips from scrap 'chunks '....pieces smaller than a fat quarter, larger than 6 " length.

So that was the easy bit done......I had 7 blocks of different sizes.....what was I going to do with them? After a bit of time spent on Pinterest looking at various quilt settings, and searching through old magazines,  I decided to set them as a scrappy sampler quilt.  The finished quilt will be around 42 x 46, maybe a little larger if I add borders, and I used pieces of paper to work out the sizes of filler blocks, where they might go, and what they might be.

This will be my centre block, and I'll build the rest of the quilt top around it.

So far, I've made a tiny friendship star...3" finished..... and have two more cut ready to sew.

......and a long strip of appliqued hearts and flowers.

These will border the centre block.

I found some left over dresdens from a quilt I made my daughter a few years ago, and they'll go in somewhere. I think the rest will grow organically, not a lot of planning here, just vague ideas of where it's going, which is rather fun.

Sort of looks like this so far.

Kate has a list of bloggers who usually have some scrappy inspiration for us, don't forget to go have a look here.

See you next time.........

Light and dark

scrappy teal, that is 

Kate, from Tall Tales from Chiconia is making another fundraising quilt for ovarian cancer. This time it's a tribute to a friend of hers who passed away recently, and Kate has designed a stunning quilt which is called In The Arms of the Angels.  You can see her sketched out plan here and the story behind the quilt.

Kate put out the call for help to make background and border blocks, and so I put my hand up for a couple of these.  The background needed to be in soft shades of teal, aqua, blues and creams and I used scraps to make this kind-of log cabin. I included some pieces that didn't make it when I was playing around with ideas for blocks for the Go Teal it on the Mountain quilt.

And a couple of antique tiles in reverse colourway. Kate wanted low contrast blocks, without a strong pattern that would 'jump out'. 

These two rectangles are 12x18, and are for the borders, with once again ' patterns that don't jump out as these are to be a mosaic to frame the inner window'.  I was running low on teal fabrics by now, and while I have plenty of small scraps, I didn't want to have tiny pieces in such large blocks, so had to be a bit creative in joining the larger scraps......some being 2.5 x4 or 4x4 and saving the few long pieces I had for the outer edges.

  

Check out Kate's post here to see the start of the quilt going together, and the magnificent set of 3D wings Kate has made. It's really worth having a look to get a clear idea of Kate's vision and how my scrappy blocks will work together with others being sent from around the world.

Joining in with Kate and Gun's monthly Scrap-Happy Day, which is open to anyone using scraps of anything.....fabric, paper, wood, anything that turns your scraps into something useful. Details are on Kate's blog.

See you next time.

Giving myself a push

to get on and finish 

I'm good at starting things, good at keeping up the momentum of doing a bit, here and there, but not always the best at finishing.  I keep busy and rarely sit down during the day, and amble from task to task....the necessary chores of cleaning, changing litter boxes, tidying and so on, then into the garden, see to the chooks, or out for a walk or a chat over the fence with a passer-by. Then there's a bit of sewing, laundry or tidying, soap or jam making, wash the dog or go pick vegetables and do 'something' with them. A friend says she likes the way I hum along in my day with tasks and chores, and I do get a lot done, but not always focused on one task.....the joys of being retired I guess, and being able to please myself how I spend my days.

But sometimes I have to step up, and now is one of those times .....it's a good friend's 75th birthday at the end of February, and I started a lap quilt for her last winter. It has a number of red work stitcheries, and I wanted to give myself not only time to work on them, but to enjoy the process as well.  February  seemed a long way away back in July, but here we are, in a new year, and suddenly the quilt needs to be ready next month !

I have eight stitcheries done, of varying sizes, from 9 Inches square down to 4 inches. They're all Bronwyn Hayes's patterns, from Red Brolly Designs, and this isn't one quilt pattern, but odd stitchery patterns I've saved over the years from various stitching and quilting magazines.

 So I've started to add borders to bring the blocks to the same size, trialling how that might be......log cabin style, coins.....I haven't decided yet....and some pieced blocks to make the quilt a decent size.  I'm wanting to use scraps and my (limited) stash so that will determine how that's all done. I also have some more patterns if I need to add more stitcheries.

And the post title?  I've put it out here now that I want to finish this quilt, but I'm also linking up with Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal with my January goal being to at least have the quilt top finished. We'll see.  

I have sewing to do.....see you next time. 

Happy New Year - 2019

Sunset on the first of the year

Mountains of Hope

Mountains of Teal

Lately, one of the sewing projects I've been working on has been making quilt blocks depicting mountains. Once again, Kate from Tall Tales from Chiconia put out the call for teal and cream blocks for another wonderful quilt to raise funds for the Ovarian Cancer Society. In her usual clever and fun punning style, Kate has called this year's quilt  Go Teal It on the Mountain. I had put my hand up to make 2 blocks, but ended up making 3.

I live with Mt Warning right at my back door, a mammoth peak that's the remnant of the volcanic shield, and standing at over 1000m, it can be seen from all over the valley, from the Border Ranges in Queensland and from the coast as well..  This mountain is what drew me to the Valley many years ago, and I never tire of seeing and photographing her, in all her moods, rain or shine, and from different angles and views.  Mt Warning... or Wollumbin to give her indigenous name.....is a sacred site to the local Bundjalung people.

So it was obvious Mt Warning was going to be one of my blocks. I decided on an applique block, and used Australiana fabrics to highlight the complex network of steep ridges and valleys that fall away from the heights. These hills and ridges have great names like the Sisters, Brummies, Blue Knob, Egg Rock and Doon Doon!

My second block is also a sacred mountain, far from here. Back in 2014 I joined a group from Australia to make a pilgrimage to Mt Kailash .....Kangrinbroque Peak.....on the high western plateau of Tibet.  We travelled by bus from Lhasa to our base at Darchen, then began the trek, firstly a day's walk to Dirapuk Monastery, where we rested and adjusted to the high altitude.....4800 metres. Then we walked 3 days up through the Dolma-la  Pass (5700m) where the weather changed dramatically and we trudged through snow and freezing, biting sleet. This trail descended back to Darchen, and took us 3 days of walking, trudging really, completing our circuit of the mountain. This brief description does nothing to describe my awe, the sense of 'coming home', and the deep connection I felt being near this mountain, and in those wind swept high mountain passes.

I took all these photos from around Dirapuk Monastery, and from up behind our accommodation.....the buildings in the picture at lower right.

Although the sun was shining and the sky was blue, it was actually freezing at the camp at Dirapuk, and I wanted my block to depict this......the snow laden peak and the cold and remote landscape.

I hadn't planned a 3rd block, but this photo a friend posted on a local facebook group stirred my imagination. I hadn't seen Mt Warning from this angle before, with the curve and sweep of the Tweed River so evident. This was taken recently when westerly winds pushed the dust storms from the central west of the state across the range and into the valley.

Photo with permission Raymond Condon

Although I had deadlines for a couple of other projects, I knew I had to do "something " with this image, and after drawing and fiddling with fabric for a couple of days, came up with this appliqued block, River Dreaming.

I wanted to capture the look the mountain has in certain lights, and different times of day, where it looks like a cardboard cut-out against the sky, with no definition of the network of ridges and valleys that radiate out from the mountain. The Tweed River is the other dominant feature of the landscape here, so I took some creative licence and moved the river source up into the high ridges of the mountain, where it would've flowed from eons ago, eroding and deepening the valleys over time, and then carving out the river's present day basin and flood plain. 

If you'd like to see the other blocks that've been made for this quilt, here's a link to Kate's fundraising quilt page. Do go have a look, there are beautifully-wrought mountains in fabric, many with personal stories and memories for the makers.  They will take your breath away, and Kate will do a wonderful job, as always, of combining them into a magnificent quilt.

F2F - Five more

lucky...and lovely....last

The last of my blocks from the F2F Block Swap have arrived, all the way from Esther, from the Netherlands.

Esther kindly sent 5 blocks........ 3 with blue backgrounds

and these 2 with pink backgrounds.

So that's 27 blocks I have now, plus whatever I make for myself, so lots to be playing with and decisions to be made about a layout. 

I sent off  Miss October' s blocks earlier in the week to Moira..... a chocolate, coffee, cream and blue palette.....which I can't show until she receives them.  So now it's time to turn my thoughts to Miss November's colour choices and blocks. Robin has chosen this lovely bright palette, and it's going to be interesting working with these colours. One of the good things about this swap is the challenge of working with colours I wouldn't choose for myself.

So, time to get on. The sun's lifting from behind the trees, and the fog ....which has been rolling in along the river most days...... has started to burn away, so time to release the hound and have a walk before the day starts to get hot. Actually, the hound is still in bed, sleeping, so time to stir her.