musing on international orange under blue skies

there was a time
when i was small
...blue and orange
were my favourite colours

they still make my heart sing

if your heart needs singing practice
you could try taking it to Melbourne
where it could exult in the Fred Williams retrospective
'infinite horizons'
the paintings are so vibrant
they seem backlit

Debbie Herd writes about her experience here
Fiona Morgan shows more images here
if you can't visit the exhibition in person
consider investing in the catalogue
worth every cent.

kawandi and another kat

it's been another extraordinary week here in Central Bumble

various treasures arrived

some by post

others along the interhighway

the image above is of a Kawandi quilt, specific to the Siddi of India

i found it in Art Found Out

and through those pages followed the bread crumbs

to here

go on, be brave, click the mystery link

the traditional post brought

quite unexpectedly but at intervals

Other Things

a parcel with a John Wolseley catalogue [Patagonia to Tasmania]

and a delightful collection of buttons

an egg brooch [it's in the picture above], a pair of earrings

a wee folded envelope [just like those here]

from my very nice friend at Soewnearth

and then Imbi

she who shines way up North

sent me an exquisite hand bound book

made by Michael O'Brien of Oamaru

[that pink flower peeping near the top of the pic is part of it]

and if you're wondering what the horse-y shape is

lower down in the image

i piled my treasures on to another book

[only momentarily for the happy snap]

entitled Shoes for the Moscow Circus

sent me in a care package

by my kindly editor at Murdoch Books

don't they know i'm supposed to be writing?

not losing myself in other people's magic?

[steam riseth from the keyboard]

shall have to be disciplined and save it

such abundance!

Willow [also known as Mrs Poo]

and pictured below

is not at all impressed

but

very satisfied at having booted Sam out of his bowl

shakerag

i'm delighted to advise that Shakerag have published their workshop details for 2010

and that they're kindly letting me offer two courses there next summer

Quiltfelt Landskin
In the quiltfelt landskin class students will undertake daily windfall walks, dyeing strips of fabric to be used in a layered, pieced, stitched , quilted and ultimately also felted cloth whose gentle colours will reflect those of the woods around us. The pieced cloth will grow organically day by day as small dyed fragments are added, before a gentle wet-fulling process is applied on the last day followed by one final overdye to bring harmony to the piece in the form of a last colour wash.

and

A walk in the woods
Every plant gives some kind of colour, depending on how it is processed. This class will embrace a number of methods for colour extraction as well as protocols for plant collection and plant identification.

Participants will explore the local area around Shakerag through writing, drawing, stitching, and dyeing, taking mindful windfall walks, mapping marks, observing and responding to the essence of the woods.

During the week we will dye silk and wool, using windfall leaves from the woods, and construct a series of small leaf-illustrated textile notebooks that will be both maps of the journey taken and documents recording the week’s explorations.

We will work with plant dyes, stitching, paper, and cloth.

this of course allows me my [fast becoming annual] pilgrimage to San Francisco [don't worry, we're planting trees here to make up for all those flights]

and

means that i'll be stateside when Eco Colour [the American version] is published there on July 1, 2010

a national treasure

last Friday, on the way to Tumut [in New South Wales] for the felt and dye workshop, i took a small [140km] detour to Tumbarumba 

to visit the Pioneer Women's Hut

where i was given a lovely cup of tea and several caramel chocolate biscuits [by the lovely Jan who had come especially to open the Museum out of hours] and allowed to wander and take photographs to my heart's content

the collection embraces the National Quilt Register as well as extraordinarily beautiful items such as handmade wire pegs, water cans constructed from kerosene tins, buttons, household furniture

boxes of mending

drawer upon drawer of lace doilies

and jug covers

 

a shelf that runs around the Museum is clad in a decoratively cut newspaper border

an enormous gum leaf takes pride of place above the teacosy-clad mantel...

well worth a visit [even without caramel biscuits!]

red blanket wagga

for those of you who won't make it to Geelong, Victoria in the next few months, here's a picture of my eucalyptus-dyed wagga (click on that word for elucidation) presently hanging there at the National Wool Museum.

and here's the statement that sits next to it on the wall...

not all those who wander are lost - in the forest a body sleeps camouflaged in treeshadow, woolwrapped in a leafstained wagga; enfolded, hidden, warm and secure

materials : salvaged wool cloth, silk and wool stitching, eucalyptus dyes