Pages

Tuesday 29 July 2014

Bundoora Homestead Excusion

Every year the Waverley Art Quilters go on an excursion and last week we went to Bundoora Homestead to see the Reflections exhibition. It was a collection of paintings from the Castlemaine Art Gallery and it chronicled the journey of landscape and still life painting in Australia.

There were paintings from some of Australia's most well-known artists both old and modern; there were paintings for all tastes.

We have studied Fred Williams and Margaret Preston in previous years and we are going to study Jeffrey Smart later on this year. Some of the other artists that were on display were Rick Amor, Rupert Bunny, Ian Fairweather, Fred McCubbin, Ethel Carrick Fox, John Longstaff and Walter Withers.

It was a wonderful exhibition but unfortunately we weren't allowed to take any photos of the paintings but we were allowed to take photos of the beautiful Bundoora Homestead.

Here is the beautifully ornate fireplace.
 
 All the ceilings were decorated and everyone inspirational.




There were some beautiful stained glass windows as well.



After admiring the paintings we all sat down for a very welcome coffee. We asked a lady at another table to take our photo. What a lovely, encouraging and creative group, I feel privileged to be one of them. Unfortunately not everyone was available for the excursion, so there are four of us missing.



Bye for now,
Linda

Monday 21 July 2014

Crazy Quilted Journal Cover

I received a lovely surprise email last week. Joy had done my Crazy Quilted Journal Cover class at the Bay Quilters Retreat a couple of weeks ago and she has already finished hers.

Obviously Joy is no beginner embroiderer, her work is beautiful and she added some of her own touches as well.



I especially love to get a photo of finished class pieces because I love to see the different colours that people use. Hopefully some other people will send me some photos when they have finished.

Thank you for sharing your lovely work, Joy.

Bye for now,
Linda

Tuesday 15 July 2014

Round Robin-Arlene's Block

I am participating in a Round Robin with the Southern Cross Crazies and last month I had Arlene's block to work on. The blocks measure 6 inches square and Arlene wanted a garden theme.

She had made blocks in green, blue and pink and I chose a pink block to work on.


I have worked on a block by Arlene before and I always find them a challenge because she uses busy fabrics in her blocks. It is hard to see the embroidery against the busy prints which is why I usually use plain or tone on tone fabrics.

Here is the block when I had finished it.


I used the pink lace butterfly motif for some texture and the pansy buttons to try and take the eye away from the long straight seam in the middle of the block.

Unfortunately I forgot to take photos of the blocks that other people in the group had done.

I have already sent these blocks off to the next person n the list and have a new set to work on. The next set to do has another underwater theme.

Bye for now,
Linda

Monday 7 July 2014

Bay Quilters Retreat

I spent a lovely couple of days with the Bay Quilters group who were holding their retreat at the wonderful Peninsular Golf Club.

I arrived on Friday afternoon and the sun was shining and it was afternoon tea time. I enjoyed a delicious cappuccino and could see the golfers having a game. What a lovely course they have.


A dinner was held on Friday night which was delicious and we had such a fun night chattering away. After dinner I was the guest speaker and I had brought three suitcases of my quilts with me to show everyone.

The next day I was teaching crazy quilting and they were making a journal cover.
They were so lucky that they had a table each when they were foundation piecing their bases on their machines.

When it was time to start the embroidery we pushed some tables together so everyone was closer together and could chat while they were sewing.

 
 
 
Here is a photo of the class at the end of the day, still smiling although they had to take in so much information. They had done some beautiful stitching and all the covers looked so different. I am sorry that I forgot to take some closer photos of their beautiful work, hopefully they will send some photos when they are finished.


We were all very well fed, the food was amazing and as usual I always forget to take photos when I am away teaching but I did quickly grab my camera when we had scones for afternoon tea.



 Thank you Bay Quilters for making me feel so welcome; it was a really wonderful retreat.

Bye for now,
Linda