I think I've finished...

I think I've finished the stitching on the Rites of Passage piece. I just have to finish it for presentation now. Tomorrow's task.. Here's how it looks.


And, Carol, I printed out backs for four postcards today. I like my postcards to have proper postcard backs. But clearly I have a gremlin in my workroom, causing trouble! I've done postcard backs before, no trouble, but would this do what I wanted it to do today? It would give me two the same per page but when it was offered two different ones on the same page, it decided they needed resizing down by a third. Grr. I am so used to finding I have done something silly myself but finally I realised it was the software having a bad day, and worked out another way to do it. So I have my backs printed, and just need a little time to attach them.

First Quilt

Road to Broken Hill 41in x 52in (est) 1996
Caity challenged us on Southern Cross Quilters to show a photo of our first quilts. This was the first quilt I ever made, and it was because of a challenge from Erica to her workmates at the library. Several of us did a mystery quilt from Lady's Circle Patchwork magazine, which turned out to be this Road to Oklahoma block. When I finished mine, I donated it to a youth charity called The Shack that I was supporting at the time. I called it Road to Broken Hill, because I arranged the colours so they moved from green (the coastal areas) through to pinky-brown, the characteristic soil colour of the desert country where I grew up. We made over $1000 for The Shack, so I felt very pleased with myself!

Byzantium Postcard finished

I left it too late last night to post this, but I did finish the postcard. I added some gold paint, in the deeper parts of the relief, where gold paint might have survived the centuries. I still need to back and stitch the edges, to make it into a formal postcard, but that's just presentation stuff. As always orange is hard to photograph. It's not quite this dark so the gold doesn't show up in quite as much contrast.

Byzantium postcard

When I washed off the soluble paper, this is what the stitched surface looked like. I chose the deep orange because that colour is the background on a couple of Byzantine icons I really liked.

I used the soldering iron to distress the surface fabric. I had hoped it would melt and allow the brown underneath fabric to show through. But it didn't quite go to plan. The weft fabrics melted but the warp ones didn't. They happen to be vertical on the postcard, so it gave me an interesting worn fabric look. I actually quite like it, as it makes the textile look worn but it wasn't actually the look I was aiming for. I chose the high areas of the surface, as being the ones most likely to show wear.

Slow week

This week I've fallen into a slump. Partly physical, partly a lack of time, and partly reaching the moment of frustration that I usually reach at some point, when I really don't like what I've done so far and wonder if it will ever be worth finishing. I'll press on, because I know I usually end up liking what I've done at the end, but it's frustrating.

OK, this is what I did on the weekend:


Cute, aren't they? The big one is my baby, the little one is grandchild number 1, administering a very sloppy kiss. It was great to visit them and see how the grandkids have grown in the short time since I last saw them.

And this is what I did this week on Rites of Passage - coming along nicely:


I've made the colours very intense and rich, so it's recognisable as a Polynesian island scene but also looks a little bit strange and unrealistic. Well, that's the plan....

And this is the postcard I'm making for the Sailing to Byzantium challenge on Design Bytes Down Under.

Postcard 6in x 4in

It's a motif on a pier in the church of St Polyeuktos from ancient Byzantium. I looked at lots of photos of Byzantine art, and decided the things I liked best were the architectural motifs. I played around with a lot of different motifs, and finally decided on this one. This is the line drawing printed onto soluble paper and stitched with dark navy thread. Tomorrow, I'll show you what it looks like with the paper removed (right now it's still wet so the colours are deeper than normal). I still have a few things to do tomorrow. The motif is stitched onto two layers of fabric, backed with Timtex for stiffening. The bottom layer is silk, the upper layer a synthetic fabric, in colours that reminded me of Byzantine icons. Tomorrow, I plan to burn back the synthetic a little with a soldering iron, to give the distressed look that the icons have from so much fervent handling during 1000-1500 years of worship. Hopefully, the underlying silk will show through. I want to brush on some gold highlights too. Hurry, hurry, it's due the end of the month!

Progress on all fronts

I haven't had as much time in the workroom as I'd like but I have made progress on all three pieces in the last few days. Like Honey from the Rock has more of its purple added and I rectified a few areas where shadows weren't quite right. I still have a couple more places like that to fix, and a lot more stitching to add.

Like Honey from the Rock 18in x 12in

Rites of Passage is assembled, and I began stitching it today. I'm actually finding this one a bit of a challenge to get just the right colours. I want to brighten the colours, so the scene looks a little alien, but not so much that it stops looking like a real place.

Rites of Passage 6in x 6in

Mistrise has had wadding added and I've started stitching. This one will have a lot less intensive stitching than the other two, and it's quite hard to remember that I'm doing something a lot more like traditional machine quilting and a lot less like embroidery! I don't want to lose the ethereal effect in the clouds, so I don't want to have to stitch them heavily to balance heavy stitching on the hills. The stitching isn't that clear in the photograph - I've only done a little on the nearer hills so far.

Mistrise 18in x 12in

And just in case you thought I'd been slacking...

Here is Like Honey from the Rock. I haven't bothered to update it every day - how boring! But it's gradually getting where I want it to go.

The balance is way too yellow at present, but I still have a lot of purple to stitch.