Fibre Arts Winter School

Last week I was lucky to attend the Fibre Arts Winter School at Ballarat in Vic. The concept of Winter School is you get to work with the tutor of your choice for one WHOLE week while living in at Ballarat Grammar School in the boarders lodgings.

The class I took was 'Painting the Landscape with Materials' with Caroline Sharkey.  One of the best things of all was I actually finished my project!!!!  How often do you attend a workshop or class and never finish the article - it then gets put away and often forgotten until one does a spring clean of one's workroom/studio.

The class, tutor, other students, organisation was all fantastic.  No pressure - work at our own pace, all meals provided (and they were delicious); lots of fun with the students in other classes, mixing with some famous tutors - Helen Godden, Linda Steele, Jenny Bowker, Karen Goetzinger (from Canada) and of course Caroline Sharkey.  ps I even had Helen Godden in my car one day.......





This is my finished piece of work - a 3D piece - something I've never done before.  But Caroline was so, so helpful and excellent in showing us how to interpret our pieces and how to work and improvise as well as showing us various techniques.  It was one of the best classes I have ever attended. It is my interpretation of the new growth in the forests around Anglesea after the devastating bushfires of Ash Wednesday.

During the week each class gets to sit at the 'Top Table' for the day - and provide some decorations for the table which are then auctioned at the end of the week with the proceeds going to Breast Cancer Research - these bottles were our contribution. ps - they are empty!!!

This is the table with ours and some of the other decorations of the previous classes.

Next posting I will show you some photos of the progress of how I worked on my piece.

Also I hope to have some photos of some of the work from the other classes - am just waiting to hear if it is OK if I post here.  Have heard back from one person, but not the others as yet.

I have already booked into the next School in April 2014 week in Ballarat.  The class I'm doing then is with Kim Thitchaki from England. She works with lots of mixed fibres and heat guns, soldering irons etc etc.

More Candied Hexies & look at what else I've been doing

As promised, here are the next lot of Candied Hexagons I have completed.   Slowly getting them sewn while at my local quilt group meetings (amongst lots of talking etc).

Thought I would show you this Journal/Diary cover I made recently.  It actually started off as a brown paper bag, which  I acquired on my first trip to the US in 2009 when I purchased some fabric from a shop in Bird In Hand in Pennsylvania.  I later did an on-line course in Mixed Media and one of the lessons was on turning brown paper into faux leather.  Just love the look of it.  Was easy to do, a little fiddly though and you have to be careful not to tear the paper before it becomes strong enough to sew through.  I lined it and made it into a cover for my diary. 

One option was to construct a bag, but I didn't have enough of this printed bag, but I think that would be very cool, especially if you have an interesting piece of paper to work with.

I've been surfing again......

and came across another fantastic blog - Linda Kemshall's.  Linda is half of Linda and Laura Kemshall, Design Matters.  I first came across this mother and daughter team while watching and reading Quilting Arts magazine and TV shows.  They hail from England and work with a large variety of techniques.  Their latest purchase is a huge printing machine that actually prints direct onto fabric by the yard!!  How cool is that?

Anyway I suggest if you love art, design, techniques, colour, pattern, quilting, mixed media, etc, then go and have a look at their blog.  I'm very tempted to sign up for an on-line course or their Design Matters TV shows - may have to use some of the $ I found in my Christmas stocking.

I have also put it in my reading list in the right hand column.  Enjoy.