TIFC - April - In the company of giants!

Well, it is certainly a brave (or stupid!) novice crazy quilter who decides to do their very first CQ block as a TIFC challenge when taking part in TIFC are some of CQ's "giants" such as Pam, Allie, and of course, the TIFC queen, Sharon.



But who said I wasn't brave?



(or stupid)



This month the TIFC challenge topic is "change" and the color theme comes from a photo of an historical temple in Beijing. I decided that "China" and "change" fit well together for me and I don't need to push the design envelope any further than that. I therefore decided to go with the color scheme and to try something completely new for me - a CQ block made of Chinese silk.

So that was the easy part, working out what to do, the hard part was actually finding Chinese silk in the color scheme, which includes orange! Orange silk doesn't exist, I am convinced of it. I made a quick foray to the silk shop the other day (not the market, no time for that), and there was not one single inch of orange fabric in the shop. 没有! There was red of all varieties, even russet, but absolutely NO ORANGE! So the moral of that story is that apparently while the Chinese make roof tiles in orange (see inspiration photo), they do not weave silk in the color! Anyway, I decided to make a fairly neutral background and then bring the blue, green and orange from the photo in with ribbon and embroidery.

Anyway, with a bit of humming and hahhing, I chose some pretty neutral fabrics mostly in the dark brown, cream and russet colors in the photo, and I pieced the block, not really having any idea of what I was doing. I think I pieced a fundamental design flaw into it, which I am sure everyone reading this will notice, and I considered starting again, but then I decided that I have to be allowed to make some mistakes on my first CQ block, so the additional challenge became trying to cover up enough of the fundamental design flaw with embellishment that it was not quite so obvious. Hmm.....

The various embellishments are almost all from China - the two mah jong tiles are bone, made for bracelets, one is the "East Wind" and the other "Fa" - both lucky characters in Chinese mah jong. The brass button in the middle of the velvet flower is also Chinese, and the dragonfly (which is not made in China) is considered lucky in China. The large yellow flower is yellow jade,, as are the small yellow flowers on the top right hand side. The two red stone flowers on the top right corner are coral, also carved in China.

Well, there you have it, my very first CQ attempt - it was quite a challenge! Actually, I found it a bit daunting, I'd need to work out a better way to plan a block in future if I were to continue with CQ!

TIFC - April - Post 1

Did Sharon design TIFC April just for me? Unlikely, of course, but the colors ARE the colors of China, and the theme is: "how do you see change?"

China certainly has represented change in my life.

I don't think the color palete Sharon has come up with is quite right for China, but maybe I can modify it a bit..............

TIFC - March - Finished (and Felt Pin class)

Well, after much struggling with the March TIFC concept, I finally decided to spend the time I had available (limited) thinking about my girls and all thei little character traits, things they say, and funny stuff that they do.....and to wonder whether these traits which I see at age 4 (almost) and 6, will become emblematic of the women they will be as adults. I have written quite a lot and I enjoyed thinking about the details, but I don't intend to post those pages from my journal here. Instead, I decided that it is possible to describe both girls with a color:

My oldest, is red:

Red is the color of fire and blood, so it is associated with energy, war, danger, strength, power, determination as well as passion, desire, and love.

This is her pin:

My youngest, is blue:

Blue is the color of the sky and sea. It is often associated with depth and stability. It symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence, faith, truth, and heaven.

This is her pin:

And of course, as you can see, I have combined TIFC with Susan Sorrell's felt pin class! I still have the stitching to do on the pins designed by my daughter last weekend, these 2 were a small diversion!

TIFC - March - Post 2

Hmm, it's the 17th of the month and I haven't posted again on TIFC March. That's not to say that I haven't been thinking about it, but rather that it has been almost a total stumper for me! To recap, the topic is:

"Do you ever notice the little things, the small moments, the details in life? This months challenge is to do just that, pay attention to the tiny details. Sometimes the small things become emblematic for something larger. " From Sharon's blog.

So why have I had so much trouble with this? Well, apart from having to work too hard this month which hasn't given much sewing time, let alone thinking time, I have finally realized that, actually, I don't pay that much attention to details! I am primarily a big picture person - I see the details, but I don't linger on them. I note them, I work out how they have an impact on the bigger picture, and I move on. I think that is why this month's challenge is so tricky for me......

Anyway, I finally decided what I would do this month...... and that is to really stop and notice the details about my girls; their characters, their strong and weak points, and the funny and cute things they do at their current ages. My girls are still quite little and in the spirit of the challenge this month I want to think about whether these details, the small things I see in them now, really will be emblematic of something larger - i.e., who they will become when they are older.

I don't intend to blog all the details during this process because I don't want to disclose information about my girls on this blog, but anyway, based on my thinking so far, here is how I plan to depict the girls' characters in fabric:

This will be the basis of the design - which I am sure gives you a hint about the way my thoughts are moving.....two girls......yin and yang!

While I haven't blogged much recently, I have been doing some sewing - I have almost finished the applique block "Just a perfect day" from the Applique Academy. I hope to get it done in the next day or two and post a photo before the weekend!

TIFC - March - Post 1

OK, so TIFC for March is a really tough one! The design idea given by Sharon B. is:

"Do you ever notice the little things, the small moments, the details in life? This months challenge is to do just that, pay attention to the tiny details. Sometimes the small things become emblematic for something larger. That is it! I am going to keep it brief."

When I read that I thought of.....well, absolutely nothing, really! I couldn't make head nor tail of that design concept for several days. I was hoping that other participants would start to discuss their ideas on their blogs but I have noticed that compared to last month, where there was an avalanche of memories surfacing and long blog posts, this month there has been very little, so far. So maybe everyone is struggling a bit. Anyway, I left the concept to swoosh around in my head for a few days and I haven't made much progress even now. The one thing that keeps popping up in my head when I think about it is:

千里之行, 始于足下

" A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step"

Not sure if this will take me somewhere, let's see.

TIFC - February - Finished (almost!)

Time for TIFC has been short this month but I managed to get the embroidery on my TIFC February finished today. This is one of those projects that could have been much more elaborate with more time, but I do remind myself that TIFC is about the design challenge, not trying to make an heirloom each month.........so here it is:

Let me recap the design....this month the question was "what are you old enough to remember?". I thought about this a lot and also enjoyed reading all the other participants' memories. It struck me that most people were remembering things that they didn't have way back when. Once I thought about that some more I realized that apart from material objects that I have now that I didn't have as a child, I also have a lot more knowledge. Of course this has come from many sources (formal education, etc), but probably more importantly for who I am today, it has come from my experiences living overseas for many years. My view of the world is much broader than it used to be....this is the idea that I have tried to depict in my TIFC this month. I remember when my understanding of the world was limited to my experiences at home.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the design is the view (more or less) from the home I grew up in. The somewhat ditsy yellow fabric on the frame is remarkably similar to the wallpaper in my childhood bedroom. The teddy bear is wearing a rough brown scarf, to represent the brown scarf he wore for years - my very first knitting attempt. There used to be lots of magpies in the big gum tree in our garden - they would hold us hostage in the house when there were chicks in the nests. The mother magpies would bomb us when we went out to the swing in the backyard, so much so that my sister and I developed various devices to ward them off! The little flowers represent the petunias that my parents used to grow in the garden.

I haven't sewn this piece into its final "small quilt" form and I doubt that I will have time/energy tonight to finish it off (still jetlagged). I may wait until I have a few more done (from the next few months) and then finish them off altogether.

I had a look at TIFC March today - what a hard one!

TIFC - February - Post 3

I have made some progress on my TIFC for February. I wrote about the design, which is a view (some poetic license taken with the actual view although it is basically correct) from my childhood window on my previous post. Today I did the sewing, printing, fusing etc to get the basic form of the design. Now it needs lots of embroidery and embellishment! By the way, in case you are wondering why the rather ditsy yellow print border (which is really NOT ME these days)....this fabric is remarkably similar to the yellow floral wallpaper in my bedroom when I was a child (it WAS the 1970s!).

TIFC - February - Post 2

After my little sojourn back into applique during the last week, I have a (very) little window of opportunity to work on the February TIFC before I head off to the Applique Academy on the weekend.

To recap, February TIFC design challenge is a question: "What are you old enough to remember?"

Earlier in the month I worked on a photo montage in my journal about all sorts of things I can remember from my childhood - events, household things, food etc. I read quite a few of the blogs of other TIFC participants who also wrote about objects, things, events. One of the underlying themes of people's memories seems to be how they remember being without various things that we have now. I thought about this for a while but being without something that we take for granted now seems very difficult to depict (in fabric). Also I am not sure that the wealth of choice we have now is always something to celebrate.

So, I toyed around the idea for several days of "old-style" patchwork (ie hexagon patchwork done with paper inside) as a way to depict the change I have seen in sewing techniques since I started sewing as a child, but try as I might to find a fabric combination and a way of presenting that idea in an interesting manner, it just has not come together. The concept seemed rather flat. So last night I eventually put away the pile of fabric I had been playing with and officially shelved the idea! So what next?

Today I thought more about the things that I did not have as a child that I have now....not objects.... but experiences, knowledge, understanding. One of the most important things to me as an adult has been to develop a good understanding of the world and for me (and my husband, who shares the view that this is important), this has meant expanding our horizons and living in different countries and continents around the world. This led me to think back to the time before I had those experiences....I can remember when my understanding of the world was limited to my hometown, my family, and the relatively sheltered environment of middle-class Australia. Out of that came my design:

The idea is a window which looks out over our garden, with a view of my hometown in the background. I intend to do this as a fabric collage, constructed of various fabrics fused down. The view over the city will be printed on fabric. This concept is reminiscent of the artwork (and children's book illustrations) of the brilliant Australian collage artist Jeannie Baker, whose famous book "Window" shows the changing view from a child's window as he grows older. (But mine will be a much cruder version!)

I am not sure if I will have time to put this together before my travel next week so that I can embroider and embellish it while I am on the go, but let's see. If not, I might be late finishing my TIFC this month (again!). Still, this is a concept that speaks to me so it is worth spending the time.

Tomorrow we need to be up at 5:55am for the live broadcast of the Apology to Indigenous Australians, which will be shown on Australia Network (ABC regional satellite TV). This is not a political blog so I will not say any more than this: Thank you. It's about time.

Happy New Year (of the Rat) and TIFC February

Welcome to the Year of the Rat! Well, the old year certainly went out with a bang (and a sizzle) last night with a pyrotechnic display orchestrated by my colleague that ended up with us setting some dry grass on the local golf driving range alight (OOPS!!) after a wayward rocket flipped onto its side and set off into the grass. Unfortunately, the grass that started to burn was on the OTHER side of the 50 feet tall chain link fence of the driving range from where we were standing, causing the guards to start running around in circles barking into their walkie talkies.....but doing nothing else. One of our friends tried putting it out through the fence using beer (quite enterprising and he's not even an Aussie) but that didn't work. So some of our friends sprinted down to the driving range clubhouse, found a couple of extinguishers, scrabbled under the fence through the drainage canal (eek!), ran the entire length of the driving range....and put the fire out. Luckily Beijing grass burns slowly, but it does beg the question "Where were the Authorities?" (Noone turned up during or after the fire-fighting extravaganza. I suspect they were all out having their own pyrotechnic show with their families.) It also reinforces why fireworks have been banned in all countries that have independent courts and the ability to sue the pants off someone else........

It WAS quite exciting, though......

Anyway, on to TIFC February. I am struggling a bit on what to do this month given I need to keep the project under control as I have limited time for it. I am quite taken with the idea of hexagon patchwork (see previous TIFC February post), but I am wondering exactly how to incorporate it. I am hampered by my small stash and my distance from any quilt shops...or maybe that is a good thing. I thought about trying to do something very traditional, say floral, but I don't have enough nice floral fabrics. Also, my taste is not for this type of thing these days so I doubt I would enjoy doing it. So I have been wondering how I could modernize it a bit as a way to bring the old together with the new....

I like the color scheme for this month, provided by Sharon:

and I found a piece of fabric by Elly Sienkiewicz in my cupboard that matches remarkably well, so I thought I could use that as a basis because although it is traditional floral looking, for me it is relatively recently that I have come to know Elly and my life has become enriched by knowing her. So it blends old and new for me, anyway. I have also stuggled to find some coordinating fabrics, but then I found a few in my silk collection, and I thought it would be nice to update the hexagon patchwork concept with Chinese silk that reflects where I live today. I don't have anything in the last color on Sharon's palette although that color is in the Elly S. fabric, so I may have to substitute this for a darker russet. Here is the selection of fabric I have come up with so far:

Actually, they look closer to the color palette in real life than it looks in this scan. Still, the red russet is clearly not the right color for the palette, but let's see whether I come up with a better idea before I actually start. Today I am finishing an applique block while recovering from yesterday's festivities!

TIFC - February - Post 1

So.... on to February. The TIFC challenge for February is:

"What are you old enough to remember?"

Hmm....seems simple enough, but when it comes down to it, I guess I am not as old as I currently feel (!) because there are a lot of thing I can't remember! Like......Armstrong landing on the moon (I was around, but only just), the Vietnam War, Elvis' death, Apollo 13, the sacking of Whitlam's government....

Anyway, after some brainstorming with my husband (and my friend Google), I decided the earliest world events I can actually remember (as opposed to things I know about and feel I should remember) are from 1975/1976. I can remember a few personal things from before that time - like a couple of birthday cakes, going to kindergarten, my sister starting prep class - but I cannot accurately date those because they are mainly just snippets of memories, all jumbled in my mind.

Here are 2 pages from my visual journal showing things I can remember. I decided I'd take a time frame of about 1975 to 1981 - anything after that is not classified as an "early memory"! (That means I didn't have to mention frills and ruffles and flicked back fringes here.)

I don't think this really gets me too far forward on a design concept. The one thing that is coming to mind is the idea of the early quilting era. I remember in the early 1980s quilting was not really a popular hobby in Australia. A quilt shop opened in Yankalilla near our beachhouse and my Mum and I liked to go there sometimes. I remember just about all the fabric was russet colored (like the russet in the challenge colors this month - is it a coincidence?!). In those early days quilting was more traditional: pieced samplers, English patchwork done with paper templates inside.....

Once I started thinking about that it gave me a seed of an idea so after wrestling my "don't use this stuff very often" sewing boxes out of the cupboard and ferreting around in them for a while, I found a plastic bag of old patchwork bits and pieces my sister and I made at our beachhouse sometime in the early 1980s. I thought that maybe I could use one of these odd pieces somehow, but after having a look at them, I am not so sure. I knew they were not exactly trendy, but somehow in my mind they seemed better than they actually turned out to be. The best of the lot is this one:
But it really does beg the question how this (well, part of it if I am going to keep to my 5.5" x 7" format) could be used, modernized, tissied up. I mean, how could one ever tie those florals together into something coherent? I think my only excuse for this creation is that I was a child at the time (which makes it a good effort, albeit a very unattractive one).

If anyone can think of a way to use this in an updated form, please let me know! Otherwise, I think it is back to the drawing board, although I am still toying with the idea of English style patchwork, even if it is to recreate a small piece of hexagon patchwork, just to feel again how it is done. It must be more than 25 years since I last tried it!

TIFC - January - Finished

January TIFC is finished! Although it isn’t January anymore, I did finish this on February 2, which I think is pretty good (for me) given I was away on an overseas business trip for 20 days in January (and then had a week of jetlag after I got home). While I don’t expect so many overseas trips, I will be traveling a lot this year, so I do think that my TIFC output is going to be more closely aligned to weekends rather than strict dates.

Without further ado….

Take it Further Challenge
January 2008
Admiration

Design area: 5.5” x 7”
Framed area: 7.5” x 9”

Materials: Various silk fabrics with a small amount of cotton batik and printed muslin. Embroidery in a variety of silk threads, mostly Silk ‘n Colors and Silken Pearl. Silver jewelry motive in DMC Antique Effects thread. A piece of amber is sewn in the center of this motive, and the remainder of the piece is decorated with an assortment of beads. The words “courage” and “acceptance” are printed on silk chiffon. The lily petals are individually made from silk colored with craypas. The back of the piece contains an explanation of the design concept printed on PFD cotton.

For more explanation on the design, please click on the photo of the back of the piece, which explains the meaning of the motives and how they connect to my grandmother. I have removed her name from this photo. There is also more explanation on previous TIFC posts on this blog.

I plan to make all my TIFC challenges in this size and format and at the end of the year, I will make a compendium to house them, as I did for my PLOS samplers.

As far as “take it further”, here is what I learnt this month:

1) Regarding the design process – I did not find it too difficult to brainstorm my ideas and come up with a selection to use on the design. However, I think this was because this topic was so personal, so ideas flowed freely. I think it would have been harder with a more abstract topic. Let’s hope Sharon B keeps the TIFC topics personal!

2) For this design I think I managed pretty well to honor my grandmother, but I did not manage to really depict the qualities of her character than I admire. It is a subtle but important difference, which I need to work on……

3) Most of the construction of the piece was fairly straightforward, including the 3-D lily and the printed bark pieces. I like the choice of fabric, including the dark brown silk from Shandong that is dyed using a mud process (not sure what that is!). Overall the piece has some interesting texture and feels “rich” because of the predominance of silk.

4) The silver thread (DMC Antique Effects metallic) was a beast (other words could be substituted) to sew onto silk. I cannot imagine what they actually make that thread for, but it sure is not for this purpose. It was incredibly frustrating and I won’t be trying something like this again unless absolutely critical to the design (as this one was). I do like the final effect but it was a huge challenge to make it happen.

5) I have fallen in love with Mistyfuse! I bought some while on my business trip this month to the US and I have found it to be everything that the various reviews, including Sharon B’s, have said. It was marvelous for printing on silk chiffon. I fused a layer of chiffon to Mistyfuse with parchment paper on the back and it fed through the printer like a dream! I also used it to fuse the printed sheet on the back of the piece and absolutely as promised, I could sew through it like the Mistyfuse was not even there! So different from the Lite-Steam-a-Seam I used when finishing off my PLOS samplers, which I almost could not get the needle through. I have to admit I was a skeptic before I tried for myself, but now I will be using Mistyfuse exclusively!

In other news, I was tagged several weeks ago by Elizabeth of Quieter Moments for a “You Make My Day” award. I was very surprised and quite chuffed! Thanks Elizabeth and sorry it has taken me so long to respond, I haven’t been able to blog while on my business trip.

Now, on to February TIFC, but before that, I want to finish a couple of BAQ blocks that I have been working on before I leave for Elly Sienkiewicz’s Applique Academy on February 17! (Oh no, more jetlag!) Next week is Chinese New Year and we have a few days off so let’s see if I can get both things done. I already have an idea for TIFC February……..

TIFC - not done yet!

Gosh, 19 days have gone by since I last posted and my TIF is still not finished! In fact, it hasn't progressed very far at all since early January because I have been on a long business trip and I have not had time to work on it. While I have been on this trip to a more westernized part of the world than the one I normally live in, I have managed to stock up on interfacing, pellon fusible fleece, mistyfuse and various other sewing staples, which is timely as I totally depleted my stock at home finishing off my PLOS samplers!

I'm about to get on a very long flight across the Pacific and I hope to work on it on the plane for as long as the light holds out.....let's see how successful I am in finishing the piece this weekend!

The benefits of living in China.......

....include very affordable custom-made (design your own) furniture! I designed this cabinet for our living room, where I do most of my hand sewing. I needed something to keep my embroidery threads, books and current projects. I'm really happy with it - everything fits as I had hoped and it is a solid hardwood, completely custom designed cabinet for less than $200!! What a nice Christmas present!




There are 3 drawers designed to fit the bobbins my embroidery threads are wound onto....




...another drawer for silk applique thread, needle case, pens, rulers, scissors etc.......






...one for everyday use tools....

...a couple for beads.....




....and one for current projects. (Here's a quick peek at my TIFC January project in the words - silk lily made and the main part of the block constructed. Just embroidery and embellishing to go now.)


And finally, at the bottom is a narrow horizontal shelf for my pressing and cutting mats, and below that, a tall shelf for my books.

Lucky, hey?!

TIFC - January - Post 2

Well, I didn't expect my second post - with my design - to come so soon after the previous one! Anyway, this evening I have been playing around with a design (in paper and scraps of fabric) in my journal and here is what I have come up with.

The background fabric will be brown textured silk. Eucalyptus and birch tree bark printed onto muslin will represent the transition in my grandmother's life from Europe to Australia; several swatches of blue silk and batik (blue was her favorite color) will be added for texture and color; a jewelry motive from her country will be embroidered in silver (metallic thread if I can manage it, white silk thread if my skills aren't up to taming metallic thread!); finally, a 3-D lily made of silk. In addition to this, I intend to somehow incorporate some of the words that I have used to describe the qualities of my grandmother that I admire. I am not certain yet how I will put these onto the design. I tried printing words on silk organza (which worked pretty well) as an overlay, so I might do that.......or my other thought is to embroider the words around the top right and bottom left corners. Let's see what I decide as the stitching evolves. My first task is going to be to try to construct a three dimensional white lily in silk...... Any ideas how I can make the petals curl under a little?

I have decided to return to the 5.5" x 7" format which fits nicely into my embroidery hoop.

Next step - stitching!

P.S. For other TIFC participants, you'll note that I am not using the challenge colors, just the concept. I would not have been able to combine these two ideas as the challenge colors are definitely NOT my grandmother's colors!

TIFC - January - Post 1

2008 has started and so it is on with the Take it Further Challenge! I thought when I signed up for this in December that the design element would be rather a stretch for me (I guess that is why they call it a "Challenge"!), and certainly, if January is anything to go by, it will be. So, as I start splashing around in the deep end, let's see how I go......


January's TIFC concept is "someone that you admire". We are to take this concept and depict it in fabric, paper etc. My chosen media (at this stage) will be applique and embroidery, as these are my two main interests. I will try to combine them as far as I can. I am still tossing up on the format to use - I need something small enough to be the right scale for embroidery and manageable to do in my limited time, but large enough to be able to depict reasonably complicated concepts. I had been thinking about a format similar to my PLOS samplers, only a bit larger, maybe 7 x 9", but now I am wavering back to the PLOS size 5.5 x7".


So, on to the concept for January. I decided to celebrate my maternal grandmother in this month's challenge. The reason is that I admire her a lot.......but I don't think I have actually ever said that; certainly I don't think I ever said it to her while she was alive. I am not sure why not, I guess it never came up.......it seems overdue and now seems a good time.

My maternal grandmother was not a saint (who is?) and many of her traits were not that admirable. She was not the cosy, jolly, doting grandmother that many people have. But she was strong and courageous, and I have always admired her for that. As a young woman she faced the realities of war and she took her young daughters to freedom. She turned her back on everything she had known because she had the foresight to know that she had no choice. She gave her family a life and she gave us all opportunities. And after she had turned her back on the past, she always looked to the future.

Courage - Strength - Change - Acceptance

I have started a visual journal and have been brainstorming all my memories and thoughts of my grandmother. I have included many questions that I should have asked her but never did. I am not going to post this part because for me it is too personal (although Mum, if you are reading this, yes, you can take a look when you visit me next time!). In addition, I have made a collage page of things that remind me of her:

I am trying to work out how to depict this in fabric. The challenge (there's that word again!) that I have come across is trying to work out whether I can depict my grandmother or what I admire about my grandmother (subtlely different things) in this sampler. Frankly, I don't think that I yet have the design skills to display the latter, so I may settle this month for the former, because that seems more within my capabilities. Maybe as the challenge progresses, I will be able to make that jump into more abstract design. Let's see........