Janine's Journey - March 22 -Winners are Grinners
Hi Subscriber,
Welcome to my latest newsletter.
Where did March go?
I don't seem to have achieved half of what I wanted too, but then I do
tend to underestimate how long things will take!!
Maybe it was going away for an extended long weekend which took my main
sewing days over a couple of weeks.
I also spent days trying to do an abstract version of an aerial view of
the Bungle Bungles. I am not happy with it, so it has been put in the
UFO (Unfinished Objects) pile while I ponder what to do next. The best
option is probably to throw it in the bin but I hate to admit defeat...
The WA border is now open and we are learning to live with Covid. For
most of April we have family visiting from interstate which I am really
looking forward to.
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"Queen of the Reef" is a winner
ATAA
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I'm very excited and humbled to say "Queen of the Reef" has won the
"Best use of Embroidery" award at the Australian Textile Art Awards in
Melbourne. If you are new to my newsletter I went through the story of
"Queen of the Reef" in the January newsletter which you can view here
The exhibition is on from the 26th March to 10th April at the
Embroiderers Guild, 170 Wattletree Road, Malvern
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WA Museum Boola Bardip
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A couple of years ago the West Australian Quilters Association put
together a banner "Spring into Parks" for the Spring Festival at Kings
Park (Perth's premier inner city park). 39 quilters contributed 8 inch
blocks inspired by the parks of Western Australia.
Turquoise Bay
Turquoise Bay
I contributed two blocks to the project. Turquoise Bay is a beautiful
white beach with Turquoise water (who would have thought with a name
like that! ) It is an excellent snorkelling beach which is part of the
Ningaloo Reef.
The block is a simple collage with some decorative yarn for the white
water where the water meets the shore.
The other block I did was the Swamp Bottlebrush which grows in the
South West around Walpole.
It was one of my first attempts at thread painting a flower. I thought
it would be easy but was never really happy with the depth in it. It is
interesting to look back at early work and think how you would do it
differently now.
Swamp Bottlebrush
Swamp Bottlebrush
The banner has been displayed at several parks and festivals and is
currently at the the Museum of WA Boola Bardip until April 29th. It is
in the Woodside Gallery which is off the main entrance. My Flowering
Gum Cushion which won Best Machine Embroidery at the Perth Royal Show
last year is also part of the display at the left hand side.
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"Turning Turtle" Award
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As I mentioned in an earlier newsletter we sail a Mirror Dinghy. This
year for our State Championships we had very windy conditions with lots
of capsizes. We all go out for dinner in the evenings as a group and it
was suggested we needed an award for the most capsizes.
This month we had the next big regatta which most people attend so I
decided to quickly throw together the "Turning Turtle" award.
In dinghy sailing terms, turning turtle is when you capsize so the boat
is fully inverted with the mast painting down. I started with just
having the turtle but it looked very plain so I had to add some coral.
The mirror has very distinctive red sails so I decided to stick with
the class colours and make the coral red. To finish I added the Mirror
class logo to the top.
It is starting to look like I have a thing for Turtles!!
_____
Creating "Hidden Gem" and "Dalmanyi"
I am continuing to make pieces inspired by our trip to the Kimberley.
This months pieces are two different views of one of the gorges on the
Gibb River Road. Bell Gorge (called Dalmanyi, in the local aboriginal
language) has a lovely waterfall cascading over the sandstone rocks.
We were there at the end of the dry season so there wasn't a lot of
water in the waterfall but it was nice all the same. It is about a 1km
walk from the carpark and you have to cross the creek above the falls
then walk down the steep path to the pool below which is perfect for a
refreshing swim especially when the temperature is about 40 degrees
(above 100 F).
BD594212-9B39-4751-952B-B17CEB8D8C1F
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As usual I started by sun dying the sky to give the lovely vibrant blue
which is typical of Western Australia. Next was the fabric collage to
give the basic design. For the rocks I only wanted to do a minimum
amount of thread painting so I chose fabrics which had some variation
in colour to suggest all the cracks and shadows. I did use fabric for
the main horizontal lines in the rocks. For the waterfall on this one I
thread painted all the rocks behind it before I added the water. The
first layer of water was a very light lilac and then I went over it
with an off white. Using both colours gave it extra depth and I didn't
want to do too much stitching to give it a light and airy feel and show
the spray.
Image 4606344
Image 4606370
The reflection and water in the pool was always going to be very
important for the success of this piece. The shallow water on the
outside is quite brown in colour and the deeper water is much bluer
with the reflection of the falls. With just the fabric collage I had a
very distinct transition between the two so I had to do a lot of thread
painting to blend the two. This involved stitching a range of khaki
colours into the blue section and a range of blue stitching into the
khaki section. If possible I like to use a variegated thread for this
which gives me subtle changes of colour without constantly changing
threads. Eventually the two areas merge into one and you can't tell
where one fabric finishes and the next one starts.
Image 4606343
Image 4606351
For the other view of Bell Gorge I followed the same procedure except I
tried adding some grey fabric for the waterfall. I have now decided
this was a harder way of doing it as I had to stitch the rocks onto the
grey fabric to show them peeking through the water otherwise it looked
very solid and unnatural.
Image 4606351
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Well that is enough from me for now, I really must get back to the
sewing machine. I'm starting to panic with so much still to be done and
my exhibition rapidly approaching.
Thank you for taking the time to read my Newsletter, I hope you enjoyed
it and found it informative. If you have any queries I would love to
hear from you.
Kind Regards
Janine
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