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I love the islands and in this quilt tried to capture some island elements, I find when most artists depict the islands they go for the scenery alone, I wanted to depict both the scenery and life, so with the scenery I have included music, fishing and a ferry, (on the outer islands I find that for many people Music is the only Art), I have tried a new (for me) way of working using less stitching, I wanted to express the layers of separation of land/water/land/water but also to include the enclosing walls of safety that the home/blackhouse gave, this is the first large quilt on this theme (not counting the Shiaba quilt), it is a theme I wish to explore further,


I would love to know what people think, not just if you like the quilt but positive criticism, don’t worry about art talk just how you feel about the quilt, I would also be interested in what elements you associate with the islands, thanks in advance to all who comment,

I have been working in the garden this last week and in the heather part where it is still as nature made it I found these lodgepole seedling growing out of the moss, so is this where I should plant any seeds I want to grow I wonder, I would like to move the seedlings to a place where I would prefer them to grow and (hopefully) help make a wind break, any tips from gardeners out there would be most welcome, thanks,

Radio 4’s programme has started again and next weeks programme is on Islay, if you can get it on your radio you have 2 choices Monday evening at 9p.m. (that’s 2100 for those on the 24 hour clock) and repeated on Tuesday morning at 11a.m. or you can use the beebs listen again service where it will be available for 7 days after it has been on the radio, enjoy,

As radio is sound this series of is about the sounds of places so the programme is the sounds of Islay, so if you do not live on the islands and want an idea of natural sounds we enjoy then you can listen online till next Tuesday 25th Sept. I enjoyed it,

I have been meaning to write this up for a couple of weeks, when I went to Festival of Quilts I attended 2 workshops, the first was with Sarah Fincken, Dreamtime, it was connected to Aboriginal Art, Sarah had made a quilt in this style I had not seen her quilt when I booked the class infact I could not find out much about her and there was no supply list for the course after I had booked it so I started to have reservations, well I tried some discharge (bleaching) which I have read a lot about but never done before (well not intentionally),

Sarah had lots of enthusiasm but lacked organisation and what made it not good was she insisted we work on a 36 inch square of fabric, you cannot do a work this large in a few hours, especially if you had not even got a design idea before hand, I ended up reading and making notes and sketches from a book Sarah had of Contempory Aboriginal Art, I was interested as I had seen an exhibition many years ago and found it fascinating, I would like to develop it further but for now some photos,

Sarah’s Quilt, The Road to…., and a detail,

another detail,

work I saw at the exhibition in 1995,

Emu Dreaming at Boundary Bore 111 by Kuddtji Kngwarreye

Awelye – Women’s Ceremony by Rosemary Petyarre

Sand Patterns by Maree Puruntatmeri

Tiwi Turtle by Sheila Puruntatmeri

my little bit of discharge work,

the next day I had a workshop with , I found Esterita’s website about 4 years ago and thought I would love to take one of her , the one I liked best was about adding depth to your work using paint and yeah that was the workshop at FoQ, so I booked it quick,

it was wonderful, Esterita was soooo organised and knew exactly what she was teaching, I had been sent a very comprehensive supply list when I booked the workshop and Esterita had even included information about what she would be supplying for the workshop,

the morning was spent cutting out and putting together the applied picture, I had Batik fabric that I had made early last year, some of you who used to read my island threads blogger blog may remember the photos, I had done this fabric using found objects as demonstrates, now Rayna is another artist who’s workshop I would like to take, not her batik as I have done batik work but Rayna’s gelatine plate mono printing (although I do ask myself if this is veggie) anyway here’s a photo of my found objects batik fabric,

and here’s one of the appliqué in Esterita’s pattern,

in the afternoon we painted to create depth, you had to imagine a light coming from one direction and so create light on one side and darken the other, which isn’t as straight forward as it sounds,

Esterita used my picture to demonstrate how to add the light and dark paint to create depth, this is the bit she did, notice how the cup and jug now have a distance between them,

Now it was my turn to have ago,

Esterita did a demonstration on how to treat the lid of the pot and I copied what she was doing onto my pot,

here’s the finished fabric picture, sans stitching, I need to do something about the saucer as the cup looks like it is floating above….levitating, I learnt so much,

I had what I had learnt in this class very much in mind when the following week I was making a pastel painting of the jug and vase at and got more depth than I had before, I have not done anything yet but I am thinking of working over some of my small pot art quilts,