Wednesday, 24 July 2013

Blog Hop - Averil Stuart-Head

Today the Oceania Collection blog hop visits Averil Stuart-Head at avesrave.blogspot.com Art Quilt by Averil Stuart-Head  
Other blog stops:
      20 July                  Lisa Walton                     fibreinspirations.blogspot.com
      22 July                  Lisa Repsevicius              SAQA Oceania blog
      26 July                  Mel Forrest                     mixedmediabymelforrest.com
      28 July                  Brenda Gael Smith          serendipitypatchwork.com.au/blog
        View the complete Oceania Collection Blog Hop timetable.

        Monday, 22 July 2013

        Blog Hop - Lisa Repsevicius

        More Blog Hop fun!
        Today's post is by Lisa Repsevicius of Perth WA.  Enjoy following along with her as she shows you her process for making "Untitled".


         Art Quilt by Lisa Repsevicius

        I love working with recycled/repurposed fabrics (amongst others of course) and find a lot of my treasures in local Op Shops. What to make for the 2013 SAQA Benefit Auction? Well, I have a plentiful stash of unpicked parts of old jeans – the waistbands are my favourite! Once unpicked and pressed totally flat, this re-purposed denim provides some wonderful, serendipitous indigo patterning - usually in some linear form - and anyone who knows my work knows that I love my straight lines!

        With the denim so variable, I wanted to keep the construction and colour simple. I decided to contrast the denim’s inky blues with a citrus yellow plain wool felt, which I used for the backing as well as incorporating some snippets within the quilt top. I like to link the back to the front and vice versa.
         
        This was my process:

        First, I cut a rough square from some yellow felt offcuts I had. This is the backing piece.

        I then raided my denim laden shelves for exciting bits and pieces with lots of colour nuance.

        I used spray starch and a steam iron to press the pieces very flat – unpicked, well-worn jeans have seam memory hammered into them and I wanted to erase that.

        Off to the sewing machine, I randomly stitched denims of approximately the same width together, to a length needed to cover the width of the yellow backing piece. I'm calling this raw-edge piecing.

        I then raw-edge pieced the strips together into a rough square, incorporating some strategically placed bits of yellow felt amongst the rows. Part of the fun (yep!) at my sewing machine is collecting stray bits and pieces and thread trimmings. I'll build up a little collection of bits whilst working on a project – it is evidence of the creative process and I just like the way it looks all mashed together (call me strange!). I have a yellow thing going on at the moment - I keep a large yellow soup mug next to my machine for my textile swarf. Love that word swarf! My husband once explained to me that those springy little spirals that emanate from a busy drill bit are called swarf – who knew? Now I have swarf too! (and he knows it…)

        After sandwiching backing and top together, I chose red thread for the quilting and began fairly randomly quilting parallel lines over the quilt sandwich. Why red? To me, denim’s partner in crime is red, so red it has to be!

        Back view showing lots of ends to tie off, not unusual when I quilt with stop-start geometrics.

        My bright yellow cup full of trimmings.

        I glued a label into one back corner of the quilt, right to the edges, then, in keeping with the raw-edge piecing, I left the edges of the quilt raw, stabilising with a couple of rows of stitching about 1/8” in from the edge, through the label. The rest of the label was hand-stitched to secure it.

        I attached a denim sleeve to the top back of the quilt in the same manner as the label.

        The reveal on my design wall!

        I left the quilt Untitled as I didn’t really have a story to tell with this one (I usually do!).

        I enjoy being a member of SAQA and the opportunities it provides – we are a disparate bunch of artists here in Oceania, united by our love of textiles and quilts. I’m loving being a part of this exhibition alongside my wonderfully talented colleagues and most importantly supporting the auction!

        Here are some more posts to enjoy!
        18 July                  Caroline Sharkey             textileartworkshopsonline.com
        20 July                  Lisa Walton                     fibreinspirations.blogspot.com

        24 July                  Averil Stuart-Head          avesrave.blogspot.com
        26 July                  Mel Forrest                     mixedmediabymelforrest.com




        Saturday, 20 July 2013

        Blog Hop - Lisa Walton

        The Oceania Collection blog hop continues. Join Oceania co-representative, Lisa Walton of Sydney Australia at fibreinspirations.blogspot.com to learn more about her donation work Gumnuts.

          Art Quilt by Sue Dennis
        Other blog stops:

        Thursday, 18 July 2013

        Blog Hop - Caroline Sharkey

        Today the Oceania Collection blog hop visits Caroline Sharkey at www.textileartworkshopsonline.com Art Quilt by Caroline Sharkey  
        Other blog stops:

            Tuesday, 16 July 2013

            Blog Hop - Sue Dennis

            The Oceania Collection Blog Hop starts today!  First up is Sue Dennis of Brisbane, Queensland.  Pop over to Sue's blog www.suedennisartquilts.blogspot.com to learn more about A Seasonal Change, her donation to the to the 2013 SAQA Benefit Auction
            Art Quilt by Sue Dennis
            Upcoming blog stops:

            Thursday, 11 July 2013

            The Oceania Collection Blog Hop 2013

            Welcome to our Blop Hop!

            Twenty five SAQA Oceania members are lined up ready to share a "behind the scenes" glimpse into how they create.

            Over six weeks you'll have the chance to visit each artist listed below and see the inspiration behind the piece they made for the Oceania Collection, quilts donated to the SAQA Benefit Auction 2013.

            Feel free to visit often, and to spread the word!
            16 July                  Sue Dennis                      suedennisartquilts.blogspot.com
            18 July                  Caroline Sharkey             textileartworkshopsonline.com
            20 July                  Lisa Walton                     fibreinspirations.blogspot.com
            22 July                  Lisa Repsevicius              SAQA Oceania blog
            24 July                  Averil Stuart-Head          avesrave.blogspot.com
            26 July                  Mel Forrest                     mixedmediabymelforrest.com
            28 July                  Brenda Gael Smith          serendipitypatchwork.com.au/blog
            30 July                  Ruth de Vos                     ruthdevos.com/blog
            1 August               Ali George                       aliquilts.blogspot.com
            3 August               Rasa Mauragis                 rasamauragis.com/blog
            5 August               Alison Schwabe               alisonschwabe.com/weblog
            7 August               Maggie Gilbert                 mgquilts.blogspot.com
            9 August               Susie Cujes                     SAQA Oceania blog
            13 August             Linda Robertus               
            lindarobertus.blogspot.com
            15 August             Linda Stokes                   linda-stokes.blogspot.com
            17 August             Robyn McGrath               SAQA Oceania blog
            19 August             Kate Oszko                    koszko.blogspot.com
            21 August             Felicity Clarke                 bearlytherecreations.blogspot.com
            24 August             Susan Mathews               susanmathews.info
            27 August             Jenny Bowker                 jennybowker.com/postcards
            29 August             Sally Westcott                 sallydunn.blogspot.com
            31 August             Stephanie Newman         stephanienewman.blogspot.com
            2 September         Hilary Metcalf                 hilarymetcalf.wordpress.com 
            4 September         Buffy Beggs                    SAQA Oceania Blog 
            6 September         Helen Beaven                 myinnerthread.blogspot.com
            The Oceania Collection

            The Oceania Collection Blog Hop Button Code

            To assist in promoting The Oceania Blog Hop, you are welcome to grab the code for this button.
            Blog Hop Button

            To add the blog hop button to the sidebar of your blog, copy and paste the code into a widget:
            • For Blogspot blog: Dashboard>Design>Layout>Add Gadget>Select HTML/JavaScript Gadget> input code>Save 
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