Getting old and crusty

Matey, it's been a long time. "Hello Darkness my old friend, I've come to talk with you again", to quote Simon & Garfunkel. *nb. substitute 'blog' for 'Darkness'.

It's been a busy year as you can guess by the frequency of my posts. At the moment I am enjoying some free time after the opening of a show with myself, Carly Preston and Clare Fennessy at Allan's Walk Artist Run Space in Bendigo. We collaborated on our pieces and I'm pretty excited about a small blanket I made, even though I'm not a quilter and it shows (especially at the corners). The piece is a patchwork of squares printed with the silhouette of a dead swallow; I took the photo, Carly printed the squares and I sewed it up. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out and getting excited about Carly's Gocco screenprinting set - it looks like a toy but it's an incredibly easy way to create your own screens if you're interested in printing on a small scale.

The prints are around about A5 size so anything bigger than that can be tricky, but seeing that they are the perfect size for a quilting square I'm going to bully Carly into trying some more screens out and see how they work.

After a hectic year I have realised that I am keen on blankets. Having made one for Next Wave (left), and now Flock, I'm getting excited about a rectangle of material that can have whatever you fancy on it. I really struggle to rationalize my work and there is no rationalization for making blankets, not in my mind anyway. But I enjoy the idea of having something crazy on the end of your bed, or on the back of your couch, or on your lap at the footy. Looking like possible Christmas presents. Don't think Mum will be getting a ruffled seascape one though, perhaps a nice Laura Ashley print.

Re craft activity, just Googled 'crafternoon' and it turns out there is a group in Tas that use the name - www.crafternoon.com.au - worth a look; and I had a very inspiring conversation with my ex-flatmate Christi this afternoon about resin cast bangles (the ones she makes are amazing) and craft websites that I should be checking out. When she sends me links I'll be posting them up. Have a good craftern'evening!