Archive for the ‘sheers’ Category

2011 SAQA Auction Quilt

Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011

This 12″ square textile, just completed but as yet untitled,  is my offering for this year’s SAQA Benefit Auction  At this link you can see some of the early submissions to this year’s auction list, and find full details of how you can particpate and acquire a fine small art quilt for your textile or quilt collection  (I suggest mine of course! )

The Auction will run online from September 12th to October 2nd.

This piece fits in with the Timetracks series, and yet I think I may have another title in mind, but am thinking it over.  No rush.

A New Work

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

The thing with sheers has taken a hold, and working fast, on monday I completed something I began on sunday afternoon.

This multilevel piece has a rough unfinished edge, show to the far right of the photo – which was taken against a cream background. There are strips of sheer black fabric and loose black and gold threads lurking behind a goldy, very sheer nylon organza. When all was sufficiently attached down, I then took my woodburning tool (it has several different tips) and burnt some of it away … this is a very expressive, possibly even therapeutic activity… and I can totally recommend it….. but the burning needs to be done outside to avoid any fumes – and my luck is that it’s freezing here just now; but I will rug up for the next one. I even have some mitts (open fingered gloves) to wear on my hands while working outside. I have been doing holes in organza sort of samply lacy things on and off for ages, but with this work the raison d’etre for what I thought was going nowhere all came together in a satisfying way. It has given me more ideas. Apart from laciness and the grid thing with leather that I have been a bit occupied with, it also suggests elements of change and decay, the defining essence of my Timetracks series although I may not name this as one of that group. May not name it anything.

I have entered this new piece to be considered for an exhibition, (and so have not published a full view) but it is also in a way a sample for a much larger work I have buzzing around in my mind, and which I will get a start on this evening before I turn in.
July 13th I am happy to anounce this piece, “Decay” has been selected into the group of 30 Australian 50cm x 50cm quilts that with 30 from new Zealand and 30 from South Africa will form a 90-quilt collection of small quilts to tour over the next 2-3 years as the “My Place” collection, and will be seen first in South Africa in September this year. Once the catalogue is out, I will put up a full view of the piece.

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Thinking … Samplising

Thursday, June 12th, 2008

I have been thinking about glitter and sheers a bit, and these are a couple of the samples I have put together in the last week, really just to hang on to a couple of ideas while I am currently a bit short studio of time.

With this very sheer nylon organza, to my knowledge bonding is out, as previous bonding experiments with coarser nylon organza have not held more than a couple of days. The ‘straight’ edges are cut on the cross, and the main thing I want to be certain about is that they will be reasonably hard wearing; and so I will be testing the durability of the machine sewn edges by tossing them into the dryer with a towel for a while ……

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Looking Back

Saturday, May 3rd, 2008

Planning my next work, I am keen to re-visit sheer fabric but of course don’t want to copy what anyone else is doing. While I am mulling over ideas and their relevance to what I am doing, it can be helpful to look to back to be reminded about something that was on my mind a while back.

UL and LR are works I did in 2004. They followed a workshop late in 2003 with Chungie Lee who taught a class on Korean Pojagi I attended at fibersWest in W.Australia. She of course showed us how fabrics are pieced in the several traditional ways, and these works were done with folded over seaming, the name of which I forget, but it is rather like double lap felled seams. On reflection I now understand one of the reasons I did not continue with this development, which is that this is too much pojagi and not enough Alison. I am now sure I don’t want to continue with the rigid seaming, but I am very interested in ‘sheers’ per se, and am thinking of ways to incorporate them into my current themes. For one thing, sheers can be used to give the illusion of something misty, the passage of time, or perhaps a sense of distance. If I am clever enough to do that.

UR is a close up of one of the squares in the work below it, and LL has actually no sheer fabric at all, it’s a detail of Ebb & Flow 2, and part of where my thinking is just now. I love the basic geometric shapes, squares and triangles which predominate in traditional quilt designs, and well, I can feel some triangles coming on. And some sheers. And some glitter.

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