A new decade 2020

I'm finding it hard to accept that I turn 60 this year. Surely a 60 yer old person should be tidy and have their creative life a bit more organised than I do. I get carried away creatively and don't mind that I'm working in a disaster zone. I think I spend most of my life tidying up the mess I made the previous day. I also have about the slowest computer available at the moment since it hasn't been able to update to the latest operating system. I'm waiting for a new one to be delivered. So this blogpost is taking rather a long time to load photos ad its been a long time since I even posted here as I find computing very frustrating at the moment.

Wearing my Hieke

This year I have again been studying raranga and we started the year making hieke which is a type of Maori  rain cape. The base underneath is made of jute string which is what we beginners started with. The top part is mainly shredded harakeke (NZ flax) and the bottom is New Zealand flax which has rolled up into tight straws called pokinikini. In the background is an example of harakeke, the plant that we use to weave baskets and make these sorts of cloaks.

Pake (pronounced packay)

This is the second cloak we made this year. Mine was the only bright blue one though. String is made from the the interior fibres of the flax leaf. I dyed mine with dyes suitable for cellulose fibres. There are pokinikini at the bottom of the fibre strings.

These two years of learning Maori weaving have been very exciting and have taken me away from quilts and textiles. I have learned a lot about weaving, Maori language  and about New Zealand. 

Ailsa Craig Quilt and Fibre festival

In mid May a group of New Zealand quilt tutors will set out for Canada to teach at the Ailsa Craig Quilt and Fibre Festival.  An exhibition of quilts made by the tutors were sent off a few months ago to take part in a road show to promote the festival, then the 100 quilts from around the country were sent off last week in a huge parcel along with challenge quilts with the them "New Zealand through Our Eyes".

I'm starting to think about which quilts to take with me. It's a choice between having enough clothes for the festival and for 3 weeks travel in Canada afterwards, and having a good selection of quilts for people to see in class. Maybe I don't need clothes!

I'm teaching my Spiky Trees class . Here are some of the quilts I've made in the past. Past students have made quilt tops of plants such as Aloe (South Africa), grass trees and palms (Australia), agapanthus and cacti (in the UK). Its always interesting to see which pictures people bring with them to use as inspiration for their quilt top.

The New Zealand Cabbage Tree (Cordyline Australis)

Cordyline Australis

New Zealand Lancewood

New Zealand flax bush (Phormium Tenax)

Spinnifex on a New Zealand beach (our sand is grey )

Another class I'm teaching is based on utility quilts. In Australia these are called 'wagga quilts' this is probably because the quilts were often backed with flour sacks from the Wagga Wagga flour mills.
Wagga were made from discarded clothing often covered with a final layer of cretonne curtain fabric. When the top layer of fabric is removed, the layers of clothing can be seen. A childs jersey, a mans overcoat, a wool skirt - anything to keep warm. They are like a history of a family in discarded clothing.

I've used this layering of clothing to signify 'layers of lives'. Sometimes I embroider genetic symbols on top of the clothing, sometimes I have screen printed on the fabrics. I often use this method of laying out fabrics or clothing as a background and then add something else on the surface.

3 layers of lives quilts displayed as 'genetic history' cloaks

Granny Smith (using doilies and household linens as the background)

Layers of lives (inspired by the book 'the seven daughters of Eve'

Wagga quilt over printed with genetic information

layers of kimonos (after the Tsunami in Japan)

crossover wagga/japanese boro

Layers of Lives - white office shirts (and DNA image on the surface)

The final classes I'm teaching are to create simple kono (baskets).In New Zealand we would weave with harakeke (NZ flax). This is not available in Canada so we will be using willow bark. I'm going to try and take a bit of harakeke with me so people can see what it is like.

The way we cut the harakeke leaving the three central leaves

two kono (square baskets)

a selection of 4 and 2 corner kono

I understand that the two weaving class are full but there are still spaces in the wagga and spiky trees classes. If you are interested in my classes but need more information, please don't hesitate to ask questions and I'll try and explain anything that doesn't make sense. 

I look forward to Ailsa Craig Festival and hope to see some of your there.

Nga Mihi (regards)

Clare

Learning to weave Harakeke part 2.

The course at the Wananga is nearly over, we are currently having our exhibition and our opening was last night. The course is 10 months long and counts as full time but most people are able to work full time as the classes are 5-9pm on a Wednesday and once a month there is a full weekend of 5pm friday to 2pm on sunday. Most new skills are taught on the full weekend.

here are a few of the kete I have made in the second half of the year. I have been exploring the use of dyes and weaving with flax that has been harvested and prepared then boiled and dried for 4-6 weeks before dyeing and weaving. I'm still getting used to the amount of time the flax needs to be soaked to get it flexible enough to weave with. Too wet and it dries with gaps, too dry and it cracks while I'm working with it.

patterned kete pikau (backpack)

patterned kete Timata

Patterned kete timata with 4 plait shoulder strap

kete pikau with patikitiki pattern (the flounder)

kete pikau with patikitiki pattern (the flounder)

kete pikau with patikitiki pattern (the flounder)

Kete porowhita with whakapuareare (holes)

kete whakairo (fine weave) with holes

kete whakairo

kete porowhita

the poster for our student show

Classes

Wellington Quilters Guild has asked me to teach a Sashiko class and a machine quilting class at their winter solstice quilting weekend in June. I am ashamed to say that my website is now so out of date that those classes aren't even on it. My husband constructed my website so long ago that we have long forgotten how to change anything and it wasn't ever at all easy. I was one of the first quilters in New Zealand to get a website but now I'm one of the people with the most out of date website in New Zealand.

Here is the information for the Wellington Quilt Guild classes.

One day classes

Quilt-doodling and colouring-in for machine quilters

Spend a day honing your machine quilting skills by doodling using the sewing machine then  colour in your patterns using fabric markers. Colouring-in is optional! 

Black thread on white fabric

Sashiko

Sashiko is a traditional Japanese way of patching and strengthening old fabrics using running stitch in decorative patterns.  In this class students will look at photographic examples of Japanese boro (patched) textiles as well as examples of more modern styles of sashiko stitching. Students will then learn how to mark out a grid on fabric and then stitch Japanese Sashiko patterns either by hand or by machine. 

Sashiko is traditionally done using cream or white thread on a navy (indigo) background but students are encouraged to try different colour combinations or create their own stitching patterns for a different look. 

Machine stitched sashiko patterns on a bag

2 placemats.  Left -  sashiko by machine. Right - sashiko by hand

Sashiko stitching over recycled indigo fabrics to make a placemat

Quilts on sale now!

To help pay for the set up of my new studio I am having a sale of my smaller quilts. They range from $150 for the biggest down to $30 for the smallest. I have pinned them to my new design wall. Let me know if you are interested. I just made two sales so there are gaps - which will pay for another bookcase. Yay! 

My new studio

I've been working in a long thin room which has become so full of 'stuff' that I have found it harder and harder to find a space to work in. Recently I have been working in a 50cm square spot on a 4 metre long bench because of a lack of storage space and an inability to organise my stuff. 

We have just done major renovations across the whole house. These were long overdue as the kitchen was a 1970s brown horror. It was so authentically awful that it was used as the set for the movie 'Via Satellite' when we rented out the house while we were overseas back in 1997. It has taken until 2015 for us to brave the disturbance of kitchen renovations. Anyway after months of painting walls, waiting for tradespeople, moving furniture around so we could recarpet etcetc, we moved to the downstairs part of the house and my husband kindly vacated his office ( he moved into one of the kids bedrooms as they have left home) so I could  have a bigger studio at the front of the house. I will have a space to teach a few students or have a few friends over for crafty 'play dates'. I should have enough space to make voluminous theatre costumes in there too.

I have painted the walls and ceiling, ripped up the old disintegrating carpet and had 9 new lights put in. Yesterday I had new Lino installed, tomorrow Lisa Call is going to help me put up a large design wall, and I should get the bookcases and cutting table set up by next weekend. I'm really looking forward to putting my books in place. The books have been moved 4 times already, as each room was cleared for recarpet game or painting. I am so over moving books.

Nasty brown floor is transformed by instant plank like Lino.

Local news, marking time...

It's 7 weeks since I had my thyroidectomy, I'm healing well, but I'm just really marking time till the next stage of the journey. On the 7th of April I go 'radioactive'! It's a thyroid thing…but to prepare for that, I have had to stop taking the medication which I take to replace what the thyroid does normally, and I also have to eat a low iodine diet to make the thyroid cancer cells desperate, then ZAP!

In the meantime here are a few things I have been doing recently.
I managed to get to see the sculpture exhibition 'Shapeshifter' on about the last day of the Wellington Festival of the arts.

Yes this is a sculpture

Last weekend I went to the Wine Country quilt exhibition in Waipukurau which is about 4 hours from Wellington. My quilt group, Coastal Quilters, hired a bus and we left at 7.30am and got back in the late afternoon.
My favorite quilt was by Lyn Stoddart, and was a wonderfully warm wool 'wagga'' style quilt.

This week I have also been taking photos of slightly silly signs.

This is a painting on a power box, the eyes are stuck on later by some joker! 

Add caption

Why not just print the letters smaller?

sparrows eating the bread outside the bread shop

 The weather today from Tawa Countdown supermarket. Looks quite rural really
below is more like it, our street is all dug up and has been for weeks. Its hair raising driving over these drawbridges and sometimes I can't get out of the driveway at all.