How to Print with a Fish

Fishface 50cm X 50cm

Step 1
First select your fish! It needs to be one that has scales and fins that stick out. Don't let the fishmonger remove the scales. The one I am using is a New Zealand Terakihi which was being disposed of at the supermarket. Poor thing had lost it's tail and was past it's use-by date so couldn't be sold to be eaten. You can't eat it after you have painted it but you can refreeze it to paint again another time.

Step 2
Dry it off with paper towels and put it on some old newspaper.

Step 3
Using fabric paint and a 2 inch housepainting brush, paint the fish upwards towards the head. This forces paint under the scales which gives a better print. Try not to paint too thickly and don't leave brush marks as they will show on your print.








Here Fred has been painted with silver fabric painting ink. Move the fish off the paper you painted it on, onto a clean sheet. Try to make the fins stick up and spread the tail out.








Step 4
Lay fabric on top of the fish and gently smooth the fabric over the body and around the sides, making sure you don't squash down the fins or close the tail up.









Step 5
Peel away fabric. Hopefully you have a good print. You can also print using acrylic paints and tissue paper or other thin flexible paper if you don't want to use fabric .








Step 6
Wait till the ink is dry. Iron the print to set the ink. Hand wash to remove any fish smell.

Making it back!

I'm starting to feel like I am coming back to real life after my enforced home detention (post surgery). I'm still not allowed to lift stuff and can't go back to work just yet but I feel pretty good and its hard not to do too much. But I have been warned that 'overdoing it will result in 'reverse stitching' so I have to be restrained.

So far I have completed a jersey for my 2 year old nephew. It took 2 years to knit the back and 2 days to finish the front and sleeves. Its just as well that I completed it, it fits right now, but maybe not for long. Then I made him a hat from a pattern I found on www.ravelry.com and then a scarf for me. I'm tied to home at the moment so its great to be able to find free patterns online. There are about a gazillion groups as well that meet through ravelry including some for quilters who also knit.

I've been surfing the internet for large chunks of the day recently so here are some of my favourite sites to have a look at

Robot Walrus www.robotwalrus.com/

Margarita Sampson

Nigerian letter-scam generator

Pink Penguin

Burning Man festival

Apart from surfing the internet I have been devising some very basic quilt ideas for a chapter of a 'how -to' book being published in New Zealand which will cover things 'your parents and grandparents should have taught you'. The author came to visit and went home with fabric scraps and vliesofix to have a go herself.

One of my quilts is going on holiday to France with the exhibition 'Made in New Zealand' curated by New Zealand Quilter magazine. It is called 'Storm at Sea' and is at the top of this post. The other exciting news is that my son James and I are going to Japan in October as part of a group visiting Sakai which is Wellington's sister city. I am really looking forward to that.

Enough for one post. I have a fish and will print with it and post the instructions here.

Clare

A bit of time out

A detail shot of Clare Plug's quilt 'Icecrack 6'. Clare went to Antarctica a couple of years ago as a visiting artist and currently has a wonderful exhibition at Napier Museum which will travel to Manawatu, Christchurch and I think Auckland.

Ronnie Martin from Nelson made a quilt showing the possibilities of sea level rise
Above shot is from Left to right - my quilt 'Irrigation', Cheryl Comfort's quilt 'Unless', Ronnie's quilt 'Changing Tides' and Jenny Bowker's quilt 'Hot Water, Dead Sea'.


I've neglected the Blog whilst having a spot of surgery. I still get a bit dizzy if I sit up for too long so its been hard to keep up with email etc. We had a nice article about the 'Change in the Weather' show in last Saturday's (20th June) Dominion Post newspaper thanks to Ann Packer. Here are some further photos of the quilts in the show.

Climate Change exhibition continued

This is a detail shot of Cheryl Comfort's quilt which was extremely hard to photograph! Her quilt and statement were getting a lot of attention at the opening of the exhibition. This is her statement.
UNLESS someone like you
cares a whole awful lot
nothing is going to get better
It’s not.
The Lorax
Dr Seuss

Unless we change
Unless we take responsibility
Unless it’s a hoax
Unless I make a change
Unless we do it now

Above is the quilt by Gloria Loughman which is on the exhibition invitation. It is called Acid Rain.

This is a detail of Dijanne Cevaal's quilt, called 'Extreme Conditions'. It is inspired by her diary entry on the day of the big fires in Victoria, Australia.

A Change in the Weather Exhibition

Well the exhibition is open now at Minerva Gallery (237 Cuba St, Wellington) and it looks great. The theme is Climate change and we had a scientist, Howard Larsen, from the Ministry For the Environment say a few words to open the exhibition. We had planned to get my husband to do this as he is also a climate change scientist but he was away in Europe on the day.

The quilts are all about 50cm wide by 150cm long which is a good size for that gallery and gives a lot of nice space around the quilts.

The quilt above is mine and is about irrigation.

Making changes

I haven't written here for weeks because life got in the way. In that time I have organised volunteers to paint the inside of the scout hall and spent huge amounts of time down there myself painting and moving stuff back to where it should be and I have waited round for flooring people to arrive to give quotes to put in new lino.
I worked a few days teaching First Aid and then gave 6 weeks notice after a guy pointed a gun at me. It was one of those replica guns that are actually lighters but its pretty hard to tell when you are busy teaching and someone points something like that at you. That was the last straw and I decided that the really good classes no longer outweighed the terrible classes. So maybe I'll live on my savings and make a few quilts for a while.

I'm making a quilt for an exhibition called 'A Change in the Weather' which will be at Minerva Gallery in Cuba St, Wellington, in June and then at The Cloakroom Gallery in Queenstown in July. The theme is Climate Change and the group making the exhibition has varying levels of knowledge on the topic and includes at least one climate change sceptic which should make things interesting.
The exhibitors are all Australian and New Zealand quilters. Wendy Lugg, Margery Goodall, Dijanne Cevaal, Gloria Loughman, Sue Wood, Jenny Bowker, Clare Plug, Clare Smith, Ronnie Martin, Cheryl Comfort, Sue Wademan.

painting the hall (instead of fabric)

I've spent the week getting the local scout hall ready for painting, letting the volunteers from BNZ bank in to paint the hall, painting a second coat on a couple of side rooms, waiting for people to come and measure up rooms for laying lino and getting ready to a working bee on sunday to paint another coat on the main hall. It would be nice to paint some fabric and make a quilt. Maybe next week (after I have made the scout vests).
I have a bad habit of getting everything out of the way before I get on with my quilts, the trouble is - everything else never ends if you are volunteer.