I MUST APOLOGISE!

For not keeping up to date with my blog.  So many things have happened since I last wrote.  Moving house; Melbourne for Christmas to visit our daughter Kirsten and then home just in time to experience the dreadful floods in our valley.  We were some of of the lucky ones in that our home was not flooded....just about 20cm or so of floodwater in our yard.  I was evacuated by Black Hawk choppers which was an experience I'll never forget I think!  Enough of that!

Amidst all of the horrors I also had to create a full Christmas table setting for Handmade.  I had been asked to do this just before Christmas and the deadline was the end of January!  Luckily Virginia (the editor) gave me a week's grace and I DID complete it under pressure.  I sent it off without even setting it out and photographing and just prayed that they would like it.  Luckily they did and it's been and gone now as the next issue is now out.  I will post a photograph ASAP.

For this post I thought I would finish off our Artistic Licence exhibition at the Tablelands Regional Gallery in November.  It was very well received and caused a lot of comment which was pleasing.  I'm fairly certain I have posted all the pics of the small pieces so will give you a bit of a look at how they all looked on the walls of the gallery as well as the final piece which melded in with the other larger piece the rest of AL created. 

As always I'm never sure if I will get the pics in the right place so here goes!  As you can see the individual pieces aren't easy to see but the overall pic gives an idea of how they worked together.  The plinths hold the artist books we all created.

The above pic is one set of combined pieces that were hung in the entry of the gallery.  Mine is the piece on the right and I'll also add a pic of it on it's own.  Sandra created the top left piece and Liddy the bottom left piece.  Hopefully the individual pic will give you a bit of the detail.  Probably doesn't show in the pic but each of the individual pieces started and finished with the same fabric as the one beside it ie.  the first green fabric on mine was the last on Liddy's and the last red fabric of mine was the in the first section of Sandra's.  As we were all flung far and wide when we each worked on these it's a bit amazing that they blended!

I added elements used in the small pieces to echo and create a sense of continuity.  Below are some pics of some of the artist books I created for the exhibition. 

The green book was to echo my small piece titled Earth's Oxygen and the red concertina book echoed Prelude to Winter. 

The Tea Time set of books were named because I used used tea bags for the pages.  Great fun to do!  Just dry the tea bag once used then empty out the tea leaves and open out the bags if you want.  I do both.  Different brands of tea give different results.  Purple Passion was created as a journal....blank pages inside.  Both books used handmade papers etc for the covers.  I don't get a lot of spare time to indulge my love of bookmaking but try when I can. 

Now that I've got back to post my first message in a long time I will try very hard to come back at least once a week.  Lots to tell everyone about!!  Until then, take care and happy sewing to everyone! Love,

Jan