Michelle Mischkulnig workshop

As a member of TAAMMI (Textile Art & Mixed Media Inc) we're always looking for new tutors to inspire and guide us in our creative journey, and recently our workshop co-ordinator Penni introduced us to the vibrant textile art of Michelle Mischkulnig.

Luckily for us, Michelle was happy to come over from Victoria and conduct two weekend workshops for our group, and for non members from other textile and embroidery groups.

What a brilliant weekend we had.  Michelle is very open to sharing her vast knowledge and techniques with us all, and is an extremely friendly and warm person.

Michelle showed us how to create a colourful garden theme, using machine embroidery on printed fabric of Michelle's design and layers of fabric and thread to give dimension and depth to the piece, adding 3D pieces to develop texture and volume.

The two days flew by and we all had a ball.  Unfortunately no-one finished their work in the time frame, but they were all about 80% complete by the end of the workshop.

Mine is still sitting in my workroom waiting for more attention - and after a weeks holiday next week I'll be getting down to some serious stitching.  Watch this space .....

Inspiration from the Craft Fair

I was so impressed with this years WA Craft Show at Claremont Showgrounds that I wanted to share some of the highlights with you, like these fabulous quilt creations from "Just One More Stitch".

and the marvellous textile and fibre art from "Designing Women".

Dale Rollerson's work never fails to inspire me.

But for me, the big draw card this year was Alison Cole and her superb stumpwork and goldwork embroidery.  Her work is simply stunning, so fine and well executed, with a wonderful selection of styles and themes to entice you.  Not only that, she's a lovely lady too - we sat and chatted quite a bit together at the end of the day, and I came home all inspired to create a stumpwork design - something I've not done in a number of years.

Each year the fair holds its Art to Wear display and as always the artists imagination is awe inspiring, like this dress made by Minni Karamfiles, all made of ringpulls from aluminium drink cans.  Incredible!! 

and this work of art from Jan Rowe - such an amazing amount of texture created in this piece and the colours were extraordinary.  I couldn't begin to imagine the number of hours work that went into creating this piece.

There was one piece in particular that caught my eye, and that was the eco dyed dress made by Jane Flower.  The colours and patterns in her work really appealed to me and I spent quite a long time chatting with her and went away itching to set a date on the calendar to attend one of her workshops.  Fortunately she lives not too far away from me, so as soon as I get a slot in my calendar I'll be off there in a shot.

 

There's something so appealing about the natural colours and patterns in Jane's work that I kept going back to her stand time and again, just to soak it all in.  She certainly inspired me, and since the show I've spent a lot of time googling eco dyeing, so watch for future posts, I might have something to share with you soon.

Another guest this year was Ro Bruhn, whose work is so colourful and vibrant.  It makes you want to pull out your paint box and have a go. They were such happy bright pieces.

Val Hornibrook is a West Australian artist and her felted pieces were also colourful and enticing.

There were many exhibitions of art quilts and textile and fibre art from leading artists from all over Australia and internationally.  But the one that stood out the most was The Sentinelles, by Dijanne Cevaal.

I couldn't get enough of this wonderful display.  My brain was like a sponge trying to take it all in - so many different approaches to embroidery and colour, and the way the display was set out showing the colours changing as they moved around the colour wheel was incredible.  If you ever get the chance to see this travelling exhibition I thoroughly recommend it.

And last but certainly not least, was the Kimberley Dreaming exhibition run by Dale Rollerson of The Thread Studio.  Unfortunately my photos don't reflect the true colours of some of these masterpieces.  They were the colours of Australia, and were simply beautiful.

There are so many talented people all around us every day who work hard in their creative fields, and I'm always so grateful to these people for sharing their inspiration, ideas and techniques with us all. So a huge thank you.  I had a brilliant day, my mind is spinning with inspiration and I can't wait for next years show.

WA Craft Show

Have you ever had one of those days when you feel like a kid lost in a fairytale - I did on Friday.  I went to the WA Craft Show at Claremont and spent 5 hours mesmerised by colour and creativity.  I sometimes wish I had a photographic memory so I could go home and remember everything I'd seen and what had inspired me.  First stop was the ATASDA stall and a chat with Judith, with lots of oohing and ahhing over her spectacular quilted coat.

I've just recently become a member of the ATASDA group and my first contribution was a ruby card for display celebrating the 40th Anniversary of the group.  

There was a wonderful variety, each member had a completely different take on their card, yet they all looked fabulous when placed together with the gold cord running through them.  My contribution is the first on the left on the fourth row.

 The Northampton textile group "All Stitched Up" put on an amazing display and were a friendly bunch of ladies.  The imagination and creativity from people leaves me gobsmacked and feeling rather lacking in my own abilities, and left me wandering around muttering "...now why didn't I think of that?!"

 I love my cups of tea, but never have I thought to put the teabags to such brilliant use as Louise Wells did with this amazing outfit, in the "Art to Wear" section.  This outfit was called "once".

 There were lots of other incredible creations in the Art to Wear competition too.

This piece of Art to Wear (below) by Shelley Higham and Linda Nunn, titled "Magical Memories" was incredible and the photo doesn't do it justice.  The outfit was embellished with clear plastic cups cut to form fronds and then coated at the ends in paint to represent flowers.  Simply awesome!

I grabbed some reels of Wonderfil machine thread not realising the different weights of each of them until the delightful Helen Rhodes explained all about them to me.  I fell in love with her machine stitched Emu wall hanging and left feeling so envious of her amazing talents, and was delighted to later learn she lives not far from me, so I'm sure I'll attend one of her workshops in the not too distant future.

One of the shows special guests this year was textile artist Caroline Sharkey - yet another awesome display of colour and inspiration.  I watched her working on one of her pieces and couldn't believe the speed she ran the fabric through the sewing machine, you can guarantee that if I'd tried it the needle would have broken or the threads snapped.

This years Quilt display didn't disappoint either with lots of wonderful quilts to see (sorry I didn't get the names of the artists who's work is shown below).

I was in awe of the third place winner of the Bunbury Quilt Challenge - a stunning quilt of a Mykonos Fishing Boat by Peg Pennell of Nebraska, USA.

And who could walk past this display without falling in love with these little fella's ... wonderfully displayed in china jugs by Georgie Threadgould of Thread Bears.

I lost my heart to this little rabbit at the Bear Moments stall and it was a hard task not to take him home with me as he was gorgeous, but the pocket money only stretched so far ... maybe he'll go on my wish list for Christmas.

 Another guest artist this year, was Celia Player, with her fantastic textile art works.

Helen Godden was also there to demonstrate her fabulous quilting works and demonstrate the Sweet Sixteen quilting machine - yes, that's definitely going on my gift list to Santa this year, it does the most awesome stitching and makes it look so easy.

And lastly here's a pic of the poppy display on the WAFTA stall - part of the 5000 Poppy Appeal  (more of that to come in another blog post)

I had a deliciously happy day on Friday and days like that have been few and far between recently, so it was extra specially nice.  Hope everyone else who attended enjoyed it as much as I did.