Five minute lovely list

This week I've been:

~ Enjoying the fact that the everyday tools of my trade now include as much paper and handwritten ink as technology.

~ Loving my pretty new phone case - like carrying a little quilt of colour in my pocket!

~ Noticing just the slightest shift in daylight hours... not out of the long darkness by a good distance yet but moving in that direction. Oh, and the snow's gone. Thank goodness because, much as I love it to look at, it was causing havoc with getting around.

~ Thankful for the support of people who, with many a kind word and deed, have helped me deal with some of the less pleasant aspects of being self-employed and resident in a foreign country. 

~ Relishing the paint! The juicy acrylic colours, the feeling of it on my fingers and under a brush, and the sheer escape of losing myself in the process for a few hours... BLISS.

♡

At the heart of it

There is a magic in that little world, home; it is a mystic circle that surrounds comforts and virtues never known beyond its hallowed limits.

Robert Southey

(1774-1843)

Our homes are a reflection of who we are, the place where our story begins and our heart lives. We decorate these physical structures with the things that define us, that we have placed value in, and that we love. Home is where we seek refuge from life's storms. It is where rest, replenishment, and nourishment abound.

Sandra Magsamen
Living Artfully (2006)

We all have within ourselves a blueprint for just the home that will shelter our spirit. This blueprint doesn't deal in design and dimensions; it is the plan for home as a spiritual construct, or that homey sense of safety and belonging that can come with us from house to house and from one phase of life to the next.

Victoria Moran
Shelter for the Spirit (1998)

I've been thinking a lot over the past few weeks about what home means to me. 

For many home is a place they call their own because it is their own, filled with things they own, things they value, where their family is, where they feel connected to their personal history... rooted, settled.  I get this. Strangely, home is none of these things to me right now. I own relatively little, my family live far away, I have only a recent connection to the place I find myself, no significant history to speak of here yet and no intention to stay for good. This new apartment will be the twenty-sixth different place I've lived during the course of my life (only those I remember and where I've been for longer than 6 months qualify) and it probably won't be the last. I know that just the thought of this freaks some people out. But it's true. I know it's a big number and perhaps hard to understand how, but most of them have felt like home. Some more so than others but for the most part, home is where I am. My environment is important to me. It has an impact. I struggle to be happy in an ugly, uncomfortable place. But I can be. I have been. Because home is a feeling. An emotional space.

Having said that, I'm looking forward to making my new home (even if it is only temporary) a physical place that both reflects and shelters my spirit again. 

I'd like it to be calm, comfortable, creative, colourful, casual - eclectic. I'd like it to be a place where I enjoy spending time alone, where my loved ones gather (even if only occasionally), where my few treasures surround me and bring me pleasure, where my heart finds comfort and rest at the end of a day.

What makes you smile when you think about your home? I'd love to know.

(quilt from Anthropologie)

Tea Ceremony

The lovely Anairam over at fra(a)iing posted about her love of kimonos and a dream to have one, or to make one.

Anairam - recently referred to as a Papery Artsy Dynamo by one of her readers - is a whizz with paper crafts, a great recycler, lives in the land of rooibos (redbush) tea and enjoys a little sewing, so it reminded me of a beautiful piece that I saw at a quilt exhibition recently and have not yet blogged.

And so, in honour of this kimono dream and because I hope she will enjoy it and perhaps be inspired to give kimono-making a try - and I have no doubt she'd make something gorgeous if she did - I am going with this as today's post...

Tea Ceremony
Jane Rowlands

This beautiful kimono was the unanimously voted winner of the Quilt Creations category of the exhibition, and was described by the judges as such:

"A love of indigo and lots of recycled teabags lead to the creation of a kimono with connections to Japanese traditions.

Rooibos (redbush) stained and indigo-dyed teabags, joined with running stitch. Quilted with herringbone stitch to organza backing.

We loved the ethereal quality of this kimono, as well as the imaginative use of innovative materials, and the attention to detail, especially on the back."

Unfortunately it was positioned with its back to a wall (seemed a shame not to be able to walk all the way around it) but I stuck my arm in behind it and snapped this picture...


And this is the rosette detail on the front:

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The whole thing made out of teabags... Awesome and beautiful!

Concertino - visual music

More Quilt Exhibition loveliness. This one was an series of fabric books displayed on music stands.... The textures were just too delicious - I could hardly resist touching them!

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Concertino - Jutta Erner

Black and White Wonders

As promised, I wanted to post a few more photo's taken at the Quilt Exhibition...

Spring of Desire - Ted Storm

This one has to be seen to be believed. And I'm afraid the pictures don't really do it justice, so I feel that I should apologise to the guy who made it for that. But I hope you will enjoy a sense of it anyway.

It really was a wonder to behold and I ended up with my nose virtually pressed against it. I couldn't believe what I was seeing.... Big enough for a double bed. So striking in its category - monochrome in a room full of traditional multicoloured creations. So obviously a labour of skill and patience and love. And all of it, every single stitch, handsewn!

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Yep, those little squares are only about 1cm along each side.... And handsewn people! Apparently it took him four years to make. A real labour of love. Or obsession? Either way, a worthy winner in several categories.

And then there was this one, which also won a category - Quilters Guild Challenge - and was one of my personal favourites.

Elemental - Laura Kemshall

The brief for the challenge was to interpret the concept Elemental and this piece was "inspired by foreboding weather approaching across an open landscape". The technique was described as "wholecloth, free motion quilted on a long-arm, hand painting and drawing, foiling"

I loved the contrast between the organic, curly, fern-type patterns on the top part of the quilt and the structured, linear patterns on the lower part.

I loved the freehand painting and the movement that it added to the stormy effect.

I loved that single rectangle of copper foil.

Very Elemental I thought. Lovely.

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Twisted threads and quilted wonders

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1. Endless Journey - Rachel Gomall, 2. Sunset Sun - Winner Young Quilter/Embroiderer 5-8 year old (yes, that’s right, 5-8!),
3. Peacock’s Paradise - Laura Sharp, 4. Moroccan Babouches - Gillian Travis,
5. Nordic Life - Kjersti Thoen, 6. A Right Bobby Dazzler - Win Sabapathy

I don't quilt. I don't even sew really. I don't own a sewing machine (although I'm considering changing that) and although I can sew on a button and I can hem, I prefer to use magicweb for hemming if I can get away with it (even used glue stick once to stick up a hem) and will wear something without the button if it's not going to result in losing the garment or an untimely flash of underwear (I can hear the gasps of horror from here! I know, I know, it's disgraceful! Can't even be bothered to sew on a button...I'm dishonouring the family name - I'm sorry!).

It's not so much that I can't sew. I've dabbled in embroidery and made quite a few of my own clothes when I was a student (including some frightening harem style trousers that I had several pairs of) and even (with the guidance of a much greater skill) embellished a jacket for my wedding dress with beads and appliqué, but for some reason I've never really picked up sewing and run with it...

Perhaps it has to do with having several others in my family that excel at all things sewing related: My grandmothers were both very good seamstresses, my mother sews a fine seam and still hems for me if I can wangle it, my one aunt is a textile artist who (amongst many other things) makes the most gorgeous quilts, my sister is a demon with a sewing machine and also hand-embroiders most exquisitely, and one of my cousins is a fantastic textile designer and all-round creative wonder. And they all knit (another thing I don't do, although I know how), including another aunt who used to knit for a living.

Perhaps unconsciously daunted by all this talent and skill, I have been happy not to jump into that water and leave it to the accomplished hands of others. I'd consider myself more of a mixed-media creative and, although I love and use haberdashery, have always thought of paper as my primary medium.

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1. Podz One - Sheena Quayle, 2. Herd Mentality - Ferret,
3. Concertino - Jutta Erner, 4. Mapping a Dress - April Jackson

However, despite never having developed the skills, I am very drawn to textiles and textile arts.

Imagine my delight then, when I discovered that the European Quilt Festival was to be held at the nearby National Exhibition Centre this past weekend. I decided to go mostly because I knew that my quilting aunt would love to have been there and couldn't be, and with the intention of taking some photographs to share with her. I wasn't sure what to expect really (never having attended something of this scale before) but I don't think I could have been prepared for what I found. In addition to all the exhibitors of fabrics and quilting doodats, there were over 1000 competition quilts on display, competing in 15 categories.

I went expecting to spend a couple of hours. I left 6 hours later and that's only because the doors were closing. I could quite happily have stayed on.

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1. Tournesol - Ineke Berlyn, 2. Coast - Julia O’Leary,
3. Shallows - Jill Sharpe, 4. Essential Elements - Whitley Chapel First School

Incredible, overwhelming, inspirational.

I took over 400 photographs. I won't share them all with you (sighs of relief all 'round) but I have to post some. Some winners, some that I just loved. I'll probably spread them over a few posts as I am still sorting out all the pictures.

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1. Spring of Desire - Ted Storm, 2. Elemental - Laura Kemshall, 3. Family Tree Revealed - Michelle Stanswood

This was the piece I saw first. Winner of the Contemporary Large and Machine Quilting categories. So delicate. So exquisite.

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Flower Power - Philippa Naylor

Wow!

Inspiration

I recently travelled home and was gifted with this incredible quilt by my aunt.

No photograph can really do it justice and this doesn't. It so perfectly captures me and my life and I know was made with a lot of love. I can see it and feel it in every inch.

You might be wondering what this has to do with blogging? Well, it also inspired the title of this new blog - she named it Dance of a Painted Lady. And that captures me and my life perfectly too. My aunt always believes (even when I really don't!) that there is something beautiful in me that is waiting to find wings and take flight. Actually I am lucky enough to have several people in my life who believe that. But this aunt has expressed it so beautifully in this quilt. All the love, all the belief, expressed in an exquisitely personal gift. Who could ask for more than that? Not me.