A Little Bird Quilt

A few posts back I shared a partial shot of a little bird themed art quilt that I was working on. Well I have finally finished it. This is for my friend Karin Hutchinson over in Victoria - she was my "Art of the Month" partner for February and seeing as I am going to be able to personally deliver this in a week's time, I had a little bit of extra time to finish it. (And yes I have sent an email to Karin warning her not to look here if she wants a surprise.)

I really enjoyed making this quilt - the silk was lovely to stitch and the seed stitching itself, although time consuming, was very meditative (most of it was done while I was a passenger on long car drives in February). The silk pieces that I used for the background and the no-stitch applique were hand-dyed by Joanna - glorious colours - they just make my heart sing! I absolutely adore the leaf trim and have recently invested in a much bigger quantity via the net to make sure I don't run out! This time I glued it to the quilt and then added a few stitches to each leaf but next time I don't think I would risk the fabric glue - it was too fiddly making sure I didn't get any where it shouldn't be! I originally intended to bead the leaves but I decided it might be overkill on such a small quilt. (It is 8.5 by 7.5 inches or approx 21 x 18 cms). In the background you can just see a tiny little bit of a new tree patterned batik fabric that I bought recently from a local shop here. The owner is sourcing batik fabrics from Bali and some of them are just wonderful! Things are looking up here on the edge of the desert!!

When I came to binding the quilt I had a real dilemma as I hadn't planned anything. I thought it needed a silk binding but there was no way I wanted to use slippery fabric for a binding so in the end I used a lovely wide sari ribbon in graduated colours and hand stitched it with fine gold thread. I think it works on this quilt (hope so!). I must keep my eyes open for more of those lovely ribbons - I can't recall if the few I have were an online purchase or a gift.

I found out today that Carole over in New Zealand didn't ever receive the postcard I sent her for our February exchange. I am very disappointed as it was my first go at posting a "naked" postcard! I will be going back to using envelopes from now on - Carole reckons someone along the way probably liked it enough to nick it.

Last night after work Annie and I went to the opening of an exhibition here in Kalgoorlie - it is a dual exhibition of landscape paintings (by Peter Williams) and of felt works by the Warburton Aboriginal Community which is about 900kms east of here into the desert. They also had some of their incredible glass art on display as well. The 11 felt pieces were all large and very striking. There would have been a lot of work involved in meshing all those wet fibres! It was really interesting to see Aboriginal art and stories translated into such a different medium. All of the pieces are in the collection of Janet Holmes a Court ( a lady with exceptional taste!). I can't find any pictures on the net of the felt pieces unfortunately so you will just have to take my word for it when I say they were VERY striking!

I have been a bit quiet blogging-wise this week, even though I haven't been travelling, but it was because I got a throat infection and head cold and was just too wiped out to blog by the time I got home from work each day. Still struggling but it at least it is the weekend! To cheer us all up I have been baking rich fudge brownies and banana cake.