Ukhahlamba - Gallery of Ancient Art

I am so caught up in the excitement of being creative that I forget about the world out there - I am very busy with my quilt entries for the National Quilt Festival in July (but my lips are zipped as I cannot share it yet)...   I have started this post more than a month ago....   So, here goes...

I spend most of my days in my studio, whether it is actively stitching, preparing workshops, painting fat quarters, working on the computer or just daydreaming and fiddling.  It means being indoors most of the time...

I often look at websites and blogs of other quilters and am quite in awe of how beautifully presented it is....   When one opens this blog, blue skies, trees/bush, a few loose clouds and the open road welcomes one, not a quilt in sight....    Seems to be more of a traveling blog than a quilt one as such....     Blue and green, my two favourite colours anchored by the grey of the road....    

I love the atmosphere of this picture when I open the blog...   It immediately takes me on a journey, something which Willem and I love doing.   We have discovered beautiful and very interesting places by traveling off the beaten track, always excited to explore.   This picture is a constant promise that there are many more places and roads waiting for us to discover....    These trips are ideal photo opportunities and Willem is very patient with my constant requests to stop for photographs....   With the  use of a digital camera, it is so easy to keep all the images in folders on the computer, easy to access when new inspiration is needed.    Nature inspires the majority of my quilts whether it is the shapes of rocks, bark of trees, colour combinations, flora, landscapes and our abundant wild life......  

I was invited to participate in the 2011 Korea/Japan/South Africa Textile Challenge with the theme of "World Heritage Sites".    30 World Heritage Sites from all over the world were selected and 30 quilt artists from the three countries were invited to participate - in total 90 quilt artists.  The quilts had to be 50cm x 50cm  and each site was interpreted by a quilt artist from each country - so one specific site had three different interpretations of it.     These three entries were displayed together at venues in Korea, Japan and is currently in South Africa.   We were fortunate to have these quilts on display here in Port Elizabeth in 2012 and it was wonderful to witness the creative flair and genius of the 90 international quilt artists.

I was fortunate that I was given the Ukhahlamba Drakensberg World Heritage Site.   While we lived in Harrismith, we often visited various sections of the Drakensberg...   The mountains are magical and awesome, it has the same effect on me as watching the ocean - very spiritual....   It is so huge and one realizes what a small fraction human life is....

I love the amount of research needed for such a project as I learn so much of many things...   For this project, I learnt that the Drakensberg mountain range has the biggest selection of Stone Age rock art on the African Continent and because of the significance of this, the Ukhahlamba-Drakensberg Park was proclaimed a World Heritage site.   Giants Castle was proclaimed a nature reserve in 1903 to protect the eland from extinction etc....    

I decided to make postcards of three sections of the mountain range, Cathedral Peak, Giants Castle and the Amphitheatre which was placed on the one side of the quilt.     I painted a background like a cave and had lots of fun trying my hand at San drawings.    I also wrote lots of information regarding the history of the site into open spaces of the cave.   Unfortunately I do not have permission to publish images of the other two interpretations of this site.

Ukhahlamba - Gallery of Ancient Art 2011

The label displayed next to the quilt in the languages of Japan, Korea and South Africa (English)

Techniques included fabric painting, raw edge machine applique, needlelace machine embroidery and machine quilting.

Now it is back to the sewing machine and my new quilts....   

Challenging myself...

Wonderful, I feel like I have my energy and inspiration back...     Such a blessing...   I have been stitching all week on a project which I had already cut in 2011....   Yes, sometimes one has a wonderful concept, but the challenge is to transform the initial idea into something special....     A lesson maybe that we don't always need to rush through projects, sometimes one has to wait for the magical inspiration to come....  I know that if I started stitching in 2011, it would have been quite mediocre.... Now I feel the stirring of excitement and I cannot wait to continue, but I am taking it slowly, there is no rush ....  While I was happily stitching along, I realized how exhausted I was before my long holiday....      

My Mom's motto in life was that one had to try before you could say that you could not do something....   The word "cannot" did not exist in her vocabulary and she always encouraged us to try again if our first attempt failed...    I share this motto and it has landed me in challenging situations...   Where quilting/sewing is concerned, I know no boundaries and will try my hand at anything, no matter what amount of patience it takes....   I will challenge and push myself until I get it right....

I made a wedding dress for a very special young lady with very definite ideas of what she wanted...    But as you know, it is not always possible to find the exact fabrics needed to create the dream with....     This is the same reason why I started painting fabric for my quilts as I could not find commercially printed fabric which suited my style of quilts.   We wanted a piece of lace with a curved edge at the bottom with a border pattern - a very tall order indeed.   So, without thinking twice, I decided to make the lace myself...!    I have never made lace before and I had no idea what it would entail...   As I felt skilled enough to work with all the wash away stuff available for embroidery, I decided that it would actually be easy....    I started off by designing the lace panel on paper to scale.   The design had a curved edge at the bottom which would form the back section of the dress.   I joined strips of Avalon Plus with wash away thread to form a big enough piece for this panel and transferred the diagram onto the Avalon using a wash out marker.   The bridal tulle was sandwiched between two layers of Avalon Plus to make it more sturdy and protect the tulle as it was very soft and delicate....    I tacked the 3 layers together the same as making a quilt sandwich.    I then started embroidering the design by machine, numerous little satin stitch leaves with rayon thread, the 3 layers carefully secured in an embroidery hoop.   I couched No 5 DMC perle thread with silver and gold metallic thread as stems between the leaves.    I used  commercially embroidered organza flowers on the border section.   The entire piece was hand beaded, using numerous perle sequins, pearls and glass beads.   The beading took almost 80 hours to complete.....     I used the same technique to make lace sections to cover the shoulders with scalloped edges - this was stabilized with transparent organza to prevent strain on the delicate lace.   Making this lace was rather daunting and I had no idea whether it would actually work....   I completed the beading 5 days prior to the wedding - only then could I wash all the Avalon Plus away....   What stressful experience it was to put this piece into the water not knowing whether all this effort would produce the desired lace....!    Any way, the Angels smiled upon me as I took the lace from the zinc and spread it open onto old towels, just perfect....  I was so excited, relieved, grateful and needless to say, I slept like a baby that night!    I succeeded in making this lace, the first time ever that I did something so spectacular....    The bottom line was, if I was not an experimental quilter, I would not have known how to tackle this challenge....

Diagram for shoulder sections

Bodice section with completed lace section on shoulders.
Bodice partially embroidered and beaded.

Lace  panel immediately after it was washed with untrimmed scalloped edge....

Bottom back section of completed dress...

This post is about making lace and not about the dress.....   It was a wonderful challenge to create this, but rather stressful ....    As with life, there is always something new to discover...     This project introduced me to working with silk.   I fell in love with silk and promptly started collecting bits of silk in all the colours of the rainbow (and all the colours in between) which has now taken me on another road of discovery.....

Welcome 2013....

I have been very quiet.....   There were a few reasons, nothing serious though....   My son occupied the computer as he was preparing for his exam towards the end of November and I took time out from my quilting activities after a very busy year....   I did some redecorating at home, oversaw routine maintenance work to our house as well as the garden which was so nice for a change....    In the meantime it was the Festive Season, then January came and our little family went away on a holiday, great fun going away with adult children...    I really needed time to reload my batteries as it was very flat....    I now feel rejuvenated and ready for action...

I had lots of time to rethink many things - I often need to this...   I have now shared My Journey with you.   My quilting career has been an incredible one to date and I feel very blessed to have achieved so many things.    It has been incredibly good for me to write down this passage of my life as it enabled me to put so many things in perspective.   Thank you for reading it....

It sounds very fancy to refer to myself as a quilt artist, but in my heart, I am just a normal quilter and a proud member of our local Guild.   As a quilting veteran of 29 years, I think I can safely predict that I will always be fascinated by fabric, design, threads, paints etc....   It is however intimidating to read blogs of other quilt artists and it sounds as if they quilt every day....    Good for them, but I actually cannot quilt every day....   Maybe because a lot of my work is experimental and I do a lot of my work mentally...   Maybe many of you can relate to this...

This year it is time for the National Quilt Festival again, this time in Bloemfontein in July.   As the official Festival Programme is now available, I can share the two workshops which I will teach there.   More information is on the Workshops page.    Currently I am doing a lot of experimenting with fused small squares and triangles - ideal for using scraps.   I never throw scraps away, sometimes even the last threads of fabric are used for projects!   I have also collected a palette of silk fabrics of which I use small pieces and it just adds something special to a piece....

The first workshop will be Freestyle Ways on 1 & 2 July 2013....   A little story about this one.   My good friend Yolande Bowman and I thought up a concept of a skinny quilt for an informal challenge between some fellow quilters of the Dias Quilters' Guild in 2011.   As my program was so full, I decided to make my entry and use it as a new workshop which I presented to the 2013 Kaleidoscope National Quilt Festival Committee.     It is always a challenge for me to prepare new workshops as I feel I need  to teach the students as much as possible.....  

Freestyle Ways

Small squares of cotton and silk were fused in a colourwash format to a background piece of fabric and it was decorated with embellished silk strips.  This is a machine stitching workshop and various embellishing techniques are demonstrated in the workshop.   More information on the Workshops page.

The second workshop is Bag-a-Square on 3 & 4 July 2013.

Bag-a-Square

Fused cotton and silk squares complemented with paper cut tiles at the bottom, embellished with beads and cords and constructed in a specific way to form a bag.      More information on the Workshops page.

I hope to see some of you at the Festival in July.....!

Port Elizabeth - Legacy of Settlers

It is such a long time since I had time to post on this blog as I had teaching trips to George and East London with our annual Spring Show of the Dias Quilters' Guild in between the trips and to top it off, the most amazing fundraising Tea for Festival 2017 funds a week ago...!   Life is busy in Port Elizabeth!

I started a quilt of historical buildings of Port Elizabeth in 2006, but had to abandon it due to time restrictions and time out due to spinal surgery.    I shelved this project for one day....   As I hate UFO's, the niggling guilty feeling of not finishing this piece kept on bugging me, so I decided early in 2011 to finish this quilt.   It was extremely difficult to regain the initial momentum and rhythm, indeed a reason why I don't like to interrupt a project.

After 5 years, I was very critical of the work already finished on this quilt.    I unpicked one entire block and re-started from scratch, only keeping the painted sky section!    Another block also had the pick-unpick treatment!     I slowly regained the momentum and picked up speed.   I realized that maybe it was good that I was forced to abandon work on this quilt as somehow I was so happy with the second take on it....

I completed the blocks and started sewing the quilt together.    The quilt was really a combination of techniques and was really a test for my skills - it was really the most complex and challenging quilt which I have ever made.    I could not find fabric for the church walls, so I painted stone walls with a tiny brush.    I used Avalon Plus to embroider the wrought iron fence around the church yard.    Avalon Plus was also used to do the gates of the Grey Institute, one of the first schools in Port Elizabeth and the gates at the Public Library.    I added the Campanile as it was erected to commemorate the centenary of the landing of the 1820 Settlers in Port Elizabeth.

Close-up detail of the 4 main blocks:

Holy Trinity Anglican Church, Port Elizabeth

City Hall, Port Elizabeth

Public Library, Port Elizabeth

Grey Institute, Port Elizabeth

We are blessed in Port Elizabeth with a large heritage of beautiful historical buildings.    I used some of the buildings as quilting designs in the border of this quilt.    The Pearson Conservatory fitted perfectly in the bottom section of the border.    I also quilted one of the oldest houses in Port Elizabeth, No 7 Castle Hill (now a museum) and a section of the Donkin Street terrace houses into the border as well as other interesting buildings.    I prepared a quilting panel of a section of a wrought iron fence around the St Johns Methodist Church for the top section of the border.    

As I was quilting, I was delighted with the effect which I was creating as I felt that I actually succeeded in using the quilting process to extend the design of the quilt.    I also realized that although I loved the freedom and creativity of the art quilts, these realistic quilts really are such a tremendous challenge and I just love creating them....   It is such a thrill to succeed, yet a very humbling and spiritual experience....

Port Elizabeth - Legacy of Settlers 2011

My son Jopie escorted me on various trips to take photographs of the historical buildings.   I used 35mm film for photographs while he used his digital camera.    I used both photographs and images on the computer for detail and to prepare patterns to work from.    When it was time to quilt the border, it was the turn of my husband Willem to accompany me on further photography trips as I needed images of more buildings....   So, this quilt was really a family affair....

This quilt was awarded Best Machine Workmanship at the 2011 National Quilt Festival which was held in Stellenbosch.

It is part of a selection of South African quilts and currently in the United States of America where it is on show at four different venues as part of the 2012 World Quilt Competition.