Webpage and Alcove

We had the opening of 'More Spin on Textiles' on Thursday night at the Alcove Art Shop. I was very pleased that three of my scarves sold that night. Might have to make more! I've got plenty on my plate at the moment so I guess I won't be making any more probably until next year. I sent off my application form for 'Into the Fold' yesterday, the exhibition will be held at Artisan Books from the 2nd to 30th August. I also sent off my contribution for 4 words 4 paper on Friday and have been working towards workshop and exhibitions in July, October and March next year.
I have finally updated my webpage for 2008 and have included a page with exhibition opportunities.
Today I have cut up the raw hemp and some hemp fabric so I'll be able to cook up the raw and beat the fabric next week.
One other bit of news is that 500 Artist Books is out, I haven't seen it yet but a friend has and two of my books are in it. I'm hoping I'll get a copy sent to me.

Hemp and Felt

I have just joined a new Artist book forum, the address is http://artistbooks.ning.com/ . I'll get off the computer some time today! It has been a week of meetings and there are more to come and a few jobs to go with them.

I am not long back from a week in Cairns. It was great to warm up a bit, we even swam in the hotel pool (I hadn't had a swim for over a year before then). It wasn't long enough but we take what we can get and enjoy that. Just before we left there had been some talk on the yahoo papermaking group about hemp and Dianne spoke of organising a conference related to hemp and I discovered that she was from Kuranda in the hills above Cairns. She was visiting Adelaide and Brisbane for some of the time we were there but we managed to catch up before I came home. I'm planning to make more paper from the hemp fabric I have at home and she gave me some raw hemp to try as well. I will need to chop it up and cook it with alkali before putting it through my beater.

I decided to use some of it to make some string before I turn it all into pulp.

I learned to make string from some members of Basketmakers of Victoria many years ago. Here are some notes I made about using New Zealand Flax to make string, the principle is the same no matter what you use for the string.

Making string from NZ flax
Take a thin strip of the flax and with thumbnails or a shell scrape off the outer skin. (optional)
Find the centre of the strip & twist away from yourself with your right hand. Cross hands by taking the right over the left then swap hands and repeat. To add in extra pieces find the centre of the new strip and hold it between the two old pieces and twist together.

The Alcove shop is holding it's Winter exhibition for the next few weeks and the opening is tonight. I have put in some books that I made a while ago, coptic journals with heavy leather covers (from Reverse Art of course!).

I have interleaved some of the sections with some handmade paper, the yellow book had red and yellow wax resist paper and the blue has denim paper.

And I've made a few more felt scarves, I got busy on Sunday and used up all the wool I had and some of the silk. I did two blue scarves with bright yellow flowers,

two landscape scarves

and one abstract.

While I was away Antje's vege papyrus postcard arrived, I missed Yabbers so didn't see the rest of the cards.

Felted scarves

Well it has been some time since I wrote anything here. Too much on my plate at the moment so this will be short and sweet. It has been so cold and rainy here I've hardly been outside though I haven't been spending that much time on the computer either. I decided to make some scarves for the Alcove exhibition so that kept me busy for a few days. Here are some very bad photos of the scarves I made last week and one I made last year in-situ at The Alcove Art Shop in Box Hill. I had lots of fun doing it and just couldn't stop but I have to get back to making some paper, the first job is 75 sheets with flowers and seeds, then some for dyeing. We are doing indigo dyeing at Yabbers next week, just to keep with the blue theme, I therefore need to clear up my shed for work and I need to cook up some plant fibres in preparation for my workshop on the 14th and 15th at Box Hill. Busy, busy, busy and I need to make some time for ART!