Victorian Quilters Showcase is on now at the Melbourne Exhibition Centre (July 23 – 26)

I had some success with two entries (the second one will come later, when I find the file!)

Pictorial Quilt, Runner up : Bath Time. This quilt was inspired by the book ‘Pioneer Women of the Bush and Out back’ by Jennifer Isaacs. It has wonderful old photographs and a comprehensive text. This tiny photo was of children taking a bath in an old copper next to a well. It was taken circa 1900 and is used with permission from the National Library in Canberra. I adapted it quite a bit, deleting a lot of detail, enlarging it, and rearranging the main figure. A washing line has been thread sketched in the back ground. This is a whole cloth quilt.

This piece will be rushed off to the US, where it is part of a travelling exhibition with SAQA, called ‘Balancing Act’.

This will be my first quilt exhibited at the famous ‘Houston’, which I am very excited about.

Bath Time by Linden Lancaster 20015

Bath Time, detail by Linden Lancaster 2015

I have always been interested in the effects of war on people. The image I have used is one I have had in my head for a while and was a very good starting point for the emotion I wanted to evoke of grief and loss of war.

I used a monochromatic blue palette to keep the mood sombre. The quilt is whole cloth using dry ink media, thermofax printing, hand and machine quilted. It is very small 10″x10″.

I feel very connected to this theme as my great grandfather was in the first landing at Gallipoli. He was buried alive in a bomb blast with his sergeant (who didn’t survive) and was dug out. After a while back in Australia, he disappeared and nobody knew what happened to him. My grandfather was brought up by his uncle.

In 1990, my husband (a family history buff), found out that he died in WA, it seems he drowned himself. Post traumatic stress was not recognised and treated then in the way it is today.

The quilt and one hundred others is currently being displayed at the Australasian Quilt Convention at the Royal Exhibition Building in Melbourne. The display will then follow the craft shows around Australia and NZ.

The Letter, by Linden Lancaster, 2015

The Letter, by Linden Lancaster, 2015, detail

Last weekend I had a great time with a fantastic group at Coleambally, NSW, Australia. The girls worked on many techniques in using thick and thin fabric paints. This is a new class for 2015.

An enthusiastic Georgia, with her layered mono-printed fabric.

Sticky back foam printing over colour wash.

Monoprinting with gelatin plates

Stencils

Found object printing

Experiments with various printing items

Balsa wood etching

Hard at play!

Little did I know that when I accepted a portrait comission from Jane, (who lives in Wangaratta), it would end up in Russia!

This is a portrait of Jane’s friend, Zulfiya and her dog, Hail. What a cute couple!

Zulfiya and Hail 2014 by Linden Lancaster

‘Look to the Hills’ 15′ x15′ Linden Lancaster 2014

The theme for this was ‘text’.

The title of this piece refers to the Psalm 121 (v1-8) and is about protection:

I lift my eyes to the hills
Where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord
The maker of heaven and earth.
He will not let your foot slip-
He who watches over you will not slumber;
Indeed, he who watches over Israel
Will neither slumber nor sleep……
The Lord will watch your coming and your going
Both now and forevermore.

It was my intention to use the actual text in the piece, perhaps as stacked journaling, or typed up in different fonts and sizes. Due to time constraints, I ended up using a random collection of text papers, some actually torn from an old bible.

This is a paper quilt with two layers. The paper fabric was made following Beryl Taylor’s method which involves laying papers into a thin fabric substrate using watered down PVA glue in a similar way to collage. I found this method easy and effective.

While the piece was wet I added various paints and crayons. This is where it got overworked and muddy looking. I lost the freshness of the piece because I kept coming back and adding more paints when it was wet. Also some of the papers bled because they had ink on them which made the middle section brighter than I intended.

Mind you, it was a lot of fun!

When it was completely dry I added a piece of backing fabric and quilted it with a very sharp jeans needle using cooler colours in the background and warmer colours in the foreground. I tried to get some mystery into the piece by blurring the line between the mountain and the cloud. This was done with a small swirling quilting pattern.

I used a variety of materials including tissue, rice, pre-painted and ordinary photo copy paper that I wrote three different size of text that I could use to give the appearance of perspective. I put a simple line around the edge to frame it, but I think I will go back and add a chunky zig-zag edge.
I could revisit this concept in fabric.

Details:

Recently the Australia Wide 4 travelling exhibition was kicked off in Adelaide. I was fortunate enough to be selected in the 30 quilts by the Ozquilt judges and attend the opening. This was my first foray into a contemporary exhibition. This is the full version of ‘Michellia 2’.

These creamy waxy flowers are much like Magnolias. I have a tree that grows out my back garden that struggles in the dry and frosty conditions.

It was fun to try to capture the transparency of the glass jug.