Off The Cuff

This, and the previous picture are two of my favourites. Boutonniere started off with lots of beads in the centre but every time I passed it on the wall, another bead came off until only a few were left to represent the whole.

I like the background stitching on this one. Hope you can see it. It reminds me of the outback channel country in Queensland where there are lots of gullies and ravines left after the rare rains.
The 'flower' is made from wool strips dyed various reds and some bits have Made in Australia on them but they are hard to see. The whole thing is remeniscent of a bottlebrush flower but it is not at all realistic. However it is very Australian.
The title was suggested by a friend, Glenys Mann, who has been one of my mentors. There is an actual cuff from a wool dress, but that is another story.

Boutonniere

This flower was made after I had seen a reporter in Afghanistan standing in a pile of rubble and talking about something or other and there by his feet was this bright red flower. It was impossible to see what it was but it was, for me, a sumbol of hope in those dark times. It still is. The stitching in the background symbolises the barbed wire and barriers and all the destruction of wars. I dyed the wool background with native Australian plants and it was clamped with bulldog clips. The flower is sateen and the stem is noil silk.

First flower

This was the first flower I ever made and it hangs in the lounge room. I didn't realise how dominant it was until yesterday as I sit under it to watch TV but it has dictated the colours in the room and is the first thing you see as you come in the front door.
At the time I made it I thought it was great but now I see the design faults and the distracting bend in the background, but it is so big I'll probably leave it there for a while.
I'm going to publish some more flowers so that you can see the progression in my work.
I think flowers are one of my motifs.

The Road

This quilt portrays some of the traffic which passes my door. I took photos from behind a bush and through a fence and then cut the items freehand straight from the wool blanket. The bits are stitched down with invisible stitching and there is some machine stitching too. The background is onion skin dyed (wrapped and crammed in a pot) with large wool stitches to denote the road. The relationship between this place and the rest of the world is intriguing - containers pass going to all parts of the world but I stay here. Some of the people in this quilt live in this area - the bus lady waves every day.

This quilt has been accepted for exhibition in Manly Art Gallery, Sydney, NSW as part of an exhibition entitled The New Quilt and is still on exhibition where it has sold.