Hi there Australian Quilters Association

Welcome to the New Year folks. 

Sorry about the long gap of nothing - we had a 92 year old in hospital with a heart operation that suffered complications and it was touch and go for too long - just didnt feel like blogging then.  All is well now, miracles do happen, she's 93 now, back in her home and reasonably independent  so its feeling like a happy new year now.

What better way to start the year than by giving a talk to the Australian Quilters Association - it was there many years ago  I got my introduction to art quilting and they were the beginning of so many wonderful friendships.  My very good friend Dijanne Cevaal will be introducing her beautiful new book - come and have a look. Its going to be a great day.   

My subject is "The Importance of Being Earnest - a side effect of community and textiles".  I hope there's a few surprises there.

I'm bringing along a few friends too, meet Hairry Flamingo

He has a friend,  Princess, with hairy legs

Possibly purple leg warmers for dancing practice.  They have a smaller acquaintance
Violetta De Lórange

Vi has lots more friends which she has invited to come.

We are going to have fun!

I set myself a rule when I started writing a  blog - it would always be fun and never take anything seriously.  Today I break this rule!

Its not a Flanders poppy, but it is a red poppy with the black centre. It is always starts to flower  in the second week of November  and there is always a new flower open on Remberance Day.  This one greeted me this morning!

Everyone is knitting poppies for the Anzac Day centenary but my memory is always of poppies for  the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month when the War to End All Wars officially ceased.  

This year I felt sadder than usual so I made a poppy for our joint grandfathers and great uncles, then I thought about our parents generation and the second war  and family in occupied Europe. It is a day of great sadness so I made a Rememberance Day bird for all of them and both wars.

This is a bird of contemplation - is he looking backwards or to the future.........

All our family of both generations came back and made great lives for themselves and their families.    We always stop to remember the dead but over the years the living and their families have paid a price too.

Same bird settled in a wattle tree.  This photo is for Tom.  He lived just down the road from us when I was at primary school.  One day when I was about eleven he loaned me a book to read.  It was his published diary from his days at the front in France and later as a prisoner then as an escapee.  I'd never seen a horror movie, or read a horror story - and this was horror but with a sort of happy ending - after all he got home, raised a lovely family and had a good life.  But it was a true story, and even harder to comprehend it was written by a lovely gentle old  man I actually knew!

Four years later  when I read all Quiet on the Western Front I got a terrible shock when I found I'd been barracking for the "wrong"side for most of the book - what a lesson!

Cup Day Holiday for Birds

What an exceptionally beautiful day, the sun will shine on the Melbourne Cup.

I think he is inviting her to share a punt on................oh dear, I'm ashamed to admit that this year I dont know the names of any of the  horses running today. 

 Or they could be discussing the cup in the background.  It was my wonky attempt at mood setting, no it does not contain ashes.  It is in fact a sugar bowl - those little horse shoes all round are for hanging teaspoons.  Where did it come from - well it was a wedding present given to my parents and as it was just  postwar it was secondhand so no idea what its history is.  

Of course he could be paying her a compliment on her hat or her necklace.  The Cup is after all an excuse for flirtatious dressing.  

Just a brief blog as befits a most important holiday.

A few days break does a power of good.......

 Poor blog, been sadly neglected over the last two weeks.  Margaret and I  bumped "Who Needs Permission" out of the library, rehung a good part of the exhibition the following Saturday at Edendale Farm for the Practically Green Festival (pictures and stories on another day) then hung up our boots for a few days. Just  within five months we had community workshops, two public art installations an exhibition and a consultation,   we were just a bit pooped.  Then there's our other life as well........it was suffering from neglect

Yes, spring is here and  bird life is returning - as we catch up with orders we are making new birds.  There is a new page on the blog devoted just to detailed photos of the birds.   Only three of these on it  yet, we had internet interference with this mornings wind.  The other  two will be asap.  Then, as we make we will add.  

Smiling, or even better, laughing is the order of the day!

Just two days left!!!!!!

Guest books are always polite and restrained.  We are delighted - the comments are  as unrestrained as "Who Needs Permission"

You have only two days left to write your message!

Only a handful of birds left to choose from.....but there's no way you can have  this...

Its sold and off to a very interesting home.   Congratulations Margaret. 

  We were going to bump out on Tuesday morning but were invited to stay on  for a book launch by Malcolm Fraser in the gallery in the evening.  Practicalities mean that we will have to clear the floor to make room for seating so most of our 3d pieces will go.

For the occasion, the banners and bicycles will still be on the walls, the rails and pillars will still be covered, peacock still in the corner,  and the birds and bunting will look down on it all.

Then Wednesday morning we will whisk it all away as the next artist Jeff Drummond hangs his exciting  exhibition. 

So folks you only  have between one and five tomorrow and ten am and eight thirty pm on Monday to visit, check out the palm tree, revisit,  play cupcake checkers, choose a bird or bicycle to enjoy the whole of Who Needs Permission at the Eltham Library Community Gallery.

p.s.  Of course we have another project in the planning - but you'll just have to wait and see.

Well we really failed at the Hitchcock thing!


"Birds", Margaret said. "We must make birds". So we did.  Lots of them, or so we thought.  

Then came one of those two people speaking at once things, "We can we make them  look down on people like in 'The  Birds'"

So we did, and they did not look one bit threatening, so we asked Tony to make a movie, and its not threatening either, rather  proved the point, they are just plain funny, warm and fuzzy. 

  For  small screen quality.......

  For big screen quality and a better look go to

 www.upfrontpictures.com/exhibitions/birds-1.html

Sales have proved that point too, lots of little red stickers.  Its become a kind of joke with us now, "what did you do last night?, "I made another bird(or two)" then " Is it different to the last one?" Of course it is.  So to meet the challenge every other day or so a couple of new birds appear.

  There's only just over a week left and we keep looking at the flamingos and thinking, should we....they'd look great as a flock, then we look at our, lives and think, maybe another time.....but , on the other hand......

Mind you we're open to requests and orders,  we're having so much fun!

Come and see our Birds and many other amusing things,

Who Needs Permission,The Eltham Library community Gallery, Panther Place, Eltham, last day is October 6th !

Tomorrow's the big day

Cold and wet, that's the forecast, but we hope the intrepid will brave the weather and make it to our launch/opening tomorrow night 

and we're hoping that some adults might follow the example of these two young gentleman, Vigo and Wisse Wijers

and have a proper serious game of cupcake /checkers.