sneer part 2

So, this week, I've been plodding through this tapestry...it's really hard. I'm determined to make this look really interesting. You can see my exploration into "weaving" the weaving, now that's been a thing. Getting back to last week's post, and question...Can you go too far? Well maybe? At this stage, I'm pretty happy. Maybe going too far gets you to a really rad place?

Speaking of rad things...

To old students of Kate's, this here book may look familiar. 

I picked it up at our local book shop for a steal about 6 months ago. I always thought everything in this book was just over the top, crazy old school...now as time has marched on, something has settled in my head, and now I get it, and also I can see why Kate liked it too.

Our first attempt of Macarons

Well, They look a bit better than they taste...mmm actually they taste pretty good too. But, they're not quite right. The biscuits are a bit soggy, which leads me to believe the oven isn't hot enough. However, the raspberry cream is deluxe! Plus , the recipe has made so much raspberry cream i don't know what where going to do with it all.

news

So, first things first. Yes, I am having another baby. And it will be a boy from all acounts...I have seen it on the ultra sound, and it all seemed clear to me that it is a little boy. We are VERY pleased to be adding to our little family. We love having one, so two should be really interesting, especially being a boy. Lucky for us. Elsie will be 2 in about a week. She is very busy, running and talking her head off.

And on other fronts, as you may have read on a previous post, a friend of mine passed away in August. That has been really sad for me. When you have a little one running around, it's hard to stay in a sad mood for very long, because you don't want to confuse or scare them, so often when I'm on my own or at night when I'm trying to get to sleep, I just get this wave of sadness. I get surprised at myself, I didn't realise how much I would miss Kate, until now. I expect I just thought she would be around, like my own Mum. When I found out she was ill, I just thought that there would be time. Selfishly I thought that she might be ill for a long time, but that was not the case. And really, I expect that was a blessing. Hilary and I were asked to 'finish' off a tapestry left on the loom at Kate's place last week, what a privilage, and how strange.

Allan's walk projct. Test Match...Tag Team Tapestry.

This lay-out is a bit strange....
This is the result of about 7 days work that Hilary Green and myself did while participating in the Test Match Programme at Allan's Walk Artist run studio in Bendigo.
We started to put the loom together on the Wednesday night, after dinner. We had the intention to warp it up on that day aswell but it just got too late and also Hil thought she had it, but it had fallen out of her bag on the way in.

So on the Thursday we warped up and put in the floor and bed...red of course. I like red. Hil always uses red for the bed, it always looks snappy. By the end of Thursday we had made good progress.
Although it is amazing that even though I hadn't done any weaving in months, I still had as sore a shoulder as if I had been weaving full time at the VTW...
Friday was more weaving, we felt pressure to get quite a lot done because we had to give a studio talk on the Saturday afternoon.
We had loads of visitors, and got in the local paper. The Bendigo Advertiser. Someone heard the project talked about on the country ABC radio National, plus Hil was interviewed on the local radio Station.
The talk was good, except we only got about 6 people to come. My friend Jen + her friend came all the way up from Melbourne, which really was great. Plus there was a few people who had been in the previous days. We were interviewed buy a girl called Ulanda, who had great hair. She is writing an essay about the whole project, not just us.
On Monday Kate and Brian Derum came to visit us, which was fantastic. We went out for lunch and I discovered a great toy shop called Mr Goodtimes...it was good times.
Else was sooo good, firstly she had my Mum looking after her then Pete came up to look after her for the rest of the time...
In the actual weaving, (which is what we were there for) we incorporated a few elements of what interests both Hil and I.
Firstly we started with a 'ground' of rock rubbings that Hil had made at a place called One tree Hill, we wove this for a while and then though that it may get a bit busy, plus I think we were looking forward to incorporating more 'objects ' into the work. So, we left that idea, and started to invert the tones, like a negative. Then eventually turning it to black. Which we thought looked pretty great. Especially when some of the objects, like my fern frond came in, then the start of the girl.
We didn't get much more done than that.
We didn't really have the right kind of chairs to weave much higher than we did. As it is, my shoulder is still weak, and sore...

Then what happened?
Well, Hil and I put the tapestry on to two rolls and took it off the loom and rolled it up, to weave it another day. We are thinking about entering it into a few exhibitions when it is finished.

Tecnorati....I know this is small fry to long term blogists

Oops...another Marc Pic..

He Is lovely.

I think I've worked out how to do links... This is my friend's blog.....I think this will work....

I think I've worked out how to do links....

Elsbeth's room

Nana and Elsbeth

Well, there's been a lot of growing in the last month. Elsbeth is getting very long...and quite heavy. She has started to pick things up in her little hands, and everything is going into her gummy little mouth. Her eyes are still steely blue, but I think they may not stay that colour.

My Nana was 100 on the 5th of February, Nana and Elsbeth got into the paper...100 and 10 weeks. Somehow it seemed a little depressing, the very old with the very young...like we're all going to get old, or something.

We went out at night, to a local gallery and then on to Japanese, that went pretty well. We managed to all eat our dinner without too much yelling.

I have also managed to make some pretty cute pants for Else...the pattern says they are "capri pants". One pair are Jeans and the other is pink cords.

There is the most annoying banging going on somewhere near my house...it sounds like an enormous heart beat and is driving me a bit crazy!!

New work from the VTW

The image to the left is by Nell, it's a detail of her sexy snake and apple.















Below is an Eng Tow, she's from Singapore.














This is me with Nancy Hoskins, she's having a look at my work.













I don't know why they got all mixed up ...but here is the whole image of Nell's

Well, it's been a little while since I was here. I am three days away from my due date to have our baby, I guess I haven't really felt like sitting here doing this. Anyway, Amy from work has sent me some pictures that I thought should go on here.