Vignette repeat fabric print

Its hard to believe that my solo show in Melbourne opens tomorrow night. Ive pretty much got everything ready, all I need to do is catch the train this evening. I cant decide if I am more excited about the train trip (I love travelling by train) or the exhibition opening. 

Probably both!

My show will consist of images which have been drawn onto ceramics. In the picture below you can see two of them next to the stencil ....

Preparing fabric repeat stencil

The images have been screen printed onto paper, and also collated into a repeat fabric print.

Vignette repeat in navy

Vignette repeat in sepia

Vignette repeat on the print table

 Next post will include photos of the works hanging in the gallery!

or come along and join me for the opening if you are in Melbourne...

6pm Friday 30 March
Brunswick St Gallery
322 Brunswick St, Fitzroy 3065

Winner of the Centenary of Canberra - a legacy of good design

Photographed by Art Atelier

Im delighted to share with you that I have been selected as one of six artists to design and produce a limited range of quality objects that will be sold locally and nationally as memorabilia for Canberra's centenary in 2013.

The competition is being managed by Craft ACT: Craft and Design Centre. For more details on the project and the press release visit their site.

click on this image for a larger, readable version

The announcement was officially made on Monday, as part of the Canberra Day celebrations, by Robyn Archer AO, Creative Director of the Centenary of Canberra. Julia Gillard was also there to launch the celebrations. Wow!

 Some of you may be familiar with my previous Canberra designs, like I heart Canberra

 and the Lake Burley Griffin sketch ....

photo by Art Atelier

The designs selected for the Centenary Competition are under wraps and will be announced in September this year. Until then I have to keep the design a secret.

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Its Delightful, Its Delicious, Its Delovely

The theme for today's post is inspired by Woody Allen's movie 'Midnight in Paris'. A delightful and magical tale where present day characters step back in time to 1920s Paris. Cole Porter and his music feature (along with many prominent artists and authors) which prompted me to go out and get some of his music. Its catchy, and ever since I have been humming his songs.

Its delightful ......

In desperate need of a coffee and cake fix - Mum and I escaped to Benedict House for a slice of quince and almond tart and passionfruit cheese cake in the delightful outside courtyard which had a very Provence feel about it.

Its delicious ......

I finished making the ginger beer that I started last week. Its hard to tell in this photo, but it had bubbles and everything. And it tasted just like the real thing. This kept us going all weekend whilst we renovated a little cottage.

Its delovely ......

Some of you know about my house addiction. These are some before and after photos of my latest house project. Its old (of course) and cute, although it needed a little TLC.

Before: the hall. 

 Everything needed a serious clean from smoke stains on the walls and ceiling. Gross!

Before: the bedroom 

The renovation team (aka Mum and my sister Sim) hard at work.

 

Because I am the tallest I get all the fun jobs, like cleaning and painting the ceilings!

Before: the lounge room

After: the bedroom. No more blue walls

After: the hall way. 

 The pine paneling was painted which made such a difference and made the house feel much 'lighter'.

After: the Kitchen. 

After: the lounge room. Freshly painted everything!

This is the view from the kitchen window. Cute!

Sketches on Ceramics

This week I have been:

Sketching scenes of my house onto ceramics for my upcoming solo show at the Brunswick Street Gallery in Melbourne at the end of the March.

Kitchen Series

These are scenes painted in underglaze - the next step is to glaze them with a clear porcelain glaze. Im a little nervous about this next step as the blue underglaze can run if the gloss is too thick... they're in the kiln as we speak. Fingers crossed they turn out ok

Window scene of my kitchen

Sewing some of my fabrics into bags ...

Pink Bitsa Bag www.madeit.com.au/kateward

 Experimenting making my own ginger beer from scratch. The recipe is really easy its:

1tsp sugar
1 tsp dried ginger
1 sachet dried yeast
1 cup warm water.

combine in a large jar and cover with muslin (in my case chux - new and unused)

for the next 8 days add 1 tsp sugar and 1 tsp dried ginger.
(Im still at this stage)

After 8 days you divide the liquid into 2 (its now called a ginger beer plant) and you can give one to a friend or use one part to continue feeding the ginger beer plant and with the other half turn it into drinkable ginger beer.

Ginger beer plant 

To make up the ginger beer this is what you do:

Mix together:

4 cups water

24 cups warm water (this is probably about 5-6 litres)

1/2 cup strained lemon juice

then add the ginger beer plant. Bottle and seal. It should be ready to drink in about a week.

I'll let you know how it tastes!

green tomatoes 

 Ive given up hoping that my green tomatoes will ripen this year. With the continuing wet weather I was afraid they would rot on the vine. So Ive just turned them into green tomato pickle using this recipe from the ABC. As is my way of cooking, Ive 'kate-ified' it by adding some stewed crab apples and my own homemade version of curry powder.

This is what it looks like......yum. I love all the tomato seeds scattered throughout the chutney.
I plan to eat this with chunks of cheese and bread.

The Good Life

This week I have been:

Day dreaming on my steps

And reading :
'The Best of Jackie French - a practical guide to everything from aphids to zucchini chocolate cake'
'Organic Home - the Australian guide to clean green living'

With a cup of tea I have been writing lists of 'things to do' ... (and admiring the handmade knitted dishcloth which currently is too nice to use for its intended purpose)

Tea Cosy made by Jenny

Making soap from scratch (with various degrees of success)

Soap made from dripping

Soap made from olive oil

Enjoying something fresh from my garden every day.

Squeezed into a 2 x 1m garden is golden zucchini, cherry tomatoes, spinach and capsicum

Today I think I will make parsley pesto.

Procrastinating

Its only half way through February and I already find myself over-committed to too many projects.

Instead of doing the sensible thing and working steadily towards deadlines I find myself sitting on the back steps contemplating life.

And enjoying the sunshine :)

x

And then the rain came .... wet weather projects

View from my studio window 

Its been rainy and overcast for about a week  now. Not that Im complaining, I love this sort of weather and its always a good excuse to curl up with a project. Ive been working on finishing a couple of projects (new years resolution and all that) and Im excited that Im actually getting some stuff finished. 

100 Granny Squares

Ive been watching loads of tv so that I can finish my granny square rug (series one and two of Grand Designs on DVD - Im now inspired to build something, but thats another story). Ive completed the 100 squares and now its ready to put together. Being a bit new to crochet I wasnt sure the best way to join the squares, and found a fabulous tutorial at Attic 24. Not only was the tutorial fabulous, her whole blog is really interesting and well worth a visit.

Kochira the cat helping select the blocks for my Gate Quilt

Over a year ago I was part of an online patchwork bee - you may have heard of them. A group of people get together via the internet, and each month a person sends out their fabrics to the rest of the people in the group with some instructions on what they would like to have made. It was a great introduction to quilting for me (I also met up with some friends who were part of the group and I learnt some great techniques, as well a lovely excuse to eat cake and drink cups of tea). The down side is that some people are less likely to complete the project than others. Consequently, I have received finished blocks from half the group, and the other half seem to have disappeared!  

My block was inspired by a gate design I saw in Sydney (it also happens to be the same design as the gate on my little cottage - a very nice coincidence). It is a little tricky to put together, and it looks like I have to sew about 8 more blocks to make up for the missing ones sent out to the quilting bee. Thankfully Ive got a stack of DVD's to watch and its perfect weather to be indoors ....

x