Stitch Basket Sunday Workshop

Ever since Jacky saw the stitch basket I made for Jude as a teacher's gift for Cloth to Cloth online workshop she has been asking me to show her how to make this basket. She wanted to make them for Christmas presents. My weekends are filling up quite quickly until Christmas. I have already set last Sunday aside to help Lynda start the CWB quilt, so I told Jacky that she was welcome to join in on the same day. They were all learning new things and I had nice company to stitch with.

The basket above was the one I made for Jude and sent to her a few months ago. I hope she makes good use of it. A very handy basket to keep threads and odds and ends in.

I made one for Moi too. When I give away what I make I always make one for me too. I talk to so many people who said that they never keep anything for themselves. It's important to keep what you make for others for yourself too. The basket on top was made from nylon string found on the beaches.

Jacky and her sister Lee are busy at work stitching the base of the basket. They are both using Thai indigo fabric Lee brought back from Changmai. I don't think they will give their first baskets away for Christmas presents after stabbing themselves a few times in the process.   

The evening before I thought I would start a new basket too so that I would remember how to teach them.  I made mine in indigo blue for my new studio. At the end of the day we got our basket bases made. At this point they can use them for coasters or pot stands! 

It was a lovely Sunday. The weather is getting into Spring ish! They all brought a plate of something to share. I made my favorite soup and homemade bread that Mr Notjustnat made us. In the afternoon I served ice tea with lemon and mint leaf to keep them working. Lynda stitched a few pieces on her first CWB block. Thanks ladies for a lovely Sunday...!

Alternative Quilting Read On

Alternative quilting or sane quilting are types of creativity. I have been quilting since 1992, a long time right? I finished many quilts and started lots of UFOs. A lot of my quilts were in exhibitions and some have been published. That's not important here; the most important thing is I'm creating, learning and trying new skills. These days I'm creating alternative quilts using recycled fabric, vintage fabric and re-purposed fabric from used clothing. I am also dyeing my own fabric using Procion dye, eco and natural dyeing. This BORO quilt I'm making for my future blue and white studio at Seabird is taking shape. I have started putting 

some stitching on it now. 

Some pieces in the BORO quilt are thin and worn, so to strengthen it I stitched over it using sashiko design stitching. I love this pattern (I will get the name later) because it has two birds. The birds represent Mr Notjustnat and I who flew from different parts of the world to unite, hence I named our new property Seabird.  

Some more stitching on another part of the quilt. Criss cross stitching. A bit more to go yet. I'm trying to apply all different stitching in all patches. The quilt will be strong and decorative at the same time. 

Another part of the quilt with my hand dyed indigo moon. A few stitches are starting to immerse on the moon. I will add more stitches in cream on it later. 

I want to share this book I got from Ziguzagu a few weeks ago with you. It's a great book of modern BORO quilts. The thing is I didn't know the name of the book. It's in Japanese but I can understand the instructions. I was looking and looking and found in the smallest print the name of the author in English. I searched and searched on the internet and in the end I found it. This book is by: Junko Maeda and it's called "Days with stitching on cloth" I found it on Bemused blog. She has some photos on her blog too, so go and have a read. 

What else have I been creating? Well I have tried weaving! It was another one of Jude's influences. My very first weaving apart from basket weaving.  I have woven with my homemade loom. It was an old tapestry frame I got from an op-shop. I nailed brass nails on the longer ends and tied thick hand dyed strings firmly on them. It was only a trial run, but I'm happy with how they turned out. The left one uses strips of indigo fabric and the right one uses sari silk yarn.  

After trying traditional weaving it occurred to me that I can use the same weaving technique as basket weaving so that is what I did with the indigo and sari silk yarn. I can hear a voice in my head asking me what will I do with them? Well, I can either add them on to my slow cloth project or attach them onto Christmas parcels as tags...yes something different right? 

Now and then

I visited a friend last week and spotted this basket. The basket I had given her husband Dr Raphael Zimmerman as a gift for the opening of his exhibition 5 years ago. It sits on their kitchen bench with potatoes and onions in it. I am surprised how much it changed from when I first made it. The color of natural fibre has turned golden brown. Very beautiful actually. What a shame I can't have it back...!

I went to Quilts in the Barn this morning. It was wonderful and I took lots of photos. It will still be on tomorrow (Sunday), so it's not too late if you live locally to visit. You will see some gorgeous quilts here soon. 

Rustic Melon Basket Workshop

I was at the Rustic Melon Basket workshop at the weekend. I have been a member of Basketmakers of Victoria (BOV) ever since we moved to Melbourne 6 years ago. I haven't been very active lately, but I have taken many great workshops with talented local basket makers and overseas visiting teachers. This weekend the workshop was with Pat Dale. Pat is an author of Basket & Weaving with natural materials (a copy can be obtained through BOV). This is my second workshop with Pat. There were 10 of us in the workshop and we had so much fun creating our piece of art work hoping to get it finished within 2 days...! 

A close-up image of the weaving texture. Some stitches of indigo thread added afterward.  

I got my frame up and started weaving with the rustic natural fibre and hand dyed indigo strings. The handle is from our grapevine coiled to achieve the circle for a frame. This is another structure of a melon basket.   It's another piece to add to my blue and white studio. 

The workshop was held in a stable at Wattle Park. The BOV is so lucky to have the use of the old stable. It's heated in the winter and air-conditioned in the summer so we can use it all the year round for workshops. 

I had almost finished it when I left at the end of the workshop. My aim was to get it finished knowing that I won't have time to work at it after that. I'm pleased with how it turned out. The shape and the colour is what I was hoping for. You can see the whole of the handle on the photo below. It's the biggest basket I've ever made. I can see it standing on the studio floor filled with balls of string.                     

Full size basket: the width is 41 x 30cm and high from the tip of the handle is 61cm

Show and tell is always fun at the workshop. On my second day I took in the basket I made for a past exhibition. All exhibit pieces have to be for sale and I  didn't want to sell this piece so I decided not to enter. I'm happy to still have it. It's my pride and joy to keep for my blue and white studio. 

Sample of Pat Dale's baskets. Pat uses interesting natural branches for the handles of her baskets. Her designs are created by the shape of the handles. 

Pat Dale is talking us through the process of basket construction. There were quite a few first time basket weavers on the day. It was quite daunting making a basket out of a pile of grapevines, sticks and leaves. It's an amazing process. By the end of the two days we achieved quite a lot and went home with our very own basket creation...!

Indigo Blue

Do you get side tracked when you are doing something and the next moment something else totally takes over?  It happens to me all the time. I needed a scallop basket for a gift. It was going to be a plain basket using natural canes. Out of the blue I thought um, what if I dye the cane indigo blue? So there, off I went dyeing the cane with Ritt liquid dye in indigo blue. I was happily dyeing along then suddenly I thought why not dyeing some indigo moons? The end of that day I had indigo moons and indigo cane for the scallop basket. The thing is, this is not the basket I had in mind for a gift! Now I have to make another one for that gift...! 

A few weeks ago one of my students came back from Japan and he brought me back a bag of little pieces of silk offcuts. They were mostly in white and cream, but they are perfect to use in indigo moons. Above is the result of those little silk pieces indigo moons.

This is an Indigo basket. It is going to be my first piece of furniture for my future studio. With a trip to Japan earlier this year and my love of Japanese textiles plus my love of indigo blue influenced  by Jude Hill I decided that my new studio will be in indigo blue and white. I am planning a BORO quilt using vintage kimono fabric. You can see some of them in the basket ready for me to start. 

Back to the indigo basket. This style of basket is called scallop basket. I made 12 or so of them a few years ago. I gave them to my quilter friends and I called them quilter's baskets. It is a reproduction of an antique basket that was brought to Australia by the European migrants. A lady at Basketmakers of Victoria took an old and broken basket apart and rewrote the instructions for us to reproduce. Don't ask me why, but it is easy for me to make them. Above is the base of it. 

The spokes are woven for the rim and folded down to form the base.  I weave them together to form the stand.  I must tell you about the tool kit roll you see above. It was a gift from DIL who is a trained sculptor, making craft on the side while she is home looking after the family. 

The access spokes are trimmed and the body of the basket is now ready for the handle. When the cane is dry this basket is very sturdy and strong. It's great for car travel because it doesn't fall over on the bumpy rides. 

One of my friend's husband is an engineer and when he saw this basket he asked if I actually made it? When I told him I did, he turned it upside down looking in and out and said "It can't be, this basket is a totally impossible engineering structure!" Haha! I hope that was a compliment! 

Here is the complete basket with handle and all. What I need now is that studio to go with it LOL! I have more of these baskets to show you in my next post.

Melon Basket

I have been making baskets since we moved to Melbourne six years ago. Basket weaving comes natural to me; maybe because my mother was a basket weaver. I made quite a few of them in different styles and colours. The materials used are mainly recycled or re purposed and some are grown in our garden. The first basket every beginner basket maker makes is a melon basket (egg basket). It's a basic basket formed with handle, ribs, spokes and weavers. 

Today I will show you the melon baskets I made using varieties of fibres and materials. I have given a lot of them away, but luckily I took photos of them before I did.

The above basket made using grapevines for handle, cane for ribs and spokes and hand dyed canes for God eye (the green square at the base of the handle) and red hot poker leaves for weavers. I kept this one for myself. I love it!

Believe it or not, this basket is also made using melon basket technique. The only difference is that it doesn't have a handle. I weaved it with quilting fabric torn into strips and alternatively I added hand dyed cane to strengthen it. I store my bead jars in this basket. 

Here are more melon baskets. I kept the top 3 baskets and the bottom 3 were given away as gifts. The colour of the plant fibres changed slightly with aged, but the shape will still be the same. My basket is very strong. I was told that I'm a tight weaver. In the long run, it is better to weave it tight because plant fibres shrink with age. 

Next time I will show you a basket over a mold, stitch basket, plaid basket, garlic basket, scallop basket and miniature baskets. If you live locally and are interested in taking lessons in basket weaving, please visit Basketmakers of Victoria website for more information. 

At The Quilt Show

Last weekend I volunteered for The Basket Makers of Victoria which I'm a member of. I haven't been a very active member, but when they called for volunteers to do duty at  shows or exhibitions I always make time for them. This time the duty was at the Melbourne Craft and Quilt Fair so it wasn't hard spending the time there. My roster was from 1:00 - 5:00, but I got there early to have a look at the quilts and the stalls before I started my duty. I took some photos of the quilts before it got too crowded. I spotted some nice quilts that I thought you might enjoy them.

Some gorgeous quilts were on display at the show. I  didn't get the name of the makers and I hope that they will not mind me showing them off to the world to admire.

The light is never good in the hall for photographs. I suppose it is intentional to protect the quilts from strong light. 

The Civil War Bride Quilt made by my friend Ronnie (no blog yet) was featured there too. I was so thrilled to see it hanging up. Ronnie did a great job hand appliquéing and hand quilting it. You can't tell the difference between it and the original.

Some baskets made by members of Basketmakers of VIC displayed on the table. The blue cylinder shape is made from bread bags twine and then stitched. 

Here I was at the BOV booth. Nothing is for sale and we were only allowed to display and promote our guild. I think it is a good idea that the show organisers included guilds from Victoria to display there. They are knitting, spinning & weaving, tatting, quilting, embroidery, calligraphy and many other guilds; I can't remember them all now. What I enjoyed most being there was  meeting new budding crafters. I particularly enjoyed promoting basketry because it's a great way to appreciate our surroundings and the environment. In basketry we use most of the plant fibres from our gardens, found objects and of course, it is a great community to belong to.  I will blog some of my baskets to show you here one day. I made quite a few of them before I started blogging and sometimes forget about them. 

Busy Week: blogger friend to meet!

It's Queen's Birthday weekend (yes Queen Elizabeth of England). Happy Birthday to the Queen. We celebrate Queen's Birthday by having a day off! Unfortunately the university where I work has other ideas and it gives us the day in lieu at Christmas time, so I am working today (sad face here).  It was a busy weekend for me. I drove for 16 hours to visit with DS family. Dr. Notjustnat and I normally take turn driving, but this time he was busy rehearsing. There I said it, he is acting in a film called 'Life after Life' a catching name right? I thought I would give them free advertising on here. I can see you want to know more about 'Life after Life'? Sorry the only thing I know is that his role is of a jazz bar owner. Will keep you posted when I know more. Back to driving for 16 hours by myself. I love driving in my almost new car I got for Christmas. It drives like a dream and I have two audio books to listen to. It keeps me company and from falling asleep.

Added bonus to my long drive was stopping half way in Wodonga to meet a blogger friend Sue-Anne from Buddy &  Me. Sue-Anne kindly offered to meet me at Patchwork on Stonleigh. We communicate with our be-love iPhones and we arrived at Patchwork on Stonleigh at the same time. We gave each big hug like a long lost friends. We chatted so fast about anything and everything. Having read each other's blogs for awhile we sort of knew each other well. It was great to meet you Sue-Anne. We must do it again.

The only stitching I did this last week was my 'cloth to cloth' assignments. Here are some I can show you. In the above collage are some of my blocks from my class assignment. These are the ones I partial stitched on.

I call this block deer garden. It reminds me of a deer garden in Nara, Japan. I found this piece of cloth with Mont Blanc and a deer print on it. And when it came to weave it I decided to leave the deer and wove around it. 

A lot of us in the class were talking about pincushions. I have a bit of a pincushion addiction so I made one from woven cloth with appliqué feather on top.

Strips of fabric were everywhere after weaving each blocks for 'cloth to cloth'. What's better use of them than weave them into a rag basket. This technique of basket is call 'stitch basket'. 

On my visit to DS's family I was helping out in their garden and let DG have the freedom of running around in the backyard. I came across newly pruned vines so with a waste not want not habit, I quickly wove them into a bird nest using random weave technique. It was big enough for DIL to sit a pot plant inside and use it to decorate their garden. That's all I have done in the past week. Not a lot is it...!