• Learning

    Dyeing like my grandmother

    May 10, 2024

    My Nana Kit lived to be 102. In her last months of life she took to giving advice to all who she considered part of her family. My cousins received pearls of wisdom on managing a work/life balance; my sons were told how hard life can be, and sometimes just persevering is what is needed. I was told the formula for knitting a skirt and how to double warp a loom. My relationship with Nana was a close one, based largely on a shared love of textile art and the domestic sciences as she used to describe the more practical…

  • Musing about Quilting

    On Feedback

    March 27, 2023

    Over the past few years I have made more of an effort to put my work “out there”, to enter exhibitions or online hanging events, and one of the things I am finding interesting is my own reaction to feedback. I have sat on these thoughts for a while now, over a month, and seriously debated saying something about it. But better out than in. We all know the Quilt Police – or at least have heard of them. Quilt police aren’t exclusively young or old, judgemental comments know no age restriction, but they can be nasty and unwanted and…

  • Musing about Quilting

    What makes a good beginning?

    February 2, 2023

    One of the things I am working on at the moment is a beginners class. In some ways I am lucky, I am working to a framework provided to me as this is also a pathway to becoming an accredited teacher through my local guild, Canberra Quilters. But me being me, I have also been having a long term conversation about what should be in and out and the general vibe of beginners classes. Back in the olden days when I did my first sampler quilt (I think it was 1997 or 1998), the range of fabrics available in Australia…