Artist book...on the Riverland, introduction by Forebears

 The Forebears, in their exuberance, climbed all over the Rooster and wanted to be in this blog also before they all leave home to go out into the wide and wicked world.....who knows where they will end up....they were wanting to give their opinions too on my latest effort in the artist book line, but being too full of themselves I was not prepared to repeat what they said.....

The next artist book is about the Riverland and that of course is our own beautiful Murray river which we visited and stayed at in August.
We stayed in the Loxton Community Hotel where we had a very good deal with free breakfasts and beautiful dinners at night at a special rate as well.
Country people are so much more in tune with people than city people and the staff at the Hotel were very friendly and attentive.

 Again I chose a fairisle pattern for the cover
and tried to get the Riverland colours  by mixing the fine yarns of various hues to give the impression of the richness and diversity of what the land can produce under irrigation.
The orange trees were absolutely loaded with gorgeous orange fruit and while the vines were bare of course and resting , the soil in between the rows is this fabulous red and the weeds a lush green.

 We did a bit of touring as well and had a look at some of the SALA exhibitions in Renmark and around the town of Loxton as well.
There were some excellent nudes in soft pastels
in the Touries information center, but my walls are pretty well covered in paintings now
so resisted buying one.....

We took some photos of the Kingston  bridge,
Brian being particularly fond of trucks thundering towards him or going away from him out of the photo, on that bridge.
I found an amusing plaque there describing how
Captain Charles Sturt in 1830 when he was exploring the Murray near that area, had an exciting experience with a tribe of local tribesmen .....luckily no one was killed.....

For the back of the cover I reversed the colours and it is quite interesting to see how much clearer the grape pattern appears there...
Don't forget to click on the photos to get a better view...or am I starting to sound like the announcer on the new train??

Concertina Book

 My next artist book is a concertina form.
The cover is again a knitted fairisle done in a long strip . Having cut the core for it
and scored it so they would fold, the fabric was then sewn around the long strip with enough room for the signatures to be comfortably encased and folded into a booklet.

 Next I wrote the individual verses and sewed the
the antiqued fabric onto the knitted fairisle.

Because the verses were placed on both sides of the individual signatures, I had to find a way of closing it so the book would be read from the beginning ( where else would you start.....)
So I came up with the rolled front and attached a cord which then wraps around the whole
folded book and the cord slips around a nice wooden button I have had in my stash for years.

It was fun to make and though it presented a few
Technical problems it keeps you thinking and finding solutions.
My next book is on a theme of the Riverland
and while the signatures are ready, the cover is not as yet on the go.....

Heteropoda in Spring and the Tawny Frogmouth on his nest

 This morning I went out to measure the wonderful rain we had during the night and Lo! and Behold, there was heteropoda, sitting in the rainguage and politely got out of the way for me while I took out the tube with rain to see how much we had.
He sat outside on the rainguage looking decidedly relaxed and well fed, unlike the first picture which I took at the beginning of winter, where he looks all scrunched up with the cold and the wet.

I had been tipping him out onto the ground and weeds but he persisted and climbed back each time. I had worried that he would starve in there, not seeing what on earth he would be living on in such a barren space.
 however he obviously managed to find enough to eat and he is looking fit and well.

The Tawny Frogmouth has started to sit on his nest since last Thursday. It is the same nest as they used last year and the Ashtree is starting to sprout so he will soon have cover .
The greenies too are nesting and the Murray Magpies are gathering mud out of the pond.
I could hear a baby Magpie squawking and we did find a dead baby Magpie on the edge of the road the other day so Spring  has sprung......
PS. When I measured the 1ml of rain this morning September 3rd, no Heteropoda....has he left home or was he a meal for a bird? Oh , I do so hope he is off on an adventure.....

Artist Books- a new beginning

Suddenly there may be a need to do something different, to create something other than garments, something which can be held in the hand, like a book....
So what is an Artist book you may well ask....
Who knows...some one suggested it is a book made by an artist but a better description may be that it is a creative expression of a person intent on amusing themselves using the skills acquired over  a lifetime of attending art/craft workshops......

There is a huge amount of yarn collected over the years so it was decided to do a tuckstitch cover in a mixture of fine yarns. This presented a technical problem because how many stitches and rows were needed so as the knitted piece would fit without having to cut and sew it.
It worked well in the end and fitted when stretched, a quality knitted fabrics have in abundance...

The signatures, as the pages of the book are called, were done by transferring the painted Bondaweb to Vilene old sheeting and then embroidering , stitching, writing and finishing them by backing them with recycled jean material to give a neat finish and hide all the knots and threads created by sewing and embroidery.
They were then all bound together between the covers and held in place by a stick with lichen on it.Remember to click on the photos to get a close up look
The next book is on the go.......

Karoonda and the Mallee

We were heading for Loxton a week or so ago and our preferred route is to go via the back roads and miss out on the freeway traffic on the way to Murray Bridge. We go through this town, which seems to be growing more and more each time we have gone through it, and turn off to go to Karoonda which is on the way to Loxton.
We generally stop there as the town's people have made a very pleasant area for tourists to pull into and have a break. You can go across the road for food or you can take a walk in the 

 centenary park they have created with indigenous plants along lovely paths.
It was great to see an old windmill head mounted
 to remind us of how they used to squeak and grown in the wind whilst pumping up the underground water into tanks for to water their stock or for the homesteads gardens or even household use. As the base says...No wind...No water....No life....

 Being in the Mallee too, there are these wide open skies with fabulous cloud formations.
And they also, have had a good winter for rainfall so far with the crops looking very hale and hearty and the native shrubs looking wonderful. There were quite a few eremophilas
starting to flower and one plant we were unsure of what it was but it had the most interesting clump of what looked like bottle brushes but weren't .

The Mallee of course was eminently suited to the Merino sheep which grew dense wool, so the community have erected this statue as a tribute to the sheep industry of a magnificent stud Merino ram.
I remember helping to get a number of these magnificent stud Rams on Anlaby, where they were kept in a special ram shed,  ready for the Adelaide Show in the mid fifties. The wool was of amazingly soft handle and very very dense.
Those were the days.........

Willunga Artisan Market & more Heteropoda Adventures

Yesterday started out very cold. It was 2 *C when I climbed into my Subaru at 7.30 am  and backed out of the shed. The monitor pinged and proceeded to ask me to drive safely and slowly as the roads may be icy....well, that is not likely to happen in Willunga but still, it was a nice thought.
I always like to get to the Agricultural Hall early to get a good parking spot as Our Artisan Market is on the same day as the Farmers Market across the road and the Quarry Market as well and the streets get fairly busy and parking can be tricky.

Our young market coordinator Emily was already opening up the hall for us to set up. She is an inveterate collector of other people's shopping lists and she found one that had "Black wool Holiday on it. So she adopted it and made it the name for her business. You can see her site at
www.blackwoolholiday.com and see all the intriguing art and film work she does.
On the right she is talking with Mary who is a print maker and specializes in whimsical animal
prints.

On the left is Emma's stall with the amazing mandala hanging her late mother sewed, as the backdrop. She makes wooden beads and creates amazing necklaces and bead hangings.
You can go to her stall and gather up and choose the beads that appeal to you, for a very modest price. Children adore her stall as there is nothing breakable there and they can rummage around in the bead basket to their hearts content.
There are six other stalls as well, with two pottery people, one who does individual glass beads, one who does exquisite calligraphy and also slumped glass wear

one who makes skirts out of retro materials and a jeweler who makes finely wrought metal jewelry out of anodised saucepan lids.
And then there is me.....
We were filmed by a group of people doing a promo on the Fleurieu peninsula and perhaps we may have a flash of two seconds fame in some future TV add....
The most interesting part of the morning was
 after we closed, one of Emily's friends gave a talk on how to present our Market to the general public and how we as individual stall holders might improve our presentation and induce customers to linger longer and perhaps even buy something.....my stall could do with de-cluttering I think.....

Now further to our little Huntsman, Heteropoda which I had tossed out of the tube Friday morning.....
This morning I went to measure the rain we had on Friday night as I had not done so yesterday'
When I took the funnel off, there it was again,not in the measuring tube but on the rim under where the funnel fits......so I went back and got my little Nikon coolpix  and took yet more photos and gently put the funnel back making sure it didn't squash its little feet. Is it trying to tell me something?.....

Intrepid Heteropoda.....

We have had some very wet weather of late, winter has arrived at last after a very sunny and dry autumn.
So I have great pleasure in the morning donning my Bluntstones and rain jacket, to go out and measure the rain we may have had yesterday and overnight. Our rain gauge is well away from trees in the front of the house in an area which was once garden but now is a weedy wilderness.
For the past week or so, we had a Huntsman spider, not a big one, take up residence in the actual tube where the rain collects to be measured. I marvelled at how the creature managed to squeeze in through the small hole of the funnel but thought , he will never be able to get out again...
So I tipped him out onto the surrounding weeds along with the sometimes (Oh Joy Oh bliss) 8 or 9 mls of rain.
However, the next day the Heteropoda would be back again, always on the side facing the wind and well and truly where
 it could not be rained on......
So it climbed all the way from the weedy patch back out and up the post and into the tube...it would be like us climbing up the tallest building in the city. I left it there for a couple of days but I felt it would starve to a mere shell so I finally photographed it in the tube before tossing it in the weeds once more and hoping it would find a better home. Remember to click on the photos for a clearer view.

I have just finished a red jacket based on the pattern I had made for the pink jacket,with gores and knit-woven in wool, wool boucle and mohair.
The pink batwing has woven- in contrast yarns to give it some textural interest
They will be on display at the Willunga Artisan Market tomorrow....I hope it is a better day weatherwise tomorrow as well.....

The Tawny Frogmouths have re appeared in the last few days and spend their day resting on the vine stumps under the gutter so as to stay dry. They are such lovely birds to have on the patio as they give out this Zen like air of calmness, nothing seems to disturb them even if you get quite close. If you do get too close they point their beaks in the air and flatten themselves out and close their eyes pretending that they are not there and so we are not able to see them..... bless their hearts....