Artist of the day: Karen Richards

Thank you Sarah for this tip off on textile artist Karen Richards...

Karen Richards is an awarding winning Australian textile artist. Situated at the end of the Great Ocean Rd, Karen produces embroidery in a range of styles from her lavish narrative pieces noted for their dark humor to her more recent fine lace sculptures and banners. Karen is an RMIT Textile Design (Weave) graduate, a member of Hurrah! and teaches in the Studio Textile program at South West TAFE.
In 2009 Karen won the PFAFF International Embroidery as Art Excellence Award for her piece Ruined Forest as well as the Australian Cotton Expo Machine Embroidery award for her piece Minhamite.

Reverse Garbage

Deb and I went to Reverse Garbage and the Bower this morning (her first visit!) I picked up some sheet plastic..for making moulds on (so they don't stick to the table). I also bought some reels of ribbon 'cause I love ribbon. Deb bought some spongey stuff for packing glass. Over to the bower, I found the table base I had seen the other week in the yard section outside (obviously not my first visit) and carried it precariously through the magpie assortment of reclaimed homewares / furniture and building materials. I think I did quite well not to knock anything over.

On a personal note, my dad is out of hospital and certifiably healthy (cause still unknown)

Fabric shopping

We had a positive if rather late appointment with Dougie's specialist..I was then asked to occupy my self whilst Dougie spoke at an inquiry. I have been getting itchy fingers to sew recently and after all these sewing blogs I have been reading, I feel inspired. This year also is my year of not buying clothes so I hiked myself of to 2 conveniently located shops 'Tessuti' and 'The Fabric Store'. I was hoping to buy a pattern V1174 which I have seen made up by Sewaholic here. The patetrn is not in Australia yet...so I may have to be brave and draft the pattern myself.

Both Tessuti and The fabric store are having sales at the moment.

So from the top..

remnant Cotton print from Tessuit

remnant drapey blend print from Tessuti

light Cotton from the Fabric Store

embroidered blend from the fabric store

Viscose /cotton blend from the fabric store..(I bought this ivory to dye for a sculpture project (green) and was impressed with the result so I bought some more to dye..maybe a cherry or indigo for a dress) great fabric to sew with and only $20m less with the 30% sale presently.