A very colourful and musical sample of faux chenille. Isn't it amazing when something you have been planning for for a couple of years finally arrives? And then all of a sudden - it's over!!! It's my second to last night in The Antipodes. I am at my motel in Wanaka having had a lovely, lazy day mooching around. The most important part of the day was packing a parcel and sending it back home full of clothes . . .  My suitcase is a tad over weight, not unlike my good self!! I arrived in Wanaka last Sunday having been given a lift from one of the students that had enrolled on my course. We had a very beautiful drive up from Dunedin. . . and then it was straight into setting my room to teach on Monday.    More faux chenille samples. The five day workshop I was due to teach was A New Starting Point. My newspaper based course. It is very odd teaching without a Volvo estate full of my kit. I have to rely on my students bringing everything in - and the odd i...

 One of the rocks in the bush around Lake Rotoiti.So much texture and colour.  So . . .   I left Ballarat and flew to New Zealand to catch up with friends I had made two years ago when I was over here last. Denise Cleghorn was one such friend. We had been planning a nine day trip around part of the South Island for the past year. We drove up from Christchurch to St Arnauds on Lake Rotoiti, surely one of the most beautiful places on earth. Even in the lashing rain (the tail end of the cyclone that had hit Australia two weeks before). It was so wet I had to buy wellington boots and water proof trousers. But I didn't care - I was in New Zealand!    The view from one of the jettys on Lake Rotoiti. Just stunning. Denise and I went to stay with Bob and Christine Marks who I had also met two years ago. They have a 'bach' or holiday home very near the lake. We had a tramp through the bush in the pouring rain and ended up at the lake shore. I took h...

 My lovely groups work on show. Here I am again - finally!! There is little available wifi while I am traveling so this is a bit late and rather short, as I am still having problems getting photos the right size for the blog. I will get there in the end . . . .  So - we had a wonderful week at Ballarat - lots of fun and great times with good friends. The end of week show was a roaring success showing off the stunning work all the groups had produced. This is my groups work. They didn't get a lot of chance to finish anything as it was a workshop of 2 halves - the first 3 days was spent creating original designs and printing blocks - the last 2 days was spent tearing and layering pages form old books and newspapers and painted Bondaweb to print onto with their new printing blocks.  Here you can see the Journeys and some of the printing blocks and prints . . .  Some of the papers and more considered pieces . . . . and a bit more . . . .  ...

Katie painting her Journey. So - Here I am back at Ballarat with Fibre Arts Australia run by Glenys Mann. www.fibrearts.jigsy.com I love teaching here and most especially catching up with great friends that I have taught with here two and four years ago - Mary Hettmanspurger and Kerr Grabowski from the USA and Marlene Kranz from Australia.  My design workshops have been asked for most particularly in Australia and as they are a great favourite of mine, this is no hardship.  You will have seen that I taught something similar in Canberra. As this is a five day workshop we will be developing the use of the print blocks and creating layered newspaper surfaces to print and stitch onto. The Journeys were painted . . . .  . . . and hung . . . We also played with 'flipping out' . . . .    . . .  and expanding . . .     The group then took two sections from each design exercise using 'L' shapes to isolate...