Dying, not dyeing

This week was mostly a celebration of food - and then, my divine retribution, severe viral gastroenteritis and suspected giardia.  I am convinced it is nothing that I ate or did.  There is apparently a bug going around the town and I was lucky enough to get it.  Never mind, while I eat my dry biscuits and drink Japanese tea, and gastrolyte, and I can look at pictures of past meals.
                                     
 Before I got ill, I went to lunch with the ladies at Bar Alto in the Powerhouse at New Farm.  I love New Farm.  It has fantastic shops and eateries, a wonderful park, and lovely walks beside the river.  We had great meals overlooking the river, including this yummy seafood and polenta,

 

and zucchini risotto

and this fabulous cassatta desert.


  I must go back again,  as the rest of the menu looked fabulous!

We also had some Romanian friends round for lunch.  They brought some lovely entrees - stuffed eggs in a creamy sauce and chicken and vegetables in aspic.  We offered my mum's famous schnitzel with lemon and sour cream  sauce and baby potatoes and this salad,

 which turned out to be delicious.  And then, it was my favourite Gabriel Gate cake

 and homemade Creme de Menthe ice cream. (Thank you, Paul Martin).  Good company and good food - a good combination!

Back to the focus of this blog, before I got ill, I was working away on my embroidered sampler quilt, and am nearly finished the embroidery.  Now I am trying to decide how to bind it and whether to quilt it or not.  Unfortunately, or fortunately, I am not quite sure,  though people often accuse me of being organised, I am very organic in my work.  I change it as I go along, and go off on tangents, and rely on what I feel like and what the work seems to want, rather than the original plan.  A bit like my cooking, actually.  I find it difficult to follow a recipe completely, as friends and family can confirm.  Sometimes this method works, but occasionally it is a disaster, but that too is typical of my life.  Anyway, so far this method is working for me on this work.  I was a bit worried that I was getting carried away with the different colours, but it all seems to be balancing so far.

As well as that, I gave in to my yearning to get back to watercolour.  Two years ago, I went and visited my son and his wife in Alice Springs and, to my surprise, fell in love with the place.  I guess I had thought of it as dead, sandy, hot, red desert, and I hate heat.  But I went in September, when it was cold at night and warm in the day, and I was really inspired by the desert. It is full of life! And most people were friendly and welcoming.  My family took me to King's Canyon, Emily Gap, and Jessie Gap, among other places and I loved the rocks, plants, sky, the colours, the rock paintings and the scenery.  I hadn't expected such an abundance of birdlife - the bower birds, the Port Lincoln Parrots and the little zebra finches were really enchanting.  While they were working, I borrowed a car and  took myself to Simpson's gap, toured the McDonnell ranges, visited Olive Pink Desert Garden, explored the Galleries and the Museum, and wandered round  the Desert Park.  It made me want to paint so much.  I kept a diary, did some little watercolour aide memoirs and took lots of photos. And I thought a lot, because it changed my vision of Australia, the place of aborigines in Australia, the future of aboriginal Australia, my vision of beauty, my vision of myself, my vision of art.  This week, I was contrasting my experience there with the scenery and the weather here, in Brisbane.  While floating in the 27 degree sea in Caloundra last weekend, I started thinking of experimenting with an abstract painting, using the colours of the outback.  But, I had also become besotted by the series on the ABC on Grayson Perry's series of Tapestries which are inspired by Hogarth and explore the British social classes.  As my husband pointed out, that influenced me too, and my initially fairly abstract background got transformed into a cartoonish homage to Alice, using pen and watercolour and gouache.

Meanwhile, I was using my last few sheets of eco-dyed paper to make greeting cards.  I had sent a friend one of the cards I used to make

and got inspired to add to add to my stack of greeting cards. 

 

 

 

The styles all vary tremendously,

 

 

 but they, and postcards and gift tags, are a wonderful way to use up scraps I can't bear to throw out.

Before convalescing I also cleaned up my ipad and revisiting old web sites.  All the Japanese indigo sites led me to thinking that I should do something about my stack of Japanese fabrics - mostly blue.  So, I dragged them out and I have sorted out a pile to make another strip quilt.  A vague plan is in mind, but I might just start and see what happens!

And then, there a was a period of quietly dying rather than dyeing.  Such a waste of time!  Now, thanks to my darling husband, and my son nagging me to go to the doctor, I am on the mend and can't wait to get back to work.