Olga Walters

I emigrated with my family in 1957 from the Netherlands; we lived in Taree in New South Wales, where I very quickly realised at the tender age of seven that life would be different from then on.

The terrain in the open scrubby areas of coastal New South Wales, was so vastly different from what I had known, although I was looking at it with young eyes, I still did not fail to notice this.

Having always loved drawing and painting, I very quickly found my sketchpad was filling up (usually in preference to doing my homework!)

As an adult, my working life seemed disconnected to my creativity, which was always on the go in my spare time.

Flying for TAA as a hostie gave me the opportunity to see parts of Australia that I had not dreamt I would be able to visit and spend time in. Based in Brisbane the flights I crewed were usually into outback Queensland on smaller aircraft and of course coastal stops of the East Coast of Australia, from Melbourne right up to Cairns.

Nowadays I mostly capture my inspiration using photography quite often at my sister's farm at Smeaton near Ballarat. The surrounding bushland provides me with endless possibilities.

My love of thread and cloth with their tactile qualty seemed to be a natural progression from the sketches and paintings that I had made previously.

I love to start with black cloth, taking the colour out with a discharge agent and then over-dyeing the same cloth to bring out the patterns from foliage which has been laid down onto it. I then spend many hours building up textures using torn up pieces of cloth. The next step is to stitch into these collages over and over to build up the textures. This is rather like drawing back into a painting.

ENDLESS HORIZONS

Discharged cotton fabrics, fused raw-edge collage technique, synthetic threads, free-motion embroidered.

47 cm h x 115 cm w

2010

 The dramatic horizon line against the mountains in the distance were stitched using Australian landscape colours.  I draw using a multitude of embroidery threads in my sewing machine.

EARTH WRAP

Discharged cotton fabrics, piecing technique, synthetic threads, free-motion embroidered

 181 cm h x 141 cm w

2003 

 As an artist working from nature, I seek to interpret dramatic elements from the complex, yet transient life withing the Australian forest.

On the ground over time soft humus forms on the forest floor, creating a soft cradle for the re-generation of plant and animal life. 

          

LEAF LITTER

Discharged and overdyed cotton fabrics, fused raw-edge collage technique, synthetic threads, free-motion embroidered.
90cm h x 44cm w
2013

The forest floor covered with leaves creates interesting colours, patterns and textures. The intensely beautiful world provides me with a visual feast of textures and colours to create cloth for my art quilts.

WINGED FRENZY 

Discharged and overdyed cotton fabrics, fused raw-edge collage technique, synthetic threads, free-motion embroidered.119 cm h x 92 cm w2004

I wanted to capture the frenetic energy of our Australian magpie. These fascinating birds are notorious for swooping down onto unsuspecting passers-by during their nesting season.  The play of light, the movement of air and the call of birds are all woven into these surfaces.   

               

Anne Sushames

detail Fragrant Threadbare Stars

I have come from a sewing background and have always sewn for as long as I can remember. As a child I had a toy sewing machine that sewed a chain stitch that was quite functional which I used to make dolls clothes. I soon graduated to sewing on Mum’s treadle and made lots of dolls clothes for my younger sisters and later my own clothes.

My first introduction to patchwork was through the story of Milly Molly Mandy who made a patchwork tea cosy. I could clearly see in my imagination this crazy patchwork tea cosy and wanted to emulate it, although I never did.

My aunt was a trained home economics teacher and made hexagon quilts from dressmaking scraps in the 1960’s. When I was in early high school I made my first patchwork from ~4” squares of dressmaking scraps sewn together and lined as in the early coverlets. I used this as a bedspread while at university. I subsequently made a bedspread from left over curtain material patched together with coordinating gabardine, again a coverlet not quilted.

When pregnant with my first son I made my first hexagon coverlet as a cot cover again from dressmaking scraps. Several hexagon quilts later I found patchwork and quilting groups and attended my first quilt retreat in 1986 at Minden in Queensland (I lived in Brisbane at that time) where I discovered to my delight a whole world of other people who loved to sew and quilt. To me the social aspect of quilting is what I enjoy most, sharing and meeting with other quilters.

Today I am a bit of a patchwork junkie, regularly attending groups from Victorian Quilters, a state wide body to several smaller groups meeting in each others houses so sew and share the ups and downs of our lives.

Up until 2008 I hand quilted all of my quilts. I really enjoy the quilting process which adds another dimension to the patchwork giving it extra vibrancy. In 2008 I purchased a longarm machine and now have the pleasure of working on lots of different quilt tops finishing them for other people and speeding up the quilting process considerably. I still enjoy hand quilting but machine quilting gives a different look and finish that is achieved much more efficiently.

Most of my quilts are traditional but I enjoy choosing my own fabrics and changing things slightly to make them my own. I have always been driven to keep going to “see how it looks” and to start new projects. Like many quilters I always have lots of UFO’s (Unfinished Objects) or PHD’s (Projects Half Done) as I can’t resist starting another new quilt.

This year I have become involved in the Snuggly Quilt program organised through Victorian Quilters and the Wrapped in Love program at the Royal Children’s Hospital where we make and distribute quilts to sick children. I enjoy the process of making quilts as much as the end result. It is so rewarding to be able to give quilts to children who are in such a vulnerable situation and experience the delight they can give to children and parents alike.    

Fragrant Threadbare Stars

Hand pieced and hand quilted Engllish paper piecing

177cm w x 191 cm h

2011

This quilt was made in response to a challenge issued by Victorian Quilters in 2011 to make a quilt based on a quilt featured in Annette Gero’s book Fabric of Society about Australia’s Quilt Heritage form Convict Times to1960.

I chose to base my quilt on Frederica’ Josephson’s Quilt of Diamonds and Hexagons. At the time I did not own a copy of the book and drew up the pattern from a picture I had in an earlier book of Annette Gero’s “Historic Australian Quilts” and used templates I had to hand piece my quilt over papers using the English Paper Piecing method. The first contact with quilting I had was my aunt making a hexagon quilt back in the 1960’s and I made a hexagon coverlets for my first baby back in 1979, so making this quilt was a return to my quilting roots. I used to hand quilt all my quilts but since purchasing a longarm machine had done very little hand quilting, but I felt that this quilt deserved to be hand quilted in keeping with the times although the original quilt was a coverlet and not quilted.

I used fabrics purchased from The Fragrant Cottage in Warrnambool and Threadbear in Castlemaine with vouchers I had won at a previous Victorian Quilters Showcase Exhibition, hence the name Fragrant Threadbear Stars.  

DOLLS'S BED QUILT

English paper pieced hexagons, hand pieced and hand quilted Liberty tana lawn cotton with pellon wadding

51 cm h x 44.5  cm h

2012

I made this quilt in 2012 when I gained custody of a family heirloom doll’s bed that had belonged to my grandmother. When the bed came to me it had no bedding so I made a mattress, sheets and pillow with pillowcase and of course there had to be a quilt.

I agonised for some time over a suitable pattern but when a friend suggested a miniature hexagon quilt I knew that it would be just right. I used liberty fabrics and pellon for batting. Again hand quilting seemed appropriate for this small project. My granddaughters now enjoy playing with this remarkable doll’s bed.

detail Fragrant Threadbare Stars

Fiona Wright

I am a practicing artist previously based in Gresford, rural NSW,
Australia, in 2008 re-located to Pushkar, India.
I exhibit both nationally and internationally, working in textiles most of my life and I spent a long stint as a Steiner/Waldorf teacher

A trip to India in 2003 changed my life…through a “Little Meeting” many things happened…..I met the man who is now my husband, we started a small textiles focused travel company ‘Creative Arts Safaris’ …I travelled to teach all over the world and visit India for many years until we landed together in a village outside Pushkar in rural India.

A long story but my studio grew to become our workshop ‘The Stitching Project’ - my husband got roped in and yes he has found he enjoys the creative side of our work and is now a keen block printer. We run a social enterprise- a business with clear social goals as well as profit, employing as many hands as we can stitching, block printing utilising handloom fabrics etc.

India is where we call home. 

Little Meetings

“Little Meetings” I did a series of these Meetings, technique-wise it was when I started to experiment with layers…my pieces are built of with a layer of wool and a layer of silk over the top, when these are felted together you can often see 2 things happening visually depending on what you focus on in the picture or the angle you view from. The technique represented what I was experiencing, wanting to share. There is the landscape evoked by the horizontal line and overlaying that the God’s eye view or bigger picture. This laid the foundation for a series about place “Soulscapes”

“Little Meetings” I had been to India, met Praveen, I was starting to travel a lot to teach, I was making connections around the globe really and was contemplating the people you meet and the connections you make….some bring bursts of light into your life…and as you go on you start to realize “here is there in another location” which was my Masters exhibition that came together around the same time

Temple Memories

“Temple Memories” India made a big impact on my life personally and creatively…this was just something I had to get off my chest and it was like a talisman. I often had it in my suitcase when I travelled to teach, I would never sell it: my general attitude is that a piece is an experience of the moment and I don’t need to hold on to it. This one always felt like home when I looked at it and a sign where that would one day be…..the rose petal strewn across the surface held such wishes.