rocks

My journey with this group of textile artists has kicked off. Because most of us don't know each other, I'll start with a short introduction about who I am : I was born and raised in South Africa and after marrying a Dutch guy, move to the Netherlands in 1986. I lived in Holland until 2007, when we decided to cross the border and settle down in Belgium.

From 2005 until 2010 I imported fabric paints from South Africa and had a company called Trapsuutjies Textielverf. The company was sold at the end of 2010 and I have since had more time to explore my own creativity.

Whatever I do creatively, I always seem to reach back to my African roots and I always use hand- painted and -dyed fabric. I am addicted to fabric painting, printing, dyeing, etcetera.

This photo shows a detail of what has turned out to be my first quilt for the group. I started off with something not even remotely resembling this in my head, and when I started working the idea out, this just happened. I do tend to work very intuitively and cannot stick to any sort of plan. The quilt symbolises one of the things I really miss - stones! In this part of the world there aren't any rocks or stones and I really really miss that.

I used monoprinted and hand-dyed fabric in combination with a piece of shwe-shwe (from South Africa) which I got from my friend Magie Relph from the African Fabric Shop. Actually, I started using shwe-shwe last year because this fabric holds very strong and cherished memories for me.

(I shall post some pictures of the other pieces on my own blog which is linked in the sidebar). I then stenciled the stones on top.

As soon as I've finished the binding, I'll post a picture of the complete quilt.