Barb Cleaver's Blog

Website Additions

Barb Cleaver — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:53:14 GMT

The online shop on this site will be up very shortly and I will be adding some yummy handbags for you to buy. I found these bags thru a trade show I went to and just loved them, as they are fabric and have flowers or bows and things on them as well as different fabrics on the one bag. At this stage I have only been able to show them by 'word and mouth', but the response has been overwhelming.

So I just wanted to tell you to look out for them - and start saving, you will need one of each design in the many different colours available and then of cause, you will be buying them for your friends too. Very affordable too - starting at $20 and up to $38.

Bye now,

Barb

What is Your Year Shaping up to Be????

Barb Cleaver — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 18:40:37 GMT

So, the year has started and it is already March. I wonder if your year is shaping up to be your 'best yet' or not.

Well for me it has certainly not been my 'best yet'. With the return of cancer - secondaries from the breast cancer 13 years ago, it is all looking very different to what I pictured. I guess life is like that.

So, for me at this moment I am having radium treatment, everyday for 10 days. They are concentrating that in the neck area, because for the last 2 1/2 months I have little use of my right hand - we are all praying that this treatment will give me my hand back. I am right handed by the way. Not looking good you might say!!

Well, somehow in the middle of this I have had to try to keep myself sane. I was given the opportunity to participate in a fibre art challenge with Bernina, connected to the launch of the new Series 8 machine. Wow, what a machine.

In thinking what sort of thing I could do, bearing in mind that it could not be anything too precise in the actual making, cause of 'the hand', I set about doing design of laying fabric down and then free machining over the top. The design had to include this particular '8' number, so I decided to machine felt that '8' over the top of the layered background, and by doing this I could push the work under the machine using the left hand and the pinky finger side of my right hand.

I then left the top of the '8' open so that 3D flowers and leaves, representing the ultimate and perfect in Gods creativity, could spill out uncontained from the '8'. Thus my title - 'Series 8 - Uncontainable Creativity'

Well it took me half of Dec, all of Jan and half of Feb, but I got it done. And to my delight, it was hanging in the Bernina stand, along with some others, at the Melbourne Quilt Symposium last week.

So everyone, I just want to encourage you. There was a lot of pain happening while i was doing this, and it took a lot longer than it could have as I could only do it in half hour or hour shifts, and sometimes only once a day, but it certainly gave me a goal in the midst of coming to terms with what is going on in this mortal body of mine.

My fight is a lot bigger this time than it was last time, but me and God go along well together and we will beat this thing, and meanwhile I will see you at the Gold Coast Craft Show at the end of March - come and do a fun Bernina workshop with me! Bless you.

Life changes direction

marbara — Thu, 07 Aug 2008 20:59:09 GMT

Sometimes life takes unexpected turns - some all good and some are a little harder. But even the hard one can be good for us in the long run!

For me at the moment things are a little - 'not sure where things are heading'.

But this is what I would like to see happen.

With my quilting work in the past I guess you could say that I am a traditional quilter with a twist of the creative. I do love the tradition, but I like to see people adding something extra or changing the pattern. For me it will always be the addition of flowers, leaves or something free form.

My inspiration comes from God's creation - I am amazed at the complexity and the simplicity of the beauty around us. When I get to heaven I will ask God questions like - why did you spend so much time and effort making a beautiful hibiscus or day lily flower and only have it last one day? How and why did You decide to have the salmon fish swim upstream to get back to the place where they were born, so that they could have babies??

But in thinking about all those things it just goes to show what an expanse of created things there are for us to be inspired to do our own bit of creating in our particular chosen field.

For me in the future I want to expand more into the textile art area - recreating a scene or a flower or a tree stump, with lots of texture and dimension. If this means I still teach, then that's fine but if it means I work for my own enjoyment or to sell pieces, well I just don't know.

I miss the teaching and travel, but new seasons mean a change usually so I will see where it takes me. There will always be room to teach 'quilt as you go' and my favourite - Fibonacci, these are things that I am still passionate about in this industry.