Exotic, stunningly beautiful and vivid flowers of the Southern Hemisphere. Immigrants to Australia brought with them flowers from South America and Africa; the flowers now flourish in my country, Australia, alongside beautiful native flowers beneath the southern sky.
Techniques:Appliqué, free machine stitching and quilting.
©2012 Suzanne Gummow All rights reserved.
Canberra, an inland city of undulating hills and valleys, has pulled through one of the worst droughts in living memory. This quilt, made after the drought had broken, captures memories of a drier time – a time predicted to return. It is a reminder to respect and appreciate nature.
Techniques & Materials:Whole cloth with torn strip appliqué, machine quilting, painted. Commercial cotton with applied acrylic paint, wool batting, polyester embroidery thread.
©2012 Dianne Firth All rights reserved.
Southern Africa is a place of warmth and beauty but also of strife and hardship. I am full of admiration for the women who, carrying weighty and painful emotional burdens, still move forward with determination and grace.
Techniques & Materials: Machine appliqué and piecing, hand and machine quilting; cotton, fabric paint, perle thread.
©2012 Helen Conway All rights reserved.
From ragged mountains and sweeping plains to jewel-like seas; from wet tangle of rain forest to arid harshness of outback; from fire to drought to flood; this landscape provides a feast for the senses. Inspired by the Dorothea Mackellar poem My Country and the artist's travels.
Techniques & Materials: Fabric painting, dyeing and printing; hand-made felt; machine needle felting; weaving; hand and machine embroidery. Wool, silk, cotton and synthetic fabrics, fibres and yarns.
Copyright Note: Poem quotes by arrangement with the Licensor, The Dorothea MacKellar Estate c/o Chris Brown (Aust) Pty Limited.
©2012 June Buxton All rights reserved.
Beneath the Southern Sky stretches the vast Australian continent. The colours range from the deep blue and green of the surrounding ocean to the rich red-orange of the interior. Adding to the colours and beauty are the small endangered creatures struggling to survive in their chosen environment.
Techniques & Materials: Cotton, silk ribbons, synthetic sheers, knitting yarns, tulle quilting and embroidered threads. Free motion machine embroidery, trapped threads and fabric scraps, appliqué and free motion quilting.
©2012 Jan Rowe All rights reserved.
The Australian Outback is vast and harsh. It is also incredibly beautiful. The colours are amazing – strong and vibrant – like the people who live there. Thousands of kilometres of fences divide the huge expanse of land, making it possible for the caretakers to manage the land. People, however, should not be divided. We should stand united sharing this amazing gift of The Great South Land.
Techniques & Materials: Dye painting on 100% cotton fabric. Machine quilting.Backing: hand dyed 100% cotton. Wadding: needle punched cotton.
©2012 Sandy Corry All rights reserved.
"Mother and Child" is based on one of my own photos, a simple rendering of motherhood – representing this period as servant, protector, listener, nurturer and guide – and childhood – the time of being, exploring, learning, and growing. All our daily activities bring opportunities to raise our young in the way they should go, to become who they are meant to be. Where better may we do this than Beneath the Southern Sky?
Techniques & Materials: Raw edge machine appliqué, machine quilted. Fabrics are mainly 100% commercial cottons.
©2012 Sue Duffy All rights reserved.
I wanted to find an image that was iconic for Australia, but not edging into kitsch. A photograph by Marc McCormack of the Cairns Post was enchanting and with his permission, I used elements of his image. It evokes the smell of sheets dried in the sunshine, the wind in drying clothes, and the glee of children swinging on that Australian icon – the Hills Hoist.
Techniques & Materials: Hand painted and commercial fabrics, free motion stitching and painting with Tsukineko inks. Machine piecing and raw edge appliqué. Wool mix bating (60% wool, 40% polyester). Free motion quilted.
©2012 Jenny Bowker All rights reserved.
Inspired by iconic Australian poet Banjo Paterson's 1933 poem, White Cockatoos. I enjoyed the humour of a flock of marauding cockatoos decimating the cornfields while one bird perches on lookout for the farmer. Pure Australian: cheeky yet good-natured. Feathers of the sulphur crested cockatoo were recently collected in Canberra.
Over mountain peaks outlying, Clear against the blue
Comes a scout in silence flying, One white cockatoo.
Back he goes to where the meeting, Waits among the trees.
Says, "The corn is fit for eating; Hurry, if you please."
Skirmishers, their line extending, Shout the joyful news;
Down they drop like snow descending, Clouds of cockatoos. (Excerpt)Techniques & Materials: 100% cotton fabrics hand dyed, sun painted, coloured and printed by the artist. Machine appliquéd, embroidered and quilted using rayon threads. Organza embellishments.
©2012 Julie Haddrick All rights reserved.
Beneath the Southern Sky, in my part of the world, there lies a beautiful coastline north of Auckland, New Zealand, where we have a beach house. The rich blue of the sea reflects the intense blue of the sky. Nearby, there is native bush, vineyards and farmland, rivers and the waters of the Hauraki Gulf, swimming, surfing, and sailing. This is my Slice of Heaven.
Techniques & Materials: Cotton fabrics, cotton batting, machine appliqué.©2012 Alison Laurence All rights reserved.
I remember the feeling I had one summer while waiting for a boat ride to a place I'd never been. It was a mix of anticipation and a sense of floating in time. The image here portrays silhouetted foreground elements of people relaxed under a tree, all seemingly floating in the simplified landscape of beach, water, and distant shore across a bay.
Techniques & Materials:Adapted from a personal photograph taken at Kaiteriteri, NZ. Hand appliqué with hand painted and screen printed design on hand-dyed, 100% cotton fabric.©2012 Cat Larrea All rights reserved.
Whenever I return to New Zealand I realise how I've missed seeing the clouds that race across the blue sky and the green hills with their various contours and textures. Out My Window is just a simple view of the Wellington hills. In the distance they look the same, yet close up the layers of detail and variations can be seen.
Techniques & Materials: Whole cloth cotton painted with textile paint. Stencilled with Paintsticks, extra colour added with Inktense pencils. Free motion quilting using polyneon and rayon threads. Bobbin work with perle thread.Hand stitching using rayon and metallic embroidery threads.©2012 Helen Beaven All rights reserved.
In 1995, the World Gliding Championships were held at Omarama in New Zealand's South Island. I vividly recall watching the daily gaggle of up to 40 gliders that circled Mt. Horrible as they prepared for the day's race. The bright, southern sky sparkled with the flash of glider wings. I marvelled at the quiet beauty of the mountains and the pilots skills in manoeuvring their silent birds.
Techniques & Materials: An original design employing cotton, nylon, wool and silk fabrics accompanied by silk and woollen fibres. The materials are hand felted, hand and commercially dyed and attached with hand and machine stitching and embellished with fabric paint.
©2012 Caroline Mason All rights reserved.
Inspired by a recently moved 100 year old building onto a relatives property for restoration. All the wonderful surfaces, textures and shapes were not only very inspiring but they also represent the many years of modifications and evolving stories. Imagine the tales it could tell if it was able to speak or write.
Techniques & Materials: Collage using digital images printed onto cotton and Lutradur with an ink jet printer, a piece of commercial fabric, sun-printing, acrylic paints, stitched & quilted.
©2012 Mel Forrest All rights reserved.
In Kiwi's Nocturne: Star Gazing Through the Veil, the Kiwi serves as Everyman, assuming for one moment the unusual posture of looking up toward the infinite through the foliage and layers of cloud. Soon his attention will return downward to the concerns of the day-to-day, but for an instant he contemplates something beyond his own concerns.
Techniques & Materials: Machine and hand appliqué, thread painting, machine and hand quilting, dyeing and painting, beading, couching, piecing, fusing and paint stick rubbing. Hand-dyed cotton and various embellishment fabrics, fabric paint, paint sticks; Angelina, MistyFuse (as a design element), and wool batt.
©2012 Monica Johnstone All rights reserved.
Recently camping throughout the Northern Territory, the artist was lucky enough to sleep under the stars at Glen Helen Gorge, with the red rocks below her and the mighty Southern Cross above. The artist was struck by the vast size and depth of the sky and felt the warmth of the red Earth below. In this piece the artist has portrayed the powerful connection and vibration of energies between the Earth and the never ending Skies with only a small layer in between where we are so privileged to inhabit.
Techniques & Materials: Original design hand painted onto black fabric. Free-motion machine stitched with black and silver thread. 100% cotton top, back and batting.
©2012 Helen Godden All rights reserved.
Man's intrusion into that Antarctic landscape is damaging, but because of the vast scale of the region it thankfully has not made a significant impact, yet. The fusion of land, sea, sky, and ice band together.
Techniques & Materials: Home shibori dyed fabric and commercially bought fabric. Cotton batting. Rayon threads. Machine pieced and machine quilted.
©2012 Debra De Lorenzo All rights reserved.
The forty second parallel cuts almost directly though the centre of Tasmania It effectively divides our Island. We are divided by lines on maps, mountain ranges and attitude but from above we are one! The most beautiful island under the southern sun.
Techniques & Materials: Hand dyed 100% cotton fabric), machine raw edge appliqué, stamped (wood cut and foam stamps), free motion quilted.
©2012 Sally Westcott All rights reserved.
My work is inspired by the centre of Australia, the indigenous people and dreamtime stories. When thinking of beneath the southern sky being Australian I thought of this land and the custodians of the land. The style has been influenced by the art nouveau period.
Techniques & Materials: My work uses raw edge applique, free machining / quilting, solvy thread work and beading. It includes hand dyed/painted fabrics.
©2012 Christine Dowell All rights reserved.
Inspired by the earthy textures and ever changing colours of the Australian Outback and reminiscent of early Australia with its shearing sheds and rusty iron roofs. Combined with the iconic Australian song I've Been Everywhere whose lyrics epitomize the vastness and strangeness of this land.
Techniques & Materials: Hand dyed and painted fabrics overprinted with silk screens. Collage quilted and overpainted with metallic paint.
Copyright Notice: I've Been Everywhere G.Mcelhinney © 1962 EMI Belinda Music Australia Pty Limited. Lyrics used by permission.
©2012 Lisa Walton All rights reserved.
I picture myself in a helicopter, hovering over back country in the South Island of New Zealand, featuring an isolated farmhouse. Landscapes featuring texture (which I teach), are my first love.
Techniques & Materials: Felting with enclosed threads and fabrics. Hand and machine embroidery, couching, beading,and appliqué.
©2012 Anne Jolly All rights reserved.
The Pieman River is a remote and wild place in the Tarkine Wilderness of Western Tasmania. It is part of a diverse landscape in which all the elements are interdependent. The Pieman winds around windswept quartzite ridges covered with pockets of buttongrass; and the overhanging branches of the rare, mysterious Huon pines are mirrored in the River's deep, dark surface. To walk through this place was to take with me the images of a living art form, transmuted here in textile.
Techniques & Materials: Silks, dressmaker's pattern tissue, teabag paper, newspaper, cotton scrim, batting, cotton threads, fusible webbing, adhesives, paints; stamped, layered, hand embroidered, machine quilted.
©2012 Sandra Champion All rights reserved.
As the summer sun shines on the eucalyptus trees, we see the bark darken, dry out and eventually peel off, allowing the fresh new trunk to shine through.
Techniques & Materials: Naturally dyed silk (using eucalyptus bark), commercial silk, silk loom ends, and cotton. Free motion machine sewing, raw edge appliqué, couching.
©2012 Mary McArdle All rights reserved.
We are all linked together by our River systems and we must learn how to care for them. There is so much beauty along our River banks; we must not take it for granted.
Techniques & Materials: I have collaged and fused many different fabrics. Indigenous designed and also some English Liberty fabrics. I have free motion appliquéd and quilted. All cotton fabrics with Pellon wadding.
©2012 Valerie Giles All rights reserved.
Many of the early Australian explorers traversed the Great Southern Land in search of rivers and knowledge- yet rarely did they seek out the knowledge of the indigenous people, who knew the land and could sing the land. Looking back you can only wonder at human folly that often resulted in tragedy, when there were a myriad of stories that could have helped them.
Techniques & Materials: Hand dyed and shiboried Khadi cloth, hand stitched with simple embroidery stitches.
©2012 Dijanne Cevaal All rights reserved.
Inspired by a holiday to outback Australia. The earthy colours, gibber plains and bird life are amazing. These birds are Little Corellas. They are found over a vast area of inland Australia and can be in flocks of up to 1000 individuals.
Techniques & Materials: Machine appliquéd, embroidered and quilted. Cotton fabrics and Lutradur for trees. Birds' eyes are rhinestones.
©2012 Eileen Campbell All rights reserved.
The full moon rising over the ocean on Cable Beach Broome, WA is a spectacle much admired. An imaginary stair case rises to the moon as the moonlight is reflected in the water that is left in the ripples of the mud and sand flats. It is one of the many wonders of nature beneath our southern sky. The sheen of silk brings luminescence to this scene.
Techniques & Materials: My own hand dyed recycled silk fabric. Machine pieced. Silk, cotton and synthetic threads machine couched. Hand and machine quilted.
©2012 Stephanie Knudsen All rights reserved.
The devastating floods of January 2011 throughout our State, left Queenslanders in shock. Many lives were lost, while homes and city buildings were inundated by the spreading flood waters. In the face of this natural disaster, the community rallied.
Techniques & Materials:Mono printing, machine pieced and appliquéd, machine quilted.
©2012 Sue Dennis All rights reserved.
We sleep safely at night, in Australia and New Zealand, because of our warriors who stand ready to visit violence on those who would do us harm. Thank you to the generations of ANZACs who have fought through World Wars to the present day in Afghanistan, so that we might enjoy our lives today. A special thank you to those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice from both countries.
Techniques & Materials: Discharged whole cloth quilt. Machine quilted.
©2012 Catherine McDonald All rights reserved.
The phrase "Southern Sky" immediately evoked the magic of the Southern Cross constellation set in the night sky. This is how I imagine the winter view on a West coast just after sunset, when these amazing stars appear.
Techniques & Materials: Heat stressed lace and organza, lame, velvet, hand painted cotton. Hand embroidery, painted and stressed tyvek. Machine quilting.
©2011 Kay Haerland All rights reserved.