NicQuiltz

Christmas seems to have come around even quicker than usual this year. I'm starting to feel like getting into the festive spirit, even with all the renovations happening around me. So I thought I'd extend a small holiday gift to any of my loyal readers who still lurk here in the faint hopes that I might post something!

If you're in the mood for a fun handmade project to add some colour to your home for the festive season, you can click on the link below for my FREE Christmas decoration project, as pictured above. I hope it adds some JOY to your yuletide - MERRY CHRISTMAS!! and thanks for stopping by - I promise more regular content in the new year (it could hardly be less regular now, could it?).

 click here

Oh wait. I know what happened to it. I bet it got shoved into the studio with all the boxes and tubs. Maybe it will turn up eventually. I bet it's with my water colours and my drawing kit and the iron and all those other things I can't find. Surely we didn't throw it out...

I have spent the past six weeks in the depths of renovation/moving house hell. My life is no longer my own. I have no kitchen. My bedroom has no internal walls, no lights and no door. What will be the studio is currently filled to the rafters with copious quantities of boxes of stuff we couldn't find a home for in the construction zone which is now our home. I can't unpack anything as we don't yet have any cupboards or wardrobes.

I know I'll get my life back eventually. Let's hope I still have some small remnant of sanity. I'll keep you posted.

Just to show there's still a little bit of art in my life, here's a painting I've been working on this week in class - Still Life with Mannequin & Umbrella. I haven't decided if it is finished, but I'm quite happy with how it's coming along. We're getting very close to assessment, but I don't have any time to stress about that this year.

What I've mostly been doing is a completely different kind of painting. The shot below is a strong contender for this year's Most Unglamorous Photograph, don't you think?

We are making progress though - Adam's room is getting close to being finished and lots of other jobs are moving along (but I haven't got anything much to show yet but a construction site and a whole lot of demolition shots).

I've finally found a few minutes to do some long overdue housekeeping here on the NicQuiltz website, in between chasing quotes and talking to tradies. Most of my tweaking will be invisible to you, my readers, but there are a couple of relevant things I wanted to point out.  

If you are a member of a quilting group, a guild or a shop and are interested in booking one of my classes, you can now click on the Class Flyer link over there on the right and it will take you here, where you can download my current class list PDF. I am currently booking for the year ahead and my 2010 diary is filling up fast, so please do get in touch if you'd like me to come visit and inspire you and your friends!

While you are over there at my sidebar on the right >> you might notice the pretty pink Bid-4A-Cause button. If you click on that one it will take you to the Bid-4A-Cause site where you can view all of the beautiful artworks made by myself and a wonderful group of Australian quilt and textile artists, and perhaps decide which one you'd like to bid for at the auction which is coming up soon. This is for a very worthy cause, so please do have a look!

I think that's all I have to report on right now, but stay tuned for some exciting developments here on the NicQuiltz site in the weeks and months to come.

Encaustic painting - this is sort of how I'm feeling right now - submerged in chaos!

Oh my! I can’t believe I haven’t posted in so long. If you’re reading this and therefore still bothering to check in on me, sincere apologies for my absence and thanks for sticking around!!

I have never had such a frantically busy and stressful time as in the past month. With plans for the shed approved and the timing apparently good, we decided to list our house for sale and see if we got any nibbles. There was a short period of intense and manic cleaning as we got the place spic and span, ready to go on the market. You can see the listing here http://tinyurl.com/yhscw4q if you’re interested.

Well, long story short – it was sold at the first open house, three business days on the market – EEK!!

So we have exchanged contracts and will be settling on the 27^th November. Which means the new (old) house has to be ready for us to move in sometime in the next five weeks – EEEK!!

We are working our collective butts off at the new (old) place: plastering, sanding, painting, building, demolishing and more. It won’t be finished by the time we move in, as we need the cash from the sale to finance some of the bigger jobs, but we will hopefully be a good way down the renovation road.

Of course, in this frenzy of home-making my other interests have had to take a back seat. So please accept more apologies in advance for my intermittent blogging over the next little while – I’ll check in when I can and report on our progress. Wish us luck!!