This lavishly created Lace book has been made from a large number of vintage laces,
doilies, dyed cheesecloth (using silk dyes), organza, dyed raw silk and embellished with buttons, jewellry, a rusty safety pin and incorporating some French accented stamped trim <. |
created by our earlier European women making lace and doilies around the same time
in history in the 18th and 19th centuary – the time of patchwork poverty when
crazy patchwork was used in quilts, as patches on knees, cot coverlets and the
like. The most basic to the most exotic fabrics were used as a sign of
creativity and class. These days I use these upcycled doilies, vintage fabrics and laces often silk dyed or dyed from materials from my garden along with organzas, sheers and the natural fibres of cheesecloth, scrim Hessian as well as mohair from our own goats, which I dye myself, to complement my collage artworks. Another of my favourite materials is that of handmade paper which I also incorporate into my handmade journals. My style and colour choices also have of late been more vintage with a French influence. Over my creative years through my beginnings with quilting and patchwork I have become more and more drawn to create my “free spirited craziness” without any boundaries and this has more recently developed and morphed into a distinctive style as seen in my fabric collages, journals and lacebooks and will no doubt continue to develop and change. I live in Australia on the far south coast of New South Wales only 8k from the sea and live on a secluded 8 acre property surrounded by natural bush and a running creek where my husband and I have developed a very beautiful and old world rambling garden of roses, vegetables and fruits which I am convinced gives me all the inspiration I need to create in the style which I have developed and which I find totally nurturing and fulfilling. My fabric and fibre works have been published in 2 issues of Crazy Quilt Gatherings Magazine and I have been featured several times on different blogs by other artists as well as having my own blog at www.suziqusthreadworks.blogspot.com and my own outlet shop on www.suziqu.etsy.com Suzy Quaife 03 2012 |
My passion for fabric collage journals has been a more recent venture over the last
couple of years most likely stemming from the days when I first begun crazy
patchwork in 1996. In my whole adult life I have always had an insatiable
love of richly exotic and textured fabrics including silks, various velvets,
brocades, satins etc. being so influenced by my love of Eastern cultures and
teachings of India, Turkey and Afghanistan etc. |
I developed a huge attraction to costume jewellery (especially that worn by the
belly dancers of the middle east, both tribal and traditional) displaying
all the many wonderful embellishments of vintage beading, braids, laces and
trims but in more recent times I have realized that my love of vintage
laces, new and old are creeping into material acquisitions more and more as I
appreciate both the incredible Pre-raphaelite art world as well as the work |
continued below |