Test Pattern

I'm writing this on behalf of Lynne who is recovering in hospital. She may add to this when she feels up to it. She is far more eloquent than me!!!

Here is Lynne's most amazing television hot water bottle cover!!!In Lynne's Words describing her design ...

"Transplant as a metaphor for colour returning into a life. So I'm making an old TV - one each side, but with one black and white test pattern and the other side colour test pattern."

Isn't there a lovely nostalgic tug at the heart strings to seeing a test pattern? I'm taken back to cold mornings as a child drinking warm milk, the clear soft wintry sunlight, particular to north east Victoria, streaming in the front window.   And a television with knobs! Remember those? Ours was always going wobbly and scrolling and we were having to reach in behind it, where the television would be hot, and carefully adjust the horizontal hold!

Lynne and her family know all about the transformative power of transplants too. Their  gorgeous daughter Rose received a life saving liver transplant as a toddler and Lynne and family have been very active in raising awareness for organ donation and with supporting the Royal Children's Hospital.

It's funny that we don't have test patterns anymore. Once, there were times when there was nothing on tv, so we had a test pattern. Now, all the time, there is nothing on tv - but we have no test pattern.

Check out more shots on the sisteroutlaws flickr photostream, the hottie challenge flickr group and more from the head hottie honcho, curly pops. 

As with other re-sew-cool creations, Lynne has used recycling jumpers to create her amazing old television.

posted by Julianne Sisteroutlaw

Heart warming

Are you taking part in the Hottie Challenge?

This is the hot water bottle cover I made for the curly pops hottie challenge to raise money for the Margaret Pratt Foundation

This is from their website:
The Margaret Pratt Foundation Heart Lung Transplant Trust is a registered charity whose aim is to encourage, develop and maintain Australia’s world class expertise in the field of organ transplantation by supporting research that addresses the problems faced by children and adults after heart and lung transplant.

The aim of the research must be to improve the outcomes for heart and lung transplant recipients.

The Margaret Pratt Foundation has donated $700,000 to date in 2011 to promote research into the causes and prevention of chronic lung rejection. 

The diagram of the heart is labelled with common heart phrases and terms like "cockles" and "heart strings". I wanted to explore the contrasting meanings of the heart metaphorically/ culturally with the medical and scientific. Because surely that impacts on heart transplant patients?

The heart of the matter? 

Warm the cockles of your heart. Home is where the heart is. Heart of stone. Open heart. Heart strings. Where are all these things located in the heart? And what does it all mean if we can replace the heart with another’s? You can open your heart, close your heart, lose your heart, win a heart and have a heart of gold or a heart of stone.

12 years ago, my then father-in-law had a heart transplant. I remember visiting him in the Alfred Hospital just after the surgery when he couldn’t speak but had such a spark in his eyes and seemed desperate to talk to me, clutching my hands and looking deeply into my eyes. It was amazing to think of what had just happened to him. His wife mentioned to me that she hoped he had got a women’s heart. He in fact received a teenager’s heart (perhaps a wife’s worse nightmare?) but it hasn’t changed him at all. Except his hair grew back, thick and lush. Oh and he took up skate boarding....

I based the felt applique picture on an image from my daughter's biology text book. I used recycled jumpers and a child's cable knit jumper as the base. I printed the text onto fabric.

Check out some of the other hotties on the curly pops blog and there's a Flickr Group
too! Here's my parcel almost ready to send to Ms Curly Pops.

 The hot water bottle covers will be exhibited in the gallery space at Open Drawer Art Textiles and Learning Centre from Friday July 1 to Sunday July 24, 2011.

A HUGE HEART FELT THANK YOU TO CAM FOR ORGANISING THE CHALLENGE!!!!!!!!

 posted by Julianne sisteroutlaw