It's been raining all the time in Melbourne. Goodbye drought! Summer? Bah! I've been thinking about raindrops forever, as they're so pretty, and here's my new fabric design featuring them. They're small (well, about 2cm high) which is something different for me (everything I usually do is so big, or so it seems to me). Now if only I could get the blue colour right...and maybe a grey? Watch this space!
Have been doing some test prints for my new tea towel design, 'Trees'. It's a fun way to spend a chilly Friday.
In other news, as of the start of this week I'm participating in the Poppytalk Handmade Market, (an online market - sure beats hauling stuff around town!) which goes for a month. The theme this month is Indie Love, yay for indie design/crafty stuff.
It's quite an honour to be hanging out near such amazing folk, including Beehive Kitchenware, Hazel & Hunter, Inklore Design, Jewel Weeds, KG & AB, Matte Stephens, Repeat, Mummy Sam, Yasha Butler and sooo many more. I'm gonna go shopping right now... Oh, and here's my stall, featuring a couple of new things, and there's more new stuff in my Etsy shop, including baby vests, hair ties, cushions and more soon!
And here's a sneak-peak of some of the things I've been printing...corgi pillowcases, fun!
And cork coasters!
This:
Plus this:
Equals this!
My first yardage run is done!
Forgot to mention the actual design details in my other post, but one half is a variation of the Akzidenz print I've used previously (if you've seen it), only smaller scale. The other half is the old fave of polka dots, bigger than I've used before and I love them!
Not only did the lovely Ink & Spindle girls offer a heap of advice / support for the yardage novice, but they even suggested I mix the ink (fun! scientific, almost!) and help print the fabric (well, drag the squeegee along one half of the massive screen). It's quite a thrill to see it all laid out on the table, meter after meter.
So one colour down (not a baby blue but lovely none the less - this blue's got more depth and really lovely on the creamy hemp/organic cotton base cloth) red to go. And the plans for more colours (mustard yellow, then charcoal on a more natural-coloured base cloth to start with) are well and truly decided on. Can't wait until it's all ready :)
Managed to get out of town for most of last week and it was great as a nearing-the-end-of-the-year getaway and refresher. Can't complain about sitting around all day reading, sipping tea/beer/wine and eating lots of great food. It was kind of difficult adjusting to having no computer / mobile phone access / TV or radio but I got over that pretty quickly. Here are some highlights.
Tiny little mushrooms, so cute! 
Mount Sturgeon, one mountain that makes up the Grampians.
Beautiful tree, discovered on a wander around Dunkeld.
Bushfire-recovering trees, on the way to Halls Gap.
And I was pretty excited to get back to town, as this screen (and newly arrived lovely hemp/organic cotton fabric) are soon to be turned to into my first run of yardage printing, yay! Screens this size are too big for my weeny studio, so have entrusted the crafty Ink & Spindle girls with this task. Now have to settle on the colours (two to begin with, I'm thinking red and baby blue). Can't wait, shouldn't be far off!
There seems to be a posting frenzy here - lots of things ready at the same time. Now, after a preview such a long time ago, it's my latest tea towel that is ready. The original was in a hazelnut/blue combination but after a rethink, it's gone bright and quite red (with a splash of baby blue). In my Etsy shop now.
A while back I made a dog cushion/pillow, screen-printed with the outline of a certain dog I know (she's not a sausage dog, she's just long and low.) The dog it was made for loved it and so I decided to make some more - now in my Etsy shop. This one's charcoal ink on sand coloured mid-weight cotton drill, with other colours coming. And maybe I'll make some that are on people's pillow case covers...I quite like the idea of dogs being everywhere.
Have been doing some colour testing for my new tea towel design and finally, here's a combination that I'm happy with - the pale blue is neither too blue nor too pale (both are just wrong), the brown is neither too brown nor too hazelnut (or was it capuccino? Either way, it was wrong wrong wrong!) Yes, nothing beats the feeling of lifting the screen to see a print looking how you want it to :)
Although summer has been decidedly un-summery, so far I have managed to spend one afternoon lazying on the beach, which was sooo lovely. There were few shells on the beach but lots of seaweed and green things, so I brought back some reminders.
But that's a distant memory now - as I've said before, it's back to work (but with renewed vigour, I might say). Lately all my spare time's gone to printing and creating mess. I recently made up a new and improved screen of my Enka pattern and am liking it a lot. And soon (well, I hope it's soon) I'll have some exciting news on the printing front. We'll see. But for now, there's just a whole lot of half-done tea towels. And some all finished and in the shop.
It's well and truly spring here in Melbourne and with daylight saving starting last weekend, there's a different feeling in the air. And so walking through the CERES nursery, the tomato seedlings looked so inviting I just couldn't resist buying a couple. I live in hope that they'll prosper in pots on our balcony, without quite as much sun as they need.
I fall for the same trick each year, and think "Oh well, next year I'll have a backyard to plant tomatoes in. Maybe." You see, my boyfriend and I never planned living in our apartment for as long as we have, but time just slips by and here we are nearly four years later.
So hopefully they make it though the rough transition from small tub to pot, and hey, maybe in a few months we'll have lovely San Marzano tomatoes everywhere.
And speaking of spring things, there's now a second colourway in my new Enka Tea Towels - a spring-inspired red and pink.
I have a bit of a thing for tea towels. There are way too many in the kitchen drawer, and yet I always seem to be acquiring more. And when the Craft City Melbourne girls blogged about the CWA's collection at the Royal Melbourne Show, I was reminded of my tea towel love.
And now I've got some of my own. Yep, my first batch of tea towels. All done. OK, it's a small batch and in just the one colourway to begin with - a lovely charcoal & cyan combination - but I'm pretty excited. And I can already feel that a bigger batch in a pink & red colourway in the works.... And they're for sale in my (new & small) Etsy shop, if you'd like to go look.
I have things that I should be doing right now, but they'll have to wait as these leaves & trees needed to be drawn and coloured.
And have been working on some new fabric designs. These are some test prints (and lame low-light photos!)
OK, so further to the previous post and despite technical issues, the polka dots have had a test run on a set of napkins I made last week. Mental note: Screenprint before sewing - the 'hems' give uneven printing results! Think the white is a bit strong - I like muted colours - but can work on that next time.
And in a late-ish night urge to make something else this long weekend, last night I took the plunge, cut up a potato and put my Lotta Prints book to good use as a reference guide. After getting the technique right, I'm now quite happy with how this first attempt, a table runner, worked out, despite the printing being a bit wonky. The pattern is similar to one Lotta uses, but is adapted to having only straight edges - archs are too hard with a dodgy kitchen knife and a lino cutter!
Elephant #32
Elephant #33
These are made with lovely Aunty Cookie fabric & polka dot ears (top) and delightful Lotta Jansdotta fabric (bottom) and I don't think they're going anywhere in a hurry as I want to keep them!
Now I need to get onto some orders, to be made with recent purchases from Patchwork on Central Park, just about the best shop ever.
And I recently found this tea towel I made, stashed away with a heap of other stuff. It serves as a good reminder that I need to get on to doing more screen printing. It's messy, yes, and things go wrong, yes, but it's darn fun. Now just need to find some good cotton, non-drill &/or linen fabric to print onto - no easy task, I'm sure, based on previous searches.
Things are going along, slowly, but so far I've stuck to the handmade for Christmas theme. Am sure I'll stray as I run out of time (um, that'll be pretty soon), but so far it's been fun and rather satisfying. Now just have to hope the recipients dig 'em too!
On the left is one of a batch of singlets I screen printed, to go with the first set of sewn pj shorts (taken from the Amy Butler Lounge Pants pattern but shortened - super comfortable and with a neat drawstring to hold them up).
And I discovered the joy of the crafty swap the other day, following a brilliant suggestion from Aunty Cookie. She sent a wonderful pack of fabric samples, cards and more, along with a Cookie doll (which I loooove most of all). Here she is, hanging up in our window along with the only Christmas decorations in our place - some suction cap-stuck baubles. She looks so cute there, I love looking up at her. Thanks Shannon, enjoy your holiday :)
OK, I'm slowly moving along with my handmade Christmas gift making, and here's the first half of the second batch of gifts - more cushions.
Have been pondering what to put on the cushion covers for aaages, but inspiration hit when I was in the country a little while back and found a most beautiful leaf.
They're two-colour - a yellowy-green for the larger leaves, and a grey for the smaller leaves. I'm thinking the next batch will be maroon and grey. It's a little hard to see in these photos, so here's another pic to get an idea of what they look like close up.
Now I just have to hope the recipients don't look here and see their "surprise" gift!
I'm starting to feel, um, a little behind in my Christmas preparation, but today I completed handmade gift number one. Not sure if a gift for a dog actually counts, though...
The pic is an outline of my parents' dog, Emma, screen printed onto a cushion for her basket. Hope it doesn't freak her out! And here's the obligatory dog snap -
She's rather shagging in this old snap, and is wearing a tshirt that me or my sister wore as kids. Aww.
And was reminded on the weekend that it really, well and truly is summer here -
Wow, cherries are amazing. As are strawberries and pretty much every other summer fruit. And not a single one of them was picked by me, which made them taste even better!
Took this batch of stuff over to Mikes Fitzroy the other day, complete with custom-made paper bag (with Akzidenz type on the outside). The bag is super wonky (I really should have used a ruler from the outset) but did the job!
And here's a close up of the loot -
This is a behind shot of the elephants, complete with new hang tags. And the middle one - with blue and brown - is now sitting in the Mikes Fitzroy Christmas window. Yay!
And there is the batch of lavender bags with tags.
It's always nice seeing everything finally finished off, tagged and ready to go - that alone always makes it all feel worthwhile. And funnily enough two people I know bought my stuff at Mikes shopping night the other night (that's definitely a novelty for me!) Wooh!
As I'm sick at the moment (for about the fifth time this year - what is going on?) I have spent way too much time looking at my old handkerchiefs - yep, I've still got some classics from my late '70s/early '80s childhood. I'm not sure how hard it is to get a good hankie these days (no tartan or old lady patterns for me) so decided to make some of my own.
I've since decided the negative and positive are the wrong way around, as you don't really want to be blowing you nose onto a slab of ink, but am happy with how it's coming along (the pic is taken from a page of a book I designed for a project earlier this year - it's a giraffe eating leaves from a tree, in case you can't tell).
And working on this has reminded me why it's so fun but also challenging working on 'real' things (as opposed to clicking away at pretend things on a computer) - fabrics don't sit straight, they fold and move when you don't want them to, inks have a thickness (I need to play around with getting them thinner, so it doesn't resemble flattened puffy paint!), mixing colours is a time consuming process, and they look different when applied to fabric. Etc etc. But these are all the things that make it interesting, and is great when it works out how you want.
So it's almost back to the drawing board for me, I need to add a second colour (the falling leaf is suppposed to be maroon) - happy days.
OK, so I haven't got around to the sewing, filling for most of them ... where does the time go? But I did get around to doing some screen printing the other day - just some test prints on a couple of different types of cotton/linen - and now am waiting for the time to whip up some more lavender bags for gifts (and you can never have too many yourself!)
Just one got sewn up. The colours look crazy here 'cause of the terrible photo!
Haven't had time for much for than thinking about what I'll do next, which will involve a cat softie for Mirabel. (I hope there'll be at least one...) and some more elephants, and and and...
Posts
All Comments
