Studio Progress Report

One week until there will be three extra humans living in our house! No more for me the luxury of spreading my work throughout the entire house. Currently the entire lounge is filled with 6 mannequins, 2 heads, a torso, cardboard patterns aplenty, and a multitude of moulded leather pieces drying on towels on the floor, not to mention a pile of leather scraps down the hallway! I don't think this will work with a full house. I have worked hard today to get past this stage of designing the shapes for my pieces, which creates this incredible mess! I feel I have been pretty successful in this - I've really only got two headpieces left to design and cut. Unfortunately I can't show you the chaos, as it will give too much away, but here is a picture of the leather as I cut it into shape with a stanley knife - hard work indeed! Then I soak it in the bath for a while before I mould it into shape and let it dry.

Back to the building of StudioSvenja. Last weekend and during the week, I spray painted the roof of StudioSvenja. Stained hardwood, it would never be pure white, but I am happy with the result of 'shabby-chic' white! It already looks so much lighter.

From this.......

Today, whilst I was working upstairs in the air-conditioning, Matt was out picking up more building materials. When he dared rest for a while, I said "How's that construction going there?". (Cruel, yes, but after all, I need to move in ASAP! As it is, there are going to be racks of outfits and bolts of fabric cluttering up the  house for a few weeks yet!) Guilted, he went down, and did great work, and now my fabric stash shelves are finished. So too are the seven fluorescent lights!

....to this!!!!

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The man at work.

Over the last few weeks, I have been practicing my leather-working skills on a special commission - an armband designed by photophilanthropist. The first version was too thick and flat - it had no life. The second did not allow for the shrinkage that occurs after I discovered how I could mould it - and so became mine!

The third encorporated all the lessons I had learned, and is ready to present to the designer for his birthday tomorrow.

It has been really good to have a practice piece with purpose - I have learnt moulding, dyeing, edge burnishing and finishing - all knowledge to be applied to my WoW designs. With ten weeks to go, I feel as though I might manage to finish my three entries! For the first year ever, I hope to enter more than one. It will be the 25th year of The World of WearableArt, and my fifth year as a designer. A special year indeed.
Happy Creating!
Svenja