Design time!!

Since returning to TAFE, I have been happy to be immersed in a design project, which also relates to my patternmaking/studio project. Basically, this means I get to do the whole process, from research and concept designs based on Spring/Summer '16 trends (more on this in a moment) for the category of Streetwear, to be worn during Paris Fashion Week, to the patternmaking and construction, and finally, to see it on the catwalk at the mid year show. Whilst I am quite happy to design to parameters, I still find this 'trend prediction' thing quite, let's phrase it as 'challenging'. I usually manage to find a way to work around it! With this one, I have managed to direct it towards one of my comfort zones of the richness of insect body colours, textures and designs, with only a mild limitation of colour palette that largely suits me. In order to try and keep it somewhat within commercial realms, I have channelled this rich imagery into an asymmetrical digital print, which will become basic leggings. In here are bee legs, crocodile skin, ant bodies, and ant eyes filled with the feathers of hummingb
irds. Having not really done this kind of work in Ph
otoshop for over a year, I was pretty pleased with the result. I just hope it meets the print requirements. Initially I had all sorts of ideas about stitching into felt, and reverse appliqué - but these may now find their place in the sculptural jacket I am now planning.... Okay, I can't let it go..... I really wanted to design an interesting jacket, but it must be based on research of 'trends' and what people might wear to Fashion Week. Are you kidding me?!! I have seen pictures of people wearing ball gowns, to slippers and rain coats - you can justify anything! And really, why do we have to? I cannot believe that this way of thinking is considered valid and still adhered to. In daily life, I don't base my choices on anything more than what pleases me! So anyway, I found plenty of sculptural jackets within the forecasting i

magery to back up my ideas - I'm sure I could find plenty to back up any idea I had! After lots of research on the many aspects of this project, it was time to start doing some designs, and after a little while doing some initial work, I decided that I could only progress by play. I can't draw it if I can't see it. So, I dug up some nuno felted fabric out of a box, and started pinning it on a mannequin to get a feel for it. This did the trick for a while, and then I remembered my 1/2 scale mannequin! This is perfect for getting a feel for the whole effect without cutting up or treating masses of fabric. It was whilst I was in the studio playing with this that I looked over and saw a leather piece that I had made last year during my Craft & Quilt Fair tour. And this is what I love about creating in the amazing resource that is the studio - a place already dripping with ideas, samples, materials, and things that you can just pick up and pin onto things, and sometimes just nuances. This is the extraordinary blessing I have, which I recognise and am so very grateful for. Sure, it's taken me years to amass this 'stuff', and thousands of dollars in tuition at workshops, and I'm sure at times many people wonder what it's good for... but every now and then, it delivers a golden nugget, and that's when it all becomes worthwhile.

Back to School 2016

This week I return to TAFE to continue my fashion studies, and I can't wait! My return is made even more exciting by what arrived in StudioSvenja today..... we welcome Bertie the Brother Industrial sewing machine!!
Bertie is the latest whiz bang model, and was installed by the fabulous Barry Goff of Sewmac - he liked him so much I don't think he wanted to leave him!! Bertie is so quiet, you can't even hear that he is running! I am ever grateful to my fabulous Patron of the Arts, Matt!! Thank you so much! I suppose I'd better make you some new shirts, eh?!


I did some creating in the studio on the weekend - not sewing, but in the felting studio. I'm not sure why - it certainly wasn't on my large list of things to do! I guess I just needed to, and the studio drew me in. At the end of last year when I was making lots of felted wraps, I covered the printing table in colourways of wool, silk and fibres, ready to create. I made quite a few then, but haven't for a while, so it was great to just pick up a pile and start laying out! Turns out it was a wrap for me, as I included the last piece of my favourite sari offcut in it. I really caught the bug, and picked up another piece  of silk - some crinkle silk chiffon which had been sewn for a panelled skirt and dyed during the process of Morphology II and didn't get used. Inspiration struck - I could unpick one of the seams in the centre to turn it into a poncho, and finish it by felting a very fine ruffle around it. I was so pleased with the result that this too, became mine! It's unbelievably light, and feels just gorgeous to wear!

Ice dyed rayon

Supplies!

Large nuno felt wrap

Whilst in the felting studio, I began to pack the goodies Jenelle and I are going to need for our fabulous week away in the Grampians - exactly one month away!! Well, we're away for the week, but we're only doing a 2 day workshop - Bunnehs work smarter, not harder!! We'll be felting with Pam Hovel, using wild and wooly locks, raw fleece, and adding bamboo, tencel, flax and silk fibres. Delicious! I've also decided to participate in the market event on the Saturday night of Grampians Texture! It just happens that my travelling kompanyun has special status and is allowed to take two bags - thanks very much, I'll have that!! I will stuff it with as many scarves, silk tops, ice dyed rayon garments, and unique nuno felted wraps as I can fit in that case!
If you are visiting Halls Gap, come and join us for what I'm sure will be a few hours of fun!

One twelfth of the way through 2016!

Storm and Sheepa!

It's true - well, very nearly! Much of this hot month has been spent either working at home in the blissful air-conditioning, or getting sweaty and dirty down at the shed working on Storm, my kombi. The more I do on that beast, the more I see to do!! Last week I took the doors off, as once I find rust I can't ignore it. There's no point spending all this time making a lovely looking beast that may crumble before me, although I do have to draw the line somewhere. My mother recently returned from NZ and brought me back this adorable sheep for my collection - having come straight from Mum's, Sheba (or is that Sheepa?) got to hang out with me and Storm the next day as surgery progressed...

Corriedale and Alpaca over Merino

But, this is a blog predominantly about textiles, so back to it, although quite often I can't always share everything I'm working on. This is a detail of a sculptural piece I've been working on. Underneath is a wire armature covered in padding, then merino pre-felt, which has been wet felted, then needle-felted with corriedale and alpaca.  I have not used either corriedale or alpaca before, nor needle-felted, so it has been an interesting process - both fibres are so much rougher! There have been a few late nights as I got carried away with stabbing, a little bit of blood, quite a few screams, and one bent felting needle from stabbing the wire! This piece has been giving me plenty of ideas, one of them being making a replacement lamp shade for the generic paper one I decimated a few weeks ago - I'm still not quite sure how that happened! However, I have the framework, some ideas, and hopefully, some time soon.
I've just spent a contemplative hour or so on the back deck, enjoying the breeze flowing over my skin and the ideas running through my head. It's a funny feeling, the one of ideas and images brewing. It's almost as though you can see half-formed ghost images, suggestions of something to be. I think I'm very lucky to have that going on, and I would like to give more time to that. Perhaps if I do, they will stop hunting me down at night when I'm trying to sleep?
Ahhhh, Etsy, I once thought you were the answer to my problems, but now, not so much. Shops take so much commission, I thought Etsy would be the answer, as there are only small listing fees and PayPal transaction fees. However, here I have this rack of wonderful hand-dyed, hand-felted items....
 and in order to put them on Etsy, I have to take around 5 photos of each, upload the photos, write the descriptions, enter as many 'tag' words as I can think of that people might search for, and unfortunately, tell people to contact me for International postage costs as there seems to be no way of guestimating this with any kind of accuracy, and it can be nasty!! (I'm also aware that this need for contact before sale is unappealing to many, who, like myself, are more than happy to click their way through to final purchase without the burden of awaiting contact.) And I have to do this for every camisole, tank top, pair of leggings, skirt, wrap.... see why it hasn't got done yet?! I'm thinking of looking for some special markets to go to a couple of times a year instead - I'd rather travel than spend a month uploading all this stuff!!
Speaking of travel, I'm starting to get excited about our trip to the Grampians in March, just over a month away now!! Squeeee! We will be felting with the wonderful Pam Hovel, after a little trip along the Great Ocean Road (or what's left of it after the fires!!) I believe we will also be catching up with Janet de Boer and the fabulous Martien van Zuilen down there too!!  Of course, I am very much looking forward to travelling with Platinum Bunneh and the Virgin Lounge good life that attends that fabulous relationship, as well as spending a week being absolutely ridiculous and talking our very special language for the duration!! Oh, how hard it will be to come back!!
Back to uploading, I will soon have some unloading to do, as I have discovered that my crate of goodies that toured around Australia with me at the Craft and Quilt Fairs is back in town - now I'm going to have to find room for it all here!! Actually, it's probably more the garments themselves that are the issue... anyone need an exhibition to fill a space?!!

Welcome, 2016

At this busy time of year, my online ramblings have slowed - but that's only because everything else sped up! Since my last post, we have hosted several pizza parties here, with Matts' new and improved pizza oven starring once again, impressing all with the organ-like stacks billowing smoke. Firstly, it was his work party - around 20 people. The next day was an intimate gathering of 'Wowza's' - fellow WOW entrants Jessica Thompson and Erica Gray and their partners, and the indomitable Janet de Boer and Peter. Awww, such a cute couple! Sadly, the photo I have of these two sweeties that should go with that comment is on my camera, which has gone AWOL, much to my dismay, and absolute frustration! I have turned the place upside looking for it, which has at least led to some tidying up!
We enjoyed talking about past and future entries, as only the truly addicted can....
Then another firing the following weekend. So much pizza. So good! A few weeks were spent lying low, trying to rest my left arm (suffering from old injuries and RSI), which meant I got some solid work done at the computer on my TAE qualification. (This will enable me to be a tutor at TAFE when completed in May.) The first module was mind-numbingly boring, and resulted in much wandering around the house and particularly towards the fridge in the search for something more satisfying - fortunately, the second is much more real and quite enjoyable. Hopefully also less fattening! After multiple visits to my beloved physio, we decided rest was not having much of an effect, so I have thrown myself back into both the gym and the studio, albeit with another glamorous brace on my arm. It's been great to be playing back in the gym with my personal trainer Bunneh - I feel very lucky to have had her expert guidance back onto the floor - and it has been wonderful to work with my hands again, once again with wire, tubing, and bridal offcuts. It has been the best Christmas gift, to sit in the airconditioning, creating, drinking bubbles, and watching old Family Ties and Charlies Angels!
This week we went up to Woodford Folk Festival - Matts' first time, my first in about 22 years. (Feels old, saying that...) After working pretty hard, it was great to just chill, hang out, and listen to interesting music. My favourite haunt was Bluestown - no surprise there! The organic sculptures were fabulous, as were the crazy puppet creatures. Children ran screaming in terror - awesome! Not surprising - these beasts were genuinely freaky. The black and white one unspeakably so!

Murray the truck made quite an impression throughout the entire trip, and made a wonderful bed for us with a tarp draped from the headboard to the back of the tray. I'd definitely do that again!
The day after our return, Matt and I went down to the shed to work on our vehicles - he on his 1941 Buick, me on the beginnings of the great kombi makeover. It was great to see Storm again, and drive him. I hope to have him finished in time for Woodford 2016. I've been playing with some ideas in Photoshop....
By the way, I hate the formatting issues with Blogger - this looked perfectly lovely in my draft - now look at it!! Aaaaaghhhh!!!

Where do I start?!

I've had several weeks at home since my return from Adelaide, which already seems so long ago. Within the first week, I had spent a great deal of time in the studio making felted and nuno felted wraps. I enjoyed trawling through my stash of wool, silk, and embellishments, finding cohesive elements to bring together. Here you can see a lovely piece of dyed silk organza which just happened to go beautifully with some wool I had - from layout to finished wrap. It felt really good to be 'using up' all these bits, which simply means I can
dye/buy more! The green and blue piece to the left was made with wool I had managed to matt together during the dyeing process, (I must have managed to boil it!) which was able to be rescued when I bought a comb for removing matted hair from pets, and worked my way through it - I can't throw it out! Sadly, RSI in my arm kicked in after a while, and I had to stop, so I moved on to ice dyeing for a while. I really enjoyed working on these, working out how to fold the garments to get the best effects (quite different to just dealing with plain material or scarves) and how to mix my new palette of dyes.
Dealing with powdered dye rather than liquid means that the dye doesn't always look like it's going to, so I'm really glad I invested in a colour chart as well - very helpful! All this effort was in aid of ensuring I had a varied amount of stock for the Etsy Made Local market, held last weekend in Brisbane City Hall. Sadly, it was all in vain, as it was a fairly unsuccessful day for me. The venue had a bit of a weird vibe, (just look at that carpet!) the poor crowd looked dazed and glazed by the time they had made their way in through the large queue in the sun, and 2m x 2m with no space between neighbours sure was small! I certainly noticed the difference between that and my generous allowance previously enjoyed at the Craft & Quilt Fair, and most noticeably, the lack of walls! It was a long day, but there was a silver lining - my neighbour was the lovely Juliarna of Carpe d'Art, which produces fabulous hand painted sneakers. We had a hoot! Both of us were also supported by our mothers, who came to visit and offer encouragement!

Last week we visited TAFE for the graduate Fashion Parade, which sadly, I have to say lacked a little punch! Many of the designs seemed to share similar elements, and the colour palette was woefully sedate. That may indeed be the 'trend' right now, but I'm sure you've all figured out that fashion 'trends' don't feature strongly in my world of unique design! One piece that did garner my interest was this lovely ombré dress.
This Saturday I will be at the ATASDA Christmas Fair and celebration, at the BVAC hub at Weller's Hill, open from 10-2, so come and visit myself and many other fine textile artists with goodies for sale.

The last of Adelaide

From here on it is all kind of blurred into one, apart from the hilarity of the Christmas party on Saturday night. None of the days were as busy as the first, but I continued to get many admirers, with my work even moving some to tears! That's pretty special. I also sold some of my recently made wraps, and was very pleased to hear that they would be being worn at special occasions. I also recommended that when they weren't, they be draped over furniture to just be enjoyed!

Gurney's display now facing the wall

Saturday we finished at the usual 4:30, and I toddled home to do some washing, shower, and relax before heading back for the Christmas party, much to Miss Chrissy's disgust! I headed down in my boots, as I just couldn't handle wearing sneakers with my outfit, and was counting on getting changed into my heels at the venue. Imagine my distress when I found it locked! However, Expertise Events informed security that a vital shoe change was required, and they came to open up! Miss Chrissy took the opportunity to duck in with me for some makeup, and no sooner were we in there than she had the devilish idea of messing with Gurney's stand - bahahahaaaa!! We turned everything upside down - the chairs, her craft supplies - we even turned her displays to the wall!

Back in the atrium, Gary hosted a

wonderful evening including trivia questions, and the donning of the Santa suit for the Kris Kringle section (most sarcastic Santa ever!) Even better than that was his helper, Cracker!! I was one of the last to leave, and walked home, snapping this shot of the lovely Capri Cinema close to 'home'.

Capri Cinema, Goodwood

Sunday morning, and poor Gurney was in a spin when she saw her stand, thinking that it was the cleaners that had  messed with it as retribution for asking for it to be cleaned!!

Sunday was a loooong day, as it was super quiet, and the pack up loomed. Chrissie, Kerry and myself were very sad that our tour was finally over - we've had lots of fun together.

 It was a different kind of packup, as I had to remove all the stock and bits and pieces I wanted to take with me for the Etsy Made Local market and ATASDA's Merry Threads market. I didn't quite think this through all too well, and had to leave a trolley full of items to pick up in the morning. I returned with the house trolley in the morning, and was disturbed to find just how much there was! When I got it home, I was faced with the reality that all this was never going to fit in my suitcase, and that I was going to be hard pressed to find something large enough to hold my clothes racks. So off in the other direction to the local Salvo store it was, where I found a brilliantly large suitcase for $15 - Salvation from the Salvation Army! Now possessing three large cases, I accepted that the only way to the airport was via taxi. I was very fortunate to be able to stay in the apartment until 4pm, passing the time with the lovely wine my hosts had left for me!

I ran into Gurney at the airport bar, and ended up having to run to the gate sans shooz, as they were calling my name! And that was after arriving three hours early at the airport! I was pleased to arrive home to my boy, who had chilled champagne waiting. He da man!!

The Adelaide Craft & Quilt Fair

Before I continue, I have a photo from my trip into town the other day that I forgot to include - how's this for everything Svenja loves?!! A kombi selling toasted cheese sandwiches?!!! Hello?!!!

Tuesday - a glorious sleep in, followed by a stroll into the Adelaide Pavilion Gardens, then home via the Showground, where I popped in to say hello to Gary and find out when I could set up! I also visited Boulangerie 113 for a coffee and a croissant - the real deal! I spent the day doing some preliminary planning for 2016 and watching the Melbourne Cup  before rolling my suitcase of goodies down to the showground to get a head start on setup. When I caught up with the Craft Spot cats, I received a wonderful gift from Erica of these fabulous, quality sequins, with dentillated edges, and already threaded ready for tambour beading! Wow! We did have a bit of a giggle about them looking like a packet of maggots....
Having entirely emptied my case and the cage, got my lights up, and just about passed out manually blowing up my inflatable mannequins, I called it a day.

Wednesday - It was nice to feel I didn't have to rush down to the fair, so I treated myself to a lovely breakfast at local café Gingers before heading off to work. For some reason I just couldn't focus, flitting around, picking one thing up, putting another down. I think it was because I didn't yet have my bench, which, when it finally arrived, had quite an impact! Eventually it was done to my satisfaction.

Thursday - with rain threatening, I still enjoyed a walk around the area. I'm calling Adelaide the City of Roses - they are just everywhere! Suburbia here is really quite beautiful. So, day one of the final fair - and I just couldn't work out what to wear! I'm really missing a full length mirror here! I

almost got convinced to join in the morning dance, but just couldn't quite do it......

Jesus? That you?!!

I had an enjoyable day (of course, the second question I had was do I do work for film..... I

should, I know...) and my ice dyed garments were very popular.  I even sold my lovely silk wrap which I made last week. I spent the day sewing silk rosebuds, unfortunately twice stitching them to my fingers without even noticing, and having to cut some skin away to get to the thread - well, I wasn't going to cut the thread, I hadn't finished!

We had some fun when one customer noticed this face in one of the botanical print tops - is that Jesus?!! He didn't take long to sell, and went to a very happy home! At the end of the day, the Craft Family took a bus into town to dine at Jamie Oliver's restaurant, and we all enjoyed a great night together.