Vicariously knitting

These pics taken as I walked past a nice warm looking knit-in at a shop somewhere.. um...Lower East side? in Manhattan on recent very fun trip to NY. At the time I think we were power walking our way to wards a gig, but a teensy part of me wished I could join these ladies instead for some groovy intercontinental knitting and perhaps a cup of tea.

Creative winter workshops

Thought some of you might be interested in these. Sally is amazing, really patient and grounded, sets up a great space for play and remembering what's important to you. She has a background in art therapy but is also trained as a career counselor and is a practicing artist herself. Imagine her workshops would be a great way to refresh and refocus.

Treasure Maps
"Dare to dream. Care to collage. Create a picture of your heart's wishes. No art experience is necessary - just BYO (Bring Your Openness)"
Saturday morning 13th June
10am to 1pm in Glebe
$75 inc materials

Creative Flame
"What do you love doing? What ignites your spirit? How might you be light-arted?!
Spend a couple of mornings in a cosy, safe space playing with art materials and journalling. Create pictures to help sustain you through the heart of winter and beyond."
Saturday 25th and Sunday 26th July
10am to 1pm in Glebe
$150 inc materials.

Contact: Sally Swain
sally [at] artandsoul.cc
www.artandsoul.cc

post card fun

Kokeshi dolls: friends for life, not just a summer or a spring...

Sorry for cheesy title.

Spotted a Kokeshi doll kit in a toy shop when I was buying my nephew his birthday present, and thought it looked like a fun project. The dolls came blank, and the kit came with paint, brush, and varnish. I thought it would be a nice present for #1 child to give to #2 child when they're born.

Detail was fiddly to do with the arms stuck on - would have been better to have the wooden bits, paint them separately, then stick them on once painted. But it was a fun exercise, and they look cute!

arty craft

Two exhibitions featuring textile works that people might be interested in:

Fashion Craft: Fashion Technology
Various artists
UTS Foyer

27 April - 19 May

Coinciding with the Rosemount Australian Fashion Week, Fashion Craft: Fashion Technology showcases two exhibitions that consider the relationship between craft and technology in future fashion and textile design.

Fashion Craft: Drawn Threads exhibits contemporary, collaborative works between UTS fashion and textile designers,students and members of the Embroiderers Guild of NSW.

Fashion Technology: The Rip Curl Project features the work of third-year fashion & textiles students who have created the unlikely re-production of jackets made from the off-cuts of old Rip Curl wetsuits.

Fashion Craft: Fashion Technology will be held in the UTS Tower Building, Level 4 Foyer. Broadway, Ultimo, short walk from central Station. Sydney Australia.



Forgotten Fragments
Sarah-Jane Cook
At The Vanishing Point - Contemporary Art

23 April – 3 May 2009

South Australian artist Sarah-Jane Cook unveils a body of work entitled Forgotten Fragments stemming from a collection of everyday notes and lists collected over a period of thirteen years. From the mundane to the bizarre, Cook has reconstructed and decontextualised the notes, lists, reminders, tallies, jots and messages by presenting them as embroideries on doilies, handkerchiefs and canvases in a gallery setting. Forgotten Fragments investigates the marks left by human interaction, either written or verbal and the transitory words and pictures that are no longer with us.

Drawing on personal experiences as an individual of mixed origins Cook has been drawn to investigating the day to day activities, beliefs and rituals of others around her, predominantly addressing universal notions of ethnicity and its impact on one's own sense of origin and how time and place can influence the life of an individual.

Sarah-Jane Cook graduated with Honours in Visual Art from the University of South Australia, Adelaide in 2005. She is currently undertaking an artist in residence program at Petersham Town Hall under Marrickville Council’s Local & National Artist Residency Program.

At The Vanishing Point – Contemporary Art
565 King Street Newtown NSW 2042


Both are FREE entry, all welcome.

beady little prize - part 1

These beads are from 2 different multicoloured necklaces, neither of which I liked much in their entirety, but I did have a yearning for some beads in the brown register, to go with my brown boots and a few specific wintery dresses. I pulled them apart and separated out the beads I thought would be nice together.

Finished product was put together while I sat on the couch watching tellie one weeknight last week. Photo of finished product to follow.

skirting the issue

This skirt is the first wearable thing I ever sewed - five bazillion years ago, with Ambiguity's help. later, I took up the hem because I wasn't sold on the length, printed on some of the leftover fabric, covered these buttons with it, and hey presto - detail. Wore it last week for the first time since the remodelling.

very bunny

This little softie is the completed version of one I posted earlier while still in progress. She is a funny little bunny, with button eyes and cotton thread stitching, with recycled bed linen straight from the 1960's.

your correspondance correspondant

These pics are of some writing paper I decorated for miss Alison, now that she has moved away from the Emerald City and may need to take to her writing desk and pen darling notes for people about gardens and the weather and who she saw at the local markets. Or whatever.

I started with some geometric, art deco inspired jewel coloured pages...




And then got progressively less stylish and more silly as I decided everyone needs writing paper decorated with unconventional images of classic pairs:
- cow and glass of milk
- foot and shoe
- great hairstyles of history
- sun and moon, and my fave
- beer and packet of chips

All done with pen and water colour.

Riotus fun with ribbon straw

A girl at work's grandmother was cleaning out her shelves, and my friend thought that I might like this one. It's a series of patterns for nifty clutch bags and purses to make out of 'ribbon straw' (which I also know as raffia). Aint they neat? If anyone feels inspired and thinks they can use this pattern to create accessory gold, just answer this question this simple style question in comments to be in the running.

Q. Ribbon straw handbags are:
a) super cool
b) naff and scratchy to boot
c) a great opportunity for reworking old styles using funky new materials and smokin' colour combos
d) way too small for all the crap I lug around daily on my shoulder
e) baffling
f) other (please specify)

Winner to be notified within the week, and I will send said lucky reader pattern in the post. Aaah - is this the first 'making groovy things' giveaway?

I wont take it personally if no-one enters and will assume that a non-answer pertains to an answer of 'b' or 'd'.

woof woof

This little felt puppet is not something I made, but thought I'd share anyway. Felted by hand in Nepal, but designed in Australia, aiming for fairish trade. One of a few enterprises doing that with Nepalese feltmakers I think. It was a present for Master Fitzk on his first birthday a couple of weeks back. Website in photo below.

Quiltelicious

Just for completeness I thought I'd post pictures of the quilt that mum made out of the fabric squares I painted some while back. Nicely paded and snuggly looking I thought, and the touch of colour she added to make the pics match the backing fabric and sheets also cool. Clever quilt making mum!

Zero zero zero zero zero zero one*

This creation isn't mine, it was made by my lovely Mum for my baby brother (who is modeling it). A very cool use of a cardboard box, some old air conditioning hosing. He loves it and happily put it on to show me when I was visiting at Christmas time, bless his little binary heart.




*(That was the robot song chorus from Flight of the Concords in case you missed it)

Big Softie

Now that I've finished and posted this little monster in the top right(literally posted - in the actual mail), I can post this picture of it 'in progress' on here. This one was for PJ in Adelaide.

These was the first soft toyish creatures I'd ever made. In fact it required dusting off my lovely aqua sewing machine and actually sewing - something I hadn't done unassisted for years. The fabric is soft, vintage bed linen. I did eyes and mouth in satin stitch in multicoloured silk thread (not pictured - at this stage I was still thinking buttons, but decided not to for safety). The arms are knitted from superfine Italian merino. And it's stuffed with that fluffy Dacron stuff. No bits that can fall off (hopefully) and thoroughly chew proof (ditto - hopefully!). I think she's kind of cute and looks a bit like a friendly bubble flower monster.

Pics for 'zac

Made these for friend's baby. They are ink and oil pastel on recycled rag water colour paper from India.

Goodbye dress - hello tunic top

So I had this lined, grey, shift dress, just above the knees, that I thought would look 'smart' for work, but found I was just never ever wearing and felt like a nob any time I put it on. Decided that I loved the neckline and liked the fabric but just didn't love the overall effect - too prissy for our fairly casual office. So, with Miss Snapdragon's help (and the help of her overlocker) I transformed it into a tunic top - kind of crotch length, so that it can be worn over pants or a skirt without any fear of butt crack or knicker showing. It's still fitted, but feels less conservative than it did before. I put two little slits at the sides just to make it look more finished, and Miss SD made a rosette out of the bit we cut off the bottom. Also I ended up cutting the lining out because it was a bit funny, and the fabric has a little stretch and the lining didn't, so it's nicer to wear now.
Attached the rosette to a pin so it's removable, so that it doesn't have to go through the wash and also so I can have it plain sometimes too. Making it was fun. Taking it out on the dressmaker's dummy and taking photos was even more fun!

Knitty gritty

Having family in the northern hemisphere is handy for getting knitting projects finished in time for Christmas!
Above is: a 2x2 rib scarf (still in progress, but 3x the length) for Yugo-chan (5 years), Blue stripey hat for Tomo-chan (2 and a bit), and a pom pom hat for baby-to-be (due Feb).

Coming soon - some recently completed beading projects!

Marsupials and monotremes

It's winter here! It's dark at 4.30. Its quite nice to sit in on a cold afternoon with a roast in the oven, with a glass of wine nearby, and use kiddie paints to do a present for my friend who's baby is due in December.

I nicked these drawings off the internet - thanks google image search. Kind of traced/ copied the outlines - then filled then in using acrylics. Didn't really know how to make it nice and even where the colours meet, so when the paint was dry I traced over the outlines with a black texta. Its meant to look a bit comic -booky. I'm quite pleased with the bubble effect on the platy!

Recipe cards for kids

I had two children's birthdays in my family a while back, both cousins, one of whom is also my Godson. Wanted to give them something that would encourage some kind of hands on activity, so bought dinosaur cookie cutters, found a good cookie recipe and painted and drew a little recipe card for him. Also bought a love heart shaped pancake ring (silicone with a funny handle for easy removal)and made a recipe card for pikelets on it for her.

Other people's craft - Public knitting

Who said knitting was for the private sphere or just for the cooler climates?? This knitting was wrapped around a (palm?) tree in Cairns at the 'Kickarts' art centre. It's also known as the Centre for Contemporary Art, but when I asked a woman on the street ('where you going love, are you lost?' ... I was peering at street numbers) she said 'the what?'.. .'oh, do you mean the one with the jelly beans?' at which point I vaguely remembered that it had some colourful sculpture out front and said 'yes, I think so' and she said 'oh, that's too fancy for us, we don't call it that, we just call it the jellybean place'. Which I thought was funny. So, sharing a picture of the sculpture too (ahem actually jelly babies not jellybeans, but that's probably too fancy to draw the distinction).