Learning and moving on

In one of her October posts, entitled The nature of woven cloth, Jude wrote:

"The basic understanding of your materials is crucial in developing the character and individual style of your craft and the satisfaction that comes with that...."

For folks like myself, just beginning to translate into cloth, this is a fine piece of wisdom. Because, not everything works! And that kind of understanding only comes through experience, trial and error, [and in my case, some pretty steep learning curves!]

This morning I finished the embroidered pillow that I've been working on for the past few weeks. Hurrah!

It's far from perfect! But I did my best, learnt alot, and will be moving on shortly. Before I do that though, I'll share a couple of simple little things that I learnt - or was reminded of - along the way with this piece [although not illustrated by the greatest images!]


















The importance of trying to make even-lengthed stitches, particulary when filling in geometric patterns.


















Blanket stitch twists the thread as you stitch. The finer the thread, [in this case I used a regular black cotton thread to hand piece the central panel to the border] the more it twists. This makes for a lot of knotting when you try to pull the thread through to the back!

White embroidery transfer paper does NOT vanish when made damp, after a while!


















Kantha stitching, on some cloths, acts like elastic smocking. Instead of just adding a pleasing surface texture to the cloth, it gathers the cloth and pulls it out of shape. I started to do a running kantha over the borders of this piece, but ended up unpicking all of it because it just warped the cloth too much, even though it was stitched even and loosely.


















This is the finished center panel before being pressed. I was reminded that I least like the part of construction! Hence, the appeal of moving into scarf design!























And here is the finished item [momentarily stuffed with some kapok to give me some idea of how it will look when it finally gets a pillow inside it]. Wish I had some fancy piece of furniture to model it on, instead of the cream-colored plastic patio chairs that we have at the farm these days [the nicer wooden chairs are in the house in town].

Kellie, forgive me! ;)

I'm hoping that the next time this piece gets featured here, it will be sitting pretty on the sofa that it was intended for. That should be the week after next, as I have an upcoming business trip to Florida. YIPEE! A brief escape and a few hours of in-flight time to work on whatever I plan to do next!

Hope everyone's having a great weekend :)

Every flower...

How often our posts relate - in a big or small way - to the subject of inspiration, personal reasons for creativity, and/or of finding ourselves falling unsuspectingly into that darkening pool, which acts as creative quick sand.

This week I was touched by Karen's creative questioning (and, BTW, Karen has moved here) and by Arlee's quest for originality, and was also reminded of a lovely comment left in response to one of my recent posts by Anya, saying:

"It never stops to amaze me how much effort, work and knowledge goes into creating something beautiful. It is always a labore of love at the end and the final result will always reflect the amount of effort put into it. :-)".

Which is so true!

Every flower must grow through dirt.

-- Anonymous

I'm fortunate, in that, I seem to have the inner critic - that inimical voice that says " You're so stupid... that's such a dumb idea, etc." - well under control. Also, I rarely find myself without inspiration. If anything, I have too many ideas, and it takes me a while to gather these thoughts into something tangible.

Of course, it doesn't always work out the way I imagined! And I frequesntly don't end up with a "finished" piece... oh, you already noticed that ;) But, since what I most enjoy about it all is the initial design phase, the research and exploration, and learning the process of making cloth - because I have no practical experience at this, folks! - the fact that it doesn't become something in the end, doesn't matter.

Nothing we do is useless!

Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you'll land among the stars
-- Les Brown













































Recent sketchbook page: Further developing pattern ideas from my last post.

Leafing into Spring: Part I

I have to start by saying a big thank you to my friends Arlee Barr and Jude Hill for plugging my blogs and my new adventure over at A Common Thread . Also to everyone who has already joined me there. Welcome! And don't forget to tell all of your friends :}

And... sheeeeeeeeeeee's off! A new idea. But this is all you're getting right now, because I have to get on with it... a sneak peak of what's on the work table today. I am busy busy here!



















Leafing Into Spring

Before I go... remember folks... there's very little that a serving spoon of Nutella can't fix! ;}



















Nilo. That's one happy child!

Still here

Checking messages from friends who live on the coast, and seems that the predicted Tsunami has missed us... so far! I keep checking the view, to see if their is still water in the gulf... or more water in the Gulf. For the past two days we have had monsoon rains (this is the 'dry season') and terrific (!) electrical storms, which have blown the power out twice. Friday evening saw us eating bacon sandwiches in the house in the dark, at Nilo's miniature table and chairs. It was like a midnight dolls tea party.

Another reason I haven't been around much is that, on Wednesday morning, we had a phone call from the school, asking us to go and collect Nilo, who had fallen over, and landed badly on his hand. His wrist was pretty swollen for a few days, and is chest was a bit scrapped up. Poor little guy!

The next morning he was also vomiting (I think it was something he ate) so I've been chilling out for the rest of the week with him, at home. He can move his wrist now and so I guess he'll be back to school on Monday. I have to say, I rather like having him home again. He's been doing alot of drawing and lego building. He's amazing! Look at his turtle design.

I could never come up with something as sophisticated as this. It reminds me of Inuit design.

Thinking that I was going to San Jose this weekend, I got a move on with the "no boundries" denim bag that I started a couple of weeks ago, and it's finished (all but the details on the handles).



Stitching in the lining.

 

The lining is a light blue flecked cotton, with a slightly linen look.

The label.

The closure detail.



The finished item. Quite a sexy little number. Might keep it for myself ;}

Eliza, our model this morning.

Now that it's done, I guess it would be ok for me to start something new, right? ;}

Reinaldo is busy taking the house to pieces, in an effort to re-model the old office corner.

I have also been working on this. There's a link on my side bar. It's nowhere near ready yet, but you can visit and add your name as a part of the broader community and get updates as they happen. This week - now that my trip has been cancelled, due to the inclement weather - I hope to set these wheels in motion and send out a general invitation to local women to a sewing/coffee morning.  I'm planning to put up a flyer somewhere public (which, here, is either at the school, or the two churches, since there isn't even a village store!) and see who shows up! That way, it's open to anyone who's interested and avoids any personal preference. Afterall, the idea is about forgetting our differences, and working together, on the basis of sharing a common thread. Hmmm... I figure that's going to be the hard work in this!

Finally, I have added music (and other media interest) to the blogs. My father is a musico and so I was raised with very ecclectic tastes. Everything from Rachmaninov to rap, rock n' roll to gospel. The selection will change, according to whim. 

Look... Listen... ENJOY! :)

Boogie: Giving it a new spin!

If you follow my blog regularly, you'll know that I have been working much paler recently, and am now adding a little brightness to that... to give a new spin to my design work!

Here's a series of images showing how the new slow bag design - Boogie - is developing so far.















The pattern for giving the cloth a new spin.



















Drawn out in... yes, Kaye you guessed it... biro!



















The first blade stitched and cut (the reverse applique technique that I am so fond of using).



















The second blade stitched and cut.



















The second blade stitched and cut, and shot on one of those clever angles that always makes work look 100 x more interesting than it might ordinarily appear to be ;}



















The third blade stitched and cut.















The final blade stitched and cut.















Here's the first upcycled denim patch with all the blades finished.















Now for some kantha!








Photoshopping... a sneak preview of where this is headed.















The reverse of the reverse applique. Not too messy.



















First patch done! How great is that?

More later!

P.S. Eben, incase you're reading this, "hOney, I used your old jeans!" Love from Mum xxx

A giveaway!

In the background, off-stage from blogging and stiching the things that appear here, I am busy researching all kinds of amazing stuff, and starting to develop a new line of accessories and apparel for bainbridge & houseberg, which is going to be launched as a legitimate business, later in the Spring. That will involve an online store (probably at Bigcartel, 'coz I like the crispness of their site) and a website for the label (to be designed by my eldest son, Eben, who does website design work... incase you're interested), and the population of both. So, the next few months, in particular, will be busy ones. I have a good feeling about this venture.

These past few weeks have been an impotant part of that process in terms of meeting (online) lots of lovely and amazingly talented people - that's you! - sharing and exchanging ideas, getting some constructive feedback, and being inspired. And I thank you for that, because now I better understand the direction in which I want to go. Not that it's written in stone, because it needs to be able to change and have the potential to grow into something new. But... each time, I feel like I am closer to something... essential. Well, it's not easy to put it into words.

For I while, I was playing with some design ideas for bags - which are still to form a focal point of our designs - just to oil the wheels abit, and start to explore what my passion in all of this really is. They say that style is something which, once you strip back everything else, is what is left and is that which is totally essential to your thing. I think I've figured it out now. It just feels right... and that's a good enough sign for me! :} But more about that anon.

In the meantime, I still have a couple of those experimental pieces, and it's time for me to move on. So I've decided to do a giveaway, they seem very popular at the moment :} The design in question is Tulip Bell, a light weight, broad skirted shoulder bag, made from recycled cotton fabrics and cotton fabric scraps, with hand stiching, stone and metal accents. Black with a cream/black contrasting lining and adjustable strap.



















Tulip Bell.















Detail.

If you're interested, just leave me a comment, saying what you think is essential about what you do in your creative life, together with a means to contact you. I will make a draw from the names on the 28th of this month.