My latest hand painted textile design....
It's all about texture.....with subtle colors.
Quote for today:
"Design creates culture. Culture shapes values. Values determine the future." — Robert L. Peters
After visiting the Craft Market, we went to another small village and visited a facility with numerous Kente cloth weavers, and glorious colorful Kente cloth covering all the walls. Here is one corner of the room.
The colors and variety of patterns were stunning--and admidst all this vibrant Kente cloth we began to bargain with the men selling the cloth.
Here is one weaver--weaving a Kente cloth strip on a loom
We could purchase the strips of handwoven cloth or a large piece with the strips sewn together
I couldn't quit taking photos of all the different colorways and patterns...
Among the handwoven Kente cloth--the vendors were also selling some printed cotton fabrics...and sometimes the Kente cloth was sewn together with the printed cloth, like this piece
I snapped a few pics of some of the printed cloth, also
I find myself wishing I had taken a few more close-up photos of the Kente cloth, but came home with one beautiful strip and a larger piece--for some reason, I was attracted to blues that day...
For months I have been bookmarking online tutorials of wonderful creative crafty projects I want to make...some day....
so here is a short list of a few crafts to make in the New Year:
1) Very Easy Pincushions here from the Purl Bee---the Purl Bee is the online journal of PURL, a shop devoted to beautiful materials and tools for knitting, sewing, quilting and other crafts located in New York. They have a whole lot more great tutorials on their blog---but this one first caught my interest.
2) tiny happy's shoulder bag tutorial---I make my own bags--but I have wanted to try this style for awhile.
3) A pretty crochet flower tutorial from the blog Echoes of a Dream---I can think of many uses for these !
Rick Rack Roses from the blog Nostalgic Needle Art. Wouldn't these make cool additions to a hat?
4) A great tutorial for a button bracelet at the blog Creative Kismet. I love vintage buttons---and have made some bracelets and necklaces with them, but this is a great tutorial---with good illustrations---for a pretty bracelet of buttons which lies flat around your wrist.
5) A luggage tag tutorial from My Longest Year---just a decorative tag to help identify your luggage as it passes by on the conveyor belt....
I guess 5 projects should start the year of 2008 off just fine...more to follow soon!
The elves created this holiday ornament---yes, a small button wreath.
And I have been sewing and created few fun aprons for special gifts. I was much inspired by this book---which is a real treasure!
So here is a Holiday apron! with rickrack trim....
and here is a bib apron--with vintage hankies for the pockets....for this bib apron I just copied an old one I had that my dear departed mother-in-law made years ago......
I used a vintage button for trimming the neck strap---isn't this fun a retro fabric print? and brown is such a practical color for an apron...
and a brown vintage hankie for the pockets...
What can I say? I just keep making them....these are fun to fabricate because each one is a miniature work of art. These are plus size inchies--each one measures about 1.5" x 1.5". Again these have become pins/brooches for sale in my Etsy shop, Borealis Beads.
My friend Kari--from Sitka, Alaska--came for a visit and to play in my studio---we made fabric INCHIES! only ours are "inchie +" because we made ours 1.5" x 1.5" ---instead of 1 inch by 1 inch---so we call them "inchie plus" or "plus size inchies" or just "PSI"....
These were a fun quick project---here are some of mine--or the ones I have finished so far...I'm planning to sew pinbacks on these---and presto! instant holiday gifts ;-)
For those who are wondering--an "inchie" is a 1" x1" (or 1.5" x 1.5") fiber square which you can embellish any way you want. This is great way to use up all those tiny bits of interesting fabrics and papers you just could not throw away. Then pull out your fun beads, buttons, and other trims and embellish away.
For great directions on how to make these--via the Quilting Arts Magazine website-- go here and scroll down--the directions area pdf file available for free.
Besides pins--I can think of so many other ways to use these---on a bag or purse as an accent, or even on a sweater. How about ear rings? or a colorful mobile to hang above a baby crib? they are fun to trade with other artists, also...anyone want to trade? just e-mail me.....
A while ago--one of my projects was a series of "mini-quilts." These are about 8.5" X 11.5" in size, and fun to make---since they are fast to finish up! Mostly sewed and quilted on the machine--with bead embroidery and buttons, plus some hand embroidery for embellishment. These are a nice project for using up small bits and pieces of fabric; some of the fabric here is old vintage fabric.
This one has more handstitching and less beadwork...but I love the different orange-ish fabrics--some of these fabrics are I got from my quilter friend Kari (from Sitka, Alaska.) She has the fabric stash to die for! (thanks, Kari!)
I had six of these small quilts hung all on one wall--they made a lovely display. As I make more, I move them around---take some down, or add more.
I have started a visual fabric journal-- well the journal is sewn--but I am mixing paper and fabrics on each page. The paper is all my own designs---mostly small "roughs" from my fabric design classes (visit the design school here)--in color palettes I ended up not using, or designs I haven't completed. I wanted to create a textile "sample book" or "swatch book" with some of my designs--and so far this is the result. I used grommets and ribbon for the binding. Here the large flowers in purples and green on the pink background are my design--painted in gouache. I eventually chose a very different palette to use with this design.
The left page here is part of a of a flower design I created in Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop, and the right page has part of a design painted in watercolors with inked linework (midpage).
On this page the orange arrows on lavender are my design--painted in gouache.
Here the left side is part of a "doodled" design--but I used a very different color palette for the finished design. I drew this in black and white, then scanned it into the computer and colored it in Photoshop. On the right, the dark gold, brown, and red design is another "doodle"--never used. The nice thing about the ribbon/grommet binding is that I can easily add pages as I make them since this is an on-going journal.
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