In a concerted effort to kick myself into any shape or form of blog posting productivity, I have decided to sign up to Wardrobe Refashion.

From 1 July 2009 for a period of two months

I, elaine, pledge that I shall abstain from the purchase of "new" manufactured items of clothing, for the period of 2 / 4 / 6 months. I pledge that i shall refashion, renovate, recycle preloved items for myself with my own hands in fabric, yarn or other medium for the term of my contract. I pledge that I will share the love and post a photo of my refashioned, renovoted, recycled, crafted or created item of clothing on the Wardrobe Refashion blog, so that others may share the joy that thy thriftiness brings!

Signed, elaine



So look out for my creations!

In my stash at home, ready for making for quite some time I have some lovely orange wool knit that needs to be fashioned into a cardigan/jumper and a piece of wool gaberdine that needs to be tailored into a winter jacket. In the course of the two months, I am going to endeavour to only use fabrics from my stash when sewing for myself. The regular exception here is interfacing. I'm also going to give myself a 'get out of stash use free' card to find the right lining for the above mentioned winter jacket. That sucker is going to be in my wardrobe for some years so I want to make it perfect.

So here I go!

Labels: wardrobe refashion

so here i am. trying in vain to get myself organised. back from iran. you know, it's both interesting and heartbreaking to be watching the fallout from the recent stolen election and its coverage in the media. Go read some Robert Fisk. i guess i've got a lot of views about that. about what iran is and isn't. and how iranians are just people. like you and me but a heck of a lot nicer. i have never felt such an overarching sense of hospitability. and you know what, we as the west have spent a lot of time trying to manipulate iranian politics both openly and underhandedly so really we should just stop the fuck interfering for once whilst making clear that abuses of human rights are just not ok (and get our own house into order on that, yeah?).

but that's not what this blog is about. this blog is about making stuff. currently a million and two things including designing a space-suit for an up coming short film and making some shorts for the guy, dino, who makes me coffee of a morning. for myself, a new jacket - not a coat but warm, still going with the deep vee argyle vest, and, as not-so-recently discussed, a quilt. and i'm loving the shit out of it. excuse my french.

i'm so glad i made no concrete decisions or fabric purchases in relation to it before i went. i was surrounded by gorgeous gorgeousness of islamic architecture. the tile work! the bling! almost overwhelming in its detail. but when you focus on a tiny part of it it's just mind-boggling.

(i kind of loved iran - in case you couldn't tell)

so i was in esfahan, roaming the immam mosque and i noticed the following detail in the tile-work.



and i had one of those moments: that is going to make a brilliant patchwork block.

and the next day in the old and crumbly and new but not so impressive in the face of immam mosque feeling vaguely disrespectful because i could see why jameh mosque is so important and i must have been attuned for it, or maybe it made sense they were both in esfahan but for whatever reason i saw this next similar one.


and now i am. i'm doing a square frame thingy of those two blocks. twelve of each alternating. on an off-white background. i love orange and i had been given the yellow fabric with the hearts and flowers by my lovely friend ~h. so i trundled down to GJs in East Brunswick - their selection of quilting fabrics is tremendous.

as an aside, when i was there i picked up the last panel and some co-ordinating print and made a floor mat for my friends' imminently to be born daughter of the very hungry catterpillar. because i am entirely crap there are no photographs of said object.

and i bought these fabrics. pretty, huh?



and i got really bored cutting all the pieces out. but i did it. i made it through. and i made organiser mats as recommended by oh fransson. i must say, that i've chosen a not easy to construct design. i like to challenge myself that way from time to time. either that or i just refused to compromise on design. i don't need to, it's just straight lines and a bit of care, right?.

and here is the first block. i'm really loving this so far. what do you reckon?

Labels: iran, patchwork, quilting, wip

I'm not quite sure where it has come from but I have developed a mad desire to make a patchwork quilt.

I KNOW!

Absurd, eh? But before you wrinkle up your noses, I'll let you know that I'm definitely not thinking about this


sort of thing. I am thinking of something fresh and clean and, well, modern.

I'm not really so fond of fussy sewing (you know, frills and flounces and fluff) so I want a design that is fairly simple. Whether that be deceptively or actually is not important. I quite like the feel of the quilting projects on The Purl Bee - bright colours contrasted by white.



What I don't like in this quilt is the 'stitch in the ditch' quilting i.e. the sewing of all the layers in the final steps are along the seam lines as contrasted to 'free-motion' quilting which, to my eye looks messy.



What I'd do is something like this from Wee Wonderfuls


See the nice zig-zaggy quilting?

The other thing that I found (how I love the internest!) is this wonderful quiltalong by Oh, Fransson! I reckon that will be useful to a quilting n00b.

Anyways. This isn't going to happen before I come back from Iran. So look forward to works-in-progress in June!

Labels: ideas, patchwork, quilting

a little shop front/house for rent and boy is it tempting.

mirror mirror on the wall
should my wares hang on the ,er, walls?

pros:
it's in a pretty good location, where i would like to live as well as somewhere a shop would do well.
it's a suitable price
the shop space and dwelling space are both good

cons:
it's not good timing. i'm going away in May and so the opeing of the shop would not be able to happen until july thusly leading to me bleeding money (YIKES!)
it's not such a great time to be starting a retail busines.

I would love to stumble across one of these whilst walking the streets of London one day.



Little People

We've had deer, swallows and currently owls.

My prediction for the next animal theme is the very cute dachshund aka sausage dog. The above amigurumi dachshund is a free pattern over at Lion Yarns

This has (see Sub, I know some things about art. Are you proud?) Art Cred (capitalisation intentional) with the futurist painter Giacomo Balla painting these lovely fellows (see the below) AND they lend themselves to crafty type endeavours; easily recognised in a few simple shapes/lines, easy to stylise, transferable across many different crafts etc.



See! look at this dachshund embroidery over at Orange You Lucky.

Just wait and see!

Labels: craft trends, crystal ball, dachshund

Why hello.

Up there, that's a hoodie that I recently finished for my friend h~'s lovely little one. It is from knitting pure and simple (ravelry link) and in Paton's feathersoft 8ply. It's coming toward Winter here and by then A will be needing larger warm things so I knit it for a 12 month old.

and next up; I made two of these, one for a newborn, one for a one year old. These are a trial run. I'm going to get my baby friends to be guinea pigs for Davy Jones' Overlocker pirate-baby range. The fabric was purchased at The Cloth Shop on a random, spontaneous visit a fortnight ago.



and these last, very cute newborn leg-warmers. These knit up in next to no time in Cleckheaton maby merino on 3.75mm dpns.




As well as this, I'm attempting to get my brother photographed in his shorts and I'll see if I can find someone to photograph me in my new jeans. Hooray for new jeans! In making the pattern, I took the leg measurements from my current jeans which are starting to wear thin.

Hmmm, what else has been happening? I'm looking forward to a trip to Iran in May and before that an Easter escape to Vanuatu. Learning Spanish. Loving up my beautiful kitty and talking to the Lady in my local petshop about developing a range of covers for pet beds.

All pictures are on my flickr photostream

Labels: baby knitting