From A to B and Back Again

Hard at work!

…If you can call it work!

Birds, stage-by-stage

Here is the stage-by-stage process of my new bird print – from original line drawing to a selection of prints, finished and laid out to dry!

Original line drawing in Indian ink.

Re-drawn branch, feathers comb and tail detail.

Selection of finished prints on various wallpaper backgrounds, laid out to dry.

Why walk when you could run?

I think it's fair to say that the phrase "running before you can walk" was invented for me. After re-upholstering two vintage stools (requiring only common sense and a staple gun in the way of technical expertise) I decided to re-upholster a chair I found in the street.

Having stripped the grotty specimen of its previous covering using only a pair of tile nibblers (any upholsterers reading may have to go for a lie down in a dark room at this point), I discovered not foam underneath wool, horsehair, burlap and springs.

Ah, so we have jumped froward from novice to advanced in one go here, but I am a tenacious sort and it takes more than that to put me off.

Three excellent YouTube videos and a roll of wadding later, I was well on the way to a new chair. (And, so enthused with the project that I never even found the time to change from my vintage 1960s green paisley dress and glass necklaces into more "suitable" clothes.)

I used a single 1950s curtain I'd been saving for something special for a long time to cover the chair, I adore this fabric and I've never seen any print quite like it.

I'm thinking of getting a tattoo of the word "Crafts" over a pair of scissors and a staple gun rampant. Home brew or macramé next, do you think?

More makery

Last week a graphic design job I'd been working on for weeks and weeks finally went to the printers and I could not wait to get sewing again.

I had been dying to get on with a project involving making a large piece of soft furnishing from ties (see pictures below). I don't normally stop on any type of project until it's finished but I've already run out of ties so, in the meantime, it's back to bags again.

The bag on the left took far longer to make than it should have: errant thread from the first hour's sewing found its way into the guts of the machine and caused no end of problems. I was quite sick of it by the time I finished except for that lovely silk scarf lining (second photo). By contrast, the bag on the right and the little purse were run up in the blink of an eye.

I still have a huge bag of scraps and leftover fabrics to work my way through so no doubt there'll be more to come over the next few days. Beats working any day!

Why make one when you could make two?

When I was kid my mother used to make most of my clothes. As she always bought too much fabric (just to be on the safe side, eh?) she never made just one thing, and I think I've absorbed that habit.

The yellow cushion was made with leftovers and still I managed to eke it out to make a little bag. I bough this 1970s print skirt at the fleamarket and with the fabric I cut off when I shortened it, I was able to make a belt and use a buckle I've been saving for years.

As if by magic, the shopkeeper appeared

Walking along the street today I saw a woman with a clothes rail. Standing there in the middle of a busy pavement with all the people passing by.

There was a psychedelic A-line shift on the rail, the woman told me she was selling the dress on behalf of her friend in Germany and that the friend had made it for herself. I bought the dress and when I came back along the street she was gone. No sign that she had ever been there.

Great dress though, but not home made at all.