Flickr Favourites Friday

I love what Sharon has done with my Mod pattern.

She made another gorgeous one here. Isn't she clever?

These pics and more are in the Flickr photo pool for bags made with my patterns and supplies. If you have any to add, feel free - I love to see them! From time to time I do a favourites post. Usually on a Friday.

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Have a lovely weekend.

My Creative Space

Twenty years ago....

I was sent home from my parents' house last weekend with an ENORMOUS folio (which I'd quite conveniently left in my childhood bedroom for 20 years. Apparently it's no longer required there). Opening it up was like stepping back to 1989. Mountains of design roughs from fashion college, storyboards, life drawings.... random bits of paper that I wonder why I kept...

...And I'm back in a flat in St Kilda with a sack of Yoken marker pens and an overwhelming project ahead: my final range for the graduate show at RMIT. Watching The Scarlet Pimpernel on television. Reading about the Regency period.

Drawing and drawing and drawing.... working through design ideas.

Coming up with a few ideas I decide to follow through...

Patternmaking, toilling, finding fabrics...

(I know I've posted these photos before, but they're in context here too!).Making hats, fake fob watches. Organising my brother to make twisted walking sticks from apple-tree roots...
Illustrations, storyboards, folios. Mountains of Letraset. Typewriters.
And a week before final assessment realising that I was yet to actually MAKE the garments!

That week.... passing in a blur of tears, coffee, no-doz and a real fear that there was absolutely NO WAY I was going to get it all done. Roping in my sister for a few all-night artwork-mounting sessions. My mother on the day of my assessment -following me around with Lucozade and fruit salad ("You need to EAT something!"). ...Right down to the last 15 minutes before my presentation to a panel of lecturers and industry heads (when I - normally meek and mild but presently caffeine and panic fuelled - snapped at a senior member of RMIT staff that it was too bad that they were ready to see me - my appointment time was in 15 minutes and I would see them then. I had photocopying to do!). It's a recurring nightmare I've had ever since - the anxiety dream I have when there's too much to do in too little time. The difference is that now, twenty years on, I know that I'll survive it. I'll get it all done and get the result that I want.

Oh... and I'll see you in Sydney, folks! (Believe me - I'll get there!).

See more creative spaces over at Kirsty's.

How to insert eyelets in straps

My cinematographer and I have been at it again... This time it's a video tutorial on using our eyelet kits - something I'm often asked to demonstrate in classes.

I'm using the saddlers punch (again) and working on the Day Bag.

I love my saddler's punch... have I mentioned that before?



For those of you who missed it, I also have a tutorial (not video) on how to use eyelet pliers - here.

Small details

Nothing big happened today. It's all about the small bits right now - the details of pulling together new patterns, preparation for classes, accommodation for the Sydney Stitches and Craft Show.

Chipping away at lots of corners and not seeing anything forming yet.... spending more time organising activities to keep the wee one occupied (do you want glitter with that? ...sticky tape? ...you want to do footprint paintings?... whatever will keep you occupied, darling...) than I did actually doing any of the tasks I'd set for myself.

Little by little.... that's just how it is in these here parts. But we get there. And we collect a lot of fine child-art along the way.

Other small things I forgot to mention - the winner of our "Spend over $50" draw prize for June was Monika Griffin. She won a packet of super-fun inkjet fabric. This months prize will be a 75mm purse frame kit with fabric included. At the end of the month we put all the month's invoice numbers into a random number generator and the first invoice for over $50 wins a prize. Easy-peasy.

Sonny & Coco

Another lovely market in the Northern Suburbs... and what better sight to greet us as we walked in but Melbourne Epicure's delightful delights.... mmmm.... and Cathie was as lovely as ever, too.


The wee girl and I assumed our regular positions.... me following her around, handing over money for all the cakes, hairclips, badges, face painting, jigsaw puzzes and heaven-knows-what-else she decided was a must-have. (Quote of the day - wee girl stands in front of a table full of babies' bibs and says with a determined tone, "Hmmmm.... now what can we buy here...?").

Felicity was (taking cover from the icy breeze coming through the door) behind a wall of gorgeous colour and characterful softie critters. I took loads of photos but none of them really captured the full glory of it all. In fact, none of them were really in focus....?

The same happened with trying to photograph these lovely brooches.... I couldn' tseem to get a good shot. I bought a lovely brooch for myself from Madz - determined to get something for myself this time.

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We then went over to the Newport Folk Festival to catch up with my sister and her choir in the Substation. We missed her performance (left the market too late) but enjoyed amazing voices in the fantastic acoustics of the Substation and then caught some of the music playing around Newport. I didn't take any photos, but I think Leonie will probably do a post on the festival..... when the weekend is over. I suspect she's busy playing a guitar somewhere right now.

The Great Purse Frame Crimper Debate...

I'm often asked about purse frame crimpers, so I thought I'd share my experience of them.

Years ago I heard that there was such a tool so I sent Mr Google to work to find me some. I ended up Paying $70AUD (including currency conversion and postage) for a tool to be sent from the USA..

Yup - it's a c-clamp vice grip with a block of wood stuck on it. I could have bought the clamp from Bunnings for $30 and organised the wood bit for myself.

The metal end originally had a piece of felt glued to it, but it fell off ..as did the subsequent five or six pieces I glued to it.

The clamp had a rounded end on it (??!) so I asked a metal-worker friend to grind it flat for me. The felt still fell off. Even hat felt and the strongest glues I could find couldn't stop the felt from breaking away after a few too many squeezes on frames.

And it did this to frames...

So I ditched the purse frame crimpers and went back to my tried and true super-secret-unless-you-buy-a-kit-from-me method***, which gives me results like this... much better.

I've stuck with that since. I only use the crimpers occasionally - for really small, fiddly bits - with a chunk of cork coaster protecting the frame from the sharp, ground down (and felt-repellent) metal bit. Even then I find them awkward and annoying.

Anicipating small and fiddly bits on my new frame purse, I started to get nervous.... But today I found this set for $15 in my local hardware shop. I liked the look of the tool in the middle, with its flat smooth ends and compact size.

With a bit of cork coaster and cardboard cushioning, I tried each tool on a frame. Surprisingly, the tool on the far right worked the best. I half expected it to damage the outside edge of the frame - as normal pliers often do - but it crimped at just the right angle and the outside of the frame was safely in that open area in the middle of the pincer bits. As you can see, I'm right up on my technical tool-talk.

The only down side was the rough adjuster thingamy on the end pressing into my palm. (Hours later, it still feels somewhere between a mild burn and a bruise).

So I devised this high-tech method of hand protection....

Of course, you could use fabric other than Amy Butler's for the crimper... but the koala cork coasters definitely work the best! ;)

For more details on working with purse frames.... you can buy a kit here! And if you know of a good purse frame crimping tool... pray tell us all where to get it!

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***And please remember, kids.... if you still want me around to make patterns and kits and tutorials, please respect copyright and don't share my secret method!!!

:)

Think Music

Over the last week, whenever I've reached the end of my ability to think about class notes, submissions (for yet-to-be-revealed projects), website tweakings or pattern instuctions, I've tinkered with a little idea I've had for a long time.

This has been in my head since pushing a pram around the northern suburbs with a nine-month-old* who wouldn't nap during the day (or night, for that matter) and dreaming up bag designs was the closest I got to a sewing machine.

(*That baby is now nearly three years older. For those of you who ask how I work around a small child: the answer is.... S - L - O - W - L - Y!!).

Patternmaking is like a puzzle that grips me until it's solved. I started the pattern after midnight last Sunday morning. It was lucky I didn't have a sewing machine at home or I'd have been up all night!

I once knew a writer who said he wrote "to get it out of my head". Patternmaking is a bit like that for me. It's compelling. Addictive. The next stage is nutting out the right materials and processes for the job, and that's just as absorbing.

It's been my think music all week. Whenever I reached a block point with whatever I was writing (or was simply too tired to think in words) - or whenever I felt overwhelmed by it all - I'd tweak the pattern again. Make a toile. Tweak again. Today I worked only on this (and trying to keep a sugar-fuelled kinder-holidaying child busy). By this evening I was happy with the shape, at last.

There are still minor technical glitches to be ironed out before it's a kit, but I'm hoping to have it finished in time for the Sydney Stitches and Craft Show.

I have a lot to write between now and then, so I anticipate a bit of 'think music' will be needed in between. Watch this space...