December market day

The Christmas Handmade market, before the rain!

Here is our little stall with lovely customers enjoying a sunny day of festive shopping.

These are some of Joe's gorgeous trivets and two of Nicky's cute cushions.

We made use of my old sewing basket to display our diverse collection of beautiful Brooches.

Jane's lovely lamp shades were a very popular item of the day with such variety and exciting new fabrics.

Jo's bags were also a real highlight of the stall with many styles of shoulder bags hanging and her new Nappy Bags all made with fun new fabrics.

Here are three of her latest Nappy Bag designs. Each bag also has a matching roll-away change mat which can hold spare nappies and wipes. These beauties are are just packed with fabulous practical features and are fantastically light weight.

This is the bicycle pattern Nappy Bag with matching change mat.

This one is a gorgeous pink and chocolate polka dotted design.

And this bag is made in beautiful soft bird print fabric. It is also available with a matching change mat.

Jo Maree's Brisbane trip

I recently went on a trip to Queensland to see my family and on the way I stopped in Brisbane to see the Ron Mueck exhibition. It was amazing and inspirational. Ron Mueck's sculptures are hyper realistic with super human changes to scale.

"Two women" (2005) I especially like this photo as the person in the background of it looks ghostly. The detail in their skin was amazing.

"Mask II" (2002) is a mask based on Mueck's face.

His sculptures were overwhelming. I was expecting them to start moving they were so realistic. "Wild Man" looked like he was about to fall off his seat due to fear of the onlookers.

So that was an amazing experience - probably one of the best exhibitions I have been to see for a long time.

After visiting the exhibition I walked over the new Brisbane "Go between" bridge, and then we went over to do some shopping.

While on a break, it has given me some time to play and plan more goodies for the next 'handmade' markets. I'm looking forward to it. Hope to see you there.

All photos were taken at GOMA in Brisbane on 8th July 2010.

Jo

We did it! Our first market.

It was a brrrrisk Winter morning in Canberra. As we tried to set up our "sunny" yellow marquee, it became clear that four people were definitely required to complete the task and, at that time, we were only three. We were laughing so much at our comic efforts that we almost missed the offer of help from one of the other stallholders.

We were assigned a corner position and having two sides open to the public was an excellent advantage. Jo's gorgeous bags were hung on a ladder and she stacked her hand-printed cushions nearby. In the centre of the front table, Bron laid out her beautifully made "tool" rolls. Nicky's retro chairs caused quite a commotion and her matching cushions were a huge hit! I enjoyed sewing up the open seams on two of them. It kept me entertained during the more quite moments. My lampshades were on the outer table which was a great position to catch the discerning eye.

Thank you to Nicky's sister and father for their tireless support in helping us set up and pack away. Thanks also to Bron's talented husband for the photography yet again. We were so happy with our first outing that we have already signed up for the September Handmade market. It is on the 11th which is the same day as the opening of Floriade. It should be a very busy day.

This weekend I am travelling interstate to learn more about lampshade making and I promise to take plenty of photos for "show and tell."

Jane

Crafty projects for the Handmade Market

Some of our first projects.

Here is a peak at some of the nice things our little craft group have been working on. Some of them are really only first editions so there may be a variety of versions to come.

Janie's lovely lamps

I thought I'd start with these little table lamps made by Janie. Jane is playing with familiar shapes and is working with a ‘free’ machine sewing style to create a sketched- over appearance to her designs.

Joe-Marie's beautiful bags and other soft furnishings.

This is a cute collection of birdie coasters with matching trivet.

And another set of coasters with matching trivet. This time they bear appliqué inspired by ancient Japanese tea pot designs. Each of Joe's coasters and trivets are made using natural linen and machine appliqué.

Joe is also a print media artist and makes many of her own designs which she then screen prints onto the fabrics herself. Joe has been looking at the effect of Japanese calligraphic mark making to develop some of her recent designs. This throw cushion is one of her first using this technique.

Joe's beautiful bags really a treat. They are seemingly simple but have lots of delicate and subtle detailing. They are made with a combination of linen and Japanese fabrics.

Blue flower shoulder bag.

Ribbons and roses bag.

Pleated evening purse.

This is a sample of my Ladies' tool roll.

They all started because I tend to be the handy person about my house. My husband had the idea to keep all my tools in the one place and that it could be made into something thats' really nice to use. We thought it might be something other handy women would find useful and enjoy too.

The tool roll has a heavy duty thick cotton exterior. It is lined on the inside with coloured fabric which is sealed from any tool mess by a clear flexible plastic layer.

Nicky's happy Chair

This is one of Nicky's second life chairs which she has redecorated. She reupholsters beautiful retro furniture with fun fabrics and brightens them up with colourful paints.

She is transforming chairs into cheerful and inviting objects which can bring cheer and light into an interior space. Nicky’s chairs recharge your energy levels and set a happy tone in any room.

A Pocket cushion.

Nicky is also making these lovely sofa cushions which are uniquely designed to look like they have a pretty pocket flap. This one uses a grainy dark blue Japanese fabric with tiny white polka dots.

Thank you for stopping bye. As you can see we have all been quite busy!

Please leave us a comment if you have time.

Bron.

Introducing Janie.

I just wanted to take a minute and start this post by introducing my lovely friend Jane.

Jane is an artist and teacher and an amazingly talented woman. Since we have been meeting as a group she has been working on a number of projects but my favorites are her gorgeous lamp shades. She hand and machine appliqué's the fabrics first then turns this into the shades.

Soon Jane will make a post and you can see for yourself just what I'm talking about!

The Australasian Quilt Convention & Expo

Now this post is a tad late I know, but I had such a nice time so I really want to mention the Quilt Expo in Melbourne.
My DMIL took me along to see the quilt show and we had a lot of fun while she showed me all the various designs and told me a little the types of techniques used. We were both really excited to see so many lovely Japanese fabrics as we have both recently visited Japan and are enjoying the subtle beauty of these designs and those beautiful grainy textures. This is me at the entrance of the exhibition.

Whilst we were there I had the opportunity to meet a very inspiring group of women. They are all working on a quilt design called the Civil War Bride quilt, which is a beautiful quilt but also a massive undertaking to commit to such a project. They are all bloggers too and were finally meeting up in real life to share samples of their work so far.

From left to right they are Lizzie, Debb, Natima (my mum in law), Ronnie(no blog), Kaly.

They are all fun women and seeing all their lovely work was really inspirational but also a little intimidating too as I began to realize just how much I have to learn!

This is a close up on of one of the quilts I found most interesting. It is made from many khaki woolen uniforms worn during the Second WW. Some of the pieces have holes in them and all of the pieces are a different shape. I liked to way it hangs too as it undulates like an aerial view of a landscape.

WW ll Army Uniform Crazy Quilt

So after a fun day out I got home to find an early mothers day gift waiting for me from my darling husband- he has given me a sewing machine!

This is my first sewing machine and I think we are going to have a lot of fun together.

Dyeing day results

Well these are the results of a fun day of felt dyeing and I am really happy with the amazing bright and beautiful colours achieved with the wool. Wool really seems to take up colour very well.

After leaving all the bags of dye and fabric overnight, we rinsed all the peices out by hand.
This part is really exciting as you discover how each one has developed. I found that many of the colours that I thought were going to be blues, turned out an amazing range of greens.

Here are the felts drying in the shade. The colours seem to change in the sunlight.

Some of the softer colours.

Mauves and reds,

yummy greens and lemony yellows,

Im so keen to get started creating lovely things for my little Bella with all these lovely felts. Thankyou Natima for such a fun day. I am lucky to have such a kind and creative mum in law.

Autumn Colours Dyeing Day

Horah! for our new blog!

This is the first post of our new group Blog and I have such a fun day to share. We (hubby, bubby and myself) have come to Melbourne for a week holiday with my dear Parents in law and today we are doing some fabric dyeing.

As I have never really done much of this and have never dyed woolen felt before I am really keen be here. My mother in law, Natima is a highly accomplished craftie and instills me with much confidence. Today she is showing me how to dye fabric.

This is Natima and Lynda, a lovely craftie friend of Nat's and I. Here we are preparing all the separate plastic bags to put all the various dye strengths into.

I managed to find some really nice woolen fabric to bring along and after washing it all in Synthrapol solution (fabric detergent), we cut it all up into shoe box sized bits ready to dye while it is still damp. This allows it to soak up the colour more easily.

This is Natima's dye collection which she bought in Dubai and has had many fun dyeing play days with. (so many colours!)

Here is my wonderful mother in law with the whole set-up on the back deck.

We have all the fabric now in bags of dye overnight to be wash tomorrow. I cant wait to see how it all turns out.

Ill post again tomorrow with the results of all our dyeing.

I hope you have enjoyed our first post. Please leave a comment.

Bron.