Making fabric

Back in the day when I was studying Studio Textiles at RMIT, by the way, no longer a course, you can do fashion instead. Anyway, we had to come up with a business plan and mine was to make fabric, till the reality was that even a small designer needed a run of at least 30metres!

However, I've come back to that abandoned plan and am trying fabric lengths. I've started by diving into my handspun stash, and creating open warps. Simple weaving but, I think, quite effective. Then I'm putting them on Etsy (I'm teesjourney on Etsy) and am waiting to see what happens!

Here are my efforts so far:

The first using cream 3ply as the starting point and the warp. All the cream based yarns with the most gentle textures and colours.

Cream 3ply commercial cream warp with handspun yarn weft.

Lots of lovely soft textures and colours.

 The next was a full five metres starting with a fine black mercerised cotton warp and alternating stripes of black and colours. There are two repeats and I used the Fibonacci sequence as my starting point.

Five metres of black and coloured stripes.

I love the fabric all rolled up and waiting. 

The next one is sorted and waiting. Purple warp and, hopefully, matching weft yarns.

And would you believe, my handspun stash box seems quite full!

Letter to the unknown customer

To whom it may concern,

Just thought I'd drop you a line to let you know that I've finally listed all my current fingerless mittens on Etsy. I know this is a little old fashioned writing a letter, but it feels better to be actually writing to someone, albeit unknown, than just speaking into the ether and wondering who is listening.

So let me tell you about my mittens. There are three different types that I've listed:

These are the last of the handspun yarn crocheted into a simple shape. I need to make more of these, but there's alot of spinning to do. I do have some gorgeous coloured tops in my stash waiting for me.

Then there's my new range:

I've made them with the boys in mind, but they do look good on women too! Currently, they come in black, grey or natural colours. I like addiing something different on the band and down the back of the hand.

Then there's my standby fingerless mittens, the ones with the buttons. They started this whole fingerless mitten making run.

There's the black and cream ones I always have, though I do need a couple of grey gloves, I am from Melbourne!

Then there are the couple of colours I currently have.












And, finally,

the chunky ones! Two are handspun and the other is from a stash dive with amazing buttons.

I have made an aweful lot of these fingerless mittens with buttons, over 150 if my records are to be believed, and the spreadsheet never lies, though I can hardly believe it! What makes it even more unbelievable is that each one is different. Sometimes it's just the yarn and I knit the square in stocking stitch with the thumb and the borders in moss stitch. That's my standard pattern, but alot are diving into the stitch books and playing with different stitches.

Anyway, I hope you like them and if you want to become a known customer head over to the fingerless mitten section of my Etsy shop.

Hope to hear from you,

Cheers, Teresa


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My new image

There's so much to blog about: Harrietville, spinning Samoyed, the guild group exhibition, 'Home' exhibition, Herring island and so much more. There needs to be a lot of catching up.....

But I'm ignoring all that, I'm so excited, I've just picked up my new business card:

and my new swing tag:

They were done by a local printer: Copies R Us and the lovely graphic designer, Michelle. 

I can still write on the inside of the tags, as I have done. I like to give each article I make a history and a personal touch, so that the recipient knows exactly what has gone in to producing the item. But I have thought I needed to update the image to something more professional.

It was a difficult decision as the picture is of my 'Empty Nests' sculpture, which is artwork, but the tags will be attached to more practical items. It is also now the image on my Etsy shop. It shows handspun paper, woven into nests with copper wire.....it's me!

 

Sample, sample, sample...

It took an aweful lot of sampling, but finally I got there! Here is the scarf that started with me all over the place, finally settling on moss stitch:

It is worth sampling till your bored with it!

If you know anyone that would love this scarf, it's already in my Etsy shop!

What did I finish this week?

I've decided that I'm going to document the articles that I finish each week.....just in case you're interested in anything. Most will end up in my Etsy shop, but not always. I often don't put things on for a variety of reasons: the main being time, however, photographs are often the reason. If I don't feel that I've managed to give a good indication of colour, texture or form, I'll leave them to my market stall, so people can see them for real. Occasionally, I have articles that I need people to feel or try on because they're a bit odd!


So here they are for this week:




Red Onion with Alum mordant dyed silk scarf with folds



2 skeins of chocolate centres yarn (100gm and 90gm)

Purple fingerless mittens with bobbles down the edge of the buttons. (sold)

Doesn't feel like alot of stuff, but there is a pile of fingerless mittens still to put buttons on and more chocolate fleece to spin!

So, if you're interested in anything, don't hesitate to contact me: tsbtextile@yahoo.com.au

teesjourney on Etsy

It's official, I now have a shop on Etsy. (www.etsy.com) The shop is called 'teesjourney'. I've only got a few things up there, but it's a start. I've already had a few views and someone has put me on their favourites list. Very lovely. I just have to wait for the first sale.

It's quite a process setting up, deciding on your look, the banner, postage, pricing and the worst of all, photographs. I hope I will be quicker and resolve some of the problems with some colours. I would like to think that colourwise they are accurate. There's more to do in terms of putting information and doing promotion, and I tackle those things over the next few weeks.

I now have three weeks to the next 9"x5" market......I do tend to mark my time by each market....I am feeling the need to do something more creative than the fingerless mittens I need to make, the silk scarves and now silk yarn I would like to finish. The sculpture beckons, so lots of spinning of paper, but I think I need a big weaving job? Have to think.

This is not a block, I have plenty of ideas, just the desire for something substantial?