Starting more projects: recycling this time

 I just seem to need to keep moving, so I've started two new projects. They involve me sorting out my wardrobe and seeing if I can come up with new garments from things that are worn out, no longer fit or no longer feel good to wear. I've picked up two pairs of jeans and some brown pants. 

The idea is to unpick them, cut them into squares and sew them up into a new piece of fabric and make them into a new pair of pants. So far all I've done is unpick them, I'm on the last pair of jeans. I just unpick the inside leg and the crotch. This gives me a flat fabric. I've also removed the waste bands, maybe to make a waistband for the pants. The next phase is to cut them into squares, at the moment I'm thinking about 10cm square.

The second project means creating a brand new piece of clothing from weaving thrums. These are the waste ends of a warp. I've had a warp from since I graduated from RMIT and my studio textiles course, that's 15 years ago. But it was a great warp and there was alot left. 

Someone mentioned that there's a Japanese technique called 'Zanshi'. I googled it and basically it is tying the warp ends together and using them to weave a new fabric. Trust the Japanese to come up with a beautiful technique to use what we would call waste. Anyway, I've started winding into balls, this warp.

I'm about half way through. Fortunately, when I took the warp off, I did it so it is in sections. When I've finished I'll be winding a sample length warp in fine black wool and see what will work best with this yarn as weft. I'm looking at twills, the more complex the better. I'll warp up my 16-shaft table loom and see what I can get.

I need a pair of mittens

4th June, 2020

I decided yesterday afternoon to knit me a pair of mittens.

Well, it wasn't quite that sudden. I had decided that the pair of mittens that I had knit with yarn from Hawaii should be reknit and teamed with some hard wearing handspun yarn. The mittens had developed a hole which I didn't want to repair, as the mittens were quite flimsy.

However, between Round 6 and Round 7 of Sock Madness I had about 2 days. I'm no longer in the competition but was interested in knitting the socks with the beads which turn out to be the Round 7 socks. (192 beads is tantalising!) So I needed something quick.

I used my favourite basic pattern book: Winter Warmers from Patons. (Book 483) It has lots of hats, scarves and mittens in different weight yarns and it is an essential item in my pattern collection.

This is them...

Happy and warm.

So enjoyable, I did some more. Now I have a pair for the beach and one for the city.

Finished 'Secure' Sculpture

I have been working on this piece all last year. It's taken all year to work and resolve golf balls, clay, yarn, fence pailings and nylon wire into a finished piece.

I've called it 'Secure' asking the question in our Security obsessed century, whether security is an illusion.

It's now been entered into the brand new 'Australian Textile Art Award' and I wait to see if it has been accepted.

However, I still think that there is a further iteration of this work to come!

UPDATE: It was accepted into the exhibition. However, due to COVID-19 all we were able to do was have a very small opening ceremony.  Even in June, it's still sitting at the Embroiderer's Guild waiting to be seen.

It's been a quiet week

Well it has been a quiet week. Mostly spent waiting for tradies - cleaning windows, fixing fans. All done, all happy, but little work to show for it.

Hubby and I managed to fit in a film, on Friday at the last minute. I had tickets to the Classic Cinema in Elsternwick and so we hopped on the train to head SOUTH of the river. It was a strange documentary film: Frankofonia. The story of the pictures in the Louvre during WWII. Very bleak from the Russian director, very arthouse, but great archival footage and reenactment. Only two couples in the cinema and we both loved it!

I did manage to get to a good stage with my prototype of the next set of work based around the fabric play that I did.

Will do some tweaking, but also start on the next one. The REAL thing!

When you're no longer sure, but you still keep going!

I've been working on this sculpture for awhile, which is good, as I've prototyped and experimented and made till I'm at the stage where it seems to be coming together.

But there are a few problems yet to be resolved....how do you arrange them?

Does my little crocheted flower look ok, and will it tie all the different islands together?

Crocheting next

Starting

Weirdly, at the start of the week, it's all about new work.

Firstly, the sculpture I've been working on, based around the idea of 'no man is an island' has come to the point where I think I've resolved most problems, but I've been working on it so long that I really don't know if it works. So a good photograph of the work-in-progress has put those doubts not quite off to bed, perhaps just getting in their pyjamas!

Sculpture - provisional title 'Island'

 I also need some new knitting to take with me, but swatching was essential! Here it is and I'm using self-generating patterns from the book 'Unexpected Knitting' by Debbie New. With a mix of handspun and commercial yarn, I'm happy with the result.

What do you make from fabric yarn?

So I've found a couple of ways to make yarn from fabric, but "what", I can hear you say, "do you do with it?"

You knit dishcloths from the woven cotton fabric. They work really well, but not so easy to squeeze dry....still working on them!

Knitting dishcloths from fabric yarn.

My first dishcloth!

You stitch and use lazy squaw stitch to make little baskets to hold those errant keys!

Little bowls from fabric yarn and fabric strips.

Lovely little fabric bowl.

And you make coasters from the knit fabric which work really well and you knit more dishcloths.

More dishcloths and stitched coasters.

A finished coaster

And, what is it all for? To start my next sculpture! This is my prototype started!

My next sculpture!

Meandering Mind

All bloggers seem to have a love/hate relationship with their blogging. I would like to do more, I always thought that being a writer would be nice....even though I can't write well! My initial reason for blogging, that is keeping myself focused on my work isn't really needed anymore, studios, exhibitions have all added to that and I can say that I do work. So why write now? Because I want to. Do I care if nobody reads it? Sort of, not really, maybe??

So, where am I?

With a studio at 601 Waterdale Rd.

 I'm working on my red madness. Three metres of all sorts of yarns with a woven backing. Don't know if it's going to work yet.

Working on using recycled materials found at 601. Look what a bit of old rope can do!

Participating in the projects of the Textile Art Community making community works for an exhibition in June. This is my Daily Weave project and the second length finished by some willing helpers. 

Whilst at home, I'm participating in Sock Madness (on Ravelry). This is the first pair of warm-up socks, before the main game in March.

Finally, trying to finish the now woven Samoyed Blanket. Just working on the edges before washing.

Found at 601

This was my first full week at 601 Waterdale Rd, and I could choose and select things for the shop and for my use. We sell beautiful things at crazy prices, I'm having to get used to how things work. There are amazing things that come in the skips, some rubbish, but many little joys. These are some that I liked this week.

This is just gorgeous. Inside is a little mirror. Not a necklace, like a tiny purse!

A little pair of vases, beautiful enamel.

A beautiful glass bowl, nobody buys glass, but maybe for $10 somebody will?

I love this tray basket, it would be mine if I could think of something to use it for!

Tiny tins, for tiny things.

I wonder what will come in next week! For more come and see us at 601 Waterdale Rd, West Heidelberg.

An exciting new adventure!

It's been a funny year! After finishing up at Greensborough, the previous October, I managed to participate in two exciting exhibitions: the Toyota Sculpture Award and the Wangaratta  Contemporary Textile Art Award. I felt very special being chosen for these two amazing exhibitions.

Wangaratta Contemporary Textile Award

With these under my belt, my partner and I headed off to the UK for 6 weeks, finishing with a stopover in Vienna where we met up with friends. An amazing trip.

Like all trips they come to an end and you feel just a little let down, and it's not just the jet lag! It's taken to now to feel that I have a new focus.

Just before going away I was invited to participate in a new venture, the Textile Art Community. Unfortunately, being away for six weeks meant that all I could do was read emails, I did go to their opening, where they were weaving straw animals. This is where I met up with Annie, a friend from my Visual Arts course. She was looking for someone to share her studio and shop and with some trepidition I have taken up the offer.

Annie's upcycling sculpture

601 Waterdale Rd, is a community of people based around recycling and the skips that come in each week. There are those that sort the recycling, and make furniture from what they can. There is ReVamp (Annie) who takes both collectables and makes things into Art, selling them in her shop. And there is the Textile Art Community (Gail) who are also make use of the available recyclable materials. It's a new venture, an amazing place and I'm happy to be joining it.

My space, waiting for a table to arrive..in a skip...for my loom!

This week was my first week and it's been hectic and exciting as I battle a cold and try and make my part of the studio my own, try and join the activities and help with the shop. It's just been fun.

So, come and say hello, it's an amazing place and you never know what you will find. It's open every day from 10 till 3pm. I'll be there Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays each week. I'll be there at other times, but more irregularly as I try and fit this in with my schedule of other activities.

601 Waterdale Rd, West Heidelberg (next to the bus depot)
10am-3pm daily

Hope to see you there!