A little bit of cheer...

Nothing much today,just recovering from a marathon removal of my four wisdom teeth!!!So thought I'd cheer myself up with a blog post and some pretty photos of our tree!

We went for an ALL GOLD ornament collection for the tree this year:)

This pattern reminds me of chritmas trees!?!?!

I ordered some of it to be printed onto fabric,still waiting(very impatiently)for it to arrive in the mail...

In the meantime....

Some inspiration from marth stewart...

Thinking of doing a set of embroidery designs maybe of native ozi flora?birds...?

Also,I haven't said this in a while...but please leave comments if n when you stumble upon some of my rambles..I really do love reading them :)

The makeover.

The room...

A slightly wonky shot of the feature wall...
On the wall...

Gingko decals - Thanks Lara from Inkandspindle

Hand screen printed artwork - Experiments by your truly onto 300gsm watercolourpaper using textile dyes!It worked!

Bedhead - is just a large canvas bought for around $30 bucks from a place near me called " sam's warehouse". The plan is to layer it with some soft waddding and cover with some neutral fabric so its makes a nice and comfy head rest.

Splurged on some fancy-ish new curtains from good'ol spotlight.Found a colour that matched the wall perfectly.Also bought some matching tie-backs.

Thanks to dad for helping me install the new curtain rod and the tie-back hooks!

With the curtains closed-its like night during the day!Perfect for lazy summer afternoon siestas!

On the wall...

Handprinted artwork by moi...its an image of one of my favorite cathedrals in India

Just a simple mount card cut of of the letter T (from leftover scraps from uni projects!)

On the bedside table...

(managed to get two on special for $40.00 from my local " Warehouse")

Ipod/Radio Dock - featured with my acid green nano...

Assorted journals - one of them handmade/handbound from a little town called pondicherry in India

As blogged before...

Sunny yellow cushion - Handprinted scraps I've collected over the years and embroidery done to match the gingko leaves on the wall.Cool hey?

On the other bedside table...

My most favorite piece...

The poem was written for me by my sister Terryna and was a chrsitmas present from a few years ago.

Also in the picture our "dolly sister" - mine's the little one - LUCY and my sister called hers JULIE ! lol !

So far so good and I'm pretty pleased with how the room's looking :) I'm still on the hunt for some good fabric to cover the bedhead and I'm yet to put my new quilt cover on and I'mitching to get some euro pillows for the bed!

I'll put some photos up once I've done them.Also might put up a breakdown of how much it cost me.I'm just a student with a regualr part=time job so I had to work within quite a tight budget!

In the meantime thanks for stopping by and hope you enjoyed the photos as much as I enjoyed the process!yay!

Crafty summer...

Its funny,I never really saw myself as much of a crafter or maker but turns out I actually love the therapeutic effects of taking the time out to make something beautiful for yourself or for a loved one and its EVEN MORE exciting when you use your own designed and handprinted fabric!

So I present...

Featuring one of my favorite colours,some treasured handprinted bits and pieces AND some simple embroidery...a cute cushion for my NEW room :)

Also... Thanks to Jhonna's ruby doll freebie pattern I made ...

MY VERY OWN "LUCY "DOLL !

The fun part - choosing what fabrics to use!

Cute little embroidered face :)

Lucy and the cushion - looking good together don't you think?

*love*

last few days of print...

A few shots of the print process for my final project for the year.My challenge was to transalate a handpainted border design(see below) into a seamless repeat pattern and handprint a 2.5m length of fabric.
Technically the repeat was quite easy to do but the actual printing of it took a long time.I three screens to work with and about 8 colours in my design.Normally in industry you'll have one screen per colour!
So after a LOT of testing and failing and trying again and finally succeeding I used a combination of polychromatic printing (which is handpainting the screen using the dyes first and then printing with a clear paste to push the dye into the fabric) and direct screen printing to acheive a fairly good trnasaltion of my original design!The textile peeps reading this will feel my pain but for any non-textile geeks,hope you enjoy the photos!



Original handpainted design


One of the three screens,ready for printing


The painting begins.Handpainting using reactive dyes into the exposed part of the silk screen

Trying to achieve a watercolour effect through handpainting.VERY TIME CONSUMING!

And finally...the print onto ( 100% gorgeous silk habotai)

A view of the repeating design.I had to wash out my screen and re-paint after each print.Phew!exhausting but immesley satisfying.I absolutely LOVE what I do.

The background ombre on the fabric was also handpainted.Getting the colour gradation right was challenge #101!

Room renovation continued...

Remember the bedroom renovation that I mentioned earlyier this year?Well finally I've got the time to post up a few shots of the before and afters!


Inspiration from the wonderful realliving magazine!

THE WALL! The colour - Wattly paints,midnight seas (BEA U-TIFUL)

THE TOOLS FOR THE TRADE!

Amateur in action!

MORE IN THE NEXT POST ... Stay tuned!

Time to breathe

Its been 8 weeks of non-stop designing and handprinting a collection of swimwear fabrics tailored for the Zimmermann market.(photos up soon)

While I enjoyed the challenges is brought(And there WERE ?MANY!)I can truly say I felt a huge weight off my shoulders when I dropped off the swatch collection ,a range board and a technical to my lecturers office.PHEW!

Strangley today, I find myself with time to do what I love to do...devour my looong list of favorite blogs to read,have a sticky peek into some beautiful things happening around the www. and maybe even bake some cupcakes:)

A special treat was finding this amazing interview on the design files!

I'm a self confessed fan and follower of Megan park and her AMAZING textiles and her latest collection is beyond beautiful.

Her new flagship store in melbourne.beautiful.

www.meganpark.co.uk

Oh how I'd love to join that "little" design team some day!!!

Also came across some other lovelies :) on the design files

In the mean time some bits and piecees of my work...

textile design for homewares.Fancy a tea towel with this design?or maybe a table cloth?

my favorite.textile pattern for aprons/oven mitts/tea towels or whatever you like...

So much to do...so little time

Hi everyone/anyone who's reading :)

I've been so busy with all sorts of uni assigments that I haven't made the time to blog:(in aaaages!However the beautiful spring sunshine has made me feel alot more cheery and hence here's a little post and a picture of a major kids bed linen project that I've been working on!

Enjoy!See you shortly:)

'sweet dreams' design for little girls bedlinen :) handpainted using gouache and oil pastel detail!

Paper Printing

I did some screen printing onto watercolour paper yesterday.
Below is a mock up of how I'd like them framed form my room.Its all aprt of the "facelift" plan for my bedroom!Fingers crossed all goes well!

Bedroom Blues!

I currently spend my nights in a pretty drab and boring bedroom with no soul what-so-ever and most sadly no colour or pattern :(
So,this winter break I am on mission : "bedroom renovation" and have been looking around for simple ways to introduce some colour and charecter into my room without hurting the hip pocket too much!I'm concerned about painting the walls because I might get moody and what happens if I don't like the colour I choose after a few weeks?!!?!
So,I think I'm going to keep the walls the creamy colour they already are and add elements of interest and splashes of colour with accesories and bits of furniture.
I definately need a head-board for my bed,bed-side tables,new curtains and a few decorative pieces.
Here's what I've found so far...

Image from here.
Like the idea of using a set of canvases mounted as a headboard.I'm thinking of covering the canvases in a neutral fabric and that way I can pin photos/pictures/other colourful elements on onto it.
(kinda like below!)

Image from july issue of Realliving magazine
Like the earthy tones with bursts of bright colour!How I'd love to own a bed -end ottoman!Sigh!
But yes,definitely loving the natural textures and the casual/thrown together feel:)

Gingko!

Look what I now have thanks to the Lovely Lara at Ink and Spindle,Gingko wall decals!
Yay!So excited to own a Lara Cameron design!
I'm yet to find a nice home for them!Maybe a nice arrangement on a wall in my bedroom?workroom perhaps to keep me inspired:)

Holiday time and scarf montage

Yes!Its finally holidays and I now have the head space as well as the free time to blog my heart away!

It was a relief to be able to hand-in all my work over the last week and now enjoy a well deserved break!

I've put together a little step-by-step montage of my scarf in making ( remember the length I was printing for it?)Anyway after lots of planning,plotting,sewing and screaming! I finally made it!

P.S - A little note on what this is about : The idea behind this scarf was to make create a piece of cloth filled with personal memories and the aim was to illustrate what made "me happy" and translate it into something beautiful that I can touch and feel and keep for a long time to come...

I'll stop rambling on now and show you some photos:)Enjoy!

a collection of my hand-printed swatches ready to go into the patchwork scarf!

Like a puzzle! working out a layout that works best,trying to slot in the bits and pieces(the long blue piece of fabric is my printed length...very happy with it:)

Cut and sew...

A mock polaroid of some cool sewing "shots" and sneak peak of the scarf...

Et Voila! The final scarf!

Thanks to my sister for being a perfect model :) and to photoshop for making the photo look pro!

Printing

Just a super quick post with some pretty pictures of what I've been upto in the wonderful RMIT print studio :)

REPEAT PRINTING

A small sample of what needs to be printed.Tests are VERY IMPORTANT :)

Handpainting solution( dye ) mixed and ready to go.I'm aiming for a indigo-ish tint with this one

Background all painted and ready to go!(I'm printing on a gorgeous silk-linen blend)

The screen awaits...

and printing in repeat begins :)
Incase anyone is interested : I used a technique called "discharge printing " in which a special paste is made which when printed onto coloured cloth removes all colour from the area printed = your design.

So,when steamed and washed the part of the fabric covered in my design will have all colour dischaged fromit to reveal the original colour of the base cloth which was WHITE.Cool hey?

I'll post up pictures of the final length shortly :) This piece of fabric is the backing for a patchwork scarf!

Exciting!

More of Native Nature...

Some more exciting colour work this time! finally!
I mean,I like black n white sketches..don't get me wrong..but there is just something when you begin to work with colour...the emotive power colours have is so lovely and I'm very excited to begin the colour phase of this project..
But its not all easy..as a student one of the key skills we develop is the "ART" of colour MATCHING!

colour matching to a reference : The Ajanta Cave Paintings,Benoy K.Bhel ( amazing book!)

> Ink painting on montval w/colour paper >

With a little help from photoshop:)

I did do a few more experiments,but I'm yet to scan them in.Will share them shortly.
Next up...

More drawing...