So far.

*one more sleep and its already the third month of the year*
To me this means that its the start of my final year at university and the end of social life as I know it! ha! Bring it on! *gulp*
So... in light of the end of my studying years and hopefully the beginning of a long fulfilling professional career as a textile designer (ahem!) ,I'm working on a new the possibility of a new space on the WWW and a stronger identity for myself as a designer.
What does this mean? Well a new name for starters ....one that I can confidently put on my business card and one that I feel at home with and hopefully one that others can relate & connect to.
Its an unusually difficult task trying to accommodate all the above into a word or two...so I'm just going to let it evolve and come to me...
In the mean-time I will continue to vent creative successes and frustrations here - My trusted little space.
For those who don't like reading and prefer pretty pictures here's some shots with my brand new Nikon D3100 - present to myself... and a deliberate nudge to take BETTER PHOTOS.

felt/embroidered name board on my work in progress inspiration wall

Amazon package! yay!birthday present for a man I like to call...Dad 

Its a kindle! I'm not sure if the word 'bookworm' still applies with digital tech!


All wrapped up...(finally got to use my hand printed wrapping paper)


Just realised ... there seems to be an uncanny amount of orange and brown paper happening in my studio at the moment...hmm....
x

Lucky Last...

This wasn't the plan. A multicolour handprint was never on the agenda and even when I made the impulsive decision to mix all the colours and give it a go - I never expected it to work! I did it all on a whim and as I went along ... I totally love how its turned out...Again, not usually a primary-straight out of the tube kinda girl, but hey! its all about how it looks but more importantly how it makes me feel...

And this particular one brings me lots of cheer everytime I look at it :)

So, there ends this wonderful handprinted swap! I had tremendous fun working on all the swatches and I hope my swap patners like what they receive!I can't wait to see what they've sent me!

I totally loved Vanessa's placement printed fabric she sent (photos up soon!) and Im sure the others will be just as unique ~

Thanks for those that followed this journey with me ! There will be more !

Pink and Blue

I've said this before...I'm not quite the pretty pink n blue pastel kinda girl...but I do like the way these swatches have turned out. They're going off to a couple of ladies one in the U.K and one in the states...and as per their comments and as per my research looking at their blogs...I think they'll appreciate the colours :)
I keep going on about how much fum  I had printing, but I forgot to mention the incredible joy it is photographing your handiwork!
I'm suffering with only a point n shoot camera at my disposal (new SLR yet to be researched n bought!) but thank goodness for photoshop which has been my saving grace in helping make these pictures look slightly presentable..

I'm yet to layout my last swatch that I did for this swap.Pictures will be up soon...

Its been great having something creative / arty n crafty to do in the evenings after work and I hope I can put this new found motivation to some more good use :)

Hope everyone is having a good weekend despite the terrible weather...on the bright side...perfect for movie marathons and lots of tea!

xx

The joy of textile design...

I can't express enough,my love for this wonderful niche of design/craft...whatever you like to call it.
As strange as it may sound...I find a sense of grounding and purpose in textiles.To me its beyond just a piece of cloth or superficial decoration...Fabrics tell a story and in someway or the other woven/knitted/printed into it,is a sense of great depth and a fragment (or more) of  heart n soul of the one that created it...

So...that said , here's a snapshot of one of the packages I sent off to one of my swap partners here is melboure :) I hope she loves it! (coz liking it just isin't enough...)
I want to create a separate board for each of the package sent...so stay tuned! And big thanks to Leslie for opening up this possiblity for us to design.make and share! Its been a great experience!

Done it!

Finally sorted out all design/technical detail for my handprinted fabric :) All thats left to do now is print the final fat quarters and post away!

Here's the journey in photos..with brief descriptions

1 : The desgin
I literally sat one night and scribbled out these triangles with a vague intention to create something inspired by buntings...And then I cut ... I used opaque photographic film to cut the stencil from mainly because this film doesnt tear so it can be used and re-used without any damage to the stencil and even better...you can wash the film and still do no damage~ perfect!

2 : Printing

This time around I decided to be accurate in the way I printed and as you can see...it paid off!

I measured equal amounts of acrylic paint and textile medium and used a household sponge to apply the paint.I also realised that the consistence of the paint needed to be fairly runny so it could permeate through the fibres of the fabric and not be too rough to the touch.

I did a quick trial on paper to test the repeat because I blindly cut out the stencil and only guessed the placement of the triangles as opposed to measuring the design them so it repeated...

But I was quite happy when I finally printed to see that the whole design worked quite well with no obvious tram tracks or gaps...

3 : Heat setting and washing

The last time I heat set and washed...well...it was more of a wash off :( BUT having got the proportions andthe consistency of the paint and medium right...the heat setting worked (using an iron - 5 min on high heat/cotton setting) and once the fabric was washed the colour retained and the result was very satisfying!

Its fair to say that even though I've done my fair share of screen printing at uni, I thoroughly enjoyed this process of using handcut stencils and ofcourse the ever so versatile household sponge to create some simple yet beautiful fabric.

Just goes to show, that sometimes you'd dont need much technology or equipment to create...just an inspired mind, the will to work hard and a passion for what you do!