Not exactly a Studio Saturday

Out of the studio and into the advent fair! In addition to the ready-to-go leftovers from the MSF benefit sale in April, I made a few small, inexpensive items - microwaveable handwarmers and little notebooks.

Setting up at All Saints, Highgate -

 Ready to go, thanks to the transport (and company) provided by Gill Harding -

Six hours later, taking down -

Lovely venue - the sun shone, what a bonus! - with food and coffee and live music -

The Georgian Choir sometimes has concerts in the church, I'll be looking out for those - love the harmonies (the Georgian scale is based on the fifth rather than the octave).

My only purchase was a lovely blue jug, made by Alastair McKay -

On arriving home I was so jazzed up from the day that I immediately tackled The Back Wall, which has long since needed a sort-out. It took a mere three hours to rearrange the piles of books and magazines and the vases and those "saved for best" bottles of wine, and to bring the rickety bamboo shelf down from upstairs, and hoover and dust, and discover things that needed "throw or keep, and if so, where" decisions....

... and to clear the coffee table!

But OH MY, the difference it makes to sit in a room with (mostly) cleared surfaces! (It all started with the desk, which has been an oasis of calm for a few months now.)

These times and places of calmness come and go, but - do yourself a favour - clear a surface ...  

Advent Fair, north London, 30 November

On my table will be textile collages, travel-lines bags, tool rolls (aka Binders Keepers and Sewing Companions), and other smaller items, such as pairs of microwaveable hand warmers.

A few of the abstract landscapes, A4 size, mounted on A3 -

A selection of Travel Lines tote bags -

Microwaveable hand warmers -

 Little books -

There will also be Very Little Books, and needlebooks.

Studio Saturday - sewing a slippery slip and a cosy cover

The main event in the home studio this past week was a bit of garment sewing, thanks to a bit of slippery fabric found in the local charity shop. It suggested "bias cut slip" and I went along with that suggestion, first making the pattern from a slip on hand, then laying it out on the fabric... 

 ... and cutting bias strips to face the neck and armholes and extend into delicate little straps...

The slithery, limp, cheap, synthetic, floppy, slippery fabric was a nightmare to work with. Cutting with a rotary cutter was All Wrong. Sometimes, good old-fashioned SCISSORS are the right tool!

It took me a while to realise that visible pencil lines could be drawn on the back of the fabric (rather than invisibly on the front) for cutting the bias strips - and that delicate straps could be made by simply pulling on the strips, which obligingly rolled up, ready to pin and stitch. Of course an extra hand would have been useful for this manoevre -

 Sewing the french seams, on the (uncertain) bias, was another slippery-sloppy nightmare. Lots of pins, use lots of pins....

 Uh-oh, what happened to the hem??

Pinning it up to hang evenly was challenging. In the end I put it on over the dress and pinned it at an inch above hem length, which gave 1/4" at the shallowest part. Adding a bit of false hem (deeper hem would help it fall better?) did my head in - this was after about 10 hours of grappling with the whispy item, figuring out how to get the bias binding to lie flat and undoing and redoing those wobbly side seams even as they willfully frayed....

Instead of prolonging the hem agony, it was basted, cut to 1/4" all round, turned up again, stitched, and is DONE. Now to finish the top, simply attaching the straps at the right length and without too much lumpiness -

For a quick'n'easy project, I made a hot water bottle cover out of on old woolly jumper, first making the pattern out of two pieces of A4 paper, to be cut as one for the front, and to have a bit added as overlapping hems on the back.

The front is two layers (the hidden layer has lots of moth holes and has been in and out of the soapsuds and freezer to deal with any sneaky lurking moths). A bit of intact ribbing adds a jaunty look -

The back uses intact ribbing as the hems (any holes are hidden in the bit turned under) and decorative embroidery hides the unavoidable mothholes -

It was pronounced cosy and serviceable. Job done!

Studio Saturday - Further developments in zipped pouches

The main studio activity in this week of family illness and playing nursemaid (mainly as cook and babysitter) has been a little light sewing. Back to the comfort-activity of the zipped pouches - not so comfortable though when you suddenly realise that something is back-to-front-to-inside-out and needs ripping out -

 Save that for later. The fun activity was showing a friend how to make The Pouch. She chose a bit of clamp resist (I think; it was dyed so long ago!) indigo, and I used some Travel Lines fabric for mine -

Choosing the linings and zipper tabs was great fun.

My lost zipper foot for the Janome machine hasn't turned up, so I evolved a workaround - first sew the zipper to just the lining - the stitching will be near the edge of the tape (which makes for a dash of colour) and then when you sew the outside onto "the zipper sandwich", follow that line of stitching.

Now I have a number of pouches -

The long one will carry my ruler and brushes to woodblock printing class, and the brush for applying nori can go in the "african" pouch.

A propos of nothing, here are some jolly socks - with swedish origin, and from Japan; the latter have split toes as well as the (hmm, what are they?) yellow bits above the ribbing -

Studio Saturday - sewing and printing but still no pots

The fantasy giraffes are finally finished; why did they take so long?  - 

An extra woodblock printing session on Thursday ...

 My blocks were based on the uneven edges of ikat -

and I got a few prints done, starting with one that combined two different blocks and used one dull colour -

... and moving on to multiple impressions of the same block and various nuances of colour on the same paper -

On Saturday a friend came to do some sewing, so I dug under the workbench to get out the second machine, and dusted and wiped in a corner that doesn't see the light of day too often. Usually the rolling towers of drawers live in front of the old sketchbooks and the other bits - hmm, what actually is  in there?

 The room is still set up for sewing -

but at least that serpent's nest of zippers has been sorted.

We used a very few of them in making lined zipped pouches -

... and hardly made a dent in the mound of fabric -

Now that we've done prototypes, a production line could produce a few dozen more ... or maybe just a few more. But basically the aim was to have a small project successfully done, as we are both trying to encourage ourselves (and each other) to get back to garment sewing.

Horreos of Galicia

Horreos, those granaries that can be found all over Galicia - the aim is to keep rats etc getting in, hence the ledges and round stones. Are they still used, I wonder?

Behind the dovecote in "the medieval bridge village"

Quite often there were several in the same place

Some need a bit of TLC

Unusually solid

Beside the town cemetery

Even in the fishing town of Fisterra!

The final photo was found somewhere in Porto - perhaps the hinterland has horreos as well, the espigueiros - these look amazing, I want to sit among them with a sketchbook!

They do have a touch of the necropolis about them, or of the relic casket, but mostly they're humble buildings well suited for their purpose, and that's what intrigues me, the simple shape and its variations - and occasional flourish.