More of the May Marketplace...

My next etsy store to promote during this month of mutual promotions is The Happy Red Dog.

Brisbane local Zoe offers a range of useful decorating ideas from kids' personalised name signs to wedding decor items, all professionally finished and tailored to your requirements.

Butterfly Baby Name Art from etsy

Different designs are offered and both boys and girls are catered for.

Baby Name Art Signs Blue from the etsy store

Zoe can also offer room decor in the form of decorative quotes and other goodies include book marks, wedding decor items, iron-on appliqués and key rings, so check out her store and contact her direct about any special requests! My favourite of all her pieces is this little brooch, which I think is fabulous.

Fabric Bird Brooch

Have a great start to the week!

wimceexx

And another shop window...!

Apart from the usual, and not-so-usual, handicrafts and artworks available on-line at the fabulous etsy, there is also a whole, extraordinary, extensive virtual mall dedicated to vintage wares.

One such shop is my promo for this week - 'Treasures from the Past' belongs to Cindy (and Randy) Rogers, a.k.a. RCEastman, a couple from Eastman USA. 

I have a soft spot for dolls born of a wonderful, long-lost, collection in my childhood - I loved my tall 'walkers', I loved my beautifully nationally-dressed travel souvenir dolls collected for me by my mum, and I loved my collection of Barbies.

So in amongst all the great paraphernalia that Cindy has collected, her dolls are the stand-out item for me! Like this original, bubble cut Midge doll (Barbie's friend) from the early 60's.

1963 Midge

For those not so excited about vintage dolls, how about something seriously momentous, such as the 1969 moon-landing, or more specifically a newspaper headline recording the moment!

vintage news

Cindy also has plenty of china and glass-ware to choose from - these wall sconces are so retro, with their pastel colours:

MacCoy china

Cindy has more than 150 items on her books at the moment so plenty to browse! Have a visit and convo her about anything that you want to know about any of her items or conditions of sale.

Have a great start to your week,

wimceexx

Showcase!

This month I have joined a group of fellow artists and crafters wishing to improve their on-line profiles by a bit of cross-promotion - a fabulous idea and one we all owe a debt of gratitude to the wonderful denthe for facilitating. 

The first of five artists I will be introducing you too is Kirsten, the artistic force behind Lillibean Designs and her esty shop, sensibly, LillibeanDesigns.

''FLOW"

Kirsten's big-eyed girls are highly reminiscent of the style of work popular when I was a child growing up in the 60's - brooding, whimsical, and very retro-esque. But there is nothing glib about her work - it is beautifully executed, with her clever use of materials including recycled text giving her pieces a modern twist.

postcard set

LillibeanDesigns etsy shop includes post card sets of 6 designs as well as the larger canvases, so it is possible to secure a sample of Kirsten's magical imagery for a small investment, or these sets could make a wonderful gift.

However, her original mixed media collage/painted canvases, either small or large, are very reasonably priced, so have a visit to her shop and browse the full range of images and detailed descriptions for yourself if you are on the look-out for an extra-special present, or the perfect accoutrement for your environs. 

Until next time...

I love you more than...

wimceexxx

collagestry

At the end of this week I'm submitting my piece for a curated exhibition, The Tip Shop Competition, and it's proving to be the largest piece of fabric collage I've ever imagined myself capable of completing. We're at the stage of me sitting, sometimes lying, on the floor to get to the tricky bits. I have  needle-stuck fingers and a permanent pain in the neck. But it's been great fun nonetheless - it's playing with colour, pattern, shape and texture...what could be better!?

The bags and pouches that I've made for the last few years have been greater or lesser degrees of collage, as have been many of the aprons that I make, as well as the skirts and dresses I've done for children, so this is I guess a natural extension. I did a whole series of small collaged pouches a while back:

and more recently have finished a series of small shoulder bags made from Japanese vintage kimono off-cuts and stocked by Reverse Garbage in their Emporium:

I've also indulged myself with a number of soft sculpture collages previously, a number of monkeys and a few other adventures:

(These or similar can be found from time to time at The Collective Store in Wynnum and at Bleeding Heart Gift Shop in the city)

 The Tip Shop project involves reusing materials sourced from the local Tip Shops - Endeavour Foundation administered out-lets for re-usable goods dumped at the Brisbane City Council tips by residents, with all profits going to Endeavour. The aim is to publicise the shops (there are two in Brisbane, at Acacia Ridge and at Geebung), and to demonstrate one possible out-come for re-use, that is art work.

The selected artists represent a diverse range of demographic and discipline, so the results should be very interesting. Work goes on display in the Brisbane Square Library for two months, and the winner is chosen by public vote, either personally lodged or recorded on-line.

I've been blown away by some of my gem finds at The Tip Shop, including a precious haul of embroidery cottons, many of them French, many wound carefully onto card and labeled, to which it's a true honour to give new life:

Here are some sneak peeks of the work-in-progress...all will be fully revealed soon on-line via The Tip Shop Competition links.

Until next time...

My life as a powder keg, and afterwards...

I haven't written a post here for about nine months, not since last June/July. My blog tends to be more personal than anything else that I write and the problem nine months ago was that everything became a bit too personal when I was found to have a shadow on my lung.

Who can say that they HAD lung cancer? And what does that actually mean? I have lots of questions and not very many answers so it's a difficult place to visit or revisit even now.

I was surprised to find that cancer, dying, death...all those phantoms...were not so frightening to confront. I went into hospital one morning and came out without half one lung less than a week later, and that was, apart from being excruciatingly painful, not all that terrifying an experience. I was so very well looked after by doctors and nurses, and I was, by and large, a very good patient and did everything I was told to do.

Really and truly, my main if not only concern was the distress I was causing my family and friends - my sons, my parents, my husband, my sister... Bad, bad wimcee for being such a nicotine addict for so many years and bringing this on everyone around me.

After my operation the prognosis was that there was no need for further treatment - no chemo, no radium. The nature of the cancer was such -  so new, so small, so contained - that there was nothing to indicate a better outcome if I underwent further treatment than if I didn't.

I had initially gone to my GP with a recurrent pain in my chest - in the left side - which led via tests to the discovery of the shadow - on the right side - which was unrelated. To this day nobody knows what was causing the original pain - possibly the rigours of learning crochet which I took up about that time (and which kept me sane in hospital it must be said!) - but it probably saved my life.

I don't know what comes next with this - the thoracic specialist said before Christmas, 'now we watch, and we wait' - but when my eldest son became engaged to his long-term sweet-heart in January, and my middle son took up a terrific new position in Sydney at about the same time, and my baby boy embarked on his thesis more recently, how could I not feel blessed for having been here to enjoy and savour these moments?

I did a very few markets towards the end of last year, with enormous help and support from the heavenly Helen and the others at the BrisStyle helm, but for now I'm off the marketing circuit. Sadly. Miss the camaraderie very much; miss taking my work to town; miss meeting the browsers and the customers... But I do want to give more time to my parents and to my husband this year and I was finding the markets took bigger and bigger chunks of time.

I am cranking up both on-line stores - etsy and madeit - in lieu, and giving more time and attention to real-time retail through The Collective Store, Bleeding Heart, Rosemount, Reverse Emporium, and other possible outlets instead. And I'm also hoping to get back to painting again this year, or at least working more on the art/craft combination - the soft sculptures and fabric collages and so on that I've dabbled with previously.

So - watch this space!

Life is a very wonderful, precious gift to be cherished but also to be taken at the flood and joyously exploited!

Sew Happy at last!

My mother was an excellent, creative seamstress, and I grew up familiar with sewing machines, specifically the heavy-duty Singer that Dad gave her as a wedding present in 1956.

This machine still works beautifully, and at the age of 80 she still uses it to do small repair jobs and to alter clothing to fit. Very recently she had it lovingly serviced by Henderson's at Chermside in Brisbane, and she feels it's working better than ever. 

Mum used to make her own clothes before she was married, whipping up dresses for dances with a wing and a prayer, literally, as she had no time for patterns or conventions. And yet she understood all about cutting on the bias and how to drape fabrics. A genuine creative.

I learned to sew on this machine, but believe me when I say that I was an absolute disaster at it - to the extent that my mother's heart was always in her mouth when I went to work, wondering if her precious machine would survive. Not one of life's naturals, by any stretch of the imagination! Which just goes to show that where there's life there's hope, and it IS possible to teach a more mature dog new tricks, so to speak. Unlike my mum, I used patterns, which I didn't always understand, nor have the patience to follow when I did, and my frustration with the results lead to vigorous arguments with Sally Singer. Finally, leaving a trail of threads and scraps all over Dad's study where the sewing machine lived in those days, I was banned...a relief to me, Mum, and the sewing machine no doubt!

Which didn't stop me feeling a need to sew. When my boys were born I made tentative steps back into the sewing world with a little basic Janome, a pile of Top Kids magazines, and the strangely sparse retail fabric world of Queensland in the 1980's. 

My sons got to wear some interesting dressing gowns and jackets as toddlers: the best attempt I could make at the cool world of German children's fashion meets Saved by the Bell.

The need was definitely there; I just hadn't found the skills (or, it has to be said, the resources) at that stage to meet my aspirations.

Fast forward to 2007, when my sister gave me a new sewing machine for my [mumble]-th birthday.

In fact, a sewing machine is the last thing that she would have thought to give me, but as she lives in London she gave me cash and I chose to buy a new sewing machine...traded in the rackety old Janome which I couldn't even remember how to thread, and replaced it with a shiny new Janome complete with instruction book, tool kit, and a determination on my part to finally master my demons!

This is actually the second machine of the modern era, a step-up after I began to feel confident that my skill set was up to the mark and my present-day sewing interest was a lasting phenomena. There is a crafters' bumper sticker that reads "my other car is a sewing machine", which is very apt, as my new car fund went towards the more recent purchase (although that wasn't generally known en famille until some time later).

After many decades of struggling I came out of the shade and into the light with my sister's gift 5 years ago and began to master the art of sewing. Number one reason for that I think is that I am a much more patient person that I was at 15 or 25...I will pull out a seam and re-do when I mess it up these days; I will make something and then do it all again, better, in the interests of mastering a skill; I will devote a day and a half, or as long as it takes, to finishing something properly.

Number two reason though is that this century we actually have the most wonderful array of fabrics and notions available to us, here in Australia, and on-line as well, so that creativity is never stunted by a void of resources. And that makes it worth getting the nitty-gritty sorted, big time!

These days I love fabric, I love clever patterns, I love opportunities to improvise and be creative, and I love my sewing machine...never thought that I'd ever say that!

I have just delivered some goodies to Rosemont Collectables in Lismore, NSW, where I have rented Candace's shop window for the month of September. These little dresses are hopefully testament to my present day ability with Dear Machine, and the cushions illustrate an even more recently acquired (if not yet mastered) skill in crochet.

Until next time, have great weeks...

Steph xx

To market, to market...

This Friday night I am setting up shop at the BrisStyle indie Twilight Market. This will be my first 'real' market all year and here it is almost the end of August.

Markets are rather special, especially when it's BrisStyle, which is hand-made only and the primary retail out-let for this not-for-profit collective of craftspeople. These twilight markets can be hugely successful, especially running up to Christmas, but it's also an opportunity to catch up with members of long standing and meet some of the newer recruits.

I've got some new work in the pipeline for Friday night, the nature of which has been in part dictated by physical limitations after surgery in July - my beloved sewing machine hates my back at the moment. So lots of crochet and some paper and glue and embroidery have been my most comfortable options.

I have crochet bags:

...fabric and crochet cushions....    

clothing for chickadees...

and some pixie houses that are actually pin cushions in disguise...

Plus plenty more.

If you are local, drop by King George Square from 5 p.m., browse the stalls, bop to the band, and grab a bite to eat at The Groove Train...look forward to seeing you and being back in the thick of a market once more!