Aprons: a journey!

Making aprons is where I started with wimcee in 2007. I used gingham and added ruffles and frills and deep pockets, with extra long, extra wide ties to make a big bow at the back, but the first aprons were already over-the-top, using a slightly mad combination of prints and a liberal application of pom-pom braid and rick-rack. Not a lot changes. My aprons are still much to the same formula; I've tried different techniques along the way to gather and attach frills and to secure the apron and improve the fit, but the look is much as it always has been...aprons with attitude. 

 




Why?



I grew up in a 50's/60's environment, at a time when there was a great deal of spoken and unspoken conflict about a woman's role in the world. My childhood was populated by some interesting, intelligent and gifted women who nonetheless subscribed to a view of society as male-dominated. This may have been confusing, but it was all certainly interesting - the dynamics were never dull!








My aprons are part retro reference, part social dialogue - no answers, just questions, with certainly some humour but also a great deal of affection thrown into the mix. Not everyone gets aprons, but if you do then I hope that mine will sing to you!

wimcee has aprons for sale, and all the usual accoutrements as well, online at etsy and madeit, as well as personally at not one but two lovely Heavenly Harvest markets at St Mary's, Kangaroo Point, in September and the Mamma's Market at Buderim later in the month, so watch this space for more details! 

Work space

I have just read somewhere that one of the most important things to do if you want to create via sewing is to keep an organised work space.

Hmmm.

I try.



I have numerous units from IKEA with wire baskets filled with colour-coded or texture-coded fabrics; plastic trays with various braids, tools, beads and so on; even paper patterns semi-sorted into type, market gear stacked up in crates according to type and importance, magazines and books in shelves, clothing hung on racks....

But when I really get going the organisation goes out the window and my work space quickly becomes a jumble of everything I am using or have used in the last couple of days, all at arm's reach, and so it goes until the jumble threatens to frustrate even me, penetrate the zone I'm in...I can no longer find any of the four pairs of scissors I've been using,  nor either of my two current seam rippers, and buttons and braid have been swallowed up by bottomless piles of fabric scraps. So a half day is sacrificed to tidying it all up again...and here we go round the mulberry bush all over again.

Not efficient, but this is the way I work, and it probably works as well as anything for me. I've even stopped being embarrassed about it, mostly -  people may as well know what my husband copes with, generally with great patience and good humour!

Wimcee will be at the Mamma's Market again this coming Saturday, April 2nd., and I am hoping for a really lovely Autumn day, because as beautiful as Buderim can be in the rain it really was tough on those how came out last time in the deluge, so time for a bit of sunshine!

Beautiful Buderim!

On Saturday we go back to Buderim for another Mamma's Market, held in and around the historic Buderim RSL hall. This is such a fabulous market to be involved with - the organisers, and many from the local community, are crafters and creators themselves, so the mood is excited and interested in everything on offer. And Buderim itself is so pretty - Mum took my grandmother and we kids there one school holiday to stay in a local motel for a few nights, to give my dear Nanna a little holiday, and I have had really fond memories and experiences since in the area ever since.

After all the rain that we've had this summer Buderim is a bit like one of those scenes from science fiction of vegetation taking over, so green, so lush, so blowsey! If it rains a little, as with the last market I was there for in February, little wafts of cloud float over the hill, and the steamy, messy business of unloading in wet weather is forgiven, especially once the air-con in the hall cranks up and the stalls come alive...

....images from the launch market for Christmas...

...and the wonderful 'Mad Hatters' string quartet!  

I have a lot of new stock ready to go - more jackets for winter, new bags, new skirts, and for those who asked last time I will bring tea cosies for this market...pretty ones and funky ones!

Happy Monday everyone...looking forward to the week-end already!