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! 

From Boutique to boutique!

Dear Reader,

I have found one of the nicest hand-made outlets in s-e Queensland, The Collective Store of bayside Wynnum, and wimcee is now in store with the lovely Leonie, the owner and manager of the collective. Thanks also to the BrisStylers for the tip via their blog a few weeks ago. 

I got lost (nothing new there) on my way to deliver my little load of stock this morning and ended up driving in north from Manly along the esplanade, with the sun playing on the bay and boats bobbing in their moorings - so contageously contented.  Love it! Always want to move to be by the water when I see it like that, not mad school holiday coastal resort living, but sleepy sea-side village-like. 

If you are over that way, Reader, drop by and visit because Leonie really has been very selective about what she has - wonderful hand-made craft, and a huge range of different genres and forms, all screaming care and quality.

My next market will be the launch city market at Bleeding Heart early in May, but more of that in another post. Have a wonderful week!

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!

Vale 2010...

My blog, etsy shop etcetera have been neglected in the last few weeks with so many markets, such challenging weather conditions, and the wonderful trio of events, family arrival from o/s, Christmas all together again, and a major birthday in the family yesterday.

2010 has had ups and downs for the wimcee's personally, but overall it has been a wonderful and eventful year. I have enjoyed my sewing and crafting so very much, and I have delighted in finding others really zeroing in on the wimcee stall too and getting it...not everyone, and that's why an organisation like brisStyle can be so successful, as each creative member of the collective has their own individual style and stamp, and for each there is an equivalent mind-set out there amongst market shoppers that just gets, and loves, what they do.

For one who has spent most of her life painting, thrashing about, metaphorically at least, with the challenges of portraiture in particular, I understand only too well the lack of recognition, and appreciation, that crafting can attract in its public incarnation. Thank heavens for the legions of young women and men who have a very different perception via etsy and brown owls, cath kidston and rowan, kellie doust and yarn bombers, bloggers and city farms, lovers of vintage and retro, and so on and so on...all that is wonderful and exciting out there in the world of art-meets-craft.

Fancy fronting up to a day at the end of this week with a numerical nomination of 1.1.11! That's got to be the starting point for many great things to develop out of the new year!

Happy New Year!

Market season up and springing!

The spring market season is off and running with the BiDM on Saturday - one of those strange September days when the wind whips up hot and gusty, not so pleasant, so thanks to all those old and new wimcee customers who came out to visit. Wonderful company, as always, great music, yummy nourishment, and family reunion time for the BrisStylers, the 'B' in BrisStyle indie Designers Market, those 170 of so 'crafty ladies' now immortalised in song for the occasion!

To celebrate, and because I can't do marketing for various reasons for a month or more ahead, [drum roll] the first ever wimcee blog give-away!

I am trying to develop a more obvious 'point of difference' at least to give myself some direction to pursue in 2011, so please comment here and be in the running for a very special upcycled denim skirt 'flowers for frida'. Entries close midnight Thursday 16th September 2010. The winner will be chosen randomly, and announced on this blog, Friday 17th September, so overwhelm me with suggestions!

Happy springing one and all!

BiECO-lossal!

reconstituted woollies ready for the BiECO

wimcee's next market is something very different - brisStyle's first ever eco market, on Saturday July 10th, at St Augustine's church hall and grounds on Racecourse Road, Ascot. Local etsians will be amazing us all with a wide range of upcycled, repurposed and vintage wares. While most of my usual stock is made from new fabrics and fibres, I have previously offered a few eco-friendly pieces, so the BiECO is a wonderful opportunity to devote extra time and energy to upcycled denims, reconstituted and embellished woollies, and all manner of wimcee-cal numbers put together from my supply of vintage fabrics, buttons, ribbons, trims and scraps. As usual, just never quite enough hours in the day and days in the week to make good all the ideas I'd like to try out, but so much fun -!

Fiesta-rama!

Viva the fiesta! Check out the chicka chic! Limbering up for the lambada round...Baby and Kids Market (30/5), BiDM (5/6), Boutique Markets (13/6) and Mathilda's Market (19/6), plus a possible spot on the co-op tables in King George Square all day on Tuesday 1st June as part of the Saviours of the Lost Arts Fair, wimcee should be in over-drive this week but isn't...

The fiesta mood has mellowed the pace and I've been having too much fun with ruffled skirts and little embellished trews to feel too stressed out about anything at the moment. A few cameo peeks just to set the scene and go-go the co-co cabana!

Skirts with plenty of ruffles, frills and braids will warm up the coolest winter's morning teamed with leggings and boots, and are unique combinations of colourful cottons. Little trousers are embellished with frills and trims, this one in a hooty owl print on cord, and there are plenty of hand-knits in pure wool like this riotous rio shrug! Join the congo line...Mama-mio!!