threads

This delicate embroidery work by East London artist Susie Cowie takes my breath away. There's a great picture story of her in the studio here. I've never embroidered before but if I could I would need the blessing of angels to produce beauty like this.

succulent flowers in red

Succulent flowers in red block printed by hand on cotton/linen blend fabric.

I had a lot of fun printing this piece. Unfortunately the light in these pics (especially that third one, what's going on there I wonder) makes the base fabric look slightly pink. Rest assured it's not. Instead it's a lovely natural shade. More like ivory. I have a piece printed with the succulent flowers in black ink that I'm tempted to sew into a skirt. I like the idea of using it in one panel at the front and perhaps the rest of the skirt in a dark light-weight denim. Sewers out there - is this idea a bit crazy?

flight

A test run of a dragonfly lino block print on natural cotton/linen blend fabric. I wonder where they're off to?

The hiatus is over - the shop is open again. It might take me a little while to restock.

Harvest Textile Studios has just announced their next round of classes. Sign up here.

repetition

Studio day. Playing with shapes and patterns with my new sumi ink. Brush work can be so relaxing.

layers - day 2

Day 2 of workshop - more layering of the prints we started on day 1. It was really freeing and playful to work like this. No plans, no expectations, just experimentation with a range of stencils we'd cut.Day 2 repeat print - when I signed up for the workshop I decided that I needed to loosen up my usual design style a bit and that this would be a good chance to work quite differently. Get out of my comfort zone if you will. I usually work quite tightly and on a fairly small scale. So working with the banksia ink drawings I'd done on day 1 I decided to design a fairly loose abstract repeat pattern print with some of those ideas. I used a cotton base cloth that was 'stone' in colour. Choosing and mixing the right coloured ink to print with was challenging though. I think the colour I made was too light in the end - a pale pistachio. It think this design might look quite different if printed in black.

I can't recommend this 2 day workshop enough. It's run by Harvest Textiles and they're just so lovely. Lara, our teacher for the weekend was as patient and knowledgeable about printmaking as they come. And we got such a buzz from being a small group of people doing this together. If you want to learn some basics about textile printing then this is the place to do it.

layers

Layers of screen printing on fabric. Screens made from hand cut stencils while at day 1 of the wonderful Harvest Textiles 2 day printing workshop. The deep red coloured design was inspired by banksia pods. It was so lovely to be in the beautiful Ink & Spindle studio all day today printing these. More printing tomorrow too :)

emma morrison: figments

Speaking of figs, this little exhibition, figments, is just wonderful. Emma Morrison's prints and paintings at Sixtynine Smith Street Gallery, Collingwood. Her fig etchings are really extraordinary, such wonderful small scale lines and tones. It's on until 14th March and is a real treat for the eyes. Queen is right next door if you need another excuse to pop by and then there are all those little Japanese eateries north of Gertrude on Smith that are also so worth stopping in to enjoy.

the art of figgery

Some good honest figgery went on in our neighbourhood last night. What's that you say? Haven't heard of figgery before? That's because I made up the word just now.

figgery (n) - the art of pilfering ripe figs from neighbourhood trees, preferably those that hang over onto public land.

We managed a colander full but there were thousands on the tree we were figgering. No need to be greedy is there? And you have to leave some for the birds and bats.

I'm making a fig cake with these this morning. Kind of like apple cake but with fresh figs instead. It will be our second fig cake this week. It's wonderful served with cream.

With last week's figgery bounty I cut them into halves and stuff them with blue cheese, drizzled with olive oil and put them under the grill. Once cooled I tossed them with rocket, more olive oil and a little lemon juice. Wonderful, end of summer goodness.