Creative Uses for Tea Towels

A friend of mine bought one of my Knit print tea towels at the June Handmade Markets with the intention of using it as upholstery fabric. She has just sent me some 'before' and 'after' images of her ottoman:

Before (above)

After (above)

She says "This little ottoman has got a new life now and all because of your beautiful screen printed fabric!! I think it looks wonderful with your nice stitches pattern on it. Thank you very much Kate!"

Other people have told me that they buy my screen printed tea towels and frame them, and others have bought the tea towels with the intention of turning them into cushion covers.

I think they are all such fabulous ideas - and it's lovely to see my designs inspiring creativity in others x

Interwoven Exhibition at Gaffa Gallery, Sydney

My work has been selected to be part of Interwoven, an annual exhibition curated and coordinated by the Design Institute of Australia.

I drove up to Sydney on Wednesday to set up my works for the show. I was allocated a small room which had three walls - I decided to transform the space into a Lounge Room using my fabrics, as curtains, upholstery fabric, cushions, lampshade and as wall art.

Three of my designs are featured: Gingko; Knit; and Cloud stitch.

To make the fabric lengths look more like curtains I hung an old stained glass window between one pair (above).

And a small painting of the view from my kitchen window between the other.

I also commissioned an Creatif Upholstery to transform an old chair I found using some of my knit fabric - he did a fabulous job! The lovely Jane from Honi and Lemon, also transformed some of my Gingko fabric into a lampshade (you can see it in the top photo - more pictures of this to come, I promise!)

The exhibition is on at the Gaffa Gallery in Sydney from 16 - 27 June 2011.

Gaffa Gallery is in a beautiful heritage listed building in the CBD and is spread over three floors. There is a small cafe on the ground floor - delicious aromas of ground coffee spill out onto the street and waft through the space - along with a divine gift store also on the ground floor. It is definitely worth a visit!

Ill be going back for the 'Meet the Makers' on Saturday 25 June 2011. Maybe Ill see you there x

Designs for Repeat Repeat Exhibition

I have been invited by Megalo Print Studio to be part of Repeat Repeat, an exhibition of screen printed fabric lengths in June 2011.

This is a fantastic opportunity for me to explore some ideas which have been floating around for some time - as well as creating some fabrics for my house.

Idea # 1 is a continuation of an idea which was originally exhibited as a water colour in London - enlarged knitting.

I am particularly interested in the patterns which occur in the negative spaces....

So I started printing using different hues of blue and green. It started to remind me of the zillij mosaics found in Morocco.

Not convinced about the blues, I then tried a bold single colour....

Fun! I can imagine Red Knit as curtains - now I want to print this design in lots of bold colours: pink, orange, green ....... and imagine it as the upholstery for chair - groovy! I've found an old chair which would be perfect for this.... stay tuned to see the next installment

x

Completed projects

I have just finished knitting a lacy blanket for my Kiwi friends as a wedding gift using a beautiful 4 ply New Zealand Romney wool. You can see it covering the chair in my lounge room picture. Also featuring in this picture is my 'Fang' pouffe - a project that I started last year which included learning how to re-upholstering the ottoman using traditional materials and techniques, and covered with one of my screen printed fabrics. The image is inspired by my Mum's puppy Fang.