Sketches of Treasury Building in Petra

I have been commissioned to sketch an image of the Treasury Building in Petra to screen print and transform into a cushion to match my Aya Sofia cushions (below).

Petra is a historic and archaeological city in Jordan that was carved out of rock walls in a ravine. The site remained unknown to the Western world until 1812, when it was introduced by Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt and has since starred in the Indiana Jones and the last crusade movie.

Designs for Relish

A friend of mine has asked me to help her update her blog, so I have been creating some designs for her blog's logo.....



She describes herself as enjoying 'craft (when time permits), cooking (but mostly eating), gardening (read: lovingly assisting the death of beautiful plants) and having tea (or wine) with dear friends' so I wanted to design something that encapsulates some of these qualities.



What do you think?



Time for a cup of tea and a biscuit........

Shhhh..... Its a Secret!

The front cover of Handmade Living, the book put together by the very clever ladies of Shop Handmade was announced recently.

And Id like to share a secret with you.........

My work has been selected and has been included in the publication. I am sworn to secrecy to the content - you'll just have to wait until December when it is published..... although Shop Handmade are already taking orders if you want to add your name to the list.

I cant wait to see all the goodies inside!

Design Development for Lizzie's knitting needle case

A couple of weeks ago, or perhaps a month or two, a friend of mine asked me to design a case to store knitting needles for her mum's birthday.

I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to create some fabric which is specifically designed for this purpose and chose balls of wool as the starting point. The images above are drawings that have been developed into Lino Cut prints. I love the lines and the positive and negative spaces in the 'messy' ball of wool, and the very Japanese-esque of the 'neat' ball of wool. The next step is to turn these prints into a repeat screen printed fabric.

Watch this space.........

Craftanoon at the NGA

This weekend I participated in an afternoon of experimentation at the National Gallery of Australia with Sydney's guerrilla knitta Denise Litchfield, learning a variety of techniques to create jewellery from felt and knitting.

During the afternoon we learnt techniques to make felt balls using the wet felt method, needle felting, french knitting on two knitting needles (also known as Icord these days) and finger knitting to create wearable art from wool. Its always fun to learn something new, and Denise was an inspiration to us all with the amazing things she has created from wool. The images you see are the outcomes of what I learnt at the workshop.



I had so much fun learning how to make felt balls, I Cord and finger knitting that I have found some great online tutorials of the techniques to share with you:
- Felt Balls from Craft Tutorials
- I Cord by The Purl Bee
- Finger knitting by Pretty Ditty

Soft cover sketch books to collect thoughts and ideas

Printed on hemp canvas and lined with cotton these A5 sketchbooks are a perfect place to collect inspiration on your daily travels whether you are undertaking an exotic adventure overseas, curled up beside the fireside with a hot chocolate dreaming of warmer climates or struck by a brilliant idea whilst out shopping.

The sketchbooks are small enough to fit inside a handbag or held by hand and contain quality 125gsm, 100% acid free cartridge paper.

The soft cover has sleeves which hold the notebook in place and are a great place to keep momentos like tickets to galleries, movies, and ideas quickly jotted down on the back of envelopes.

The wonderful thing is once you've filled up one sketchbook full of delicious ideas, the cover is easily removed and placed on your next sketchbook to continue protect your inspiration.

Clever things made from your screen prints

Its amazing the clever things that people do with their screen prints from the 'Introduction to Screen Printing on Fabric' class I teach at Megalo Print Studio.

Kate designed the news print panel from the front pages of recent newspapers and hand printed them onto silk using a repeat print process.

The dress was made for the Press Gallery Midwinter Ball using a 1957 vogue pattern.

She was the Bell of the Ball in her beautiful dress with her unique hand printed design.