Recycled Lace Lampshades

This week I knitted the final stitches, cast off, ironed and created two recycled lace lampshades using recycled plastic bags.

About thirty bags were recycled and you can see the different hues of greens and greys in the image above. The heat process seems to intensify the colours in the plastic. In keeping with the recycled ethos the lamp bases were found in second hand stores around town.

The shades were commissioned by an avid collector of objects made from recycled bits'n'pieces and when I delivered them I was shown her extraordinary collection: bags made from woven recycled paper, old chip wrappers and the pull tops from aluminium cans.

Its amazing the clever and beautiful things people can make from rubbish!

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

My Sisters House

Last weekend was spent at my sister's house. Our project was to transform the back room in a weekend.

My sister's house is a magical place, with big thick walls, deeply set windows, tin roof and a wide verandah which wraps around the front of the house.

Most of the light switches are cords which seem to stretch forever up to the 12 foot high, pressed metal ceilings and the kitchen has an old wood fire for the stove.

It reminds me of my Grandpa's farm house which was a grand old place that used to sit on a hill overlooking paddocks of wheat, cows and sheep.

Anyhow, we got stuck into work. Cracks in the brickwork were filled with concrete, old flaky paint was scrapped off and new paint covered the lilac purple hue of yesteryear. (note the two bottles of french champagne that feature on the shelf).

At the end of a hard day's work we relaxed in front of the first fire of the season.

On the very cool green velour lounge x

Introduction to Screenprinting at Megalo

Every Thursday night for the past 6 weeks I have been teaching the Introduction to Screenprinting class at Megalo.

Class participants are taught the basics of screenprinting: using paper cut stencils, photo emulsion stencils, registration for two or more colours, and how to create basic repeat patterns.

Below are some of the results of the class. I really enjoy the teaching process - its amazing how the same process can result in such different imagery and ideas.

Fantastic layering of colour and size of imagery .....

Beautiful three colour prints using a combination of paper and photo emulsion stencils.

Great placement printing incorporating different coloured inks, printed in different layers to create depth

A two colour design printed using the t-shirt jig. What a shame I don't have a detailed image of the design to 'show-off' the precise registration achieved!

Another design created on the Tshirt jig using photo emulsed screen.

A two colour print (white and black) using both paper and photo emulsion screens.

There were two others in the class who also had some interesting imagery: delicate pencil drawings of native flora printed over red dots; and the effects of layering transparent and opaque inks - but I totally forgot to take photos of these in the rush to finish everything in our last class.

I am very impressed with how quickly everyone got the hang of it and transformed their ideas into prints onto fabric.

Well done everyone ! :)