June in bloom

clay necklaces

I have a confession to make. During my darkest days towards the end of 2018 whilst I was reorganizing my studio, yet again, and sorting through my fabric stash, again: giving away, sending away and, dare I admit it, even throwing away, the fabric I felt no connection with, I was in fact making up my mind to stop working with cloth, at least for the foreseeable future. Who knows, maybe I thought I was preparing self for never holding needle and thread ever again.

I had saved my favourite bits of cloth and decided I would go out with a bang: a full-sized completely hand-sewn, patchwork quilt, thinking it would last me months and I'ld manage to work out what it was I wanted to be doing and/or making. Why I thought a life without cloth would be good for me, I cannot for the life of me remember....Anyhow I boldly began the quilt at the end of January, see post, and a month later, not only had I finished the quilt I had fallen completely, madly and utterly in love with cloth again! Ha, life has a habit of playing funny tricks on one.....I have since received beautiful fabric from 2 kind ladies and feel most fortunate to remain involved in the cloth world and will continue joining in in Jude's latest - and alas last - class over at Spirit Cloth.

I am even attempting to sew a pair of polka dot trousers, from a pattern, although I am struggling with the pattern part, as I'm not very good at being precise when it comes to measuring, so I will have to try at least 9 times I guess

After several botched attempts at making a present for Catharina-of-the-linen-cloth, after having learned a few things about sewing with linen and linen/cotton mix I finally found a way to make it work, for me.

Couple of things I hadn’t noticed before working with linen and/or cotton-linen mix: it frays easily. I realized I would need the chintz cotton (or maybe it's really sateen/satin) fabrics for the edges, to prevent fraying.

It’s very soft and easy to stitch through, like a hot knife through butter.

It’s very light.

It smells nice.

the colours are amazing.....

The first linen patchwork I made, I backed with a bit of an old cotton sheet, as I thought this would give it ‘support’; this was a mistake: the supple, soft linen became rigid, which okay if that’s what you want but I didn’t, so I learned something there.

With the next square patchwork I used a more loosely woven cotton backing; this was slightly better but still not ideal for what I had in mind: I wanted to keep the subtle quality of linen looseness, especially as I intended on making a Small Pillow, for fondling and holding.

So I had my two halves for the pillow cover, which I wasn’t happy with and still I stubbornly plod on and sewed the two parts together into a pillow cover. I had also made a separate small cotton pillow stuffed with the usual fabrics bits. Thank goodness for that, it’s what I started doing after the first series of Small Pillows: make separate pillows and loose covers.

There was something else that irked: the fabrics, beautiful as they are, just didn’t quite feel like me. I wasn’t happy with the result, it didn’t feel like a Small Pillow made by me.

I started afresh with different strips sewn together and I can’t quite remember why or how it happened but I said to self: use one of your lino’s to print on the fabric (with fabric paint of course!) and then it all started to make sense for me. Suddenly there was another layer and with the running stitch yet another layer was added. This time I chose a very loosely woven thin cotton fabric as backing and it feels and looks so much better now.

the white/silvery leaves on the left are part of a lino cut by my dad, many many years ago!

the two sides are connected by thin strips of cotton, in the 2 images above there are 2 strips with the 'wrong' side showing, which have both been lino-printed; below you can just see a strip with the 'right' side showing

I sent it off 2 days ago to Catharina

birthday present for my mum, who turned 85 last Saturday
she loves it and wore it with pride, showing it off to her 35 birthday guests, she's rather brilliant like that

a heartfelt connection

 behold, for 'tis the OBK in his formal Summer Cloak!
I had started out making him something light to wear in warmer weather, however once the three layers were all stitched together with tiny running stitches, it felt too stiff for casual wear. 
So it was decided he would wear it on more formal occasions; birds, butterflies, checkered fabric from the boys old cot-sheets, home-dyed/printed squares, pink bits from Nancy, polka dots from Jennifer, colourful stripes from Julie and a bit of magic thread for the heart and binding from Jude

thank you all
for your generous offerings
we love using them!
on behalf of the OldBirdKing
Namasté

clay

Today I wanted to share my latest cloth exploits (and some slightly older ones to boot), however as I cannot detect my most recent photo's which are on my phone, whilst blogging on my laptop, it's as if they haven't been synchronized - whatever that means, really - modern times ugh! I decided to share what is available.....with the added bonus of making a post which isn't too long.
So, I am showing you my first batch of clay brooches.
They are for sale, although I'm still making up my mind about prices, any suggestions?

so much to be grateful for, Part 2

what the settee looked like before
above
and then, below
after:

on the far right is Django's sofa

collected even more yesterday....

first batch of Catharina swatches dangling above work counter top
sorted from left to right: 100% cotton, 50/50% mix linen/cotton, 70/30% mix linen/cotton, one batch 70/30% linen/wool mix, one batch 100% wool, on the right 100% linen
all so very gorgeous light scrumptious in fact and easy to sew, I imagine

Leiner Leinen
...weaving...

Toubab Paris
be sure to check out this site!

  It all truly started 5 years ago when Django arrived in our lives as a puppy. When we were away he would chew up whatever he came across. Sometimes a shoe, other times the pillows on the settee, resulting in a slightly-worse-for-wear settee: one cushion left intact, one 80% left over, still usable though....two completely ruined cushions and lots of tears in the rest of the cover. I used an old woolen blanket to hide the worst and in Winter sprinkled several outdoor cushions all over indoors. It is always a moveable feast in our household. This is how we managed for a couple of years.

Fast forward to a couple of weekends ago, when Joke, a neighbour further down the road let her house be transformed into a 2 day pop-up store 'Luxury Delights', organized by Catharina, who runs her business Interior Help  and Chantal Osmosis Interior.I went not intending to buy anything (how little do I know myself)

First I fell in love with a linen tea towel, which I bought with my husband in mind, not that he does a lot of washing up, but he does shoot and many of the animals depicted on the tea towel are well known to him and have at one time or another ended up on our dinner plates....so the buying had begun! I got to talking to the lady who was selling various of the items on display, soft furnishings, designer lamps and also jewelry designed by an African designer based in Paris; all the jewelry is hand stitched by women in Parisian sewing workshops where they still have the skills for haute couture stitching. I noticed the broche and also it's price, a mere 30 euro's, and decided I would buy it for myself: a unique hand made piece! It came in the beautiful blue bag. I was so very happy and as I mentioned had gotten to talking with Catharina, who when I told her I work with fabrics asked if I also worked with linen and if so, would I be interested in her stash of linen swatches? Well, you can guess my answer.

And so, a day later she returned with a bag full of goodies and I have given them a place in the studio. I have so many ideas: dresses, tablecloths, pillow covers, small pillows....

On the second day the pop up store was open I got to talking with my husband about the carpet in the living room, which had also seen better times (thanks to Django too) and wasn't it time we bought a new one? To my amazement he agreed at once and of course I had a card up my sleeve: the antique rug you see in the photo's was also for sale at Catharina's! At a price we could afford and so the rug entered our house and inspired me to at last get round to fixing the settee: I ordered a mattress for the seating area and have been hand stitching the rainbow cover for the past couple of weeks, the fabrics are from fabric swatches I found on the street, I kid you not! They have been waiting patiently in a basket in the studio for years now. I washed the settee covers and dyed some parts (using a commercial dye: Dylon navy blue) together with several cushion covers, two were tie-dyed and turned a bright indigo blue, others were cotton/polyester mix and became a faded jeans blue, the original settee is green, the one whole original cushion has been transformed into two back cushions with the dyed blue/green covers..... the ottoman and the red chair came from my mother-in-law's house. The ottoman has a new hand-sewn cover, the thick cotton fabric came from several swatches from the same road find. 

I have not yet started sewing with the new fabrics.....but once I do, I will keep you posted

an attitude of gratitude, part 1

a couple of weeks ago a package arrived from the States, courtesy of Nancy! Yay, lots of goodies for the Dwelling: how having to move forces one person to declutter and another to reclutter, hihi

good thing I love rearranging and refurbishing so much......

OldCat is sitting upon a handwoven rug - a Nancy original - admiring the 3 elephants performing their marble-balancing act, whilst a mysterious clay figurine (also made by Nancy) is hiding away to the left of OBK; the green/black glass snail is a gift from Rosie from the UK (he made a fast Brexit, all things considered)

Mr. Snail's wrapping paper

Easter Bunny is at close hand, making sure OBK, his visitors and other fellow Dwellers are kept well nourished and glasses are (re)filled

meanwhile in the garden of delights 2 huge Californian apples to choose from, Easter Bunny need not worry 'bout everyone getting their vitamins today

fancy those two drawn together.....La Belle et la Bête, no insult meant Nancy!

DutchBoy reunited with his clog

a purple heart
bringing love
maybe peace
contentment, at the very least

scattered throughout the Dwelling are clay objects made by me, some more obvious than others

colourful fabrics arriving just in time for me to add to a Summer wrap I'd been stitching together for OBK; as it happens, he loves wearing pink....
 'no, what I said was I don't mind wearing pink, Saskia' OBK corrects me
ooops!

a Mother Duck followed by her chuckling ducklings, aren't they the cutest, flew all the way from California too, phew, they sure deserve a break
They enter under the talisman I made for Mo's exhibition, which I now realize as I'm typing this, you can barely make out in this photo; I had not expected it to come back, but there it was accompanied by treasures from Mo, such as the flowery gauze, a handwritten note, the exhibition's invitation and........ 

.....the the White Star she made, as can just be glimpsed in the image below, in OBK's reception room https://itscrowtime.wordpress.com/2019/04/13/more-ripples-of-love-as-the-pennants-and-talismans-find-their-way-home/

as one can easily see, there's a lot of stuff all over, no wonder Nancy's accompanying note got lost, although I'm sure it's Somewhere

 four clay birds, made by me, strutting their stuff for Grace, grateful to Margreet for allowing me to work in her studio and use her kiln!

there's loads more to be grateful for, but that will have to wait till another post......