Poppalina

Crafty business

Some friends have a fashion label, Baraka, and a new store, Baraka HQ. They are in the process of making the store the place to be for all kinds of things besides a lovely place to shop, with craft classes, a book club, story readings, movie nights and much more.

I mention this purely to show you some pictures I took of a kid's t-shirt printing class, which was going on in the next room from the book club I attended. (We were discussing Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea, if you're interested; which is very much worth a look.)

Masterpieces created on the day included: a charming lady robot,

four siblings;

but my personal favourite was the shark.

Specifically, the proportional size of the tiny fish's eye at the realization of what appears to be imminent.

In other news, last night I went to a yarn swap at the best yarn shop that sells coffee (or cafe that sells yarn) in Sydney, A Coffee & a Yarn. Ok, maybe the only, but it's still good.

I took a bag full of balls from my stash that I was unlikely to ever use, and came back with ... these:

Nice, huh?

My inheritance

This Christmas, I started taking photos of some of the beautiful textiles in my grandmother's home. Then it occurred to me that I don't really have a record of her personal style. Photos taken in her various homes throughout her life have mainly been of people. That's important too, but one of the things I dearly love about my grandma is the way she puts objects together in a room.

The way she'll disguise the ugliness of a heater, for instance, by surrounding it with so many lovely things, you no longer even notice it's there.

I missed the opportunity to record her decorative style with the gorgeous house she and my grandpa had when I was growing up. I've missed it with the smaller house they moved to when the old place became too much to handle. I'm left with the tiny flat she lives in now that she's a widow and 91 years old.

But it still speaks so strongly of her and her unique aesthetic. I look at what she does, and I see love.

In with the new (and out with the old)

On Friday, I went to pick up a new machine: woo hoo!

It's what I call a babylocker, but since the brand name is, in fact, Baby Lock, this could get confusing. (My Baby Lock babylocker?) Basically, it's a domestic overlocker that is versatile enough to do 4 thread overlocking, 3 thread overlocking, a tiny, rolled hem—or babylocking—and almost anything in between.

It's always exciting to unpack a new machine. This one comes with a dinky little zippered plastic pouch containing extra and spare bits and pieces.

One of the nice things about this machine is the way the whole front opens up, for ease of access.

People can get a bit overwrought over the complicatedness of threading overlockers, but I find that most domestic machines are pretty intuitive. (By which I mean you can pretty much tell where the thread is supposed to go to from one point to the next.)  Plus they tend to have a little diagram inside the front panel if you get lost.

I've been wanting a machine that can do a babylock finish since forever.

So now that I have one, in addition to my industrial five thread overlocker (Brother), my industrial straight stitch (Consew) and my domestic zigzag machine (Husqvarna), I really don't need the three thread domestic overlocker that I haven't used in years.

Which means that if there's anyone in the Sydney area (local pick up only) who'd like to own a simple little Husqvarna Huskylock 435 three thread overlocker, I have one available.

I bought it second hand in the '90s, so it's old, but it still works beautifully, and there's nothing wrong with it.

One of the particularly good things about it (that I'm really going to miss when using the new machine) is that the lever to raise and lower the presser foot is on the right hand side of the machine, rather than on the left at the back.

That means that when you've got your work all lined up and ready to sew, and you're holding the work steady with your left, as is natural, you don't have to stretch your right hand across to the other side of the machine and around the back in order to lower the foot. Why in God's name they design them any other way is beyond me.

And yet they do.

 

My Mate, Bobby La

 

 

My mate, Bobby La,

Just sold her quilt

for $70,000.

 

 

 

Ofcourse, the buyer totally got a bargain. This is a hand-stitched Quilt to End All Quilts, that took some serious life-blood to make, and I don't doubt for a moment that it will hang in a major museum one day.

Still....

It's an extraordinary, (and, I suspect, unprecedented) price to receive for a craft item in Australia.

Must be some kind of record.

 

 

 

So why aren't the media onto it?

Anyone who has ever been refused exhibition space on the grounds that their work is 'too crafty' (read: not art), should take this sale as a personal triumph of Good over the Forces of Evil.

 

 

 

That said, please, tell everyone you know.

Shout it from the rooftops.

Use your media connections.

Twitter it, Facebook it.

Get your people to ring our people.

Get on the phone and tell your Mum.

If there's one thing crafters know how to do, surely...

It's communicate.

 

 

 

Because this is a victory for all of us.

And if Bobby's quilt isn't in a the Arts Section of a major newspaper by the end of the week....

 

 

 

I'm defriending the lot of you.

 

 

 

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Studio pack up

As I stand in my studio wondering where to start, I curse, for the nth time in the last month, the zero tenure enjoyed by tenants in Australia.

Thanks to a landlord who wants to knock down this house and redevelop, we have to move. I'm self-employed, so the cost to me of no earnings for the next week is added to the truck hire, the disconnection/reconnection fees, the boxes, the mail redirection fees and all the other costs associated with moving house.

But possibly the most overwhelming part of all this is the task facing me: I have to dismantle, pack, move, unpack and re-mantle (?!) my entire studio. For the third time in four years.

I hate to get all complainy on you, but those industrial sewing machines are HEAVY!

Introducing the Craftorialist

A Kapinny post

Not content with having a craft overload, and a co-authorial position with Popplina, I have started a new project that, with any luck, won't be finished for a very long time.

The Craftorialist is a new blog of inspirations, instructions, pictures and patterns, in which I share my technical expertise with anyone interested in textile-based craft. It's brand new, so there's only a few posts to see right now, but I will keep adding to it over time.

Feel free to drop by and have a look, ask a question, make a comment or—hell—add it your reader!

thecraftorialist.com

Easy winder

A Kapinny post

I thought the unpicking was going to be epic, despite the new yarn winder.

But thanks to Bernadette at the Happy Hookers crochet club on Sunday, it SO wasn't. As I pulled, she wound. It was hard to keep up.

Which meant that at the end of a very short time, I had a pile of watermelon pink wool/silk yarn balls instead of a too-tight sweater.

We decided that my hook size was correct for the tension and the stitches, so I just need to go up a size in the pattern for the sweater to fit me right.

Many thanks, Bernadette!

Craft overload ...

A Kapinny post

Ever feel like you have started too many projects already, but you keep wanting to start more before you're even close to finishing the others?

I'm knitting a poncho/cape thingy, which should be gorgeous and warm when it's done. It's in a gorgeous 4-ply wool, and it's just over a metre long on both sides, so it's a longer term project.

I've finished the crochet pullover (pattern here), which would be great, except it's just too small, and I'm going to have to unpick it all and make it again, bigger.

There's another couple of babies I'd like to knit or crochet something for, and that should be soon, while they're still new.

And I know the dearest little two year old who needs a jumper.

I'm part way through I don't know how many sewing projects, but I really need a new pair of warm trousers.

One day a week in the studio just ain't enough, y'know?

High School Formal Frock

A Kapinny post

Last year I made my step daughter's Year 10 end of year formal frock. She had found the pattern in an op shop.

 

Though the skirt was far too long and full for someone of her small stature, the bodice and collar are designed for her, really. She has one of those old-fashioned hourglass figures.

The trip to the fabric store was fun and excruciating in equal measure. It took ages, but finally we settled on a cherry red silk satin ...

... which looks a lot brighter red here than it really is, and a gorgeous black lace overlay.

And the lovely French lady serving us found a fabulous black lace trim we decided to put on the hem. After it was finished, and she had tried it on, I described her in it to my husband.

Me: 'Gina Lollobrigida. That's all I'm saying.'

Him: 'I don't know what you mean.'

Me: 'You know what I mean.'

Him, putting his fingers in his ears and screwing up his face: 'I don't want to know what you mean!'

Babies love colour

A Kapinny post

It's nowhere near as impressive as the wedding jacket Shula made for a baby Mymlet, but here's one I made for a friend's new baby girl.

I adapted it from a much plainer pattern:

 

It has a picot edge (because I love them so), a dear little floral band and comes complete with complimentary dog hair, as do all my offerings.

 

I'm not a fan of pastel pink or blue on babies, not unless it comes with lots of other gorgeous colours. Babies have personalities too, you know.

When my sister Sophie was a bub, she looked stunning in navy blue. Now she's in her 20s, she pretty much looks stunning in anything. But that's another story.