Poppalina

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

Stumpy

By Shula

 

 

Nothing much to report, unless you find medical processes interesting.

 

And I do not.

 

 

Much more fun to focus on a dinosaur

 

With a surprisingly short tail.

Stumpy

by Shula. July 2010. Wool, silk, cotton.

The Healing Power of Toys

By Shula

It's true.

I am well and truly laid up.

Sleeping a lot. Wombling about.

Bringing in the washing makes me puffed.

Very dull.

Lots of handsewing in the wee hours.

Rediscovering the serenity that stitching brings.

And looking for a rich patron who is happy to pay me a retainer.

 

Anyone....?

Kwali,

30 x 20cm, handstitched from recycled yoga blanket, and Jude's fabrics

Treasure Chest

A Kapinny post

My beloved Grandma will be 91 years old in August. She's very much alive and kicking, in fact she'll kick your Scrabble-playing arse any day you care to take her on.

 

This year, she sold her home and moved to the only actually cool retirement community I've ever heard of. This meant downsizing her formidably large collection of gorgeous STUFF.

And look what ended up in my clutches.

It's a beautiful chest full of crafting things ...

... fabrics, knitting needles, buttons, laces, ribbons and braids.

Fine, hot pink silk; natural linens; batik cotton. A tiny floral print (blue) that she made the dress of my favourite doll from, when I was little. She'd also made the doll, Amelia, whom I loved dearly.

Do you have any gorgeous 'inherited' things in your stash?

  

 

Meet the Folks

And you thought this blog was dead.

Shame on you.

Actually, shame on me. Has it really been 6 months? That's a long time. I imagine you've all given up on me by now. I seriously considered letting our poor old blog go for lack of something interesting to say, but in the end I just couldn't do it.

Instead, after much thought (and some surprisingly insistent nagging), I decided that a spot of  re-invention might be in order.

Currently on a toy-making jag, and being in a spot of bother with the 3D thing (surprise, surprise), I found myself, once again, wishing for the presence and wisdom of my sewing mentor, Kapinny (currently living interstate, to my eternal annoyance), my primary source of techinical advice for all things textile.

I will pull no punches, here. Kapinny is a bloody genius, and that's a fact. I'm yet to see something with fabric that she can't do. She can make you a wedding dress, a wonderbra, a dog-carrier, or a renaissance dinner jacket that is historically accurate in every detail.  My daughter once asked Kapinny to turn her into an Armani handbag for a school performance, and bugger me, it happened.

Over the years Kapinny and I have shared children, clothes, studios, incomes, food, friends, beds, and even the odd lover (though not actually at the same time). She is also a founding member of Poppalina and quite frankly, I'm ashamed that it didn't occur to me to ask her to share this blog earlier. This is her a few years ago, sporting an enviable cleavage:

 

So. Introductions finished. Good.

There may be the odd technical hitch.

Your patience is appreciated in advance...

I'm sure everyone's a bit over the bears now

Last Little Bear for awhile, I promise.

This one's a bit nervous about leaving home and heading out into the Wide World.

So she has a chaperone, who has faithfully promised that no harm to will come to her.

That he will stick by her, through thick and thin.

Forever and ever.

Amen.

Recycled blanket wool, 1970s cotton velvet, silk.

By Shula, 2008.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have a Very Big Bear to make.

Tinkerbell's Bear

I shit you not,

Tinkerbell is her Real Name.

Though the bear, strictly speaking, is for Tink's impending baby,

Who will, perhaps, be a fiery wee redhead, with Magic Hands, like his mum.

And if he headstands half as elegantly as she does,

He's likely to live a Very Long Time.

 

So I made this bear to last.

45cm. Recycled blanket wool, silk, cotton, cashmere.

By Shula. Face design by Mym.

On the mend

Little Dog back at home and doing nicely. Or, in the word(s) of her Vietnamese family, 'oknoproblemshefinenow', which I understand to mean the thumbs up.

Sick Kid slowly turning back into a human.

Shula back in the studio, suggesting that her wits just might be in the process of gathering.

It struck me, some time close to dawn this morning, as I sewed up bear tummies, that the stitches looked like surgical sutures. By lamplight, this gave them a spookily post-operative, Frankensteinian appearance. I wondered, vaguely, if this process might be hurting the bears at all.

And it's at this point, when you find yourself considering the best way to administer sedatives to a stuffed toy, that you very quietly down tools, slowly back away from the work table,

And take yourself off to bed.

Ain't nobody here but us asanas.

Lots of yoga, this weekend.

Lots of yoga.

So, nothing else to report, but we do bring you another shot of the Plumber's Crack, just because we're so inordinately fond of it, and because I never did show you his tail, which is cute in a warty sort of way.

Very Important Blogmeet, tomorrow. One that's been a Long Time Coming.

And I haven't a Thing to Wear.

Bear Parts

What, do you suppose, is the collective noun for ears?

A listening of ears, perhaps?

A hearing of ears?

A rock concert of ears?

Hmmm...

And what of arms? How do you describe a grouping of upper limbs?

Ah, now, that one's easy.

It's an army of arms, of course.

Sometimes I'm so witty, I freak myself out.