DIY Craft: Faux Weaving

Hello Creatives!

I have a fun DIY craft today: faux weaving. 

I'm sorry I have not been around much! *cry* In all honestly I think I was suffering the winter blues and have had a long stretch with no inspiration. It happens to us all!

But something colourful is sure to cheer us up ;) And the sunshine that is out today. Sunshine helps!

This faux weaving was made by sewing wool, threads and trims onto a fabric panel. A look around your craft or fabric store will no doubt find you some interesting options & trims for creating your own faux weaving.

This wasn't a super quick project, but I'm liking the way it turned out and will feel quite happy with this hanging on my wall somewhere. You could squeeze it into a lazy weekend.

You will need:

- fabric for backing 19' wide x 20" high (48 x 51cm)

- various wools/ yarns/ threads/ trimmings/ pom poms etc

- Yarn needle with sharp end

- wooden skewer

- dowel rod (I used a piece of bamboo)

Sew hems 1/2" (1.5cm) down the sides of the fabric. Add a hem to the top making sure you leave enough space for the dowel to go through. I didn't hem the bottom as that was the selvage and will not fray.

Start decorating! Below here you can see I've added long running stitches and then loosely woven thick wool through them. 

Thick roving looks amazing. I stitched it down with vertical stitches as I went across. Once I did a row of this, I went back and did another row, mirroring the way I'd stitched the previous row.

I sewed down some random pom poms from my stash, and then made smaller little tufts by stitching loops in the fabric and then cutting them with scissors. A row of these would look good!

I also included lots of running stitches, sewing down multiple strands of wool, and sewing down thick wool but leaving little loops protruding randomly (above photo).

Lengths of wool looped at the top were added along bottom of the fabric. I found if I only looped over stitches it didn't look as neat, so I used a skewer to pull the loops tight and then sewed them to the bottom, then pulling the skewer out. I trimmed all this bottom hanging wool to a triangle shape.

Overall I'm pretty happy with the result! A fun project if a real weaving seems a bit intimidating for you!

Crafting A Patterned Home - Book by Kristin Nicholas

I have been following Kristin Nicholas on her blog Getting Stitched on The Farm for a while now, and what I love about her is that she seems genuinely motivated out of the pure love of creating, to decorate her home and make things. She doesn't follow trends, she just has a love for pattern and colour that transcends the latest fashions. It's a true love affair, not just a fling!

photo by Rikki Snyder

This post contains affiliate links (see bottom of post for explanation).

So when I found out she had a new book out, Crafting A Patterned Home, published by Roost Books, I didn't hesitate, I didn't even read about it, I just jumped online and bought it!

I am, like Kristin, intoxicated by pattern and colour and love home decorating. Sometimes I walk into a minimalist space and find some peace and a breath of fresh air, but after a while, I grow bored. Pattern and colour excite me. So clearly I feel like I have lots in common with Kristin.

She has covered the walls in her home with hand-painted patterns, and objects such as lampshades and furniture are not safe... there's even a bath! In this book, she shares how she has done it.

Kristin talks about her previous book Crafting A Colorful Home in this video below, but you can get a sneak peek into her colourful life.

So even though I can appreciate a nice calm neutral home, when I saw Kristin's via this Houzz video I sat there absolutely enthralled. I just would love to sit in her loungeroom with a cuppa and cake and absorb all that pattern into my soul.

Kristin also includes some words of encouragement for the novice or the unsure (scared?) on how to get started.

She gives in-depth advice on how she creates her rooms. One of my favourite snippets of advice she gives is don't make your rooms too "matchy-matchy". I've always agreed with that line of thought; less matchy-matchy makes for a more personalised, interesting home. If all of your furniture is the same design, your rooms might end up looking too much like a furniture display store.

There's a lot of advice on colour, how to think about and design a room, and techniques and tools. There are projects for each space of the house, kitchen & dining, living room & library, bathroom and bedroom, and then outdoor spaces: pottery studio and garden shed, and in the orchard and under the pergola. And of course, if you don't have a pottery studio or pergola, you could make projects for your potting shed or outdoor deck for example.

Such as the one in the image below. I really want to do this with the chook pen window!

The book is bursting with colour, and as a creative person myself, I find it very motivating and I'm eager to try some of the projects in the book.

Thank you Kristin for a lovely book! It's going to slide out of my bookshelf and appear on my coffee table frequently!

Kristin's new book can be found here: Crafting A Patterned Home

Jules :)



*Affiliate Information: Affiliate links help me earn small commissions on products (at no extra cost to you), which helps support my love of blogging and sharing creative things. I only ever recommend or link to products that I'm genuinely into or would use.

Out & About: Too Many Words Local Art Sculpture

A small group of local artists working under the name Too Many Words created a sculpture out of old books in a local park recently. We didn't see the artists creating it, which they did during our busy local farmers market as a performance art piece in strange anonymous green suits, though we were happy the sculpture was left in the park for a week or so so we had a chance to explore it.

Approaching the sculpture

All of the books used were deemed unsaleable or unwanted and collected from the local library and an op shop. It's interesting, as I'm sure one persons opinion of unsaleable might differ from the next persons. 

The sculpture was intended to make us think about consumerism, and what happens to our stuff when it's no longer wanted.

I couldn't help thinking that each and every book used here was written by someone and at one stage that project (writing a book) would have consumed a lot of their time and creative energy and been something of great importance to them. So really, so much time and history within each building block (book) of the sculpture.

The page corners gently flapped in the breeze as we wondered around it. 

The inside floor of the sculpture was covered in maps.

The girls thought it was a wonderful cubby house and place to play! They were very interested in it and explored the space looking thoroughly at all the details, and reading some of the words.

So many words by Too Many Words...

I love the fact that their are local artists out there creating thought provoking art to enrich our experience and local town. It satisfies me to show this type of thing to my kids and then listen to the thoughts that evolve from that and discuss what we think it means.

You can read more about the idea behind the sculpture & the art performance here and see the artists in their strange green suits.

You can catch the art collective Too Many Words on Facebook too.

Jules :)

Some Ceramics Inspiration

Hello!

Yesterday saw me going into one of my daughter's art class in school, not to show or help or anything, but to be one of the students. How lucky am I!?

They are working with clay at the moment, and they're making clay birds. I don't have any photos to show you yet, unfortunately, but they will come I'm sure! I'm going to sit in the class and refresh myself on some joining and constructing techniques. With the kids! I really love sculpting with clay and in my earlier years I nearly started a diploma in ceramics, right after I'd finished my diploma in illustration. But, fate did not dictate that I attend, but never say never. Maybe one day. Maybe I can become a ceramic artist! Haha. I have a very short attention span :)

For now I want to show you some images of some ceramic work that inspires me.

Jenny Orchard's work is amazing. I was stopped in my tracks when I came across this photo on her instagram. I just cannot tell you how much I love her work.

These crazy, colour loaded works, with a 'bits n pieces' look really appeal to me. Fantastical creatures, that look like they've been born straight from her imagination with perfect translation on the journey from mind to reality. 

Wonderful, crazy fantastical ceramic creatures

I am also a fan of Cathy Kiffney's beautiful colourful ceramic work. They have such a naive folk art quality to them which appeals to me. I love her work! How nice would a cluster of these ceramic birds look on a wall?

You can find Cathy's Etsy shop here

And Nathalie Lete turns anything into the art equivalent of gold that she touches. Just like Kaffe Fassett, this lady is multi talented and I just don't know how she creates so much work. She's amazing.

So can you see a common theme here for my ceramic inspiration? There's that handmade quality, that shows some roughness and naivety; bold colours, quirkiness and maximalist decoration. Yes! I wonder what sort of clay work I will produce. I'm so excited.

For now I'll keep collecting inspiration over on Pinterest. I just created a clay board to keep all my inspiration in one place.

See you soon,

Jules :)

Out & About: West Gippsland Open Studios Visit

Recently we went on an art studio hop!

Open studios West Gippsland runs some weekends where some local artists' studios are open to the public to come and see creative people in their spaces. We chose three to visit, although there were 18 open studios over that weekend.

First up we visited Helen Timbury's bright and inspiring studio. Helen is a printmaker who is in love with colour, just like me. I loved all the beautiful old furniture in her studio and left with total antique-look paper drawer and studio lighting envy! And oh so inspired, of course!

It's always fascinating to me to peer into artists creative spaces. To see how they organise and store items, and how they choose to decorate them.

You can see those paper drawers up the back there that I am envious of! And those studio lights made the whole place look like naturally bright daytime light, for a studio that apparently was quite dark before.

We watched as Helen inked up a wombat lino cut, and the kids got to turn the big wheel on the press.

Turn, turn, turn...

The finished print

I'm a big fan of Helen's vibrant work. Miss 6 said that Helen's studio made her feel like doing paper mache :)

Next up, we went onto Wendy Hitchin's (aka Beady Wendy's) studio space, where she makes glass beads and jewellery.

Some of her gorgeous handmade beads

Interesting explosion of colour with the necessary supplies

Wendy wears special goggles to make the beads, as the flame is quite bright. She heats up the glass and rolls it around a metal rod, turning and turning as she goes, to make the beads. The kids were quite happy to wear the glasses and see a bead being made.

I love seeing the processes of all crafty things being made, it's so interesting to watch. Her beads are so colourful, and the kids got inspired watching one being made. (I didn't get a shot of the bead, it went into a kiln after she made it; if you leave them out to cool down in the open air they will crack.)

Our last studio visit for that day was Russell Lilford. His studio was situated at the side of his house in a converted garage. 

Studios that have a couch as part of the set up get a big tick in my book; I think to sit and contemplate in a comfortable seat is a luxury in a creative space; and I say if you have the room, totally do it!

This was one of my favourites of Russell's artworks. I like the contrast between the small brushstrokes and the bigger blocks of colour

Candles, feathers, shells and vessels adorned some of the shelves

Russell is a printmaker too, and has a press in his space

There is something special about jars of paintbrushes and gatherings of art supplies

It's really great to get out and about to see some art in real life. You tend to give pieces more of your time and contemplation than if you saw them on a computer screen. Creativity is contagious too, and getting out to see some art gets the motivation and inspiration flowing. 

Jules :)