In my last post I touched briefly on the fact that I’ve picked up a lot of new stockists lately. Which is so totally fabulous and I am so proud to have my work at each and every one of them.

The downside to it though, is I have really been making the same thing quite a bit for the last few months and I really need to call a time out and be newly creative again.  I love my current designs and I don’t think I’ll stop making them anytime soon, but I’d like to add to them. Grow on from them and let them change as I learn new stuff.

I’m a reasonably time poor person, well I think I am. I have a small child who increasingly demands more of my attention and rightly so. My son is 4 and this is his last year at home with me before he starts school. This is our LAST year together where we get to hang out all the time and go to the park, and play and pretend we’re cats, dance and sing along to Taylor Swift (yes I really just admitted that) and just be best friends. Yes these things will carry on as he grows older, but we’ll never live this time again and something I think about increasingly as I get older is “this is it”. I won’t ever get to spend a year with my 4 year old son again.

So, this year I am only going to work, on “work” days. Trust me, this will be challenging. Right now I’m watching Peg + Cat while I write this blog post.  I’m a multi tasker at heart, but I’ve come to recognise that it’s tiring and I just can’t keep doing it if i want to remain sane!

To kick off my more relaxed way of living in 2015, next week I am going on a creative holiday. And I can’t wait! I have so many colours in my head, so many techniques I want to try out, so many product ideas to play with and so much learning and experimenting to do. It’s going to be seriously great. And with me being on holiday, I will hopefully have time to blog more about what I’m up to creatively.

Some of the things I’m hoping to work on are some new home wares, some knitting, naturally dyed colours besides indigo and whatever else I can dream up when I have the mental space to dream of it.

It’s going to be so awesome. Have you ever gone on a creative holiday?

So it’s been a few weeks since I began this story of quilt making.  I feel quite nervous to be talking about these quilts with an audience, having spent so much time working on them, worrying over them and fretting in general.  I wrote the story below earlier in the year, when I was getting ready for Domestic Frontier, where this quilt made it’s debut.

The design of this quilt is inspired by early American quilting and also Native American textiles. My father’s mother immigrated to Australia from America in 1943 and my father and his brothers and sisters will swear up and down that we have Native American Sioux heritage. Looking at old photos of my grandmother it certainly seems possible and I am quite fascinated by this idea and I hope to explore it further in my designs. I am yet to visit the part of America my grandmother came from, but I’ve spent a little time in the states, and it is one of those places I find myself impossibly drawn to. It was in the US that I first realised my love of mountains; after years of tuning out when my father talked endlessly about his mountain climbing days.

The flying geese quilt block is speculated to have been used as code by slaves during the civil war, as a reminder to follow the geese north in the summertime and escape their bondage. Whether this is true or not, the triangle feels to me to be a symbol of both freedom and safety, it is geese with their wings spread, it is mountains reaching for the stars and it is the arrowheads used to hunt food and fend off predators.

I chose to dye this quilt with Indigo and Fustic, because one, they look great together, but also because they ground each other. They are the earth and the sky and in different lights they take turns on being both strong and gentle. A lioness and her cub. I feel like this quilt is a protector, it seems like a kind of armour and I imagine it keeping it’s owner safe and warm.

I do design both a front and a back before I begin the dye work for my quilt, and my favourite moment of this quilt is actually found on the back. Tiny variations flitter like dappled sunlight in the fustic dyed cotton and it makes me think of hot summer days, lying in the shade next to a lake, listening to the sounds of the bush.

This quilt was created over a period of 6 weeks from June 12, 2014 to July 31st 2014. It is the result of 26 hours of designing, dyeing, sewing, ironing, washing, and quilting. It is not perfect, but it is just right.

Happily this quilt has found it’s home. And even more happily it is going to a FAMILY. Just as I imagined it would. It really does bring tears to my eyes to know it will be loved well.

Photos in this post taken by Lillie Thompson.

I am so excited! It was announced today that I am a finalist in the Etsy Design Awards!!

A few weeks ago I decided to enter one of my new products, the summer quilt into the home and lifestyle category of the competition. Just to see how it went.

I am so incredibly thrilled that it went well! It’s really wonderful to have been selected as a finalist, especially when there are so many other amazing designers out there, creating great things.

The competition is judged by an excellent panel of experts, all of whom I admire greatly and I am so pleased that I have this opportunity for them to see my work. I hope they like it!

There is also a people’s choice prize which could see me flying to NYC to the etsy headquarters to do cool things, so I’d love it if you could take the time to vote for me.

It feels like a great achievement to make it this far, it would be a dream come true to win!

I’ve always been fascinated with quilts. There is something about the repetitive nature of quilt design that just makes me happy, and for me, quilting was the starting point of everything I know about sewing.

I first tried sewing when I began high school. My school prescribed to some weird gender based division of classes for year 7 and the girls did home economics and sewing, and the boys did woodwork and metalwork. Then after 2 terms we switched. It was pretty terrible as I recall, and I truly HATED being made to do cooking and sewing. I was a total tomboy and i was incredibly aggravated that I had to go and do “girly” things.

Fast forward to now and i love both of those things,  how times have changed!

In 2008 I decided the time was ripe for me to make my first quilt. Before i lashed out and bought myself a sewing machine, I borrowed an old janome from my friend Sarah and set about sewing together a cot quilt for the child I hoped to one day have.

By the time I reached the quilting stage I realised I already wanted to do another, so I handed Sarah back her sewing machine and bought myself the cheapest one I could lower the feed dogs on and embarked on my freehand quilting journey. It lasted all the way through a total of 4 quilts, and by the last one I was massively pregnant. So that was the end of that!

I kept up with my sewing though, trying out many things, and I am ever thankful to quilting. It taught me to sew a straight line, that is for sure.

Over the last few months I have returned to quilt making. It’s a good feeling to make something so substantial and invest a lot of myself into, and I’m looking forward to making many more. I’ve got lots of designs stuck in my head that I need to create. They’ll all take time, but as the saying goes “anything worth doing, is worth doing properly.”

The concept behind the store is that everything is related to the home, which is really lovely, and has made me look at new product ideas that I could do, or do the new products that I just hadn’t gotten to yet!

It’s a wonderful group of makers taking part, and I think there will be something there for everyone.  There will be a selection of pottery from Bridget Bodenham, Sophie Jane Moran, Sandra Bowkett and Adriana Christianson. Greg Hatton furniture will also be there, as well Jo Ruchel a basket maker and Georgia Clarke, who makes lovely aprons.

I will be previewing a few new items at the store, alongside my shibori bowls and linen cushions. I’m super excited about all the new things I’ve been working on, but you’ll have to wait to hear more about those! I’m really happy with them, and you can meet them in person at the shop for a sneak peek.

Opening night for the shop is Wednesday the 20th of August, from 5 – 8pm at 19 Nicholson St East Brunswick. Everyone is invited to come down to the shop and have a little celebrate with us!

The shop is open Wed – Sun between 11am and 6pm from 20th – 31st August.

I will be in the shop on Sat 23rd 2 – 6pm and Sun 31st  2 – 6pm.

See you there!

Wow. Just WOW!

I am so thrilled to have been interviewed for new online magazine Winkelen for their second issue, out today. I’ve never really seen an online magazine before (does that make me old? un-tech saavy?) but when Winkelen got in touch I was really blown away with how great it looked, the articles and the format.

You can read the latest issue here – June 2014

Before I began to make items for sale and had a “real” job, I had no idea the length of time it takes to create the things that we use in everyday life.  If I needed something I could just go to the shops and buy whatever I needed, and I could buy it for very little money. And I still can. But I don’t want to. I don’t want to go and buy something that has been mass produced and then sold for less than $20. I imagine many many hands have touched that item, and how can it have been produced for so little and a profit still be made? It doesnt make sense that it could have been; not without corners being cut, and somebody not receiving adequate payment for their work.

So I try to buy handmade items where I can, or items that have been produced ethically, and I particularly enjoy buying work that has been made locally.

All my work is produced slowly. I buy my supplies in as close to a raw state as I can manage. Everything I sell began it’s life in an undyed, neutral state.  It takes time for it to become the finished item that I sell. Sometimes a very long time, depending on what it is.

I kind of like that about it. Everything I make is crafted individually, or very close to individually.

It’s nice to work this way. I get to enjoy whatever I create while I create it. I shape it, and it shapes me.

I’ll slowly be adding the time it takes for an item to be made to my store descriptions. I think it’s nice to know how something was made, and be given the opportunity to be mindful of its humble beginnings.

Since my last post I have started teaching one day workshops! It’s been really great. I really do love to teach and show people how to work with Indigo and do shibori! You can read a little review of my first ever workshop by some of my students over at Hand Made Life. Thanks guys!  My next workshop is (excitedly!) sold out, but there are spaces available for April 26 on the website.

Also, I should mention, if you’re a student who is chasing some form of an arts or design degree, you can apply to be the class assistant! Sure you’ll have to help me set up and pack up, but you’ll also get to take part in the class, set up a class vat, and you’ll get to do it just for the cost of materials. See that workshop listing for more details.

I’ve also started to work / am starting work on some new sculptural pieces. I’ve found myself become increasingly fascinated with ceramics in the past year, so I’m using that as a launching place for new work. So far I have made a bowl. Then life got in the way and it’s been a few weeks, but I am back into it again this week. Phew!

I’ll have more to say on that stuff in the coming weeks I guess, as I test out a few ideas and experiment.

Oh and I also did a cool knowledge swap with the lovely Sophie of Shiko. She came over to my place and I gave her a very brief overview of working the vat, and we did some shibori. Pretty soon we’ll set up a date for me to do some pottery, which is super cool!! I’m going to try out the wheel, but I also have some other stuff I want to ask her about trying. I really think I need to do a pottery course. There is just something about ceramics!