hoosing which colours and which crochet flowers to put together is the best bit about making the necklaces and I have to be careful not to spend too much time sorting them all into little piles like a three year old! While on holiday last week I spent hours crocheting pansies and acorns, much to everyones annoyance, just need to find some time now to put them together....
rying like crazy to felt and crochet as much as I can at the moment in order to make as many necklaces as possible, trying out different colours and trying to speed the process up as I am still dreaming of the etsy shop....never mind what I am actually going to sell in this shop, I cannot even come up with a suitable name.....a definite case of procrastination! will hopefully be able to post the finished necklaces soon...
mazing and stunning flowers at Cawdor Castle here in Scotland where we are having the most wonderful weeks holiday, hence the silence here on the blog...the weather has been fantastic and as it does not get dark till 11.00 the days have stretched in the great outdoors....no work and no computers, just gorgeous scenery and sunny skies....
eds and lots more zeds on this blog for the past week, have created absolutely nothing worthy of posting, sooo in desperation so that you all know that I am still alive I will post some illustrations for packaging on the day job! I have used illustrator to do these images which are basically traced from vintage photos...cheating really but they look pretty enough for tea set and cake stand packaging for John Lewis....
afael is the artist responsible for this fab drawing of a stork......he also happens to be my completely gorgeous nephew who I had the pleasure of staying with last week in Brunei. I think he will be a great artist when he grows up! Aah I miss him!
ery lovely photos by Fran of her beautiful friend Fran! modelling her final garments for her major project.
reat fashion desins and drawings by Francesca for her final major project, based on the fibionacci number sequence found in nature. She has chosen some lovely grey and purply colours, a bit like dead flowers and leaves....mmmm very earthy! Stunning fabric from the cloth shop in Berwick street if any of you are in London, go there for an extra special treat of the most wonderful selection of textiles....
uppet patterns is the latest competition at spoonflower, and as I am dreaming about dolls and etsy glory thought I would try my hand at the puppet ideas. I have 9 hours to kill in Singapore airport and the whole place is filled with busy looking people all plugged in...how could I just sit here and eat cake!
y oh my, here I am in the place of my birth, Singapore! waiting to fly out to visit my very exotic brother Richard, Tracy and the spectacular Rafael ( he is only 5 but is already spectacular!) having just spent a week at the factory in Surabaya, Indonesia. I know that some of you wanted to see pictures of the factory and so here they are! I am very proud to be a part of this factory because it is amazing, - clean and airy, brand new machinery and great working conditions for the 2000 employees who live in the surrounding Jombang areas - it also produces some wonderful wooden toys! What never fails to impress me though is the skill of the workers who still rely on relatively low tech practices to produce a professional finish, as you can see from the paint mixing area!
hese appliqued elephants have been sitting at the bottom of my ever expanding fabric collection, getting creased and shabby as I don't really know what to do with them. I had this idea about 8 years ago to make a series of elephant bags from a fabulous linen swatch book that had all these gorgeous colours, but then got bored as I always do and abandoned them! Well here they are, and I shall press them and hang them up.....and sort all my clobber out!
n amazing surprise awaited me when I got home from work, completely frazzled and stressed about going away to the factory on Saturday. A totally unexpected parcel from a valuable friend! The wonderfully talented Taylor has made me the most delightful sketch book, made from an eclectic mix of textures, papers and ephemera, all combined in her usual idiosynchratic style. Every time I look through the pages I see something lovely that I had n't seen before, like a little tick and heart shaped scribble of red cotton that looks accidental. 
ippee! my brilliant and wonderful Francesca has got into 3 of her choices of Universities including the biggie Kingston, to study fashion! I am so proud of her- bring out the champagne!
ut of the blue, I got a phone call from Toronto, from one of my most favourite of friends who not only is a wonderful Typographer, designer and tapestry artist but who is now a (probably amazing) textile teacher. I met Christine all those years ago on the Kingston Graphic Design Degree course and then we worked together at the BBC amd it seems that fate will put us together again because the reason for the phone call all the way from Toronto is that she has met one of Nicks friends from when he was working over there nearly 20 years ago....now that proves that there really is only 6 degrees of separation between us all!
