26 Mar 2013 18 Comments
in color, Creativity, Design, handmade, In the Studio, Sewing, Shop News Tags: arts, bird, clothing, composition book covers, creativity, design, handmade, henhouse fibers, illustration, ilocollective, journals, making, norwich vermont, sewing, studio, style, teapot, upcycled materials
A blue and green flowered skirt, a blue lace shift and a deep orange shirt were among the garments Denise and I scissored up to make four fabric covers for composition books last Friday. Here are the results of our two hour book fest in the studio. We took these to Zuzu’s in Norwich, Vermont. More new items are appearing on the henhouse and ilo shop this week.
I’m pretty fond of the orange and pear. Do you have a favorite?
There will be more.
29 Jan 2013 17 Comments
in Creativity, Design, DIY Tutorials, handmade, In the Studio, Sewing Tags: creativity, design, DIY, DIY tutorial, felt mittens, handmade, how to make mittens, sewing, upcycled materials
On New Years Day I went to the studio. I thought I’d start the new year by making something.
{A precedent to set for the year.}
{A need to get my hands working with fiber after being up to my elbows in holiday food and wrapping paper for a few weeks.}
The pile of felted sweaters caught my eye and it was time to cut and play with all those rich wool colors. A striped Scottish scarf is what really firmed up my plans that day, and I set about tracing my hand on a paper bag, digging into the stash of tshirts for seam tags and lining, and hitting the cutting mat and sewing machine without a backward glance.
This is the first of three sets of mittens I’ve made. The design possibilities are endless. The freehand embellishment alone can make my head spin. I love freehand sewing on most anything, but the cut mitten shape allows for a worthy canvas upon which to watch the thread spin and whirl into imagined fiddlehead fern shapes or lightning bolt zig zags. I think I’ll do some raw edge applique or soutache designs next.
PATTERN: lay your hand on paper and trace it leaving an extra 1/2″ or more all around, BUT leave less at the top of your thumb and fingers. You want comfortable width for your mittens, but if they are much longer than your finger and thumb they’ll feel uncomfortable. I modified my pattern after sewing this pair, and also modified this pair to fit more snugly. They are downright perfect. THUMB: do be sure to have enough width for the thumb because you don’t want it to fit too tightly side to side.
SEAMS: I stitched 1/4″ seams but them trimmed the curves and cut straight into the seam between thumb and main part of mitten so the final mitten lays flat. When I sewed the inner thumb I back-stitched a little for extra strength at that seam knowing I’d need to trim close to it.
STITCH LENGTH: I used a short stitch (length of 2) for these mittens to assure that they are warm and don’t let too much draft through the seams. The tshirt lining adds a great deal of extra draft-proofing and warm and is worth the additional steps.
LINING: When putting lining inside the finished mitten, the mitten will be turned right side out. I put the lining on my hand (wrong side out) and then put my hand right into the mitten, making sure that the lining and the seams are comfortably lined up (especially the thumb) before doing the final pinning and sewing of the wrist area.
IDEAS: For the next two pairs I mixed sweaters to have two different fronts and backs on each mitten. The possibilities are endless.
13 Jan 2013 15 Comments
in Creativity, Design, DIY Tutorials, Garden, handmade, Natural world, Seasons, Vermont, winter Tags: cloche, creativity, DIY, DIY tutorial, gardening in winter, gathering moss, handmade, handmade gift, indoor garden, moss, terrarium, winter garden
The days are lengthening, I can already tell. The chickens, who took a break from laying for a few weeks, are sharing an egg per day.
Around now the indoor greenery is keeping my spirits up. The tips of narcissus are reaching toward the ceiling, and the amaryllis has a fat bud that looks promising. Also green and thriving is the winter garden with moss and stones.
I gathered moss before the snow flew back in December and put this winter garden together. It was so easy to do and sustains my link to the dirt under all that snow. About once a week I take off the dome and spray the moss to keep it moist and green.
If you are able to find some woodland rocks on a south facing slope, you can still gather moss. Even with a ton of snow on the fields, I’ve seen some green spots peeking out here and there on my back-road drive to my parent’s house. I have plans to collect moss to surround the amaryllis bulb I mentioned.
Winter Garden
What you need:
Arrange your stones on a plate, or fill a container with stones and then soil. Moisten the soil. Top with several stones for the moss to grow over.
Collect your moss and blanket the stones and soil with the pieces. If your moss is in tiny pieces lay them together. They will fill in quickly as the moss grows.
Using the spray bottle thoroughly mist the top of the moss.
Add any decorative porcelain birds or small berry twigs now.
Place the dome on top. If condensation forms, prop the dome open a little with a utensil to allow some moisture to escape for about a day. You can leave the winter garden in the sunshine to help speed the drying. Then close the dome again to keep most of the moisture in.
Spray the moss about once a week. If it gets brown, don’t worry. Spray it and it will revive again in a few days.
15 Dec 2012 5 Comments
in Artists, Barcelona, Creativity, Design, handmade, Sewing Tags: Bags, Barcelona, creativity, design, handmade, MOFA Barcelona, Monica Farguell, process, Purses, sewing, Spain, Textile design
Barcelona. We loved our week there in April of this year, and still chatter about it when we cook bacalao or sip a glass of cava.
What sealed my love for Barcelona was the creative use of textiles and design that was on display in every corner of the city. In the face of economic hardship, the artisans of this Mediterranean city are using fabric and thread in ways both inventive and inspiring.
When Monica Farguell introduced herself by mail this fall, I glimpsed this Barcelona creativity again. Monica is a bag designer based on the hillside near Parc Guell in the city. She developed her brand Mofa Barcelona 2 years ago and is finding a great response to her colorful and creative work. She designs, produces and manufactures two new collections yearly in her own studio. She’s a one woman wonder.
Here is an interview I had with Monica, where she shares about her background and process. Enjoy.
1. Who taught you to sew?
I was never interested in sewing until a friend suggested we take a basic sewing class together, just for fun. That course changed my life as it awoke an interest in sewing I was never aware of. I started to make basic bags and experiment with fabrics and the reactions I received encouraged me to learn more and more until I finally decided to take a degree in Fashion Design. I am on the final leg of this journey and still learning.
2. Do others work with you, or do you design and sew alone?
I design and sew all the bags and purses that come from my studio, however my Mum cuts the fabric from the patterns I provide, which is of invaluable help.
3. Is there a typical day at MOFA? Is this your full time work?
I’m on my last year of a Fashion Design course, so right now I work in the mornings and go to class in the afternoons. I don’t have a set routine for the mornings, I just plan the week ahead and work from day to day accordingly.
I release a biannual collection so there are some months where the work is all around design and inspiration and other months where it’s just about production. This works well as it means a wide variety of work and pace for me.
As an experienced Graphic Designer I do on occasion take commissions for small jobs to boost my income.
4. What inspires your designs?
I am inspired by life. I really enjoy expressing my experiences. If I feel happy, my collection will be very colourful and my themes will be something that makes me feel good. On the other hand I can be going through a blue period while designing a collection and the designs will be darker and not so flamboyant.
I don’t try to follow the fashion stereotypes of the moment, although I do take note of the coming season’s palette, to know what you will soon be seeing in the shop windows.
5. Anything else you’d like to share about yourself?
I have two main goals that I expect to make real someday.
One of them is to design my own printed textiles for my bags and I actually expect to do this very soon. I think that when you are creating a collection if you can bring the concept through from the very beginning of the process the finished article will be richer and of course you would get a far more exceptional piece.
My other goal is to design and create a collection of baby clothes. However, this is something for the future.
10 Dec 2012 5 Comments
in Creativity, Design, handmade, Travel, Weaving Tags: design, Fog Linen, handmade, JaneGee, Japanese design, Linen apron, Lithuanian linen, Portsmouth New Hampshire, seaside town, skin products, textiles, travel
The scene is Portsmouth, New Hampshire—just a stone’s throw from Maine. Seaside village. Cobbled streets. And the place where I found a gorgeous slate gray apron by Fog Linen in a sweet little shop called JaneGee.
I say slate gray, but I also mean rich, warm, earthy gray with a touch of mushroom. Stone gray. The gray of the sky at dusk on a rainy night. Irresistible gray.
I say apron, but this garment suggests something out of Jane Austen’s England. Or 19th century rural France.
Jane (I’m back to JaneGee)—who hails from Australia—and Emma—who is English—provided a warm welcome to our little entourage of four friends. We stumbled in from the rainy night to their warmth and kindness. The shop was white and light, filled with aged wood boxes, natural linen and hewn wood. It felt Scandinavian and English—both. We were all smitten by Emma and Jane.
I didn’t mean to leave there with an apron—but Emma was wearing one and it just called my name. The two women extolled the virtues of Fog Linen, the Japanese company who sources the finest Lithuanian linen for their line of beautiful clothes and items for the home. They extolled the virtues of the natural skin products Jane makes by hand. They were both artists and we talked about the satisfaction of making things by hand.
It was the last stop on a long and wonderful day with my friends.
And I left with the last gray Fog apron they had in stock.
JaneGee
10 Ladd Street
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
1.603.431.0335
27 Jun 2012 11 Comments
in Creativity, Design, Family, Fashion, handmade, In the Studio, Sewing Tags: 50th anniversary, handmade, lace leaves, sewing, silk flowers, wedding gown
I spent the winter and spring on a labor of love which came into bloom a few weeks ago at the wedding of my brother-in-law Daryl, to the marvelous Deborah.
Remember all those ruffles I was making in April? They turned into flowers. Dozens of raw silk flowers, that I overlaid on garlands of lace leaves cut from Deborah’s mother’s veil, worn exactly 50 years ago. My parent’s celebrated their 50th anniversary on June 16, so it’s a special year for new promises and renewed ones.
Cutting the vintage lace made my heart fibrillate, but the near-heart attack subsided after the first few cuts. Each flower took on its own personality, and I came up with new techniques and ideas as I went.
Here is the dress.
Tomorrow I’ll show you the wedding.
07 Jun 2012 1 Comment
in color, Design, DIY Tutorials, Family, handmade, Housewares, In the Studio, Sewing Tags: covet garden, DIY, fabric, great aunts, handmade, hangers, tuturial
Did your great aunts make you hangers like this? Mine did. I still have a few that I can credit to Aunt Helen. They hang among all the nondescript hangers that deserve 5 minutes of my time to look this good.
This was in the latest issue of Covet Garden. Go browse about.
Cut some scraps and get to work!
Happy weekend (almost).
10 Apr 2012 9 Comments
in Creativity, Design, handmade, In the Studio, Sewing Tags: billings farm, handmade, Handsewing, needle and thread, raw silk, ruffles, vintage lace, wedding dress
I’ve been making acres of ruffles. I have the punctured fingertips to prove it.
The ruffles are part of a wedding dress project I’ve been entrusted with. No, I didn’t make the dress, but I’m using raw silk and vintage lace to embellish it. The silk is new and the lace is the veil of the mother of the bride. She gave the okay to cut it, but that first snip was accompanied by a little gasp. After that it was easier.
I wouldn’t dare show what I’m making before the bride—who will become my sister-in-law—has completed her walk down the aisle (in early June). But I’ve enjoyed photographing the process and like the abstract sculptural feel these ruffles have.
In February I went with my daughter’s class to the Billings Farm to experience a day in the 1890s. The kids learned to clean a barn stall, make butter, do laundry and make their lunch.
The last thing they learned was how to sew two quilt patches together. I sat in the circle and sewed a patch too. I hadn’t hand stitched anything in awhile, but still the needle and thread felt good in my hands. I helped the kids thread their needles and get started–watching both boys and girls doing their best to make it to the end of their six inch strip without a mishap.
Making small even stitches isn’t so important for ruffles, though I’m taking extra care for this special purpose. Even with a new millenium sewing machine, I still like what happens with a simple needle and thread and 36″ of bias-cut silk.
Magic every time.
05 Apr 2012 15 Comments
in Creativity, Design, DIY Tutorials, handmade, Housewares, In the Studio, Scandinavia, Sewing Tags: DIY tutorial, fabric lampshade, handmade, handsewn lampshade, IKEA, Lampshade tutorial, LYRIK lampshades, Roland Persson, sewing, Sissa Sundling, upcycled materials
Last fall I began making a fabric shade for a wire frame I came across (where? can’t remember…). It wasn’t easy. But I like this kind of challenge.
As usual, I got the bulk of the work finished in a frenzy and then got hung up on the finishing details.
My friend Sara found the perfect quirky yellow lamp base to go with it at a thrift store (she found a pair and was willing to part with one). So the unfinished shade perched jauntily on the yellow lamp for a few more months on the windowsill in my studio, taunting me to find solutions to the various problems.
In January I had an ‘aha!’ moment and finished it up. It ended up a bit of a wonky crazy-aunt-cat-lady looking shade. But I love it nonetheless.
If you wish to make yourself crazy try your hand at this style of lampshade, here are the full instructions! Download 800 kb PDF: 129twigandvine_lampshade_DIY
Photo by Roland Persson for IKEA.
Then today. A second lampshade came into view.
This new collection of IKEA shades (called LYRIK), designed by Sissa Sundling are so simple, I have to ask myself, why do I choose to make things so hard?
Yet my final lampshade is about as one-of-a-kind as you can get. Believe me, I doubt I’ll be making another one like it. But I do love it!
For the next one I’ll take some tips from Sissa and try just one kind of fabric.
Discovery of the LYRIK shade came via Poppytalk.
14 Mar 2012 12 Comments
in color, Creativity, Design, handmade, In the Studio, Sewing Tags: handmade, ilo collective, magenta, sewing, upcycled, yellow and gray
Days have become weeks. And the days have been full, full, full.
First a four day fiddle workshop with two amazing Cape Breton fiddlers, Andrea Beaton and Wendy MacIsaac. But I missed the fourth day—got a nasty bug and was laid up in bed the day my husband left for a 10 day trip to the Dominican Republic (read about it here).
I finished my eight week French night class while he was gone, ferried the little one two and fro, tried to stay on top of laundry, and work, and remember to feed the chickens.
And in the midst of the madness, I found two days to sew.
Because.
Denise and I got together for two sewing binges and came up with these scrappy little spring bags, made from materials both old and new. It began with the magenta bag, cut from a wool skirt and a blue linen shift. They had a good life as garments, but methinks they’re even happier in their new incarnation.
Yellow and gray just made us both giddy, so we had some fun with that, using some Lotta Jansdotter fabric (the contemporary floral motif) that we found on a outing last fall. The number fabric came from that same expedition.
Covering the inside seams made for some blurting of expletives at first, but then we landed on the idea of using strips of t-shirts instead of bias tape. Having the fabric be stretchy made it so much easier to cover the seams. And now we have another great use for old t-shirts….and they come in so many good colors to be a seam-covering surprise inside.
This batch made the trip over to Norwich, Vermont, to ZuZu’s where they live happily among Eileen’s colorful spring assortment.
And in 30 minutes my husband will be home after a very long travel day that started in Santa Domingo at 5:00 a.m.
