My Creative Space

Hope you have all had a creative week. I thought I would show you one of my fabrics called, imaginatively, Mexican Hearts, which was inspired by, well, mexican hearts. One of my many obsessions is with mexican tin art.

I love everything about it...the colours, the designs, and the folky look of it.

I also love the whole Day of the Dead clebration they have on the 5th May (soon) and all the artwork that depicts skeletons and creepy stuff. It is great to be so festive about death...a strange concept for most of us. This candle holder (above) is the sort of thing my husband loves when it turns up. "Great. I was just thinking that we needed a creepy candle holder in the house." He's so supportive of my interior decorating!


This is a top I finished last week made from my fabric. I'm still mucking around with the pattern a little bit, but it is wearable. I am working on a long sleeve winter shirty type thing at the moment so I hope I get that organised for next week. I was also going to take a photo of my mexican tin cactus decorations which we put on the Christmas tree, but then we would be getting into a whole nother obsession of mine...Christmas decorations......Happy creating!

Chocolate and other joys

This week I was hoping to show you a photo of my tidied up creative space, but guess what? I don't even need to say it. Anyway, the tidy sewing room can wait because something more important has come into my life.....

I am easily distracted at the best of times, but when a few slightly exotic chocolates came back from America this morning (oh, and my husband came home too!), I lost my concentration completely.

The Junior Mints are my favourites, mainly due to their minty power, but also due to the Seinfeld episode they featured heavily in. If you haven't seen it, I will just tell you that a Junior Mint ended up falling into the guts of a surgery patient.

Milk Duds are pretty yummy too...caramely, milky, chewy.....like Fantales without the jaw dislocation.

These are my least favourite. I will never understand the whole chocolate / peanut butter combo. What is going on with that? Two perfectly good flavours which should never have anything to do with each other, both ruined. Its un-natural!

This bag has potential. Normally I think Hershey's is horrible, as do most people who have taste buds, however when it is combined with some other goodies I can almost accept it. Especially when there is no other chocolate in the house and I am going on my 9PM sugar rampage. I will definitely give them a go.

Hey,the other thing I did want to talk about apart from feeding my face is the fantastic National Gallery of Victoria and its' wonderful goodies. Did you know that anybody can book an appointment to visit the costume study rooms to have a look at all the fashion and textile wonderfulness there? The collection belongs to the public, so you too could see the gorgeous beaded 1950's jackets, the 1920's dresses, and the amazing American Express Card dress worn by the costume designer Lizzy Gardner when she got an Academy Award for Priscilla Queen of the Desert. So much culture! I think I need a Junior Mint!

My Creative Space

Hi everyone. My creative space this week is a real mess, as you will see below. I thought I would share how untidy I can be when I am trying to get something made, and I am hoping that you can relate to this scenario...

It's not pleasant, I know, but I can be a creative pig and spread my bits and pieces over the widest possible space. Aren't most people like this when they are having a moment of creative zen? I hope so. I think the most offensive thing about this mess is the pair of black underpants thrown on the floor waiting to be mended.

Don't worry, they are clean. I can't bear to throw away a pair of unders or socks for that matter, which just need a few stitches carefully placed in the right location.

In fact, many years ago I had a reputation as a professional underpants mender. I used to run a small dressmaking business sewing all sorts of garments from brideslave dresses to taking up pants for really short people. I did have one bizarre customer who used to bring me some strange repair jobs, which I would do for her, but then the jobs became increasingly odd. She began to bring me tea-towels and facewashers with holes in them to repair ( I would tell her to buy new ones. Obviously) and then one fateful day she bought me a pair of her underpants. She wanted the elastic rethreaded. By me. Natually I jumped at the chance! No, I didn't, and I realised that she was just pretty lonely and had a few kangaroos loose in the top paddock. She would continue to bring me strange offerings, and I would say no, then we would have a chat and she would be on her way. I did tell a few friends about this and I immediately became known as a gifted underpants mender , somtimes receiving packages in the mail with old underpants in them, with only the stubborn understains holding them together (As the say on the Young Ones, which is back in tele, by the way)

These cushions are what I am making when I'm not mending undies!

Hope you all have a creative day and long may your underpants hold together!

Sunday

What perfect weather we have had this week-end. I know that nothing makes you sound more boring and middle aged than banging on about the weather, just like talking about diseases and medication means you have definitely hit your senior years. But anyway, the weather was sensational and perfect for walkies around our beautiful town of Daylesford. All we were missing was a dog, which hopefully we will do something about in the near future. Hey, here's a picture of me and my daughter Matilda. She may feel weird about being posted on a blog, but since there are only 4 of you out there I think it's fine. You may be thinking, "wow that chick is creative doing all that fancy stuff with a photo". Perhaps you are not thinking that at all. I had nothing to do with the pop art nature of the picture as we had it taken at the Brisbane Art Gallery a couple of years ago and that's just how it came out. It was a little thing you could do as part of the Andy Warhol exhibition they had at the time. I told you I like arty farty stuff.

This week I am going to the National Gallery of Victoria to see an exhibition called Drape, about , well stuff that is draped. As in clothing. Hopefully it will be good, and if it is any good I will share that with you next time.
By the way, thanks to Kate who is my fourth reader and I will attempt to do a link to Kate's blog about her organic farm now.
OK time for bed now. I'm going to pour the hot water bottles for the nippers...we like our creature comforts around here!! Bye

My Creative Space

Hello creative types out there. This is my first participation in this fantastic idea of sharing creativity. I only found out about the whole shebang from my associate and friend Beck a couple of days ago, and what a ripper idea it is. So anyway, here's some creativity for you......

This is a cushion made out of one of my fabric designs called peacock (surprisingly). It was printed by the clever people at ink & spindle in Melbourne on bamboo /cotton fabric, and naturally they are for sale at

my etsy shop.

In my fantasies (not those type of fantasies, the other kind) I would love to have fabric printed in a million different colours....some of which you can see here. At the moment, though, due to cost factors, global financial issues and the value of the dollar I am sticking to one colour prints.

The idea for this print came from a drinking straw that we acquired at the ice-cream shop at Point Lookout on Stradbroke Island in Qld. My friend's son ordered a whopping milkshake with an ace straw that had a paper peacock which folded out. I guess you had to be there to get the full impact, but at the time it made an impression on me. "Jeez that's a nice looking straw" I thought to myself.

Anyway, I'm quite exhausted now from typing and uploading images, and just from being over 40, frankly, so I will say good-night. Thanks to my 3 loyal followers (Charlotte, Beck and Michelle)

Fippa

Hello world,

It's me, Phillippa. Welcome to my blog, which I have to say, I have resisted setting up for quite a while. A few of my friends are bloggers, and although I love reading theirs and others (which I will get to in the next post) I have always thought blogging would be like doing homework.

Do I need more stuff to do in my life? Probably not. However, I have started designing and printing fabric and I have been convinced that a blog is almost compulsory in the craft and business world, so here I am.

Mostly my blog will be about my creative pursuits....fabric, clothes, homewares....and attempting to make these things in a sustainable and non sweat-shop type way. It will probably also be about other stuff too, so hang in there people. There may be the odd whinging session about those close to me, my insightful comments on reality TV and its contribution to the cultural landscape, and stuff I like to eat. Mmmm fascinating.

Anyway, it must be time for a photo because who wants to read a heap of writing anymore?? Attempting to insert photo now.......

Whoops...the photo is up the top of the page. Not sure why that happened but i will figure it all out eventually. The picture is one of my fabric prints, not a self portrait or anything.

So that's it for today. Talk to you soon, even if there is nobody out there....

Phillippa xox