My Creative Space

My assistant , George, and I have made an indoor football this week. In this neck of the woods we are desperate for indoor type activities as the weather is still revolting. 0 degrees Celcius yesterday morning at school drop-off, and nearly 5 degrees at pick-up time, with constant rain in between. Yuk. Good sewing weather.......

Also good weather for enjoying more men in knitwear.....

And pondering what to do with this gorgeous old Singer sewing machine. My stepmother gave it to me last week and I think it was her grandmother's originally. It is totally dependent on hand power and would probably work if it got a bit of attention. I'm not sure what to do with it really. If only we had a spare room, like we did when I grew up, and all the items that nobody knew what to do with anymore went in there. A bit like a museum, except with fairly crappy stuff.

Anyway, if you have any suggestions, let me know. A doorstop? A paperwieght? An object to throw at annoying people? Hope you are all having a creative week no matter what the weather....

Ace Places To Shop, Part 1

Now that I've got your attention, I'll get onto the real topic of today's post.

Is there anything more exciting in life than discovering a great shop that's cheap too? yeah, yeah...birth of children, wedding day etc. , but those thrills were a while ago now, so currently I have to get my thrills wherever I can find them. This week they were found at Rathdowne Remants in Victoria Street, Brunswick, Melbourne, the World, the Universe.

They used to be in Rathdowne Street, Carlton, as the name suggests, so I had not been there since my student days. Joyfully, I found that they are still great value. Look at all that stuff above in the photo (It's all wool fabric by the way). Guess how much it cost. Guess. OK, don't guess, but the whole lot was $10. What are you going to do with it all, I hear you ask. You'll just have to imagine me saying to myself very quietly 'no idea', but you can't argue with the cheapness factor. I also bought denim remnants, and they have a great selection of really beautiful fabrics of all kinds, as well as some interesting buttons, trims etc.

So if you find yourself in Brunswick, you know what to do. By the way, the cheesecake photo not only shows my untapped food stylist skills, but also the figs from our fig tree. We only planted it last year and now we have a harvest big enough to do fancy fruit things to the top of desserts! Hope I've made you hungry.......

My Creative Space

Welcome to the wonderful world of red....it's all about red this week! Red fabric, red wool, and pink cake, which has red food colouring in it. Firstly I have been working on a new top pattern with my red flowery fabric.

Then the cranberry red wool arrived in the mail, so that is being made into a ponchoy type thing. This is a Rowan pattern from one of their books of a few years ago. Apparenly I will look like this when I wear it. I can't wait to get that smug look on my face!

Here is some gorgeous Japanese fabric I was given a few years ago by some friends. I found it again in the crypt and it is one of those things that I love so much I am almost afraid to do anything with it in case I muck it up. This one is screen printed, but the traditional dyeing method was to use grains of rice and tie the fabric around each grain individually to create the dye resistance. Like mini tye-dyeing. They love coming up with mind bending techniques that require the patience of a monk.

Here is a goregous photo of an excellent kid, if I do say so myself. I was going to upload a photo of the pink cake I ate yesterday, but I am having technical issues, so I will leave you with my son George...contemplating the universe. Hope you are contemplating something creative this week!

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!

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