Little Fish Creations

I’ve recently enjoyed reading the blog of Renilde de Peuter (that’s a snipit of her embroidery pictured above) http://at-swim-two-birds.blogspot.com/ . She creates little embroideries that take my breath away. like her recent maritime series – who would have thought that container ships could be rendered with such simple beauty.

Also reading the archives of her blog I was inspired to try cardboard loom weaving on the weekend. I’ll prepare a post soon to tell you all about it.

Another link where I spent a huge amount of time over the weekend is The Guardian newspaper’s feature ‘Writer’s rooms’ http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/series/writersrooms. Here writers write about their work spaces.

Oh how I love reading about where others work and the habits they keep.

On a similar theme I own a coffee table book called Studio, which I think I promised to send to my sister a year ago, but can’t part with it, sorry Meg. It features Australian painters talking about their working processes and workspaces, it has great photos of each artist within their studio… I’m obviously a peeping tom at heart. http://www.australianstudiobook.com/book/

I have to apologise for the way the links are presented here, my blog has lost some functionality which I’ve asked Chris to fix for me when he has a spare moment 🙂

I’ve finally finished the embroidered skirt. It’s very comfortable to wear because I drafted the pattern to my own measurements PLUS it’s made from stretchy denim.

I drew the motif directly onto the skirt with chalk, which kept on rubbing off, so I ended up stitching rough guidelines in a contrasting thread which was removed when the project was finished.

I like the negative space of the cross and the lines, they have that wonky, hand drawn feeling that I love.

There’ll be some changes with my blog over the coming weeks. Rejuvenation. Seems like a good time.

18/5/02 – 22/8/09

Our sweet dog, Reuben, passed away yesterday. He was enthusiastic, mischevious, affectionate and loved his food.

Last week we became very worried when Reuben stopped eating and he looked unsteady on his feet.

It turns out that he had very advanced cancer and it was clear that we had to let him go.

Last week I bought a new pin cushion (and brooch) from Karen http://karenruane.blogspot.com/ .

It’s fabulous with it’s silk and it’s bobbles and it’s stitching. It arrived here today… It took only 8 days to get from the UK to my little, remote corner of Australia.

I like the way my colourful pin heads bob about on this one 🙂

I’ve decided not to abandon my old pincushion which I made from scraps many years ago. I’ll have two, a lounge room pincushion and a workroom pincushion!

I’ve been working on a new skirt. Black stretch denim with a large area of hand embroidery embellishment. This is the idea I had when I started making clothes…. keep the garments simple but be playful with stitching, applique, printing etc.

It’s taken me until skirt number 4 to get going with my evil plan. I’ve just gotta keep telling myself “Hey Claire, it’s only fabric silly!”

12 weeks ago I was in hospital falling in love with the most beautiful baby I’d ever clapped my eyes on.

I’m blown away by how much Jasper has grown and how much he has learnt in 12 short weeks.

My favourite time of day is when I go in to get him after a big long sleep and he is SO happy to see me, he smiles and his whole body wriggles in delight.

Jasper is a big fan of having his hands in his mouth. He loves standing on his own two feet (daddy says he’s been training him in the bath), and he has extended conversations with us every single day.

It has been a magnificent experience so far, and I look forward to seeing what happens next.

I’ve made up two skirts now and I’m pretty happy with the pattern I drafted, though I’m going to tinker around with the back part as the darts are huge creating a bit more room around the bum than I need.

The first skirt is made from a thin 100% cotton print and the second skirt is made out of a linen, cotton and elasine mix. Both purchased from Darwin Spotlight.

I wouldn’t normally chose this grey colour since it looks a bit too corporate for my current lifestyle… but Spotlight wasn’t providing me with much to work with when we were in town last weekend.

I did buy some quilters cotton which I fancy for a skirt. I didn’t notice some white spots/printing faults until I got home 🙁 I’d return it, but it’s just too much hassle. I’ll work around it.

The plain greeny yellow is one of my hand dyed fabrics which I’m thinking of as a trim on the hem.

Once I get this straight skirt pattern sorted out I’m going to modify it to create a pattern for an A-line skirt.

I have some linen and some denim stashed so I can continue the journey. But last night I discovered an online fabric supplier with fabulous dressmaking fabrics http://www.tessuti.com.au/ . I can see my days of making skirts for $10 a pop will be short lived!

Wow, Jasper is having a nice long afternoon nap! Better be quick.

Our backyard is quite wild on one side of the house but plain old lawn and clothes line on the other side. The photos above were taken on the wild side.

Then I decided to do some more little drawings using the photos as inspiration. Once again, I’m trying kill off the critical little devil that lurks on my shoulder and just enjoy the fun of putting pen to paper.

Ooop, I can hear squeeking in the next room, before I go here’s a photo of Jasper and me taken this week:

I’m trying to quickly post before Jasper wakes from his sleep (Sleep! Yay! he’s just had a 3hr afternoon nap which is a big deal as he hasn’t been too keen to sleep during the day recently).

I had to cut my handmade cards down to fit the envelopes and I’ve been doodling on the offcuts (which are about 3cm wide and it’s 300gsm paper so it takes watercolour without warping). It’s fun to just draw and paint with no real ideas or expectations other than to amuse myself.

This year I’m going to teach myself draft patterns so I can make my own clothes.

My reference book is ‘How to Make Sewing Patterns’ by Donald H McCunn. I’m starting with an A-Line skirt pattern, I think skirts are the easiest to start with.

I didn’t get Jasper’s room decorated before he was born, but I did make a mobile to go above his change table (sorry for the terrible photo!!!).

It was so simple to make and Jasper really loves looking at it as the spheres float around in the breeze (or spin wildly if we blow on them like pinwheels).

I just used paper which has a different colour on each side (I bought a pad of it from Big W).

I cut out circles then sewed a line down the middle of the circles which were stacked in groups of three.

I left long thread tails on each seam which I then used to tie it all together. The circles were bent out to create spheres and the strings of spheres were then tied to a stick to create the mobile.

I’m making another one with butterfly shapes and only stacking them in twos. I’m probably going to hang this one over his cot, which he isn’t using yet because at the moment he sleeps in a bassinette in our room.

My original idea was to make paper boats for the mobile, but I realised that he would just get the dud view of the undersides… however I might make some for his windowsill instead 🙂 This $5 pad of paper is going a LONG way!

One of the unintended consequences of breastfeeding Jasper is that my hands are idle for hours a day, so my mind is free to cook up all sorts of plans and ideas for things I can make.

I have all these half formed ideas for projects floating around. I had even started on a few, but WOW it’s hard to stay focussed enough to finish something when you only have a few snatched minutes here and there. My ideas were overtaking each other and I started to feel very confused.

So I wrote all the ideas and projects down in two lists as follows:

Currently Useful:

– Finish making thank-you/birth announcement cards

– Make another mobile for Jasper’s room

– Buy cot sheets on the net

– Hem blankets for the cot (I’ve got the fabric here)

– Make pattern for an A-line skirt – and then make one

– Sketching and doodling in quiet minutes

– Blog!

Future Ideas:

– Finish UFO quilts

– Make new handbag/nappy bag

– Make some stuffed toys

– Paint up some canvases for Jasper’s room

– Bind (coptic) the birth ‘congratulations’ cards together

– Buy a rug for Jasper’s room

This list making helped me see my way through the haze of ideas – though first I had to rearrange my workroom to accommodate the new spare bed.

I’ve already made a huge dent in the thankyou card department and I’ve tinkered around with little sketches. But most of all I now feel really positive because I can see that there’s a way I can make stuff and look after Jasper.

It helps that he is now old enough (8wks) to happily sit in his chair in my workroom for short times during the day.