The Auckland Art and Craft Fair

It's been a busy weekend at Millicent Crow HQ with the Auckland Art and Craft Fair on Saturday, Kraftbomb today and a whole lot of late night sewing marathons to boot!  When I got hit in the eye with a broken sewing machine needle at 2am I took it as a sign that it was time to stop.  Here are some photos of my stall at the Auckland Art and Craft Fair, with my new huia-print pouches and rosette brooches making an appearance.  I like having something to keep my hands busy at my stall so I sewed on a whole lot of brooch backs while I was there.  I could have done with a thimble!

When I came back from getting a coffee after setting up I stumbled into a giant line of people waiting to get in and it was really busy and bustling all day.  I came home with some lovely goodies from Sarah from the Trinity Street Loft, and Sophie Oiseau, which I will show you when I get some more daylight photography time!

There are some great photos on the Auckland Art and Craft Fair Facebook page too, for a virtual tour of the market. Thanks Jess and Kylie for organising it!

And now I'm going to go and put my feet up.   

My Creative Space: Pinked

 I treated myself to a pair of pinking shears the other day and I've been having fun using them on fabric brooches.  I screenprinted some huia birds, sewed them to an old blanket strengthened with interfacing, pinked the edges and sandwiched some ribbon in between.  They've turned out quite military, I wonder what they could be medals for...

 I've also made some without ribbons - some round, some oval.  With their pinked edges they remind me of Shrewsbury biscuits!

Joining in with "My Creative Space" today over here.

Happy Thursday!

Multiplying

I made a whole lot more pouches with my huia printed fabric over the weekend and now I've got them in a couple of different sizes, and with different coloured zips.  

 Some have got red starry linings:

 And some have got beige spotty dotty linings:

And when I was making them I found a few dinosaur patches I'd made for some old pouches...I wonder if I have time to make a couple of dinosaur pouches before the Auckland Art and Craft Fair!

Snippets

 Just a few little snippets from walking around and about:

Can you see the sneaky paradise ducks?

My creative space: huia pouch

The other night I sewed up my first pouch from my huia printed fabric and, after fixing an upside-down huia accident, here it is!

 This one's got a spotty dotty lining and some of the others are going to have red and white starry linings.

 And there are plenty more to make!

I'll be bringing some of these to the Auckland Art and Craft Fair and Kraftbomb, I'd better get back to the sewing machine!

Joining in with "My Creative Space" today over here.

Happy Thursday to you!

Making a weekend of it

The Auckland Art and Craft Fair is nearly here it's time for some late night sewing!  There's an interview with yours truly over at the Auckland Art and Craft Fair blog over here. 

The Fair is next Saturday, the 29th of June, at the Aotea Centre.

It's going to be a market-filled weekend for me, on Sunday the 30th I'm going to be at  Kraftbomb!   That's at the Grey Lynn community centre on Richmond Road. 

Might see you at a market or two next weekend?

As you can see Loulu has been helping me with my work.  I got a pretty ferocious bite after this photoshoot!

Patterned

I've been reading a book about making repeat patterns, and one of the exercises in it was to apply a pattern to a picture of a couch in Photoshop.  It occured to me last night that my real life couch looks like I've carried out that exercise on it after I did some more huia pattern printing yesterday.  The couch was already covered in granny square blankets!

The prints turned out better this time; I started out with a smoother, more lightweight fabric and they came out more clearly.

And now they're migrating to the rocking chair too!

My creative space: A cat among the...

 In my creative space today I've been testing out my new huia print silkscreen:

 The prints need a bit of troubleshooting, they're a bit blobby and uneven, but it's so exciting to see the pattern!  I might try it on a smoother fabric next.

 I'm going to print a whole lot of small pieces of fabric and make those into pouches a bit like these.

 And they seem to make a good cat seat. Someone will have black ink all over her tail!

How about you, what have you been making?

Joining in with "My Creative Space" today over here.

Happy Thursday!

Gentlemanly

A little collection of gentlemanly accessories that I've been drawing - they're illustrations for a cover I am working on for Mr. Millicent Crow's latest EP.  When they're on the album cover they'll be tiny, and in a repeating pattern.  I'm still finding gramophones a particularly challenging thing to draw! 

Golden

 I found a little collection of yellow things on my desk so I thought I'd take them outside and photograph them.  The spotty dotty fabric is a crazy crazy pair of pants that I'm going to make into a skirt.

 The lampshades are part of a suitcase full of lampshades that Mr Millicent Crow gave me for my birthday many years ago.  It was such a great birthday present - and I always get lots of nostalgic comments from airport staff when I take the suitcase on a plane - it's a lovely old-fashioned one.

And the beautiful gingko leaves are waiting to be drawn and are going all dry and crunchy. I'm getting a bit of a collection of them too!

My creative space: cabinets of curiosities

It's so easy to overlook things that are right on our doorsteps, isn't it?  I realised the other day that despite working just a few minutes walk from the museum, I had only visited it once in over a year.  So I decided to make an effort to go there more to draw, and I've started with drawing the huia.

I've spent a few lunchtimes drawing these slightly bedraggled beauties - and getting a few weird looks from people.  I think drawing in public is a good thing to practise though!

The cat guarded them for a while, sadly the opposite of what would have happened in the wild:

And now that they're fully inked they look like this:

and this:

Now I'm playing around with them in Photoshop, making them into a design to be printed on fabric.

 I think it'd be great to have some huia fabric to make into pouches and bags and bits and pieces.

So hopefully I'll use that treasure trove of inspiration more often - I might draw some exotic butterflies next!

Joining in with "my creative space" over here today.

Happy Thursday!