paper room

On the day of the Christchurch earthquake I drafted a blog post with three images of a white room with one uncluttered paper table standing in it. The room was intended as an experiment in scale and perspective for my second picto-poem, but looking at it again, after the dramatic events of the past week, I find it resonates with other ideas - silence, loss, and absence, but also the possibility of starting over and recovery.

Although today is the first of March, and one week after the earthquake, this post retains the date of the disaster and acts as my quiet tribute to all those whose lives have been affected, including my Mum, my brother Richard and his family, my friends Caroline and Graham and Katharina and Tony.

read the instructions!!

That is the big lesson of the day. The context for that pearl of wisdom is that in the 13 years since my lovely ex-mum-in-law gave me her old Janome sewing machine I have always assumed that the machine's particular quirk was that it liked to chew up stretch fabric. As a consequence, I've steered clear of all delicate and stretchy materials and stuck with good, reliable cotton.

But when I was tidying my craft room last week, I came across the instruction book for the sewing machine, and like a prize fool I realised that the dear thing does in fact sew stretch material - it just needs a special needle to do it! So I bought the special needle, dug out a length of pretty rose print stretch fabric that has waited patiently among my fabric stash, and made a comfy little gathered top.

And the moral of the story is that from now on, I will always read the instructions whenever I get a new appliance.

gipsy caravan

There's nothing like a spot of paper-crafting to get the day off to a good start. The wheels actually turn too, with the aid of a button on the inside and a bead on the outside, although I wouldn't go driving it over rocky terrain.

felt geometries

The combination of playing around with felt scraps and constructing the packaging for Katy's present led me to these geometric compositions in felt. Triangles, cylinders, semi-circles and intersecting planes have been sewn together to make these structural forms.

I'm pleased with them and when I have some more felt scraps I'll definitely make more. Don't you think they look imposing (and kind of crazy) fastened to the lapel of a winter coat?

It always feels good to have a new accessory to wear.

When winter comes I'll be ready for it!

Have a great weekend everyone. I'm off to Wellington on Monday, so I'll be back later next week.

thrifty fifty

These days 50 cents doesn't go very far, but if you happen to be thriftily and craftily inclined then you can make a meagre sum of money stretch a long way. A remnant of machine embroidered raspberry and white cotton, for instance, bought from my local oppie yesterday for 50 cents has now become...

a chic pair of pillowcases

and a pretty drawstring pouch and quilted needlecase


Now that's 50 cents well spent!

Wrap

Coming up with new ways of wrapping gifts is one of my favourite things to do. Multi-coloured A4 sheets of corrugated cardboard seemed the perfect material to make a modular kind of packaging for Katy's scarf (previous post). The style of giftwrap is a good match with Katy's furniture designs (some of which you can see here), so I think she'll appreciate the gesture when the prezzie and yellow card arrive at her place later this week.

two kinds of wool

There were a couple of days last week that felt prematurely autumnal, so I briefly turned my attention from papercraft to woolcraft. I made some striped grey and aubergine felt to turn into a blanket-stitched pouch for a friend's birthday, and I finally completed a baktus shawl that I began well over six months ago as a prezzie for another friend after she had her second baby. For novice knitters like me the pattern is really easy to follow and the long, lacy triangle of knitting that you end up with can be styled in a number of ways. The baktus shawl is a lovely winter accessory and makes a nice change from the conventional knitted scarf. Thanks to Lies at Anemone for the above link and for her valuable advice on fixing wonky knitting!