new :: beads!

Towards the end of last year I printed some lovely, light organic cotton voile in bright colours, and then used that fabric to make some wooden beads. I quietly wore and displayed the beads for sale at a couple of markets, including Melbourne Finders Keepers last October, and was relieved to find that people liked them as much as I did!

So, after some lovely emails from people who had seen them, they are now listed in the Yardage Design online shop. The beads are made from handprinted organic voile and coloured wooden beads. The strand is adjustable - just by tying the knot at the desired height, you can wear them long or short. I've also printed a little drawstring bag for each set of beads ...

Beads are available in the shop now!

Have a great weekend!

new :: HEX tea towel

A new tea towel design has landed! This one has been months in the designing ... I think I started it about a year ago but couldn't decide on the scale or final configuration of the hexagon "chains" so left it to ponder ... until early this year when I looked at it again and it all made sense!

The design is based on hexagons (!) but I had a go at creating a pattern I'd seen once in an old embroidery book where the shapes overlapped. After much trial and error, I settled on a striped and solid combo. The result is "tricky geometric"!

This design is currently printed in three colours - Tomato red, Jacaranda purple and Tuesday blue on an off white 100% linen tea towel.

New tea towels now available in the Yardage Design online shop.

Have a great week!

making :: my materialized exhibition wall hanging

I think I may have said this before, but a couple of times a year I like to participate in swaps or exhibitions or the like :: they make me think outside of my day to day printing and creating, and often lead to something I love. Such was the case with making my entry for the Gleaners Inc "Materialized" exhibition. This is my finished piece ...

So the whole exhibition revolves around a little swatch of fabric we were all sent when we signed up. The fabric (design or colours or both) was our inspiration and we could make anything we liked! For me it was the colours that struck me first, and I knew I wanted to use my "Sevilla" design to reflect the almost moroccan tile design of the fabric swatch. I wanted to make a wall hanging.

I chose a deep indigo denim to print on - for both the colour and the weight as I wanted it to hang nicely. Once I had worked out which colours I would use (mint, mustard, lavender, pink and blue), the ink was mixed and the slow process of taping and printing for each colour began ...

The finished printed area is quite large - larger than the screen, so I had to "join" up the design for length, which meant double printing of all five colours for each section! All in all it took me about 5 hours to complete the printing, which I did over a couple of days.

The finished piece was then sewn to include two rods - one for hanging at the top, and one for weight at the bottom. The whole thing measures about 1.2m long by 55cm wide. I love the scale.

I know when I've made something special when Mr Yardage says, "let's just keep it and hang it in the house"! Of course, I didn't keep this one. It is currently on display at Gleaners Inc in Brunswick for the month of March. There is a little opening night drinkies tonight if you happen to be in Melbourne.

And, incase you were wondering, this wall hanging is for sale. Contact Liz at Gleaners Inc for details. I am in the process of printing myself another one just for us {and for you too if you would like :: just send me an email}.

Have a great weekend!