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Sunday, April 28, 2013

Becoming a mother....

Hey there! I'm back. Back from the maternity clinic – from now on there's one more person in our little family – a little boy. And this time it made me think about all things new – new way to figure out our life, in a brand new entity as a family-of-four, new way of parenting, well, the list goes on and on. I have to say, that the fears I had four years ago during my first pregnancy about being sort of reduced to becoming-nothing-more-than-parents, at least during the first years, had absolutely nothing to do with the reality that came after my little girl was born. Quite the contrary. It was all magic time of discovering a whole new myself, about taking time and figuring out who I am and what I want. And I'm so deeply grateful for that experience. 

Becoming a mother was an unique chance to explore new perspectives, to get my mind wide open for a whole lot of things I'd never imagine to come across otherwise. And it all goes on. So now it's another chapter in my life and I have no idea what it would look like. I'm a bit scared, a lot of excited, right at the moment much more exhausted physically, and sometimes emotionally on a roller coaster ride. And in the next moment it's all swept away and I dare to believe that it's gonna be okay. Somehow. With all the best's and the worst's. And that I have to take it all. To open myself to another adventure and breathe it all deep in. 

And here's a couple of peeks into my newly and definitely arranged studio – I've finished it like a couple of hours before going to the maternity clinic, and it's still untouched since then. Waiting for new projects....coming soon. Stay tuned.




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Tuesday, April 16, 2013

A pouch and a notebook

The notebooks were the starting point of the following project. I've bought'em on occasion, because I loved the pink page board. Then came the idea of changing the cover, and so I did (painted, hand printed) – it was like about a couple of weeks ago. It still felt as something was missing, so I didn't share them here back then. 

Until yesterday, when I realized what's been missing – a little pouch to put it into. To stock the notebook itself, a couple of pencils, and all the memorabilia, that I sometimes collect along the way – cards, business cards, paper swatches, little drawings that I make on grocery payment receipts waiting somewhere and doodling. 

So the notebook doesn't get fuzzy page boards, I do not need to search for a pen everywhere in my backpack, the memorabilia are all in one safe place, and I do not need to carry a tacky plastic sleeve around to hold them together, they do not risk falling out of the book, spread around and get lost – it's all safe, it's all in one place. 

And here's the pouch – slightly bigger than the notebook itself, about 18 x 24 cm. Its front-/ and backside are entirely made of heavy linen – hand printed and painted, then embellished with some appliqué – FOREST FRIENDS and some lettering. I've added a bit of hand journaling - a couple quotes. 

The reason of this rose-orange-greyish colorway is the notebook itself. 

The pouch has a zipper, is padded, and fully lined with some pink linen-viscose blend fabric. 

As you see, there's a couple of them, so another one is for sale – 45 EUR, the notebook included. Though those two may seem quite similar, there are not quite repeating each other. The next ones're gonna feature other colours and other elements.
 








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Thursday, April 11, 2013

Pencil case "ENJOY LIFE"

Well, this morning was actually scheduled for the children-make-art project, that got cancelled, while I was preparing the necessary setups. So I stopped and got into another creative project, keeping in mind that in fact I had a huge To-Do for today - finishing re-arranging the studio. 

Here's another compromise, my friends - I wanted to make a gift for a friend, and today was "now or never". You see, I couldn't wait! So I got back and pulled out all the carefully sorted and boxed fabrics, nicely arranged paints, scissors, tools, and make a huge step back (a.k.a. mess) in my almost becoming oh-so-fantastically clean and half-arranged studio. 

So far as for organizing, who am I actually kidding? Do I really believe I will ever get my studio finished? 

Anyway, here's the piece - PENCIL CASE/pouch: 

First it's patchworked, then hand printed, with some hand written journaling in deep turquoise. 
With applique and free motion stitching. With graffity-look-like lettering "ENJOY LIFE". 

In parentheses - it's actually what I'm doing, right? - not ranging. Creating. Still having a mess around and not caring about it. Sketching. Sewing. Mixing paints. Printing.... And it's much more enjoyable, believe me or not. 

This pencil case is fully lined, padded, as usual, for more form stability. There's a zipper and a little decorative nubuck leather string. Backside - heavy linen, hand printed. 

It measures about 12,5 x 25 cm appr. And I love it a lot. So maybe you'll see in coming days a couple more of them in another colours. This one is a gift, the following ones will go to the shop. Stay tuned!
 





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Wednesday, April 10, 2013

NEW - a knitting needle case

...or how to make a break from what you do without doing nothing at all....

Officially I'm still in off-work mode for the next couple of days. I'm re-arranging, re-organizing, re-thinking, well, you name it! By off-work I mean that as long as it goes on, I actually force myself not to start any "creative" project.

Not enough, my friends, I force not enough! Yesterday, sitting on a couch and re-thinking, I had a sudden idea of sewing a NEEDLE CASE. For knitting needles. They are all spread  in different containers/cases/doses, because their diversity simply makes impossible any other sole storage. So re-thinking the organizing I was thinking how to storage them all in one place.  And there's a compromise: it's a creative project, but still being part of "re-organizing" processes.

I don't appreciate plastic needle cases – too small (for my personal needle collection), opaque (never know which one contains the pair I'm looking for), and all the smaller needles are making nothing else than mess and too much noise among the long ones, especially when I need a pair of needles like at about five o'clock in the morning. So if I open it and I'm not lucky, they come all out, roll, fall, and make me crazy. 

I don't appreciate the fabric cases where all needles are together, like pencil cases without compartements – simply wasting time and searching for the right size, so you never know exactly what size might be missing. Frustrating, when you're burning to start a project like at 22:00 or on vacation, when that you sometimes do not know where to go needle shopping.

There're pretty all the possible storages of needles that I've seen, tested and disliked. 

I've already thought of that kind of sewn piece here and then, but the preparation of pattern, and all the measuring/cutting/high precision needed have always turned me off. Happily not now. This time I've been pushing myself through a whole lot of things I'm uncomfortable with (re-organisation being the major of them). So the needle case project seemed quite easy and quick against it.

And here we are: 

OUTSIDE is a piece of heavy linen hand painted and hand printed, with two stripes attached to fix the whole piece rolled together.

INSIDE - patchworked, hand printed and with applique.
So on the inside there're LOTS of compartments devided in THREE BLOCKS

#1: for long needles (left)

#2.A: for circular and smaller needles, measure bands, auxiliaries etc.  (in the middle, with FOREST FRIENDS appliqué, and ZIPPER ).
#2.B: underneath the zipper compartement there's a pocket (green line) to stock something, like a copy of knitting instruction to take on vacation etc.)

3#: for crochets, smaller needles etc (on the right, the piece with a wide orange horizontal stripe).

In my case it's be all full of needles, I just put here a couple of them, not distracting from the design, features, and materials of the sewn piece, otherwise you woudn't see anything but needles here. 

Measurements: appr. 34 x 62 cm.

Can be made on order!

 






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Monday, April 8, 2013

Confessions on organizing

Looking back to those last weeks I had to admit, that there was a bit less working. I've sketched and prepared a lot, but it's all on paper. Not in processing.

There was another important issue here - I've finally got myself to organizing.

This is a tricky subject, that I postpone as long as possible. I simply stick to the most simple way of making it quick and painless like about 20 minutes a day (sometimes, yep, actually quite often, even less) and cleaning my desk. I carefully range the tools, and at this point I've mostly enough of it, so I spread the supplies somewhere..anywhere...so that it looks like clean and arranged. 

That means, I find any mere or less acceptable solution to range/clean, often compromising with the sense of effectivity. Simply because in a spot A there's no enough place for two more similar items, so it all goes to the spot B, that may be quite far, two days after to the spot C, or even D, so that after a couple of weeks I forget about one of those spots -  - this is what I call compromising, and by all means counterproductive. Do I need that?

Needless to say, that one day I need something and cannot find anymore. Last week I've realised it makes me sick. All the usefull stuff squeezed all over my studio/our house, all the temporary arrangements that I had made thinking of one day taking my time and getting back to it. Did it ever happen? No. They are still here, all the temporary boxes, sleeves, plastic bags, with no labels, keeping all the most weird and half very important, half useless items. Taking place and getting forgotten.

So this time I've decided to stop it – stop hoarding things I actually barely need in my work, stop squeezing stuff somewhere between a couple of boxes/books/etc.

Why am I still keeping all the old and odd half finished projects/mock-ups that were made like about years ago, knowing exactly I would never finish them, or like those mock-ups would never bring it any further?

It's distressing to finally confront myself with all the storages wide open and asking – why ALL THIS STUFF does take place, the heck lot of place, sometimes prime place on my shelves, if I actually would never use it (like about 98% of probability). Clean, nicely piled/boxed, but WITH NO SENSE! Why do I keep all those fabrics in the centerpiece of the board? Why is the board under my desk – the easiest to reach and to be filled with really essential tools - full of things like wire/furniture paint/empty marmelade glasses or old stamps if I do not use them or like about once in a month or so? And why do I keep putting there even more weird things, that I wouldn't want to forget that I'm having (maybe one day they're gonna spark an idea. But is it worth keeping them under the desk FOR MONTHS?

Last days I'm struggling with „OMG, I simply DON'T want to even think of it, I have like dozens of new and challenging projects on my hands, my project idea sketchbook starts overgrowing and I have new orders“ and „It cannot go like this any further“. Not that it's all mess (honestly right now IT IS A MESS, because of so much re-organisation and all the stuff spread around), but it's like complete re-arrangement from the bottom on.

A couple of weeks ago I've cleaned and arranged a lot, but didn't get satisfied, because it felt like still compromising about effectivity and sticking to things that were not worth and simply moving them around in another corner. So now I'm moving furniture, I'm emptying and re-filling the store boxes, and moving like about tons of thousand little things, I spend quite lot of time on priority issues about what makes more sense and where...

So once it started, it's all rolling down the road UNSTOPPABLY – re-organising bathroom, garment storages, kitchen boards, my little girl's room. I hope I push it all through and do not end up compromising as I've already done quite often before. I really cannot stand any corner with „weird-things-noman-needs-but-maybe-I'll-check-it-later-for-who-knows-what-it could-be-good-for?“ 

And it feels good!

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Upcoming pencil cases

Pencil cases...as announced. Only a couple of photos today, but more pictures are following soon. Not a nursery item, but continuing the FOREST FRIENDS' line.

This time I've hand printed and shaded the front pieces in olive greens and orange, and hand printed the cotton corduroy backside (come and see more details in coming days). And the FOREST FRIENDS' appliqué doesn't need to be mentioned anymore, I guess - as much as I currently put them everywhere I might start considering rebranding/revamping the blog interface - an interesting focus, that I'd never think I'd find....


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Wednesday, April 3, 2013

New nursery decoration pieces - NAME & BIRTH

Hey there! Now it's something NEW and purely decorative. Another product featuring (ain't I killing you yet?) yes, FOREST FIRENDS!

Lately preparing to visit my friends(with a new born baby) for a brunch I had this idea in the night before driving to their place, but my studio was all just a big piece of messy piles all over the place (spring cleaning fever), so that turned me off. From making it that very day, but not from the idea.

Now a couple of days later my studio looks like (almost) normal again and I got to work. SO HAPPY! As much as I do love holidays, I'm so glad having my calm and quietness back -  to think, sketch, create, work, concentrate... Otherwise I'm way too absorbed with what my family may need, wants to do, or may want to do.. Nothing against that, but it's just not compatible with working mode - always feeling guilty when I work on weekend.

So here's the description: it's all a big piece of coarse silk, hand printed by means of those lino plates that I've recently cut and use nearly every- and anywhere. Then come the FOREST FRIENDS - appliqued and free motion stitched. It has some fluffy cotton batting to pop up a bit the design, so that's not plane.

Name and date are free hand machine embroidered

Passepartout was cut by myself (yep, I have a fancy simple passepartout cutting device, that I finally start using. I'm oh-so-glad now, that I've bought it on occasion - where would I otherwise find the right size and shade here, in finnish countryside?). Heavy cardboard, painted in subtle orange to match the colourway and add some accent, so that the inner composition stands out better.

Frame (a simple new one) was sandpapered and coated with dark olive brown and subtle rosa shade, then sandpapered again - exactly how I'd like it to look like.

For the SHOP/ Purchasing: this product will be made on order - the photos are just examples to give the general idea of the style and look. 

You may choose:

the design #1 "BIRDS" or the design #2 "FOREST FRIENDS"

For the moment only among those two. Of course the colours can be adjusted - like birds may be less pink. The passepartout and frame colours are set depending on how the whole fabric piece looks like, but of course it can be chosen like follows - in olive, warm green, greyish, subtle warm blue or white cream shades.

I hope I'll be able to make a couple more new designs for those fun nursery decorations. Stay tuned. Now I have to finish a couple of new pouches - maybe to come up in the next post.






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