Santa might be just a little bit late tonight!!!

 

Santa stopped out the back of Margaret River for a pre Christmas lunch and it appears he may be slightly delayed this evening.

 

But don't worry kids there's a lovely lady looking after him and I'm sure he'll be there by morning

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year 

From Libby and Charlie (woof)

Blast from the Past

This evening I was looking through some slides of some of my old textile work from the 1990's and I came across these 2 slides. They are a little bit of Western Australian History courtesy of my Dad's camera lens in the 1960's

 For those who've never seen it and those who just can't place it. This is the Barracks Arch at the top of St Georges Terrace in Perth,  in all of it's pre-freeway glory. Only the arch itself now remains as the rest of the building was demolished in 1966 to make way for the Mitchell Freeway.

I've always loved these 2 slides, even as a child I was fascinated with them and always a little disappointed that so much this lovely old building was destroyed in order to build the freeway.The arch has always looked a little lonely standing there on it's own....

MOTL Team Challenge

This week I took part in my first ever Made on the Left team challenge on Etsy

There was a choice of 3 themes for the challenge Vintage Camera, Arrows and Honey Bees. I went with the first theme and here's what I came up with.

It's aptly named the Vintage Camera in Training camera pouch

the writing on the flap is hand embroidered. I haven't embroidered for a few years and I'm please at how well I did  it

The 'Lomo' inspired drawing on the reverse side of the pouch is machine drawn.

It's fully lined and has an inner layer of wadding for added protection.

This cute little pouch is now available in my Etsy shop.

 For more info about 'Made on the Left 'check out their blog

http://madeontheleft.blogspot.com

Birthday Girl

Yesterday was Charlies 3rd Birthday and in honour of the day I thought I'd share a couple of photos. I brought her home  on the 10th October 2007, she was only 8 weeks old  .....
                                 that was then....

cute  as a button

                                  and this is now ....

she's a big girl now !

                                    Happy Birthday sweet girl

                                                                     xxx Mum

Beach Baby

One of Charlie's favourite things it to hang out at the beach with her best friend Ruby. Yesterday my sister and I took advantage of some finer weather  and took Charlie and Ruby to the dog beach. Some of my best photos are of Charlie at the beach. Here's a few snapshots from yesterday's outing.

I love that she always looks so happy when she's there

There's nothing like the sand between your toes and on your nose,

 something to explore,

somewhere to dig,

and a friend to share the fun with

Black and White

Time to share some of my black and white designs which have been an ongoing body of work over the last 15yrs. One of my fascinations is with pattern and my black and white designs were born out of a time when I did not have the physical space to be creative so they were developed in A5 & A6 visual journals. I have several journals full of them and over time I was able to upscale to canvases.   I hope one day to translate some of these designs to fabrics.


These are a few of the ones that made it to canvas in 2005.

  This one is titled "Beach Party" it was one of my entries for the 2005 Margaret River Rotary Art Exhibition

 untitled 1 2005

untitled 2 2005

untitled 3 2005

All of these designs have been drawn freehand and the concentration that each one takes can be very therapeutic.  "Beach Party" takes pride of place in my living room along side my other entry for the same exhibition. I hope to share that with you too some time soon

Early Days part 2

 In 1989 while I was studying Textiles at Curtin Univeristy in Perth we had a very lovely Indian Lady visit the Art faculty from Rajistan.  With her she brought an amazing collection of Indian Textiles which were hung in the halls of our building and she also held several Indian Textile workshops. The one thing that grabbed me in all of this was the amazing stitch work.

These are the works that were inspired by the workshop with a little added inspiration from some of the work of Vincent Van Gogh.

 This one was my first piece and was a homage to 'Starry Night'. It's my favourite and all of the others follow along on a similar theme.

Early days

Recently I've been looking through some of my early work seeking some inspiration for future creations. It's all been packed away and I've decided it's time to share some of it with you....

These pieces were machine drawing samples when I was studying textile design

These were created on my old Husqvarna 2000. I think it might be time to put it into the repair shop and start incorporating machine drawing into my work again. I seem to remember that it was a lot of fun

I'll share some more early work with you again soon

Holiday Sewing Fun

I've just had a week and a half off and apart from a visit to Ikea, where my credit card took a battering, I've been sewing..... how unusual!!! I've created 8 new slip covers for  the chunky (200 page) A6 Visual Journals and Notebooks. And collaborated on one with my sister.... or rather  she designed the cover and I put it together. 

Here's what I've created

This was the first one it carried on from the last series of covers that I created and uses the inset pleated panels front and back. I call this one Belt Up # 2

 
I followed on with this one, inset panel and belt closure using a 100% Cotton Canvas. I found the wooden buttons in my botton collection. This one is Belt Up #3

 This one again has the inset pleated panel and a pretty satin ribbon to keep it all together.

Next I had a play with a denim offcut, a cute printed cotton fabric and some buttons and created the Buttons and Bubbles cover.

Then I played with insetting strips of the fabric and again incorporated buttons. This one is known as the Buttons and Bubbles cover #2

The last cover had me thinking about panels and contrasts. This one incorporates the inset panel  pintucked blue denim in a contrasting black denim.

inset pleated panel and two different shades of blue denim.....

This one features the fabric from the "Dotty Pouch" along with a mid blue denim. It's the same front and back. It reminds me of an old novel.

And finally the first slip cover designed for iheartcharlie by my sister, Catherine
Hopefully this is the first of many

This cover features, black hemp denim along with german wool felt from B&M Felt. This one is a definite favourite and aside from the amazing colour choice and the cute button, part of it's beauty is in it's slightly deconstructed appearance.

Yet again these covers have offered me some great ideas for future bags. I my last post I shared a series of Journal covers from which great ideas were born.

Here's the first Tote bag that was inspired by these 

This is the Chloe Tote Bag and it's currently for sale in my Etsy Shop

Great ideas come from small things

After a weekend of creating journals  I've come up with some great ideas. It all started with a simple idea from my sister, cut a strip of fabric gather it and stitch it down.... here's the result

I added some buttons and my own artistic license to the idea and voila ..........The Tuxedo Ruffle A6 visual journal slip cover.

This got me thinking about the gathering strips so I tried another one with different denim... that wasn't as successful so out came the quick un-picker and I headed off in the direction of pleats but this time with a twist, I added a zippper and the Zip It A5 visual journal slip cover with fully functional cover pocket was born.

I followed the path I was already on and the Pleated Denim A6 Visual Journal cover was created

Then finally the pleated panel evolved into a pin tucked pocket  for the final cover of the weekend

The Belt Up A6 visual journal cover, the pin tucked  panel is a pocket and I've added the button and belt closure for a little added detail.

All of this had led to some great ideas for bags. I've just finished a new tote bag. Which idea do you think was my inspiration?

All will be revealed soon.............

iheartcharlie retail launch

The latest designs from iheartcharlie were recently launched at 'love the beast' in Margaret River. These are some of the latest Tote bags and Pouches available.

Tote Bags:

 

April Messenger

Darcy Pink

           Darcy Chocolate

   Jennifer

      
 

Gerty

  

  Valentine (dark blue)

 

Valentine (light blue)

 

                           Harriet                           

Pouches:

 

Pouches in order of appearance :- Amelia , Dotty, Fanciful, 

April, Marnie & Valentine

All of these designs have been individually hand crafted by me. I love what I do and take great pride and care I all my creations. They are all designed as one of a kind or limited additions.

New designs will be appearing soon in my etsy shop.