It's that time of year again !

Wow how did Christmas come around so fast ? It seems like only yesterday that I was sharing with you the adventures of Santa out on Jindong Treeton Rd.  I'm happy to report that he's back again and is indeed on his way, well that is if he can unwedge himself from this situation!!

Old School Crafting

Remember the days before you were allowed near a sewing machine? If you are like me and have been crafting since you were a little person there would have been a time when you picked up a needle and thread to sew a dolls outfit because your mums sewing machine was off limits. Each item would have been painstakingly stitched until it became Barbie’s favourite outfit or a new set of shorts for your favourite teddy bear!! There of course was a time when this was the way that most households made their clothes, needle and thread. A few days ago I left the sewing machine switched off and returned to these roots. Inspired by a discussion with a friend about ‘Old School Crafting” this is what I came up with

This clutch purse is totally hand sewn, yes folks as mentioned before the sewing machine was unplugged and neglected for this one. The flap is decorative only and is attached to the front of the clutch.

This is the back

and these are some detail shots. I’ve used my favourite cotton floral for the lining and the outside fabric is a cotton canvas.
Inspired? take the challenge and sew something entirely by hand. I’d love to hear about your results

More Montage Press

With just over a week left Montage has received more press coverage. This time in the local Fremantle paper

 

Montage Press

The Montage Collective pop up shop in Fremantle is open for business and was featured in todays edition of Habitat in The West Australian.

If you are in the area pop in and see it for yourself

Montage

iheartcharlie will be appearing alongside 11 other wonderful designers at a pop up shop in Fremantle, Western Australia from the 8th  February.

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

Bag Addiction

I love handbags.... actually I love big handbags. They're so useful for storing and carrying some of the contents of your life. No matter what the bag size I always seem to be able to manage to fill it. I usually start out with very good intentions when I get  new bag, "this time I'll only carry the bare essentials". But before you know it I'm out of control and the bag is full again..... I love to collect them

Occasionally my bag fetish extends to making them. This week has been one of those weeks, I've been busy sewing bags. I've made a promise to myself that they will not end up in my collection and that they will be sold in my Etsy shop.

This is the first of the bags. It's created using off cuts from previous projects. The outside is hemp denim and it has an interior lining of a brown stripe poly cotton blend. It has a pin tuck detail on the front and a centre seam on the back.  It's a good size you can fit the essentials and a few extras in it. This one is listed in my store iheartcharlie.etsy.com

This is number 2, it's the same style bag but this time with pleats all the way around and it has a band.  This one will be Etsy listed soon.

Number 3 still in my head I share it with  you when it comes to fruition.