tiny happy

Do you like colours and inks and papers and shapes? Yes? You need these books on your craft table.

A couple of weekends ago I met Anna, who runs Qwerky Home from here in Wellington. Q.H is a funky little shop that stocks homewares, craft supplies and stationery from all around the world… including products from the rather beautiful Yellow Owl Workshop of San Francisco.

Qwerky Home stocks the Y.O.W books as well as these fab carve-a-stamp blocks and kits (I know these will be of interest to the keen printers at my HANDMADE workshops earlier this month).

Yellow Owl Workshop has produced two colourful and inspiring books about d-i-y printing. Anna is kindly offering a giveaway here on my blog. The winner can choose from either:

Print Workshop: Hand-Printing Techniques + Truly Original Projects by Christine Schmidt: jam packed with practical skills and fun projects so you can play with printmaking at home. It contains info on custom stamp carving, stencilling, cyanotype printing, screen printing and image transfer techniques.

Little Prints. Stencils, Stamps, and Other Artful Projects to Make for Kids, by Christine Schmidt contains a wide variety of techniques—stencilling, printing, image transfer, and stamping—to create personalised toys, decorations, wall art, accessories, and keepsakes that kids will love and parents will cherish.

** You can also enter the code HANDMADE to get a 15% discount in Anna's shop until next Friday. **

You're welcome to enter the book giveaway, whether you live in NZ or another country.

To enter, either:

* leave a comment on this post, or

* enter the facebook giveaway here

We'll draw a winner next week. 

Thank you and happy weekend!

A spot of knitting by the fire this week resulted in this green neck-warmer, or cowl, which I made for a friend's upcoming birthday. The (free) pattern is the drop-stitch cowl by SpiderWomanKnits, the simplest and loveliest little project I can think of to warm up a June evening. I used super-bulky yarn (100gms of this), 9mm circulars and this stretchy cast-off technique that was new to me but is very pleasing indeed. Now I have a couple more to knit, including one for our resident teenager (probably in black).

Is it time for a new craft book or some supplies to get you being creative in the evenings? I've helped arrange a great crafty giveaway, which you'll be able to find here on Friday : ) See you then…

Last week I was given a coupon to try out 'Printic', which is an smartphone app. Love your phone photos but long for real prints to pop in your wallet or stick into your journal? This is a great solution and blends old and new school technology in a pleasing way. Printic works on iPhone, Android and Windows phones.

Using the app, you can choose which photos on your camera (or in a dropbox account) you'd like to turn into little prints. Send off the form, and then, about a week later, your prints, (maybe just a bit larger than Polaroids) will arrive in your letterbox. 

I used Printic to make prints of the kids and some other things (I didn't have many photos on my phone but was impatient to try it.) The little photos are great quality, and remind me of the old days- shots of everyday life to tape to the wall, stick on the fridge or send to friends. And that's what I did with them: tucked them inside letters to grandparents and friends.

(You can also order other stuff like books and calendars featuring your prints. The app is free to install, and the prints cost about a dollar each with free delivery to your letterbox.)

Some small, delicate leaves for this Friday. Much easier on the eye than the office work, dental work and housework that filled my day… 

I have grand plans to do some knitting this weekend. Even if it's on the side of a soccer field in a storm (which is quite on the cards.) I started work on my own, slightly wonky, version of this a few weeks ago. Will show progress soon. 

What are you working on?

Hope you have a lovely weekend ahead.

"Oh, I have learned when things are beautiful, to just keep on, just keep on.

When things are beautiful, just keep on." – Bill Callahan, Winter Road.

I've just finished unpacking my boxes and bags from Handmade which was held over the weekend and was a lot of fun. I taught some classes, made some new friends and reconnected with old ones. Also, I ate some pizza, drank some wine, talked a lot and did some knitting. The best thing about the weekend was seeing finished projects and proud makers discovering a new craft. A lovely time all round.

And now I'm feeling inspired to cast on some new projects, and get out the glue and paints and embroidery threads.

Hope you had a lovely weekend too, whatever you happened to be doing.

A few papery bits and bobs made lately include these small envelopes (template here)- I used some pages from an old Frankie magazine for these pretty pastel ones. And instead of glueing, I was a bit lazy and fastened the edges with Japanese paper tape, but I like the effect- like a paper patchwork. I also made some cards from some black and white pictures collected over the years from old magazines and fallen-apart books. Nothing like a grey wintry day spent around the kitchen table with scissors and glue. Kids and teenagers all join in, too.

I've also been getting ready for this weekend's HANDMADE festival, making bears and gathering together supplies for those joining in. The bear pattern is from my book. Looking forward to seeing you, if you're planning on it! There are still places left in the Saturday afternoon bear-making workshop, and a few in the Sunday morning printing class- more info here.

Do you know the song Only Skin by Joanna Newsom? I used to play it constantly (I found this blog post about it from 2007) but then forgot about it until the other day. Favourite lyric: The sky was a bread roll, soaking in a milk bowl. Apt for the Wellington window view today. 

I saw some really beautiful linen bedding in a homewares store a while back: it had an all-over pattern of dark yellow dots and was very expensive. Then yesterday, while organising supplies for my printing class (come along! it's this weekend) I wanted to test my fabric inks, and remembered some linen pillowcases I'd op-shopped for this very purpose. 

I stole one of the kids' pencils (with an eraser on the top) and used the rubber tip as a stamp. Voila- dotty pillowcases. Don't worry, I'll bring a handful of these pencils with me to HANDMADE. The class is actually about designing and carving your own stamps, but i'll have lots of lovely coloured fabric inks and materials for everyone to play with.

DOTTY PILLOWCASES (in case you want some specific instructions..)

* You'll need pure cotton or linen pillowcases (or cushion or duvet cover), fabric ink (I use 'versacraft' and order it on etsy), large sheet of paper, smooth tea towel or piece of fabric, pencil with eraser on the end, iron.

* Make sure your pillowcase or similar is well washed and dried. Place it on a flat surface, with a smooth piece of fabric (such as a teatowel) underneath (the slight cushion improves the print). Place paper inside the case, to prevent the ink bleeding into the back of the case.

* Use the rubber tip of the pencil to stamp in a random fashion all over your case.

* Leave somewhere warm until the ink is completely dry. Then iron it on a warm-hot setting, to fix the ink.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Feel like a quick flick-through of this book with me? It's 'Sweet dress book' (English version of the original Japanese), by Yoshiko Tsukiori, Laurence King Publishing. I wrote about another book by the same designer here in March.

This book is similarly beautiful and quirky, with lots of great styling that could only be found in a Japanese book, such as flowers in a cat food tin and cats with bows around their necks. Also cakes and baskets and stuff.

Some of the patterns are similar/the same as designs I've made in the past, from Japanese-language books. Here are some of the clothes I've made from Japanese patterns:

Leaf-printed

Lemon-cream blouse (little girl's)

Brown dress with pockets

Marimekko top/dress

Blue dress with embroidered yoke (for a 5 yr old)

Brown top with crochet edge

Shirt with shell buttons

There are probably more… but I've run out of computer time : ) Have a great weekend.

Got some more cards printed, to fuel my determination to keep sending snail mail this winter. It's working, and I do love sticking on the stamp and dropping notes in the letterbox. I printed some extra sets for my etsy shop too (along with some freshly minted new copies of my book, in case you need a signed copy 😉

These cards are printed with two photos of favourite trapped glimpses. The time I grew strawflowers in an old tyre in the back yard, before they were mistaken for weeds and pulled out. And the time we stayed in a cabin and looked out at the sea, which seemed like it lay at the edge of the world.