Fat little baby legs

Continuing the theme of the last post....

Cornelius Lemmer's vases are on show at Flogging Art at Curious Whetstone and Frankley, which, by popular demand, is staying open until the 13th of April.




They look good empty, too.


Please go and buy all of them so that I can't. Because you know how it is: you work for months, waiting to be paid, living off your credit card, carefully planning what you'll buy when you get some money; you need new shoes and at least one dress, and there are lots of debts to pay, and then someone makes something like this, that you can't live without.....

Footwear Friday!

This pattern, with slight modifications: a few extra stitches for length, and the straps sewn down instead of buttoned. Some clear silicone sealer smeared underneath for grip, and we're ready to dance!

Flogging Art

From tomorrow night, at Curious Whetstone and Frankley. Sorry about the late heads-up on this one, but it should be good. Curious etc. is starting to look like a lovely little gallery.

Interview

This sweet little cupcake is by Jessie Olsen of Cakespy, a great blog that's mostly about cakes. Jessie found me via Skinny laMinx (Thanks, Heather!), and interviewed me about my book I Don't Like Chocolate. You can read the interview here, and be sure to check out the rest of Cakespy while you're there. You'll be craving cake for breakfast!

Thanks for all the well-wishes yesterday - I'm mostly better, and I'm listing more tapes on Etsy today. (I started and then the internet went awry, but I'll keep trying.)

Freshly baked

New tapes I've printed. I'll be listing them in the shop this week - I've done one already, but that's as much as I can manage today, with flu and tummy things going on.

Neighbourgoods bag

These were on sale last time I was at the Neighbourgoods Market - calico shopping bags with some of my vegetable drawings on.

And silkscreening starts to look more alluring.... sigh....!

We have a piano!

Trying to get the dog to play it so he can be a huge hit on YouTube, but he's not very interested.

Thanks for all the comments on yesterday's post! I should have mentioned that the stencil is about 45cm across. What you couldn't see was the really impressive maths part of it. For unfathomable 'artistic' reasons I wanted to divide the circle into sixths, rather than quarters or eighths that I could have determined by simple folding. Had to call in people with engineering degrees, and google sines and cosines, and have resolved to buy a protractor before the next one.

Ambitious

If you thought blockprinting was time-consuming, try stencilling... I spent the best part of a week cutting this stencil from acetate (wanted it to be reusable, durable, transparent etc etc) and that was fun, in a precise, mindless, peaceful way. The resulting prints:



I tried stencilling mainly because I wanted to be able to overprint colours, and get the registration right. Also because I didn't think printing such a large block would be easy.



But I really don't know about this texture. I could learn to love it, but it's not what I imagined I'd get. And it takes a loooong time. Back to the blocks, I think.

Illustration talk

Niki Daly is giving a talk at our local library tomorrow evening. (Click on the picture below to see more details.) Have a look here to see some of the books he's illustrated, and here to read a bit more about him.

Venomcatchers*

*Or'droolsoakers', if you prefer.

Teething babies drool a lot. Saliva just drips out of their gaping mouths. The term 'baby venom' has crept into common usage around here.

The venom doesn't just damage remote controls; with nothing to soak it up, skin rashes can occur. Ordinary bibs for feeding aren't thick or absorbent enough. The best ones seem to be heirloom cotton crocheted numbers, but there are only so many of those around, and they look like they'll take ages to make. A quick solution: grab a stitch dictionary, pick some non-curling stitches and a ball of white cotton.





The neckband has a small buttonhole near the end. Stitch a button to the top corner of the bib, on whatever you decide the wrong side is (so it won't be fiddled with too much). Test it on the baby first, making sure it's a snug fit.

Next I'm tempted to make some ruffled collars... a tiny clown will be even more creepy than an adult one....

My imaginary teaset

Woe betide us if I ever start designing real teacups - they'll be the most garish things imaginable. This one, for instance, I picture in orange and green. Or blue and hot pink, with gold.

A very much tidied up working drawing for a linocut. I've signed up for another show in a few months' time, and I'll be indulging my ceramic ambitions in print form. More teacups to follow....

Hibiscus

Drawing flowers this week, looking for references to use for an illustration of a flower garden.

Tante Mie

Norwegian Etsy seller Tantemie has created some very sweet skirts for little girls using my trims!

Have a look at her shop for more cute items; the baby shoes and plastic aprons are lovely, but this little coat has me wishing I was small enough to wear it....

Review

Very exciting! My first review, in the Woodstock Whisperer.

Easycut - the lowdown

My drawing for today
which I turned into this


using the leftovers from this, ripping the stamp I'd had made off the wooden base and gluing easycut lino on instead. (I know, I could've paid someone to make a stamp, but the easycut was there, and one thing led to another....)


I was playing around with easycut because I needed to make another one of these


because of this corrosion, so that I could print more of these.


Easycut is easy to cut. It's quite different from lino: it's more sensitive, but also stretchy. You can't do those neat little flicks of the knife that break bits of lino off when you get to a straight edge - this stuff just does not break. It's less stretchy if you stick it to a piece of masonite, which you'll need to do anyway in order to print, because it's floppy. It doesn't have a backing like lino. Pretty easy to gouge right through it, too. But for a print on paper, where you don't have to cut too deep, you can get pretty good detail.


I'm wondering what this will look like big, on a cushion. It seems a bit Victorian to me... which could be nice. Watch this space!

The Wren

The most beautiful bags are for sale at a brand new Etsy shop, Wren. I think these are my favourites, but it's very hard to decide, particularly as some of the bags are made from shweshwe fabric. (My first grownup 'handbag' was made from shweshwe - we lasted a very long time together.)



Wren is South African, and you can read more about the bags and the designer on her blog. I really love these bags; the attention to detail is fabulous, right down to the sweet label.

Come and sit down...

A few years ago Heather instigated a craft group so that everyone who sat at home secretly making things could meet up. (Craft was a bit of a bad word back then.)


We're about to start monthly meetings again this year, now that the heat of summer is passing, and this is the venue. The Book Lounge is on the corner of Buitenkant and Roeland Streets, opposite the Kimberley Hotel; they have a coffee shop downstairs (with couches!) and we'll be there from around 2:30 next Saturday afternoon. That's Saturday the 15th of March, so hopefully there's enough time to get babysitter's organised, chores done, and long-forgotten projects unearthed. If you're in Cape Town next Saturday, do come. If you don't have any stitching in progress, dash off to the conveniently close and open-late-on-Saturdays Orion Wool and Crafts* first, then race down the hill to the Book Lounge, and catch your breath looking through craft books before you dive in to your project.


Just look at all those books....

*Orion's website is still under construction, but you can phone them to get directions and opening times.

Random Scribble

Hello! I'm back.... a lot has happened while I was away working, so I have plenty of blog fodder for the next few weeks. There was quite a bit of thinking too, sort of inevitable when you're mindlessly colouring drawings of small children. (Did I say mindless? I mean a good kind of mindless, a concentrated state of non-verbal complete and utter focus.)

I do need to do more drawing. Doodling. Drawing for fun and to get better at it. While I've been tempted to set a schedule of one non-work drawing a day, I know I won't be able to keep to that. Instead I'm going to try for 'often'.