Where was I?

Oh yes... complete insanity.

Swatches

Lovely things have started arriving in the post!

From Suschna:


From fourwalls design:


From Hollabee:


Thank you all! This is going to be a beautiful quilt.

I'll be sending out the last batch of swatches at the beginning of next week, as soon as I have everything for the Nest show wrapped up.

Nest

Next week at Curious, Whetstone and Frankley.

Salad

Drawing for a linocut.

Ready to go!

Getting work ready for the Nest show at Curious, Whetstone and Frankley next week. I love the tangled, Tord Boontje-like mess of the transfers at this point; I'm tempted to dump them onto a plate, just like that. Can anyone tell me if it's okay to overlap transfers?

Mug

Another working drawing for a linocut. This one's going to be tweaked quite a bit, some lines being thickened up, others made finer; it's not quite tight enough yet. But these are things that can be done in the cutting.

I'm off to print more swatches for the swap, because I've run out! Speaking of cloth, though, Brooke has written a lovely post at crosspollination about floral textiles, all produced south of the equator, and including my prints with two of my favourite designers. Have a look at the end of her post for some more links to beautiful textiles.

And don't forget about the monthly craft meeting at The Book Lounge* tomorrow afternoon, from 3pm.

*corner Roeland and Buitenkant Streets, central Cape Town.

Proofs

First the lazy pencil test, and then the printed proofs. Looks like everything's there! Sorry about the blurry photos, but it's getting dark early here.

The lino's a little bit dinged; it'll make for a slightly challenging print run. But hey! it's only wimps who store their lino blocks in a safe place. I also managed to put the print on the right down in a pool of oil. But it's just a proof.

(You can tell what kind of art school I went to, can't you? Yep, the kind where we smoked while screenprinting, never wore gloves, and regularly forgot to turn the extractor fans on when we etched plates. Oh, and we wiped the plates with our bare hands and then bit our nails. )

(Of course, it was also the kind where we never got fingerprints on the edges of our prints, and pulled etchings with pure blacks and whites in the same print. It was good.)

Long weekend

Phew! Both Etsy shop updates are pretty much finished, for now.

Swatch Swap has a Flickr group (thanks to Susie from flowerpress for that idea!) It's for shots of swatches, works in progress, and discussing printing techniques.

In keeping with my rather hands-off approach to organising swaps, I've made it a public group, and announced that members posting there are up for swapping with others who contact them one-on-one,via Flickrmail. I just can't imagine that I'd be dependable enough to coordinate things. But while I'm happy to keep on swapping, I know this isn't everyone's idea of a good time. I don't want anyone to feel awkward about turning down a swap invitation, so perhaps a 'swapped enough' note in your photo descriptions would be a way to sign out? What do you think?

While you're on Flickr, check out the Ceramic transfers/decals group - amazing work!

Shop update - it's a process

I've started updating both my Etsy shops; fabric prints and comic prints. I'll be popping in at regular intervals throughout the weekend to add more things - I wish I could say that it will all be done in one go, at a particular time, but life's not working like that right now! So do have a look every now and again to see what I've added.

Peek...

Small shop update tomorrow, the first of a new batch. Mostly smallish pieces of cloth, big enough for bags or cushions, and a few larger pieces. New tapes next week.

I've got such a lot of printing to do now, after the great response to the Swatch Swap! So exciting!

I don't have a picture for this post....

Thanks for the great response to my Swatch Swap idea! It's going to be fun. Do spread the word on your blogs if you've decided to join in - I'm keen to see how far it could go. Oh, and if you get other people to print your designs for you, that counts as handprinted too.

Heather's written a great step-by-step about how we did the decorated plates at Skinny laMinx. And thank you to Irene for featuring our plates on Bloesem!

Swatch Swap

Here's my idea: I'm going to make a quilt, of simple squares, and I'd like it to be as colourful and varied as possible. So how about a swap? I'll send you a 20cm* square of one of my prints, and you send me one of yours. Medium-weight fabric, not too thick and not too thin, with a handprinted design. Small enough to stick in an ordinary envelope.

Just leave a comment, and I'll contact you for a postal address. (Make sure I can find your email address somewhere on your website or blog!) And if you don't already print fabric, why not have a go? Potato prints, lino cuts, silkscreening, stencilling....

And then join in - go through the comments left here, and contact each person to arrange a swap with them. What do you think?

*7.8 inches

ETA: Swatch Swap now has a Flickr group.

Coffee Cup

Another working drawing for a linocut (really have to start printing these!) I think the leaf needs to move a bit to the right, but I only noticed that after I'd inked. I'll fix it on the lino block.

The cup seems to lean, too. It can't be, because I measured. With a ruler. I'd better do something to the steam, to counterbalance what can only be an optical illusion - because I measured.

Treats

Pretty things that have come my way recently: an Angela Lewin notebook from Skinny laMinx, and a badge from Needled. Thank you!

Swaps and giveaways are cropping up all over the place right now, so I'm going to instigate one next week. Just need to print some cloth first, so that I don't end up making empty promises.

Nest Soup

A working drawing for a linocut. The Nest show opens at Curious, Whetstone and Frankley at the beginning of July, so I have quite a bit of work to do before then.

I was intending to do a series of imaginary teacups, like this one, but since I've started decorating real teacups imagining them has become harder. It looks like I'm being drawn to imaginary textiles instead.

Sneaky Spy-type Photos!

See photos of some of the displays at Rooms on View on the Babazeka blog.

My love affair with shwe shwe continues

Every now and again I type 'South Africa' into Etsy's geolocator, to find out what's happening in my neighbourhood. Today I found Bokkie Shoes!

I think I need a pair of these

or theseor these
and some of these for when summer comes round again.


See more Bokkie Shoes on their Flickr page.

And if you want your own bit of shwe shwe to play around with, you can buy some here.

Rooms on View - knitting

The last bit of work I did for Rooms on View - a coffee pot cosy - being snuck up on. Unfortunately I had to pose it on a red pot for these shots, because that's all I had at home, but I did get hold of a black one for the show. The colours were dictated by the plates we made. The grey is a Shetland wool, the yellow something a bit more machine-washable, but also wool. It's really thick; the stitch pattern involves knitting 5 rows of stocking stitch, then changing colours and picking up stitches from 5 rows down - anyone have a name for this pattern?

There's a gap at the front for the spout, and cool yellow vintage buttons going up the back.