Jezze Prints

Thought Patterns

2012-01-27T14:50:00.001+02:00

New drawings for print blocks, the idea being to layer the prints, something like this:

Swimming with Cobras Cover

2012-01-25T15:57:00.000+02:00

A new book cover I did for Modjaji Books: Rosemary Smith's memoir of a woman from England who married and found herself in Grahamstown, where she joined the Black Sash - this is her story of her life working against apartheid in a country in violent transition.

Slightly Off

2012-01-23T19:16:00.000+02:00

I've been having loads of fun with off-register prints lately. This pencil case is in the shop, along with a few new purses. More to come soon!

And hop on over to Ruby in the Dust for some more gorgeous off-register printing - it's a trend, I tell you.

Stockist: Precip

2012-01-17T17:15:00.001+02:00

Did you know that you can buy my fabric in Singapore? Well, you do now! Precip is an online store based in Singapore, and they sell fabric made up into cushions as well as loose pieces.

They also stock Umbrella Prints, Auntie Cookie, and Daisy Janie fabric.

The Power of Books

2012-01-12T15:40:00.000+02:00

The clearing out continued. We found loads of books we didn't want (and the bookshelves are disconcertingly and temptingly bare now...)

I've been experimenting with the standing desk thing for about a month now, with a pile of phone books* as a sort of mini-desk on top of my desk, and this seemed like a logical next step.

Look how much stuff I can fit under there now!

Why a standing desk? Well, it really does seem to be a more comfortable way to work, especially if we're talking hours and hours of deadline illustration. I work much faster; it's hard to slump at my desk and stare off into space wondering what I'm doing there. There's no getting comfortable and then realising that I need something from the other side of the room, and it's sooo far away; I'm already up, might as well get it.

This is particularly annoying when I'm sewing, but drawing, too, is better with a standing desk. Drawing is a whole-body activity, or at the least a whole-arm activity. Lean on the desk, and you start drawing from your wrist, not your shoulder, producing ever-so-slightly lopsided figures, especially ovals and circles. In addition, drawing people without a good reference is tough - it helps if you can mimic their pose or posture, feel how it feels in space, get a sense of the distance between their hands, or how their hips would sway if they leaned over. If I'm standing while I'm drawing, this happens almost unconsciously. If I'm sitting, it doesn't happen until I've wasted a good long while struggling with a pose, then finally get up to test it, sit down again to draw, stand up to check, sit down again.... You get the picture.

*What do mean, you don't keep phone books? Best paper for paper mache, handy when you need a clean surface for glueing something, and I'm sure there are a million more uses.

Out with the old!

2012-01-09T14:57:00.000+02:00

Some of my MFA drawings, from 1993. That's right. For nearly 20 years I've been lugging these huge pieces of glass and wood from house to house, stashing them behind wardrobes and bookshelves, and having them somehow clogging up a part of my mind.

Perhaps if I'd had them out in the open it wouldn't have been so bad, but they're far too big for a small room, and far too heavy for the 100-year-old walls of the bigger places I've lived in.

At first I kept them because that's what you're supposed to do. Eventually I was keeping them because, well, they're too big for the bin.

They were important drawings: the result of a blinding flash of insight after years of stuffing around with an art degree, trying to figure out what it was that I was supposed to be getting right. In the space of about a month I realised that no-one takes care of you but yourself, that the only way to get any work done is to take it seriously, that getting enough sleep is important and afternoon naps are not sinful, that eating vegetables and rice instead of bread is a good idea, that picking up after yourself makes it easier to get around your room, that if anyone doubts your work you should simply carry on with it till they're convinced or shut up, and that starting a drawing without caring how it will end up is pretty exciting. I started drawing.

I did them quickly, one a week. I worked on my bedroom floor, so they got stepped on and tripped over. One was ruined when I fell over it; I simply drew it again, better. They were funny, and fun to do. They were completely different from anything I'd done before. I had no idea whether they were any good, yet also knew that they were the best things I'd ever done

But after I finished studying, they seemed to acquire a seriousness. They became the best things I'd ever done... years ago. They became precious, and made me feel sad and guilty whenever I found one lurking behind a bookshelf.

On Saturday I took them to the junk shop. Now I can do some new work.

Eh?

2011-12-20T15:07:00.000+02:00

Here's to happy holidays and next year being a good one! Less prickly and easier to be around than this one has been.....

May we all remain recognisable to ourselves (unlike poor Tintin #1 and #2 - even Snowy hasn't stayed the same). I'll see you in January, all bouncy and optimistic, and hopefully cured of this sort of internet agoraphobia that's settled in lately.

Good News and Bad

2011-12-13T11:04:00.001+02:00

Good news: I'll have some cushion covers, purses, and ribbons on The Fringe Arts stand at the Designer-Maker market! It's one of the best markets of the year, and I'm really excited about it.

Bad news: After much late-night spreadsheet-wrangling, I've decided that my prices will go up from the 1st of January. I've tried to postpone this for as long as possible. It's due to The Price of Cotton, mainly, which means that the price of my fabric will have to go up, and this will affect the prices of finished products. Things like buttons will hardly change, as most of the cost is in the components and the assembly, but cushion covers will reflect the increase most.

Experimental cushions

2011-12-09T16:29:00.001+02:00

These are all in my shop now. All three were experiments, done between printing orders, just to see....I'm surprised and pleased with all of them, but if I'm going to keep printing them, I'll have to come up with better names than "Roses and Dots".

Colour Crazy

2011-12-08T21:26:00.001+02:00

Trying out a few colour and shape combinations, made up into brooches.

Weaving

2011-12-01T13:41:00.001+02:00

I used Karen Barbe's beautiful mending tutorial to make woven brooches for a group of friends. After removing the woven bits from the card bits, I stretched them over polystyrene ovals (cut from saved mushroom punnets - mushrooms seemed to be on special this month), and secured them with a few big stitches across the back. I finished them off with an oval of felt and a safety pin sewn to it.

Creative Coffee Morning

2011-11-28T20:44:00.001+02:00

I'll be the guest speaker at the next Cape Town Creative Coffee Morning (Friday 2nd December at 9:30am at Escape Cafe in Bree Street).

Please do come along and ask me loads of questions - I'll need all the help in the world! I usually need 8 hours of sleep just to be a normal person, and given that I have 2 deadlines and 3 big print orders this week, who I'll be by Friday will be as much of a surprise to me as to you!

Read more about the event and register for a ticket here. Catch up on past Mornings here, and if you can't make it on Friday, follow CreativeCoffeeM on Twitter as she tweets the conversation.

Flowers

2011-11-25T13:08:00.001+02:00

Smaller buttons - flowers, rickrack, knots - now available in my Etsy shop.

Indigo

2011-11-21T18:19:00.001+02:00

My neighbour set up an indigo vat this weekend, and invited me to come and dip bits of fabric into it. It was fascinating to watch the fabric turn from yellow to green to blue as it oxidized.

We ran out of things to dye, and started on anything that wasn't nailed down or already blue. One of the exciting discoveries was that printed bits retained their colour - red stayed bright red. Of course nothing in my scrap box is safe now.

(As you can see in this pic, white cat fur appears to be completely impervious to indigo. What a surprise. )

I made a knitting pattern!

2011-11-18T12:04:00.001+02:00

It worked. I traced a pattern off an existing shirt, made a chart, and knitted it up. It's not beautiful, but it's really a sort of knitter's muslin. Proof that this will work in other (nicer) yarns and stitches.

I'm sure there are simpler and more elegant ways to do this, but I'm a one-foot-in-front-of-the-other kind of thinker. No leaps and bounds. But if you'd like to see how I plodded through this process, read on....

Trace a pattern off an existing garment that fits you well. This is only likely to work with things that are made from a knitted fabric, unless you mean to knit at an incredibly firm gauge.

Lay the garment flat and inside out on a big piece of paper, and trace closely around it, holding down the seams as you draw along them, and making sure everything stays flat and doesn't move around. I used greaseproof baking paper - it's big and you can see through it. After tracing, fold the pattern in half, check that the two halves match, and make corrections. Repeat for each part of the garment. Sleeves are obviously more easily done folded in half.

I drew a line down the middle of each pattern piece, and along the bottom straight edge, and marked up the whole piece in a 1cm grid.

I smoothed out some of the curves, but others, like just under the armhole, or the neckline, I left exactly like the sewn seams, because I wanted to make something as close as possible to the shirt I had. This approach won't give you a very intuitive knitting pattern - it'll mean a lot of checking the chart closely. Instead of "Decrease 1 stitch every 6 rows" you're more likely to end up with "Decrease 1 each side, work 3 rows, decrease 2 each side, work 2 rows etc". So this is the time to decide how closely you'd like to stick to the original, and how much you'd prefer to flatten curves. Bearing in mind that knitting stretches, and looking at the simplicity of most pattern schematics, I'd guess that you could get away with quite a bit of line straightening. But I have yet to test that.

I knitted a swatch in the yarn I intended to use - a big swatch, to see how the yarn behaved on different needle sizes. I was aiming for a fabric with a drape and stretch close to the shirt's. Then I measured the swatch, and figured out my number of stitches and rows per centimetre.

Now it gets fiddly. I used knitter's graph paper from a book, but you can find it online. (It might make more sense to set up your own grid, at the same scale as the knitting. But that's not the plodding way.) I traced a grid off the graph paper that matched my gauge of 3 stitches and 4 rows per centimetre, and then copied the curved parts of the pattern to this grid. Putting the grid back over the graph paper, I drew stepped versions of the curves to match the stitches. Then I checked the numbers to make sure that the number of stitches and rows the decreases are worked over matched the lengths and stitch counts needed. A bit of fiddling, rubbing out and redrawing, was needed.

To make a chart I could follow while watching tv, I redrew the stepped curves onto regular graph paper. Just to make things simpler, I coloured the knit rows and left the purl ones blank. Much easier to check at a glance, and easier to make sure that decreases of more than 1 stitch were located at the beginning of rows.

I kept the full-size paper pattern handy while knitting, and every now and again checked my knitting against it.

I think it will be very easy to modify this pattern, to add length or width. For some reason I could never get my head around the calculations needed; now I can draw them directly onto the pattern, plod through a few fiddly bits, and have a new pattern.

This week:

2011-11-11T16:21:00.001+02:00

A bit of a new book cover that made me cross-eyed, but was so very worth it in the end.

Fun things you can do with those little sticky-back foam things for furniture...

(Made a cushion cover from this one, I'll have it in my shop shortly.)

...and some new cushion covers. These have gone to The Fringe Arts on Kloof, but I'll have some in my Etsy shop soon, too.

Phew!

2011-11-04T16:46:00.001+02:00

This glorious book arrived in my postbox this week! Written by Laurie Wisbrun, it has interviews with designers (like Ink&Spindle and Skinny LaMinx), tutorials, loads of inspiring photos, and sane and sensible advice on everything you ever wanted to know about fabric. (The tutorials on digital design have screenshots - genius!) It's available from Amazon UK and also from Kalahari. It'll be out in the US next year.

Of course I'm over the moon to see my fabric in it!

I wrote a few tutorials on block printing for the book, too:

And the next day the Winter issue of Stitch magazine arrived, with some of my ribbon in it:

I've also managed to come up with an easy set-up for photographing cushions, so I can finally put them in my shop. I tried loads of shots with chairs and flowers and all kinds of props, until at last I remembered that most basic rule of editing, designing, and everything else, really: if it's complicated, leave it out.

The set-up:

A big piece of white foam-core so we can pretend I don't have orange floors, a piece of white card to reflect light, augmented by card covered in tinfoil, a washing rack to hold it all up, and of course a tripod. (The Schnauzer and the guitar pedals are completely optional.)

New Buttons

2011-10-27T20:47:00.001+02:00

They're flat, they're round, they're brightly coloured. They're brand new buttons, and in they're in my Etsy shop.

Singles

2011-10-25T21:09:00.001+02:00

All my newer nylon-backed buttons are now available individually in my Etsy shop, rather than in sets of six.

While this means that I can't guarantee that you'll be able to buy a matching set of six buttons, it also means that you're able to create your own combination packs. Or even buy just one button.

Although the shipping is costly for just one single button, you'll pay no more to ship twenty than you would ten or six or one. And no shipping at all on that one button if you buy another item!

More Cardboard Modelling

2011-10-21T20:05:00.000+02:00

The care taken in finishing things off is astounding. Thick edges are covered with decorative paper so that the card layers won't split apart. Corners are strengthened with extra pieces of card. And as for hinges, have a look at the instructions below:

There are simple projects too; this is more or less what I was thinking of when I made my book cover.

And look! Beveling the ends of thick card before rolling it into a cylinder.

Skimming through the book, these are some bits that caught my eye:

"The question of handwork in schools has developed rapidly in importance in recent years. From being regarded as an experiment or as a means of amusement, it is now universally recognized as an essential element of general education. Handwork has been proved to be a valuable training both of mind and character, and it counteracts the one-sidedness of mere book learning."

"The construction of cardboard models affords the pupil a training in manual dexterity, and is therefore a means of approach to the brain through 'doing'. The delicate movements which the making of certain models involves, develop muscular sense to an appreciable degree, and at the same time inculcate that very necessary element of character, patience."

"The pupil sees immediately before him the results of a faulty measurement and soon realises the necessity for absolute exactness in his undertakings."

"Until the pupils have had a certain amount of practice in drawing and using plans which have been supplied by the teacher, they will be unable to make their own. To leave the pupils entirely to their own resources too early with respect to drawings leads to disappointment."

"Where even the strictest economy in material is practised, the enterprising teacher can with little difficulty find supplies in the form of empty packing cases which tradesmen often throw away....However, new material is always more conducive to careful working."

"The teacher should always lead his pupils to arrange the drawings so that the least possible amount of card is used. This economy in the use of material is an invaluable training both to boys and girls."

"Unless some precaution is taken the school furniture will be needlessly disfigured in a short time. Cutting boards preclude the possibility of this occurring."

"Both pasting and gluing provide a loophole for pupils to dirty and stick up, not only themselves, but also the school furniture and the work upon which they are engaged. It is therefore highly important that the teacher should instil into his pupils the necessity for cleanliness in cardboard modelling. A splendid practice is to keep the desk and table tops covered with paper."

Oddly, the tone is sympathetic and severe, strict and funny, but there's not a whiff of modern textbooks' desperate sense of "fun" and "creativity". Simply an urgency to teach.

New Book Old Book

2011-10-19T21:13:00.000+02:00

A new envelope cover for my scribbled-phone-number-and-shopping-list book, inspired by one of my favourite old books.

They certainly don't teach maths like this anymore.

I love the drawings. No photograph could compete with the clarity of these. And the lettering....

It's good to be reminded that card and paper can be surprisingly durable materials. They don't last forever, but perhaps some things don't need to. And some things look better for looking used.

I'll post some more pics from this book soon; the construction methods detailed are a wonder, involving fabric and brown paper for hinges, and shaving of card edges for joins, for instance.

I may have come over a bit Edwardian schoolgirl when I decorated the cover. Perhaps it's time to lay off the Downton Abbey and PJ Harvey for a bit.

Paulie

2011-10-17T18:55:00.000+02:00

Still working on my own knitting pattern, but in the meantime here's a cardigan knitted from someone else's pattern: Paulie.

The yarn is a mystery acrylic from the secondhand shop; it was more or less the right colour, so I didn't mess around with changing a single thing about the pattern, which I loved. (Sometimes knitting is like shopping; I see a picture and I want the garment.)

Of course it seems strangely too big and too small at the same time, and there's a weird pouffey thing happening around the shoulders. But that's me, not the pattern. I crocheted a chain along the inside of the collar to stop it slipping off, but still have to keep it buttoned to keep it on, so I suppose I do really have very round shoulders.

This might actually work

2011-10-13T21:18:00.000+02:00

Designing my own knitting pattern, starting with a paper pattern traced off a favourite t-shirt. Three kinds of graph paper: a grid drawn on the pattern, knitter's graph paper, and good old square graph paper. If it works, I'll show you how. If it doesn't work, I'll show you anyway and we can figure out what I did wrong. But so far, so good.

Why bother with all this nonsense in the first place? Mainly because I spent three weeks knitting something that ended up not fitting the way I wanted it to. My tension was correct, I scrutinised the schematic diagram, I measured myself and several items of clothing, I tried it on three-quarters of the way through and ripped back and knitted a whole section again - and still it didn't look like the photo*.

I'm tired of this.

It's all very well reading instructions for how to modify patterns to fit, but I find it difficult to understand what changes are needed when the garment doesn't exist yet and I can't try it on. The calculations make sense in theory, but trying to apply them to an imaginary garment makes my brain just plain stop. So I'm doing this by drawing. There are numbers, yes, but they're little blocks I can move around on the page, and I can see what I'm doing. It's more counting than maths.

Working from an existing garment means that I understand how it fits, and how I'll need to change it. I can pin and measure the t-shirt, judge the effect in the mirror, move around and decide whether it's comfortable. Looking at a flat pattern and understanding how it will fit in three dimensions is a skill acquired through experience; I don't have that experience.

I'm aware of Zimmerman techniques, knitting from the top down in the round and the percentage system. I've just never seen a jersey** made like that that I'd want to wear. Some I'd want to knit, they look like fun, but I prefer seams and corners to my clothes. It's just a matter of taste.

Ultimately, I'm making a basic block that I can adapt - just like in sewing. Then, if I like the look of a pattern, I can buy it, draw the schematic up to actual size, lay it over my block that I know fits, and adjust it by drawing.

I really hope this works. If it doesn't I may give up knitting.

*That's not because it was on a model and I'm not a model. It was the new style of knitting photo, on an 'ordinary person'. I'll rant about average sizes and shapes and how they are actually useful in allowing people to judge whether an item of clothing will fit them, some other time. Suffice to say that we've all spent years buying clothes displayed on average shapes and are surely quite well practiced at guessing how they'll look on us. Models may be thinner than we'd like, but it's their proportions, not their actual measurements, that matter when they're displaying clothes..

**Yes, a jersey. If I lived somewhere else it might be a sweater or a pullover, but I don't and so it's not.

Vintage fabric finds me

2011-10-10T18:15:00.002+02:00

Some lovely bits of cloth and thread found at, of all places, the Rondebosch craft market. I swear, I wasn't even looking for it; it just sort of jumped up and yelled at me.

Sketchbooks

2011-10-04T19:15:00.001+02:00

Remember my sketchbook, done as part of Artsource's Daily Sketch Project? Now all the completed sketchbooks are on show in Artsource's window till the 10th of October.

I love this one!

Scribbles

2011-09-28T17:51:00.000+02:00

Perhaps I went a little overboard, but beads are such lovely things to fiddle with. (I used this tutorial.) I love the way the cord or wire looks like a scribbled line holding the beads together.

Book Cover

2011-09-26T16:33:00.000+02:00

The cover for Bom Boy by Yewande Omotoso, published by Modjaji Books. Book and cover design by Bitscape Design, cover drawing by me.

The main character in the book spends a lot of time walking around Salt River and Observatory; he buys flower seeds, he notices plants. It was just that time of year here when every crack and crevice in the pavement erupts with tiny green leaves (before the sun burns everything to paper again). I'd been toying with a fabric design celebrating these green lines when the book cover brief arrived, and it seemed too perfect not to use right away.

Research involved running around Obs one morning with a camera, snapping pavements.

Tiny Geometrics

2011-09-23T20:45:00.001+02:00

By happy accident, these tiny prints show exactly what I was trying to convey about block printing in a short piece I wrote for Re-Nest the other day.

Layering of colours, on-the-spot pattern choices.

They're intended as buttons, but as soon as I started printing these tests my mind flew to allover patterns.

(The Redefine column is written by Rikkianne van Kirk; she also paints and draws, and has a way with black line that makes me grin with delight. Go look!)

Open Book Festival

2011-09-21T15:01:00.000+02:00

The Open Book Festival starts today! There's loads of stuff happening, and absolutely everything looks fascinating.

(I do believe they're also selling some lovingly handprinted journals, so head on down to The Book Lounge to get one.)

Repper

2011-09-19T11:15:00.000+02:00

Throw away your to-do list and go play on Repper (discovered via The Shopping Sherpa). Repper lets you create patterns from uploaded images; there's a demo version to try for free.

Once I got over the glorious kaleidoscopic dizziness (that took a while - pictures of flowers! Whee!) I started finding that the simplest source images gave the most interesting results. These are all from a few comic frames.

Repper lets you save the tiles as well as the images, and that's where I got really hooked. Digitally-created patterns can look bit too clickety-click. But cutting these as lino blocks, and overprinting colours....

I usually start designs with a general sense of what I want them to feel like: 70s hotel linen, shwe-shwe, great-auntie's curtains. This turns that process upside-down.

Yet in the end it doesn't feel terribly different from using graph paper and a compass (yes, those are my favourite toys for repeats); just very much faster.

Milk Sale

2011-09-16T09:39:00.003+02:00

Milk in Long Street is having a sale weekend! Everything is under R300, and there are some very very well-priced Henri Kuikens items on the shelves.

Cushion covers

2011-09-14T15:48:00.001+02:00

Some new cushion covers, all on creamy unbleached cotton calico, 45cm x 45cm, with zips at the back. They'll be at The Fringe Arts on Kloof from tomorrow.

I do need to spend some time working out a set-up for taking more attractive photos of cushions. Somehow I need to simulate a well-lit blank wall. It sounds simple, but such a thing does not exist in our house.

Window

2011-09-12T15:24:00.000+02:00

The result of last week's printing frenzy! A collaboration with Bridget Henderson (of cowgirlblues) and Lauren Fowler for The Fringe Arts on Kloof window.

Lauren deciding what to do next.

Bridget composing a string.

Do pop in to have a look at the window, and the shop. And please feel free to take a paper thing! There were loads of bits and pieces to spare - like I said, a printing frenzy.

Print Frenzy

2011-09-09T12:25:00.002+02:00

What's it all for? Watch this space. Or this one.

Cold Curing

2011-09-06T14:46:00.000+02:00

Does everyone know about this stuff? Because it's amazing! Just add a bit to the fabric ink, and no need to heat set.

The bottle advises adding 2.5ml to 250ml of ink. Please do check my maths, but I've worked it out at 3 drops per tablespoon (using metric drops rather than medical drops, whatever that really means, and just because 1/20 seems like a friendlier fraction than 1/12).

Sketchbook

2011-09-02T14:29:00.000+02:00

What was I thinking, signing up for my local art shop's month-long sketchbook project? I'm terrified of sketchbooks. And not only did I have to do at least 15 drawings - the books are going to be exhibited and auctioned.

So, with a potential audience peering over my shoulder, I somehow "couldn't find anything to draw" on the first day. I just stared at the blank page and then put the book away.

Knowing I'd have to face this kind of decision every day for a month - well, I just can't handle that level of stress. So I chose a topic and started drawing.

Leaves and leafy things. Even this had it's unpleasant side, and it's a real relief to not be glaring suspiciously at leaves whenever I go out, wondering whether they'd be good to draw, too similar to one I'd already drawn... Honestly, I can be a very tiring person sometimes.

I'll let you know about the exhibition as soon as I know more about it. In the end I was very grateful simply to be reminded of how much I really do love to draw!

Going Pro

2011-08-31T17:14:00.000+02:00

Now that's an upgrade! Gulp. The first thing I've bought that's utterly and completely for the business. Everything else, paper cutter, paints, sewing machine, even my printing press, could also be justified as 'things I've always wanted' or 'things I play with for fun'. The only reason someone like me would have an ironing press would be for work.

Up till now I've been using my mom's old iron, the one she gave me when I went to university and probably the first one she bought. Until I started printing fabric, I can't honestly remember using it for anything other than toasted cheese sandwiches: stack bread and cheese, wrap in foil, place on metal tray, iron. Yum.

Almost free shirts

2011-08-29T15:55:00.000+02:00

A plain, long-sleeved t-shirt with something of a boat-neck: what could be harder to find? Since I don't want just one, but millions, it has to be almost free, too. So I hit up Burdastyle's free patterns, armed myself with several metres of cheap knit fabric, and sewed till I had a headache.

First up was the Almost Waste-less Top. I was intrigued not just by the wastelessness, but also the construction. Alas, I don't have a wrist circumference of 18cm, so the first go ended up as the short sleeved version above. I couldn't understand the neck facing instructions, so settled for sewing in 2 strips of fabric. This dreadful photo is the best I could come up with, but the construction is nice: a strip across the top that forms the sleeves as well, and rectangular front and back panels, with strips at the sides running up to form the bottom of the sleeves. Essentially princess seams (I think. I'm still learning the lingo.)

It did feel a little tight around the armholes, so I tried again, making the front and back panels narrower and the side panels wider to accommodate the wider sleeve I drew. This time I figured out the neck facings. Sewing on the sleeves with the shoulder seam at the top and the sleeve seam under the arm only gave me funny gathered sleeves, so I tried it with the sleeve seams aligned with the shoulder seams. Better, but I think I'll take them off and keep this as a short-sleeved shirt.

(A word of warning: do not try to cut this pattern out in a limited space. It's impossible. Also, do not try it if the only space you have is your bedroom floor. You will need a decent-sized table to work on.)

Next up: pull à manche 3/4 et col bénitier tout simple... And it is indeed simple, and quick. Comfortable, too. I've never owned a cowl-necked garment before, but I think I like it. I took it in about an inch on each side and under the sleeves, and about an inch down the back. Very easy to try on and adjust.

Lastly: winging it. I have a black knit top that's the first thing I grab whenever it's not in the wash. I bought it years ago, at a shop that's disappeared, and it's perfect. I traced the pattern off and sewed it up in less time than it took to make any of the other shirts. Time to make a few million of them!

Free Shipping

2011-08-24T16:40:00.000+02:00

These two drawings are also available as prints from my Society6 shop - and they're offering free shipping, worldwide, till Sunday! So if you've been waiting for me to get it together to have them printed up and for sale locally... well, this will be quicker. Don't delay, order today.

And in a rather spiffy move, they're also available as skins for those new-fangled communications devices the young people have - ipods, iphones and the like. Also with free shipping.

For more wordiness from me, read this Q&A in support of Cape Town's bid for 2014 Design Capital.

Knitting Books: not just for knitters

2011-08-23T15:56:00.000+02:00

Tooting my own horn... my buttons on the pages of a book!

I bought Ysolda Teague's book Little Red in the City a while ago, and read it from cover to cover (and squealed when I saw my buttons).

It has patterns, and they're lovely, but the real beauty of it is the way it's written. Every pattern has a proper schematic showing how the pieces of the garment fit together; stitch patterns are charted as well as written line-by-line; yarns are described in terms of the fabric they create as well as their weight and fibre content. Complete measurements are given for each size, including measurements you didn't know you'd need (until you do), like cuff measurements. Just looking over a pattern is an education in pattern-reading. The side-by-side chart and row instructions make it clear how charts work, and will probably have you able to 'read' your own knitting in no time.

Most of the book is about fit, measurements, and modifying pattern instructions to fit you. I must admit that I read this part rather grudgingly. Too much information, I thought. I don't want to become a knitting designer, I just want to make clothes. I'm lucky enough to be able to find things that fit in standard sizes in shops, so I don't need to deconstruct patterns to this degree.

But it all sank in, and this weekend when I was sewing t-shirts* I found myself blithely re-drafting patterns, tracing patterns off other clothes, and knowing what was wrong with the fit on the first go, sometimes even before cutting a piece of fabric.

Even if you don't ever plan to knit one of Ysolda's designs, this book will help you choose and use other patterns intelligently. And it may even improve your sewing.

*photos to come when the light in Cape Town improves enough for indoor pictures of dark blue garments.

Buckets of Buttons

2011-08-19T16:04:00.000+02:00

Brace yourselves! I'm listing loads of new buttons in both my shops over the next few days!

Salvation

2011-08-17T16:30:00.001+02:00

Printing with water-based ink means a lot of hand washing, usually in cold (icy!) water, several times an hour, every day. That means dry skin - not a trivial matter in winter, when you use your hands a lot, and they become too sore to do much with.

Cue: cheap home-made lotion. Beeswax and olive oil. I used this recipe. (And you could probably use it to polish your furniture too, if you like that kind of thing.)

Poetry

2011-08-16T16:09:00.000+02:00

A good way to spend a chilly evening or two.

Yay!

2011-08-12T15:44:00.000+02:00

You can now buy prints of these drawings, in a range of sizes, from my Society6 page! (Minus the black line borders - I just put them in here because the drawings looked a bit lost in all this white space.)

And for Cape Town folk, I just dropped off a bunch of new things at The Fringe on Kloof: cushion covers, pencil cases, new buttons and more.

Better Pencils

2011-08-10T15:56:00.000+02:00

Short pencils might seem like a trivial thing to fret over, but no matter how many I buy, there's always a moment when there are no long ones left in the drawer (and no 24-hour stationery shops that I know of).

So I treated myself to a pencil extender. It's probably the best thing I've ever bought. I got it here.

Tiny Bits

2011-08-08T14:27:00.000+02:00

A tiny bit of a drawing full of tiny bits - part of a new cover for Modjaji Books. Another one that I wasn't sure was going to work until I was three-quarters finished and two days into it.

If you're keen to see where all this creative anguish and despair occurs, pop over to and so I whisper for photos of my studio and a short interview. (Thanks, Anabel!)

2011-08-05T16:00:00.000+02:00

Strange Neighbours

2011-08-03T15:40:00.000+02:00

My friend Masha recently wrote, illustrated, and published a book of short stories, and I've been sneaking away from my work to snatch a few pages whenever I could. These are the kind of stories that made me love reading in the first place. I highly recommend that you buy a copy, and prepare to stay awake till you've finished. If you don't have one of those fancy e-readers, you might have to print it out to carry around, to read while you're eating - it's that kind of book.

"Meet a hitch hiking troll with a taste for pepper-spray and a homeless witch with a trolley full of secrets. Discover a book hoarding mermaid and a fridge full of frogs. And learn how to greet a witch – politely, of course. These stories describe encounters with every-day magic, where strange neighbours live in the flat next door or under the manhole cover you step on every day."

Read more about how to buy it here. There are a couple of options, depending on where you live and what format you'd like.

Did I say that it's completely brilliant?

It's all ready!

2011-08-01T16:14:00.000+02:00

Some bleary-eyed shots of some of the things I've sent up to Decorex:

fabric panels;

covered books;

storage baskets that are lined with woollen fabric reclaimed from old coats;

cushions and cushion covers;

buttons (and how I wished for little elves to sew them on to cards for me);

and ribbons.

Now to quickly rearrange my website to accommodate Henri Kuikens before Decorex starts. Watch this space (but, um, don't look yet).

Emile's window

2011-07-27T20:16:00.000+02:00

While Emile really wants to help with Getting Ready for Decorex, the unfortunate truth is that the best thing he can do is to keep out of the way. Although sleeping does seem to be one of his favourite things, I felt a bit guilty making him do it all day long. Perhaps he's getting bored?

So I put a stool under the window, and now he can bark at passersby. He barely slept at all today.

Getting ready

2011-07-26T15:48:00.000+02:00

Getting ready for Decorex. Part 1 - I suspect all my posts this week will be Getting Ready for Decorex, because that's all I'm doing. Great fun, but one slip and everything will go to pieces.

So far all the prints have come out perfectly, except for one cushion cover. But I had a spare! A spare! Can't quite believe how organised I seem to be.

I did want to show all my best prints, in their most beautiful colour combinations. After half an hour of planning (faffing, really) I panicked and just started printing on whatever appeared first in the pile. This is my version of being organised.

Sketching

2011-07-21T18:43:00.000+02:00

Sketchbooks aren't really my thing. I can fill countless loose sheets of paper with scribbles when I'm working out ideas, but books paralyze me. Perhaps it's the memory of the weekly sketchbook scrutiny at art school - could they tell I'd done all these drawings the night before? (Of course they could.)

Of course I know it's important to draw, even (or especially) when I don't have illustration jobs to do.

So I'm really pleased that I've found someone to sketch with. Once a week, no getting out of it, and we take the chance to hang out in all the cool coffee shops.

From top to bottom: Yours Truly, Haas, the Company Gardens (good weather) and Birds Cafe.

At this rate, I might even fill a sketchbook!

Introducing Henri Kuikens

2011-07-20T16:38:00.000+02:00

I confess, I made him up.

I've been wanting to somehow separate my printed textiles from my illustration work, instead of producing everything under the same name. I played around with words and drew logos, but nothing seemed quite right, until out of the blue it hit me: Henri Kuikens!

You may know them as spider plants, but in Afrikaans they're called Hen-en-Kuikens, and for years I knew them as Henrikuikens. (My mother talks very fast. Words get blurred.)

I still need to update my website with a section for Henri, but perhaps now that there are two us, things will happen faster! Buttons, ribbons, brooches and notebooks are already for sale at Milk in Long Street and The Fringe on Kloof.

Oops!

2011-07-14T17:12:00.000+02:00

I haven't fallen off the edge of the earth, just been busy making little boxes and stamping things. All will be revealed soon!

Handknitted Stockings - and they're easy!

2011-07-08T16:31:00.000+02:00

(Oh my, just noticed the bits of puppy fur on my stockings... sigh....)

Anyway, these are ridiculously easy and ridiculously warm! The pattern is from The Complete Book of Knitting Crochet and Embroidery (1977), which is probably not very useful. But here's the clever part: all shaping is done by changing needle sizes. I used 5mm, 4.5mm, 3.75mm, and 3.25mm, with 2-ply yarn.

I don't have all those sizes in circular needles, so I just split the pattern up the back and knitted back and forth. When it came to the foot I did the heel shaping on either side, following the pattern, so that the seam runs under the foot. This pattern is written from the top down, so length adjustments are a bit iffy. Luckily I'd knitted these before, about 20 years ago, and had notes to go by.

But I don't see why this wouldn't work brilliantly knitted toe-up, allowing you to measure width as you go, and switching needles when necessary. In fact, any toe-up lace sock could probably be turned into a stocking by doing this. You could even knit the foot in the round, and split the pattern when you get to the part where you run out of circular needles of the right size (just cast on one extra stitch on each end for seaming).

End with about 5cm of ribbing, and yes, you will need garters of some sort.

Scarf: finished

2011-07-07T16:49:00.000+02:00

Finally finished: Summit from Knitty, but a scarf rather than a shawl. I ran out of silk along the binding-off edge; I left it lying for a while, trying to screw up the courage to undo rows and rows of tiny slippery stitches so as to reclaim enough to finish off the binding properly. Couldn't do it. So I found embroidery cotton in a close-enough shade, and finished off with that.

It's ended up being a not-very-practical but still pretty scrap of silk, just long enough and just wide enough.

Swap!

2011-07-06T19:35:00.000+02:00

The beautiful brooch I received as part of the Flowerpress brooch swap, from Amy of Badskirt (I love that name). She also sent pieces of fabric from Australian designers; it's such a thrill to see in real life fabric that I've admired online.

(It's a bittersweet thing... I'm reminded of the stacks of handprinted swatches from the swap I organised that are languishing in a drawer, still waiting to be turned into a quilt. I'm not even going to link to a post about it, because I don't want to know how long it's been.)

What is it?

2011-07-05T15:23:00.000+02:00

My mom bought this at the secondhand shop, and we're both desperate to find out what it is, and what you do with it. It must be some sort of needlework tool, but googling Pic-Quic only turns up screwdrivers. D.R.G.M. seems to be an acronym for Deutsches Reich Gebrauchsmuster (German Reich Registered Design).

Soap!

2011-06-30T14:53:00.000+02:00

Pretty awesome soap. I got it from here.

Down Under

2011-06-29T13:16:00.000+02:00

How very cool to see my scissors ribbon in the July issue of Australian In Style magazine!

It's all thanks to the tireless efforts of Emily Ziz Style Studio - and you can read more about Emma Levitt, the force behind it, on Visi magazine's site.

A Lioness at my Heels

2011-06-27T16:42:00.000+02:00

Bitscape Design did a wonderful job converting my drawing and lettering into a book cover for Robin Winckel-Mellish's new poetry book from Modjaji Books.

Boots!

2011-06-24T10:46:00.000+02:00

The most amazing boots ever! Made by Zasu.

It's a gloomy, rainy day, making good photos of black things very difficult, and my pics don't do them justice at all.

But ... buttons! Requiring a button hook, at first, though they've loosened up a bit now.

Far and Wide

2011-06-23T12:47:00.000+02:00

While these little chaps are making their way to Grahamstown for the Co/Mix show next week, the pencil cases and purses below are already in Durban for the Home Grown Fair, thanks to Nadia of Cupcake Couture.

Posted!

2011-06-21T15:30:00.000+02:00

Making the deadline with moments to spare, as usual - my brooch for the Flower Press brooch swap.

It wasn't all laziness and procrastination; there was a lot of dithering and pondering, unpicking and restarting. I think I finally ended up with something that has just enough, and not too much.

(I know I promised a tutorial for the brooches, and I've no idea how or why time has run away from me like this ... sniffles and teaching and exhibitions have something to do with it, but the tutorial is on my list.)

Cowgirlblues Showroom Launch

2011-06-20T14:06:00.000+02:00

Very exciting news! Local knitwear (and crochetwear) label cowgirlblues have a showroom opening on Thursday.

Can't Pink? Don't Pink!

2011-06-14T14:49:00.000+02:00

If, like me, you discover that your pinking shears are chewing fabric rather than pinking it, and you have 45 swatches to prep right now, try pulling out a few threads around the edges instead.

Yarn Bombing

2011-06-13T14:37:00.000+02:00

Saturday was International Yarn Bombing Day. The South African National Gallery was our target.

See more pics on my Flickr page, and have a look here for more bombing on Table Mountain.

(I've picked the winner of my brooch giveaway using a random number generator: Libe, congrats! They'll be in the post soon. Thank you all for the lovely comments, and I'll have a tutorial up before the end of this week.)

Bolbommers!*

2011-06-10T13:57:00.000+02:00

Tomorrow is International Yarn Bombing Day! Don't get a fright.

*Thanks to tjou-tjou for the translation.

How to Eat a Pomegranate

2011-06-09T16:01:00.000+02:00

(or: Bring Back the Diagram)

Video tutorials are great for lots of reasons, but instant comprehension isn't one of them.

Thinking there had to a simple way to peel a pomegranate, I looked online. Fully half an hour and several YouTube videos later, I had an answer. First, however, I'd had to watch a few minutes of each tutorial to find out whether they were showing the underwater peeling method, which I didn't want. Then I had to sit through what felt like hours of people showing and pointing at all sides of a pomegranate, all sides of the knife they were going to use, both sides of their cutting boards....

It's interesting to know that their grandmothers taught them this method. It's equally interesting to see their kitchens, their hairstyles, the funny way they keep moving their hands while they talk. But that's not the information I'm looking for.

One page, one drawing, that's all it needed. So here it is.

(For a further demonstration of the superior power of diagrams, compare just about any knitting video tutorial to any post on TECHknitting. There's just no contest.)

Change of Pace

2011-06-07T15:47:00.000+02:00

Time for something different after all that drawing....

I've been making embroidered brooches for a while, in various forms, but was never happy with the pinback badges I was mounting them on. After a few experiments, I've come up with a better solution: stretched over a large plastic button, backed with a double layer of cotton, and a brooch pin sewn to the back. They're light, washable, and satisfyingly substantial at nearly 1cm thick at the centre.

Since my blog is nearly 5 years old (beginning of next month!) why not have a small giveaway? Nothing wrong with early celebrations. Leave a comment to win all four of the brooches pictured above. Make sure I'll be able to contact you; I'll draw a winner on Sunday the 12th.

The brooches below are for sale in my Etsy shop and my South African shop.

Is anyone keen for a tutorial for these? They're a little bit fiddly, but really quite simple.

Lioness

2011-06-02T16:04:00.000+02:00

This is the result of last week's fiddly pencil drawing: a cover for a new book from Modjaji Books.

Inspiration

2011-06-01T15:31:00.000+02:00

Probably the inspiration for one of my drawings from yesterday: an old mop that's been left outside for far too long has started sprouting.

(I do have another mop. I do even use it sometimes.)

Busy Week

2011-05-31T14:40:00.001+02:00

My fingers are sore! In the last week I've done these two drawings for the CoMix exhibition:

Does it hurt?

It can happen.

Also a book cover and 96 drawings for a school book. I'll be taking a day off to, I don't know, sort through my yarn stash or something.

Oh wait. I have to clean the house first. Bleh.

This is taking a long time

2011-05-24T15:55:00.000+02:00

But I think it will be worth it.

Fallberry mitts

2011-05-20T16:00:00.000+02:00

I love this pattern!

On the left, the small size knitted in DK wool, and on the right, the large size knitted in sock-weight alpaca. Both were knitted on 2.75mm needles.

Some of us grow sideways

2011-05-18T14:01:00.001+02:00

No, really, that's what it's called.

Simple

2011-05-17T13:29:00.003+02:00

Marvelously simple earrings from GemmeTresor on Etsy. I couldn't make a choice, so got a whole bunch.

Speaking of Etsy, it's time for the Handmade World Cup again. Etsy teams from around the world are up against each other, and if you vote, you stand a chance to win a $30 gift voucher to spend in a shop from the winning country! South Africa have already made it through to the second round; we won last year, so let's see if we can do it again! Go here to cast your vote.

Getting Somewhere

2011-05-11T17:13:00.002+02:00

I seem to be getting somewhere with the drawings; this is the result of last week's sketches.

The thrill of finishing one of these only lasts a day or so, and then I'm back to my usual grumpy self, so I'd best get started on the next one.

(And no, You-Know-Who-You-Are, it's not called 'The Bum of Roots' and it has nothing to do with Radiohead. So there.)

Bead Bracelet

2011-05-09T16:36:00.003+02:00

I was clearing out my studio the other day and found this knitted bracelet from ages ago.

Very simple to make, and a good way to use up a stash of beads (it uses so little yarn that it hardly counts as a knitting stashbuster.)

It's knitted in the round, in stocking stitch, which makes it curl the way it does. The beads sit between the stitches on the purl side. Between two bights. (Yep, I didn't know that either until a few moments ago.)

You'll need:

some yarn (I used DK cotton)
some beads*
a circular needle or double-pointed needles to knit in the round (I used a 3mm needle, I think).

Thread the beads on to the yarn, cast on enough stitches to go over your hand easily, join to knit in the round, and knit 1 round.

Bead round: knit 1, slide a bead up to the needles, knit the next stitch. The bead should sit between the 2 stitches at the back of the work. Do this for the rest of the round.

Next round: knit.

Alternate beaded and unbeaded rounds, ending with an unbeaded round. Cast off.

*How many? Let's see.... 35 beads to a row... 3 rows of beads.... 105 beads! Which means I cast on 36 stitches.

Quiet Drawing

2011-05-06T16:57:00.003+02:00

Started a drawing no-one's paying me to do. It's a lovely feeling.

It's not the most original idea ever, but trying to come up with such an idea wasn't getting me any closer to actually drawing. While working on it, I had 3 more ideas, all a bit better, so there's something to be said for Just Starting.

Audiobooks are my latest weapon in the war against bad thoughts. Seems that while I'm following a narrative, I can't think in words. So all the negative comments, the doubts, the rationalisations, are blissfully silenced, and I can simply watch my hands getting on with things.

Giveaway!

2011-05-03T16:44:00.001+02:00

The always amazing Carina is giving away some of my printed ribbons as part of her birthday celebrations! Head on over here to find out more.

Apron

2011-04-28T14:47:00.002+02:00

A gorgeous and extremely useful craft apron made by Yardwork, combining my block printed tape and her digitally printed fabric. (You can buy it here.)

I'm hoping to get back to making things too, or at least photographing the things I've made. There are rolls of new ribbon prints, for example, languishing in the cupboard. But at the moment, illustration deadlines are stacked up against each other, each one takes a little longer than I think it will, and domino effects and houses built of cards are the first things that spring to mind each morning. As do mice, men, and their plans.

Ribbon Storage

2011-04-20T16:59:00.000+02:00

Sometimes it's a good idea to hang on to things just because they're lovely. These old film reel cases turned out to be perfect for stashing rolls of ribbon.

New Cushions and New Shop

2011-04-15T18:54:00.000+02:00

King Protea cushion covers, in mustard yellow on linen-cotton cloth.

They're available from Miku, Cape Town's newest online designers market. Launched today, and stocking a carefully curated selection of goods from local designers, Miku is well worth a visit!

It's the Really Tiny Little Things

2011-04-14T19:26:00.000+02:00

Like putting the paperwork for each separate job in individual plastic sleeves, rather than all in one big pile on my desk. Now my head won't want to explode every time I walk into my studio.

(People with real jobs probably know all about this organizey stuff. I'm still learning.)

Orange

2011-04-11T14:18:00.000+02:00

Not an awful lot of stuff to blog about at the moment, as I'm mostly drawing and re-drawing time-tables to stay on top of all the illustration work. So let's just admire my lovely new salad spinner from the St Giles shop in Mowbray.

It's so gorgeously orange!

August Prints

2011-04-07T15:46:00.000+02:00

Last year I created a print for August, inspired by Indian block printed fabric. We printed it on silk and cotton.

This year, we used the same basic block to create a two-colour design.

Transparent blocks plus dvd-marking pens equals a very relaxing printing experience!

The Eyes

2011-03-31T18:35:00.000+02:00

Hey, a drawing! Well, a section of a drawing, that may or may not make it to the CoMix exhibition.

If I'm being coy, it's because the whole blogging works-in-progress thing makes me uncomfortable. Drawing to deadlines for clients usually means that, from the moment I put pencil to paper, questions come: will they like it? is it what they want? how much time should I spend on this? In that context, it's not a bad thing. (The client is paying - they should get what they want.)

But for once, I'm trying to draw what I want to, without knowing exactly what the outcome will be. I want to make mistakes, do awful drawings, pursue horrible ideas, to get them out of the way.

So at best I'll blog snippets of drawings, and some of them I might not blog at all. It's the only way I can think of to silence the questions, and get on with drawing.

The same but different

2011-03-29T17:19:00.000+02:00

Between long printing runs I sometimes just have to stop and play with colours for a bit.

These ribbons are all in my Etsy shop now.

So Eighties

2011-03-22T14:19:00.000+02:00

Nothing says "1985" to me like pink and black. It's possible, though, that my eighties were completely different to anyone else's.

What colour combinations bring back the most stylish decade of the last century for you?

What I should be working on

2011-03-17T19:39:00.000+02:00

Something like these, except that they should be new, not a couple of years old.

It's for the Co/Mix exhibition at the Grahamstown Festival later this year.

Instead I'm printing fabric orders, with an occasional break to sit in a corner and sort of scream quietly.

It's been a while since I did anything like this kind of drawing; I'm (very hopefully) taking these as a starting point, without any clear idea where I'll end up.

Layers

2011-03-14T16:49:00.000+02:00

Layering ink colours yields some nice surprises.

A bunch of notebooks for Milk in Long Street.

Sewing by Magic

2011-03-11T16:16:00.000+02:00

It looks so simple, doesn't it? All you need is (naked) Tinkerbell and a pair of floating scissors.

Still looks simple for a few pages, and then....

I had no idea there were so many ways to make sleeves!

Or bodices, for that matter.

I love the minimal instructions, and the sure, emphatic blacks, but I don't for a moment believe that some of the stains on these pages aren't from tears of frustration.

The local library also has a copy of this book; theirs has an envelope in the back with actual pattern pieces, though, which mine doesn't have. Wonder if that would make it easier to use?

Winging it

2011-03-09T16:59:00.000+02:00

Men's shirt refashion in progress. I've been referring to this tutorial and this one, over and over again.

Printed Skirt

2011-03-07T17:41:00.000+02:00

A skirt made using the seven-panel pattern, and fabric I printed. I think it's the first time I've used my fabric to make something for myself.

(It's a slightly wobbly speaker I'm standing on; the tripod is elsewhere, plans had to be made.)

I'm wondering about printing skirt panels for sale.... I might have to find a softer fabric, the cotton I used could be too stiff for some tastes. Then some test sewers, to make it in a few different sizes, perhaps a wrap skirt version too. I can't see all of this happening in a hurry, but it's tempting.....

Doubling Up

2011-03-04T17:04:00.000+02:00

Some of the new things I've added to my Etsy shop and my South African shop; I'm trying to make two of everything these days, and almost managing it.

Bursting

2011-03-03T16:53:00.000+02:00

Very impatient gooseberry seeds.

Shop Talk

2011-03-01T17:34:00.000+02:00

I've opened another online shop, this one for South Africans. You'll be able to see prices in ZAR, and pay in ZAR, immediately, without having to email me, wait for a response, do a bank transfer, mail me proof of payment.... Oh, and you won't have to figure out the exchange rate first either. Phew!

If you're interested in setting up your own shop, got to Ammo and sign up.

It's still in development, so I won't lie and say it was dead easy to set up. I sobbed into my keyboard more than once; hence the minimalist look of my shop. Not a design decision, more an attempt to mess with things as little as possible. But if you know even a little bit about CSS (I don't), you'll have a much easier ride.

(I'll have these new gift tags listed in both my shops pretty soon.)

Autumn

2011-02-25T16:02:00.000+02:00

These new blocks require much more careful inking than my usual ones. Still some tweaks to make, but everything's more or less working.

And for the printers, (because I know you need to know!) here are the blocks:

I was planning to have these prints up in my new South African online shop this weekend, but I haven't managed to make any headway with that. Instead, I'll have them up in my Etsy shop early next week.

Transparency

2011-02-23T15:49:00.000+02:00

Lino block, perspex, contact adhesive. So simple.