where do ideas come from?

I have often pondered this. Why do you suddenly know what colour and yarn to knit a garment from, and at other times are completely stumped? Why when I think about decorative surface embroidery on a checked stole (my maud) does paisley come to mind?

Paisley is a motif that originates in India and Persia and seems to be completely at odds with a checked fabric which I associate with Scotland. Now, I know that tartans and certain checked fabric patterns have very specific origins and that not everything checked is a tartan and so on, I'm just talking about associations here. And it is called a maud. But of course, Paisley is a city in Scotland which gave its name to the design motif that originated on shawls from Kashmir. More associations and connections.

And why should I think of decorative surface embroidery at all? Well, my maud was originally prompted by my Oilily wrap and Oilily is a brand known for its, well, slightly gaudy aesthetic. Floral embroidery on stripes, riotous prints, bright colours. My wrap is in a reasonably subdued red and blue colourway with quite a bit of pattern and was woven in ... India.

So, if I ever get around to it (because I am calling the maud finished for now) I think that I would like to do some paisley embroidery, just in a couple of corners. I had a search around the internet for some basic outline paisley images. Then I did some tidying up about the house and came across my pyjama pants - lo and behold, paisley. And just the simple shapes and layout that I think could work, in a burgundy wool thread and a burnished gold perhaps, maybe a bit of black as well.

cable able

"Ok, I have found some focus and have commenced on a cabled cowl for baby bear, inspired by but not working from the Cabled Cowl pattern by Olga Buraya-Kefelian from Blue Sky Alpacas. I've looked very closely at the projects on Ravelry and while I am following the general layout (welt, cable, cable, edging), I am using different cables (to suit my stitch count) and an edging of slip-stitch double knit (lifted from the Backyard Leaves scarf by Annie Modesitt in Scarf Style).

I decided against the dark grey and am instead double stranding some Emu Scotch 4ply in baby blue which I picked up at Value Village a few weeks ago. In keeping with my resolution to create"

I wrote this late last night. I was going to continue with my resolution to create less stiff fabric by using larger needle sizes (in this case 5mm) but then I looked at the fabric that I had created. And ripped it. I think that I could go 5.5mm and I'm going to change one of the cable patterns. So what do I have to show? This really cool vintage ball band from the Emu Scotch 4ply. Don't forget, 'Emu patterns are best'.

leaving las vegas

Thank goodness.

I'm sure that much has been written on the topic and it's getting late and it was a long flight with a two-year old so I am not even going to attempt a cultural analysis of Las Vegas. But, I did note the following:

• the casinos are like huge theme parks with a den of iniquity at their core
• the city is very clean and there is no graffiti to be seen but it smells bad
• the Goodwill superstore isn't that super but the Savers on Tropicana has a really good array of children's puzzles (well, had - I bought a few)

So the best thing that we did was leave Las Vegas and drive to the Hoover Dam on the Nevada/Arizona border. I'm sure that it featured in a James Bond film sometime ago. Anyway, I didn't realise that it was actually built between 1931 and 1935 - it's an art deco masterpiece. There's not a lot of signage around and where there is, it's mostly for the toilets but the typefaces are wonderful:

Happy to be home.

kulta!

That's Finnish for gold (according to the online dictionary - if you're a Finnish speaker, please correct me). Yes, today I struck gold at Value Village - Marimekko!

Brasilia - definitely enough for some children's clothes.


Kioto - again, kids' stuff.


Lumimarja - my favourite, possibly enough here to make myself a dress!


I am absolutely delighted with these finds! (Can you tell?! Can there be more exclamation marks?!) I have a genetic connection to Marimekko (apparently there was a Marimekko shop in Melbourne in the 70s and that's according to my mum, who worked there) and I love their designs.

I'm also quite fascinated by Finland. I spent a couple of weeks there about 10 years ago (ten, already??) and really enjoyed it. I also really like foreign languages and would love to try Finnish. Did you know that Finnish has some fifteen cases (that is, form of a word to indicate its function in the sentence)? It's a member of the Finno-Ugric language family and is most closely related to Estonian. It is not a Scandinavian language which is why, I have heard, Finland is not part of Scandinavia. Again, please correct me.

ottobre

Did you know about this? How come no-one had ever told me about Ottobre Design? Why did I have to wait until now? Ah well, I have been fortunate to come across it, and in the most inspiring way - by witnessing what Naomi made from a length of fabric from the Salvation Army and the Autumn Walk in Paris pattern. Recycled style - my favourite! I think that she has done a fabulous job, especially with the pattern matching on those covered buttons, and I am very inspired. I had bought a McCall's pattern to make a coat from my Romeo Gigli wool flannel but this coat is much more what I had in mind.


Anyway, back to Ottobre - I haven't had a chance to get my hands on an issue yet but I really like what I can see on the website. They appear to do four children's issues and two woman's issues each year, available in English, German, Finnish, Dutch or Swedish. Patterns in the children's issues are divided into infants, toddlers and older children's styles.

I gather that the company is Finnish, the layout and aesthetic of the photo spreads is good with a healthy mix of very normal looking children and women modelling the garments. And they're healthy looking garments too - no midriff-baring five-year olds. I suppose that issue after issue the patterns might get a bit repetitive (how many variations on the onesie can you do?) but of course at the moment I want to have a peek at all of them. Anyone have an issue that they are ready to part with (or lend)?

vintage

So, pertaining to the last post, I had my last day at work this Monday past to give me time to organise the move and pack up the house. As a farewell gift my colleagues were ever so thoughtful and gave me this book - Shopping for Vintage by Funmi Odulate. Thank you so much FHIP friends!

What a great little book - information about designers and their decades, tips on vintage shopping and an international vintage store directory. Furthermore, many of the textile illustrations are fabulous.

What the term 'vintage' actually means, as opposed to antique, retro or second-hand has received some attention of late. Odulate defines the terms thus:

antique - any garments that pre-date 1920
vintage - anything that dates after 1920 and up to the very early 1980s
retro - mainly Sixties' and Seventies' casual wear
secondhand - anything post early Eighties (so not strictly vintage)

I had always thought that antique referred to items that were more than one-hundred years old (which makes it a movable feast really - as each year passes more things in the world are considered antique and as we hit upon one hundred years since mass production surely the numbers will soar). Vintage - yes, anything that comes after antique. Retro - hmm, more recent than vintage but not necessarily mutually exclusive and could be stretched out to cover 1950 to 1980. That is, a 1950s sunfrock could be both vintage and retro.

What do you think?

french art deco

Where does the time go? March was quite a big blogging month for me - I try to post every four days or so and here it is a week has gone by. After the flurry of crafting activity in the lead up to the Stitches and Craft show I am slowing things down a bit and concentrating on my uni studies. Who would have thought that health economics could be so fascinating? Not being a business-minded person I have always shied away from that monolith 'the economy' and anything to do with it. But economics is proving to be very interesting, particularly in the context of health where the idealised competitive market model doesn't hold for all sorts of reasons.

Anyway, on to more important things like wonderful fabric design. You know sometimes you see an image and it just lifts you up inside? That's what this design, 'Wallflowers' by Atelier Martine, does for me. It's a printed velvet from 1923 and is taken from the book Art Deco Textiles: the French designers by Alain-Rene Hardy. I saw it first at the bookshop on Easter Monday when I was perusing and very nearly bought the book then and there for this one image. Good sense prevailed though and Monash Uni library delivered the goods. This design makes me want to draw and paint and colour in. I want to trace it onto fabric and make a huge fabric panel. I want to repeat print it and make a little girl's summer dress. I want to ...

And it's not just me - I've also done a colour printout and a couple of the blokes here at work have commented "what a lovely image". Hmmm? What - I'm blogging at work? Yeah, oops.