thank you

Just a little note... Thank you to all the people who have brought violet&may over the last year of craft-fairs (especially Kraftbomb). I'm going to take a little holiday from 'commercial crafting' (as I like to call it) for a while.

But don't fret! I will still be making things! At the moment I have a handful of projects on the go-go so I will try and try to post them as I finish them :)

Also, soon soon (tomorrow) is Lucky Penny Crafty Club! Please come along to Mezze bar (I will point out that we will be sitting at the couches at the back of the bar.

p.s. please approach knitting socks with extreme caution. More about that later.

the design inspiration rant (please bear with me)

Ok, so this will be yet another post without pictures, but that is what tends to happen when you own an archaic computer, and don't have the 'take your camera everywhere philosophy'. But I'm not going to post about my own work this time round. I'm going to talk about some design inspiration, simply beause thats what I'm looking for. I'm in two minds about those 'inspiration blogs', you know by people who are A. Well connected "my friend is a designer..."; and B. Seem have good taste in everything. Sometimes after a while they just seem to be a bit same-y, especially if you go through stages of reading lots of them. You might not like me saying that... But in the end it can take a little more now to impress or inspire me thats all.

So today I took a bit a backtrack to to 2005 when I did a couple of weeks fashion student-y internship (thats right- internship usually means handsewing) at Akira in Sydney. Akira is this Japanese designer based in Sydney who has been in my favourite books since, I'm guessing (gasp!) the late '90's. Lots of textile work and quite a distinctive silhouette. I remember a cloud print fabric that was in shades of golden yellow and purple, and somehow that translated into my line-y clouds that tend to pop up everywhere. Going overseas for what was essentially a uni assignment was quite a good idea in my books- I got to know a different city, and meet some new people. I left with a good dose of inspiration, yet when I checked out the website for the first time in a long long while, I found that the same sense of inspiration is still there. My graduate range was very Japanese inspired, but not necessarily in a beautiful, fragile way. A sense of softness and fragility is what I'm wanting to pursue more in my creative work, like embroidery on fine fabric and muted colours. I like the craft world and its community-mindedness, but sometimes I just want to create something that is beautiful, not necessarily kooky and crafty. I understand that what is considered 'beautiful' is incredibly subjective and not worth arguing about. All I would like to do now is get back into that creative frame of mind again. And perhaps make some beautiful clothes.

making up the rules

A couple of days ago, Heleen and I hosted the first Lucky Penny Crafty Club. It was great to be able to host a gathering of crafters (or so to speak). It is nice to make up the rules (ok there arent any rules, but I just like saying that).

I'm in a little bit of project overload, so I've decided to list, just for the sake of listing:

• Bridesmaid dress x1- my sister is getting married soon, and I'm a bridesmaid. For lack of anything suitable to wear, I've decided to make a dress. Simple and stylish is all that is needed.
• Gift for aforementioned wedding- a gift that will have to be kept a secret at the moment. But when complete (and post wedding) I shall show you.
• Borders on the blanket- my endless project, a luxe yet homespun looking (bed-size, not knee-size) patchy blanket; presently on hold as my wool supply has run out.
• The new jewellery project- thankfully I can only work on this in class time. I'm making a hair-comb with a large turquoise stone set into it. Very mermaid-y.
• The scarf from bad wool- a multicoloured scarf from a kind of yucky acrylic wool. Knitting for the sake of knitting...
• Additional extras- a barely started painting, new things for craft fairs, and I've been wanting to make a matryoscka doll softie (but think I will leave that for Lucky Penny time)

...Is that all???