Wedding Scarf

Some of my dear friends are getting married this weekend and I wanted to make Kate something in addition to their 'formal' present.

Kate likes soft, vintage-y, delicate things and I think this pale greeny-blue is one of her favourite colours so I made her a scarf trying to incorporate these things. I thought this would be a good project to document because usually I have my head stuck in the work and don't think to look up.

So, this is my Singer knitting machine, a commercial punchcard to create the fabric pattern (or in my case, texture), and the raw materials, wool and alpaca.

The fabric for the main body of the scarf hanging on the machine

The tools of the trade, used for moving stitches

Pinning another finer piece of fabric I knitted with alpaca onto the main body of the scarf - you can see here the fair isle pattern from the card, but I elected to use the textural side instead

Sewing the two fabrics together - in our classes we were not encouraged to sew the knitted fabric. You can join fabrics on the knitting machine or a linker, but in this case the fabrics were so fine I would need another whole machine with finer needles to join them - so sewing it was

And the scarf, shown a few different ways. I hope she likes it!

Louise Goldin @ Show Studio

Edit: I was so excited to see this even though I missed the first episode, but Show Studio are creating a 10 part 'doco' on Louise Goldin and the lead up (or should that be lead down?) to her Fall 09 collection that I raved about earlier. It's up to the second episode and they've also given the dates for the subsequent releases on the link below.

http://www.showstudio.com/blog/32279

Karl Fritsch Jewelry

Today I paid a visit to the wonderful Gallery Funaki and discovered the beautiful work of German jeweler Karl Fritsch. Being the jewelry ignoramus that I am, I didn't know that Fritsch is a high profile, highly collectable designer. But all the better, because I fell in love with his work anyway. I've posted images of some of his more conventional pieces because I have to fulfill a personal ring shopping mission, but some of his work is pretty out there. In reading about his philosophy on materials, I love his work even more. In explaining his unusual mix of 'precious' and 'non precious' materials and unconventional methods, the gallery says 'for Karl understands that in essence, all materials are equal - for they are simply matter - and the value humans ascribe to material does not actually exist anywhere other than as a concept' (you can read the whole piece here).

Images from here

Louise Goldin Fall 09

I LOVE Louise Goldin's latest collection. It shows off everything knitwear can be, but rarely has been. Knitwear to a lot of people equals cosy, slouchy, comfortable. Increasingly designers have been playing a lot more with shape (Backlund) and texture (Rodarte) and of course there have always been those avant garde designers (CDG, Yamamoto), but that knitwear is still very much about that dark intellectual who doesn't like fitted clothing.

Goldin's collection really demonstrates that a knitted fabric garment can be as luxurious and glamourous as anything else. The other thing that I love about knit, which is shown in this collection is its malleability - you can do just about anything when you knit. I love the shapes she's created and not just the silhouette, but within the garment itself.

In Bloom Exhibition Invite

This is the invite for the exhibition. Anyone who is free and feels like coming down to the opening next Tuesday, I'd love to see you! Click the image to enlarge the text.

It's A Sign

Look what I found by the side of the road on two separate walks. A box full of old sewing patterns and some machine knitting yarn. Since when do you find machine knitting yarn on the road?!

In Bloom @ Loreal Melbourne Fashion Festival

This is the work that I have finally finished and decided to submit for the RMIT exhibition that is running during the fashion festival. Fingers crossed it is all OK and gets in!

The theme is In Bloom, ie. a floral and or botanical theme. This is the concept board I made for myself to stay focussed on a mood, a colour palette and to get some ideas for shapes.

And the resulting outfit (we can have one mannequin each)

It is made up of a cotton top (which I have shown before), a merino wool/mohair/metallic fibre scarf (worn around the body here), a tuck stitch wool skirt, a necklace and a small brooch. And everything is knitted.

Am I overdoing it on the angles? I scrutinise it from every direction.

Without the scarf

Skirt detail

And scarf detail

Rodarte Fall 2009

Rodarte are a textile designer's dream.

All images from Style.com

Lou Doillon at Vanessa Bruno

Lou Doillon at Vanessa Bruno, photographed by Mark Borthwick via Scout Holiday

Leonard Cohen and Knitting

The pieces I'm hoping to submit for an exhibition are about 80 percent done but I've still got a bit to do before I hand them in on Monday. I feel like I've been working so long on it, but not a lot to show because I keep pulling things apart and reworking them. I put a lot of pressure on my days in the studio too, which doesn't help.

I watched a great doco on Leonard Cohen the other day and he said, if what you do is creative, you have to be prepared to go to work every day, and accept that it (the inspiration) is not going to come to you every day. I think I've made my peace with that idea and rather than fighting the 'knitter's block', I change focus for awhile and don't feel guilty about it.

This is one of the pieces I made when I needed some light relief. I made it up as I went along and worked on it whenever I didn't feel like doing the other project. I ended up dyeing it too because I didn't like the mid purple it was originally. I used black dye to dirty down the colour.

Aesop

Aesop is one of my favourite brands. As a marketing exercise alone they tick all the right boxes; product, promotion, price, place, people (gosh, my old teacher would be proud).

But of particular interest to this blog is the packaging, and if I can add another P in, palette.

Mirka at Tolarno

Today, here:

And more about the artist here.

Portobello Lane

Today I played shop girl at my friends' charming jewelry store while they are on a work trip to London and Paris. The shop is called Portobello Lane and is located on Chapel Street, South Yarra. Chapel Street is paradise for crazy, maniacal shoppers but this store is like a little oasis full of beautiful things.

Look at these weird and wonderful pieces they stock from Fifi La Ferraille, all made from reclaimed mechanical/industrial bits and pieces:

Mr Owl-y who I wore all day

and a little clan who I sold to a woman who fell in love...