The baby quilt is finally complete and ready to go to Baby Ruby (who is now born and very cute). I bordered and backed it in an off-white cotton, and then finished it off with pink binding:
Filed under: art
Time to breathe some life back into idreamelectric.
Since my last post, I have decided to have an early mid-life crisis, saying farewell to my London life and venturing bravely into the realms of retraining, specifically as a primary school teacher. I am incredibly excited.
However, this won’t start until summer next year, so for the first time in many years I have found myself with time on my hands. I will start a series of placements in local schools in September, which leaves me with a few months all to myself. Lucky me!
Historically, idreamelectric has always frolicked in the creative talents of others. Now I have more time, I thought I would try to do something with my own pent-up creativity. So, for the first time in four years, I am dusting off the pencils, brushes, sewing machine, apron and knitting needles and camera, and learning how to focus my eyes on objects further away than a computer screen. I’ll aim to share my artistic endeavours regularly.
To kick things off, I have been trying my hand at patchwork and quilting. I started with a couple of small pieces:
and moved onto a larger baby quilt for my cousin, who is due any day now. It is yet to be bordered and quilted:
I have been hoarding some really beautiful fabrics and when the baby quilt is completed, I will put together a larger quilt for myself. It’s tricky trying to design a pattern that will do the fabrics justice, but with crayons and graph paper on my side, I will hopefully be able to create something good.
I also took a shoemaking course a couple of months ago, at the London College of Fashion. My grandfather was a Sicilian shoemaker, appropriately named Luigi, so I wanted to see if there was any deep-set talent lurking in my blood. Thirty hours and more than one unfortunate incident with a sanding machine later – I have my very own pair of shoes:
They have been allowed one outing, and now they are stored safely in my wardrobe so I have some proof when I tell my grandchildren that I was once youthful and cool (after they have discovered my quilt stash). It isn’t something I could see myself doing for a career, but it was incredibly fun and I would recommend it to anyone who might be thinking about it.
Filed under: art, design, project | Tags: amigurumi, craft, crochet, knitting, wool
So in the spirit of the cooler seasons, and following the realisation that i seem to have been collecting random balls of wool over the years, with no intent for use, or a place to store them, I have decided to take up crochet – more specifically the Japanese art of Amigurumi. I’m still getting to grips with the basics, so I’ll leave you with some examples of where I aim to be in a month. Maybe.
Filed under: art, design, photography | Tags: book, chris cobb, craig ward, cutting book series, library, magpie, maths, noriko ambe, running, there is nothing wrong in this whole wide world, valpolicella, you blow me away
Bookmarks are getting full… I think it’s time to ditch some of it onto idreamelectric. Starting with Craig Ward‘s ‘You Blow Me Away’. I spent some time contemplating how this was done, but eventually came to the conclusion, who cares? Let’s just drink Valpolicella and stare at it for a while:
Noriko Ambe’s ‘Cutting Book Series’. You know the the deal here… Books + Scalpel = ace… ness. It’s simple idreamelectric maths:
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More books… Chris Cobb has catergorised an entire library by colour. I can’t even begin to describe what that does to me. There is nothing wrong in this whole wide world:
Lastly, this man travels to interesting places, sets his camera timer to two seconds, and sees how far he can run in that time. Nothing more to say about that really:
Feel much better now.
This reminded me of something i used to spend hours doing as a kid. Papercuts weren’t a big problem back then – dinosaur plasters could solve damn near anything. Website here.
So it’s been over a year since i’ve sat down and dedicated a healthy chunk of time to putting pen to paper. The plan was to do this on a weekly basis, however when coming up with this plan, I forgot to factor in the part where i’m perpetually lazy (and forgetful). I guess the theory of it made me feel like i was being productive when i was doing fuck all, and was instead sprawled across the sofa watching Arrested Development and eating anything crispy and/or wet.
Plan B: put the pringles down, find a pen, draw.
Sometimes I come across work that makes me sorely miss design. Those nights where you can work til daybreak on the most precise and repetitive projects. This is obsessive compulsive design that i can relate to. More info on these beautiful books by Brian Dettmer can be found here.
