Winging it

The good thing about winging it is that you can discover so many new techniques and ways of playing with and constructing designs with fabric...

... it expands your understanding of fabric and process...

... you often learn what not to do next time...

...particularly when you suddenly realise you've created a maternity dress!

Would this be of use to anyone...? ...because I'm afraid it's going to be of no use to me ;)

Postscript: The dress has been claimed by a very lovely blogger who has just recently found out she's pregnant... I'm very happy about that :) I won't spoil her natal announcements... I'm sure you'll guess who soon :)

Let it snow...

Love these. Some have a dark twist to them but mostly I just love the idea of a non-location-based snowglobe ;) Find more at Walter Martin and Paloma Muñoz.

Celebrations and being spoilt :)

Celebrations: Christmas Eve and the tables were all ready for our big family get-together.

Being Spoilt: my lovely gorgeous Mr bought me this beautiful painting for Christmas...

 It's by Brisbane artist Linda Zucco. He knew I'd love it. Those lovely little girls under the Hills Hoist remind me of my sister and I in our school uniforms :)

We already have another piece by Linda Zucco in our main room where we look at it every day...

It's called "The Lovers". A darling couple still together and happy after many years... 

Hope you've all had wonderful celebrations and plenty of spoiling too :)

Merry happy things :)

Happy holidays and many thanks to everyone who has supported 3 Sheets throughout the year! Looking forward to a fabulous 2011 :)

New Year's resolutions? 

1. Making good out of bad; always seeing the good in everything and everybody... 

(Pic above: I tried to crochet wire and that was a disaster - how do people do it?! Ended up sewing the wire to felt and making a xmas brooch.)

2. To let go and not be such a control freak... 

(Pic below: the Little One insisted on decorating the tree by herself this year. She said she's tired of me colour-theming it each year and that she wants lots of different colours everywhere... sorry, had to thwart her on the themed cyan and red wrapping paper though!) 

Inspiration: mini moderns

  

I'm in a bit of a tizz at the moment... I just saw this wallpaper over at Print + Pattern and there's still quite a bit of hyperventilation going on in my chestal area ;) 

This is the mini modern 2011 "Festival" collection, celebrating the 1951 Festival of Britain (another of my obsessive loves when the new wave of post-war British designers were given a platform to launch their works)... Anyway, it ticks all my boxes and I can see I'm going to have to exercise supreme control to not go to this little Shoppe and spend my monee* :) 

*Actually, it's not so much the money, it's the fact that they only accept PayPal and I'm very cross with them at the moment for freezing fund transfers to Wikileaks.

There are other colours and many other fabulous products too. Visit the mini modern website for a peek :)

New Design Bag

It was always destined to be a bag I suppose.

I like how the black + white stripes contrast with the pattern, but I am now questioning my choice of fabric for the lining... it has a bit too much of a 'boudoir' suggestion I think ;)

Can you tell I watched Marie Antoinette last night?

New Design

So, the first design element to come out of my doodling... I love how different it looks to the original drawing... the unexpected effects of different mediums :) 

The background block in citrus was a result of my wanting something to counteract the floral nature of the top design... and just because I love lines, of course. Note to self: make sure they line up next time ;)

As much as I like the lines I really wanted to develop the design, to make it 'fuller' or something... but I haven't been able to bring myself to covering them all just yet ;)

What do you think... edgy enough or just a bit too twee and chintzy...?

Doodling again...

I've been doodling again. There are bits of this design that I really like... bits that I might use for a new fabric design. For now, the vivid green with the black and white makes me smile :)

Pattern People

A couple of months ago now I came across Pattern People at about the time they were hosting a fabric design competition. I threw my 'Atomic' design into the ring and it was unsuccessful but they've announced the winners and you can see them on their website. Pattern People are putting together a fabric design publication for release in the New Year. They have some fabulous pattern downloads and a fun blog too :)

Christmas Decorations Tute :)

We're in our second week of school holidays here and, so far, it's a very wet long summer stretching out before us. So, what to do inside leading up to Xmas? My Little One and I have been doing some paper cutting of Christmas decorations from templates one of her teachers gave me at the Christmas Craft Day. 

I'm not sure if there's a copyright on these designs or where they came from at all actually... I'm hoping it was a teacher's resource and that it's okay to share :)

You can find the templates here. 

(1) Print them out on paper of your choice and cut out a square around the dotted line. 

(2) Fold the square in half to form a triangle along the line of the black shapes.

(3) Fold the first triangle in half to form a smaller triangle. 

(4) Start cutting out the black parts of the design.

(5) Once you have cut out all the black shapes unfold the paper carefully... and here's your Christmas Star!

Happy paper cutting! :)

Analogue Life

Loving this beautiful web store... Analogue Life. How is it that items so exquisite can be so practical too :)


via jokemijn

Can you help?

Last year my mother went to Africa and when she came back all she could talk about was a wonderful Australian family who sold up everything they had in order to set up an orphanage in Nakuru, Kenya.

She wanted to help them and organised a raffle with all the funds raised going to the orphanage. I think actually selling the tickets in a raffle has been much harder work than mum thought it would be... and I'm hoping you can help me help her by buying a ticket. 

They are quite expensive at $20 a ticket but the draw is very close now (10th December) and the prize is an electric golf car worth $10,000. If you can help, please email me here and I'll post your ticket asap! Thanks if you've got this far in reading this post :)