Yes it has been a TOUCH challenging (bag news, see below)

 Mua Mua dolls: Giving crocheters  of amigurumi everywhere a boost to their self esteem.. these guys can sell for upwards of $100.... Check out amigurumi on the web to see a surge in interest.
and if I could speak Italian I could give you more background to the history of Mua Mua...  suffice it to use the words celebrity, status, fashion, humorous design,$$$  and success in the same sentence....

Coordinating shop front cladding of a store near to the shop window illustrated above... do we see a trend... be on your guard, our choices in colour combinations that we think  are our own ideas... can often be subliminally controlled by 'The Industry.'

As for the latest bag... it (>60 pieces) is all in one piece and I am just pacing myself with hand-stiching the bar tacks to hold the side pleats and interior panels in place.  Sewing through so many layers is not kind to one's finger ends.  But it will be done. 

This doodle was made for that bag

  Water-solubility.

Copic markers on cloth + graphite pencil.
Yes yes, I'm thinking virus - Oct 2014... +  having just finished The Plague.
I'm spraying with workable fixative (which does lighten the Copics a little, sadly.... and I'm considering Scotchguard... but that stuff... Hmmm, not done my research yet, so I will just add a link.  Enough said?

This bag - was made for doodles

This bag had better be worth it.... 63 pieces cut out and ready to go this morning!
Ignore the waste... I just love working with a wooden floor.  Thank you Sally.

Yes it is all in white... fabrics from my store.  Keeping the cost of this training session to a minimum.
So old sheeting well slept on! and offcuts from the linen sail-cloth type of blinds, IKEA fabric, hung in Annacrest.  Nice stuff actually.
Now the question - do I make this bag up as is, or attack the exterior fabrics with doodling media before stitching....hmmmm.....
I think I should take this to another level. What do you say?

Ridiculously happy bag

I am very pleased to have made this one...
It wasn't easy to get those curves to match... amazing that they did!

The fabrics were nice in themselves, but I would like to stitch on that purple mandala... to blend it with the outer fabric.... soon soon.....

Next up a soft handbag.... and the one I really do want to make... 

Recent holiday for Canadian Thanksgiving was fun... but we had to WOW... wait on weather for almost a day!  Good times for sketching you would think ... but unfortunately my mental state got more and more agitated as I foresaw a run for the ferry.  Hence the busy result below.

Kitchen Art

Now some folks like the reverse side of their machine or hand embroidery more than the right side. It is sometimes good to give in to the unpredicted.  I just love the reverse side of work created using Copic markers (which I have been known to refer to as Coptic markers!).

 In this image I moved the pieces about to created a canvas that looks as if it might have been created as one unit.

These have been placed randomly - much more satisfying to me.

These pieces might be called Zentangles, but I am a zentagle denier... and by that I mean that doodling has been around since someone dipped their finger in the sand and twiddled it about.  Noone needed to give it a holistic name before and I don't think it needs one now.  However, I did see a nice little book in Michaels today that was all about doodling development ... I mean zentangling.  But seriously do we need a book to teach us this.... I find that picking up a phone in one hand and a pencil in the other does the trick if doodler's block should threaten.

Stampeding Stitches - EAC conference, May.

It's online and active. Do you want to do more with your sewing machine than stitch shirts, skirts, trousers and blouses?  Do you know how to use your machine to stitch for quilting? Even if you don't, do you want to learn to do far more with your machine.?... Then join Arlee Barr and me at the Embroiderer's Association of Canada Conference for an outrageously audacious 4 day workshop.

Arlee and I are teaching at the Embroiderer's Association of Canada Conference in May 2015, in Calgary. The EAC website has a link to the seminar.  During the first two days of the workshop I will encourage you to Abuse a Sewing Machine to create a library of design ideas, shapes and amazing 3D textures (you only need a simple machine to do this but more complicated machines can do it too... machines can be made available if you are travelling in, or can't carry in your industrial workhorse... For the remaining two days Arlee Barr's continues to develop the designs with her fantastically illuminating hand-work. Why they don't show Arlee's samples I just do not know....  I have attached one below for completeness.  I will stick around and help you take your machining to infinity and beyond!

Register now to avoid disappointment!!!!  Numbers are restricted.

Click on the image  or go here to see details - and  follow the links or go  here to register.... thanks.

Photo above is copyright: Arlee Barr

Do not reproduce or re-blog without permission

I do wish they had called the event : Stampeding Stitchers... - Far more humour in that.... but they didn't.  Perhaps it is crossing a line to joke about a/The Stampede in Calgary.  any Calgarians out there want to rein me in over that... ?(forgive the puns, I just galloped away with it on the spur of the moment).

Mad-der hatters' raspberry tea party

If you were at Yoshiko's workshop or are fortunate to own the third in the series of DVD's from Slow Fibre Studio... you will know about Raspberry Mousse.
And so it was.....
One of my dearest friends in Alberta and I met for a day of dyeing and pigment extraction.
and making raspberry mousse and tea.
I am quite sure I will treasure those selfie moments.

Lyn was more interested in dyes, I am more interested in the mousse side of things.

If you are confused, I had better say the raspberries have little to do with anything - except the colour.
And the extract is madder pigment.

Quickie

Or am I just getting quicker.
Need more magnetic snaps, bit bored with the one and only type sold at F-land.

 I will not be put off by pattern matching.

I feel the itch to make a bag in my own way...
As I described it recently... like people make dolls, some make porcelain, others felt or peg.  Others use mixing spoons or make amorphous shapes that can be cuddled in a Rudolph Steiner type of attitude.  And I expect I would make a mixed media alien creature - doll.
If we follow this philosophy through with bags... what would a bag I design look like I wonder.
Mustn't jump the gun here.... keep stitching bags according to Amy.
But just to quell my rebellious side: Maybe an hour on the web to if anything exists past bag-making 101.

Another day - another bag

One for Al... request... "black and red, more black than red"... It is too close to call.
A nice little number 7" x 7" x  12"... the handle appears massive in this photo.. It is just  a wristband really. I put the way it appears in the photo down to perspective.
This is actually a very cute bag.
I still haven't mastered all the angles and edges left between zip, exterior and lining... Though I am not sure how much 'flatness' one can actually achieve.  If you have advice for me on that, please message me.

 And "No, the pleats were not supposed to be all the same size" - see the instructions for yourself if you don't believe me!  And I am glad they aren't - far more interesting this way.  

And please note how one can change a really dreadful fabric into something quite interesting just by creasing it up.