Working with new colours

Keep watching my etsy shop for more.

Another find

is an orange round mirror, like they were used to be used by hairdessers.





Looking back most things seemed to be made of orange plastic when I grew up.

photographs: John Coombes

Todays finds

I found a wooden tray filled with wonderful old wooden printing letters at the Oxfam shop today and bought it for my sweetheart, as he loves these things just as much as I do.
When I came home with it, he immediately started playing with them, showing the same enthusiasm a little boy would have for a new toy.



Here are some photographs John just took.









The last three images are flipped.

Fränkische Feuerspatzen

To celebrate Pancake Day we've been making the Franconian version of a doughnut.



500 g plain flour
10 - 15 g yeast (according to the amount of flour and the instructions on the sachet)
1/4 l milk
60 g sugar
60 g butter
4 eggs
a pinch of salt
a splash of rum

Allow dough to rise,
then deepfry spoonfuls in hot oil.



Oh, and some icing sugar.
A quick & easy version of doughnuts, very tasty!

Traditional doughnuts are called Krapfen. In some areas they are called Berliner and in Berlin they are called Pfannkuchen, which means pancakes in the rest of Germany.

Franconian Krapfen are filled with rosehip puree. Delicious!

Making stuff

I love experimenting and assembling, finding out about material and colour, designing and developing ideas. I love handling fabric.
I love making stuff - a bit tricky with a plaster cast though.



Cutting and melting and assembling at the studio last night.



New colours!

Trapezius

I really enjoyed to work with all these wonderful people on this wonderful film. I hope you'll enjoy watching the trailer!


TRAPEZIUS - the trailer from John Coombes on Vimeo.

“It isn’t much fun for one, but two can stick together”


Over 20 muscle groups control the movement of the upper body and shoulders.


Two dusty white figures turn and twist in the narrow, black, dark wilderness of the film-frame. They flex their muscles and show off their skills. Hesitant at first, they finally come together. They echo and tease each other, exploring the space between them until they become entwined as one. They come alive together, but it can’t last. They argue, they fight and their relationship collapses into chaos.

dancers: Elodie Frati, Marie Mathisen, Joelle Green, Lucie Palfreyman

music by Ian Sanderson

directed by John Coombes

Brooches and broken bones

Work in progress at the textile studio. Slow progress, since I got a big plaster cast on my left arm now. I broke my wrist on Monday, or rather my scaphoid bone, which is next to the trapezium. *





*don't get it mixed up with Trapezius, John's latest film, I have been working on.

Word clouds

For all or you who were wondering what this blog is all about... this thing called Wordle seems to sum it up like this:



Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. Have a play here. I love it!
I think this could be a great way to create a personal birthday card. So who's birthday is it next...?

My DaWanda Shop

To make my textile jewellery available for people in Europe I set up a DaWanda shop. Have a look at it here.
I am just about to upload more corsages.

Twitter

The New York Times calls Twitter "one of the fastest-growing phenomena on the Internet." TIME Magazine says, "Twitter is on its way to becoming the next killer app," and Newsweek noted that "Suddenly, it seems as though all the world's a-twitter."



Well, I don't know if this is for me, but I want to give it a try. So this is me on twitter then.
I don't think that anyone will be interested in what I have had for lunch, though.

Being a red balloon

"... and then I'll be a red balloon for a few weeks", said Liz yesterday when I asked what she'll be doing in 2009. She is a puppeteer and co-founder of Faulty Optic. And soon she will be the red balloon in a play after the film
"Le Ballon Rouge" by Albert Lamorisse.
Sounds like a good plan to me.

Map Tags

There are still so many things waiting to be uploaded to my Etsy shop...

Buff

I didn't know what this colour was called, so I did some online research. Apparentely it is called "buff". Any other suggestions?



So this is a big buff button brooch then, is it?

Give your heart away

A year ago I made these hearts to give away. I have been using a very nice silk fabric. On the front I printed an image I found in a very old medical book. The book is more than a hundred years old and belonged to my great grandmother, who was a midwife. I love all the drawings in this book and it even has a colourful fold out model of the human body at the end.

On the back of one of the hearts I printed a love poem*, another one has a silk&metal fabric backing and I filled it with a bit of paper, on which I printed a poem.





*You can read the whole poem here and you'll find a translation here. It's "Gretchen in der Spinnstube" from Goethe's "Faust", where Gretchen realizes that she has given her heart away.

Credit Crunch

Rezept für Choco Crossies
Recipe for homemade Credit Crunch

200 g Milk Chocolate (or mix milk chocolate and dark chocolate)
25 g Butter
10 g Vanilla Sugar & a tiny pinch of salt
100 g Cornflakes



Melt the chocolate*, add butter, salt and vanilla sugar and stir until sugar is dissolved. Add Cornflakes and mix by using a spatula until all cornflakes are completely covered in chocolate. Try to get all the nice chocolate from the sides of the pan onto the cornflakes.
Put the mass in small heaps on some tin foil and let it cool down.

Enjoy!

*I prefer melting chocolate in a saucepan on the stove.
Break or chop the chocolate into small pieces. Put 2/3 in a sauce pan and slowly heat. It will take time to dissolve, do not give it too much heat, but a lot of patience. As the chocolate will start to melt, stir with a spatula. Usually you can take it off the stove when it is mostly melted, add the rest of the chocolate and keep stirring. This will help to prevent overheating.

For melting chocolate I don’t like using the microwave, as I cannot really see what’s going on and feel the chocolate melting. If you do use a microwave make sure the chocolate does not get too hot. You will need to stop the microwave very often to stir the chocolate to ensure that it heats evenly.

Of course you can put the chocolate chunks in a heatproof bowl within a gently simmering saucepan of water. But you have to be very careful when stirring as you should not allow any water to get in contact with your chocolate!

I LEGO N.Y.

After 11 years in New York Christoph Niemann moved to Berlin with his wife and their three sons, Arthur, Gustav and Fritz (what great German names!). During the cold and dark winter days he spend a lot of time with his boys in their room. And as he looked at the toys scattered on the floor, his mind inevitably wanders back to New York... or so he says here. You'll find some pictures by clicking on this link.

So full of imagination, just brilliant.

Button Brooch

Just amazing shades of colour.

Jim Bond

Atomised, a sculpture by Jim Bond

I hope you enjoy all the buzzes and clicks, as I have been the sound recordist on this film!

I found another film on Jim Bonds website. Here it is, Art in perpetual motion, a Reuters video about Kinetica with Jim's sculpture "Blink" in it.

Faint memories

I just uploaded new stuff to my Etsy shop. Amongst many other things there is this corsage I called "faint memories".





I love the gorgeous melted edges on this one, and the subtle colour, that reminds me of the yellowed paper of old love letters.

The corsage is made from several layers of organza and white & golden lace. All the cutting and finishing has been performed manually.

The fabric has been specially treated to give it an interesting and characteristic look, so this brooch is unique!

I decorated this brooch with a small bluish white button using bright blue thread.

Made with love, to be worn with pride.

Atomised

Last week we have been filming one of Jim Bond's sculptures.




photographs: Jim Bond

See more of Jim's work on his website. Beautiful stuff.