Schneeglöckchen and saffron

No snow, but snowdrops and lots of rain here in Yorkshire. Yesterday was sunny for a change and all the crocuses in our garden opened up. I love these first harbingers of spring.

Did you know that the spice saffron is dried stigmas of crocus sativus, which is also grown in England.
My crocuses are a different variety, but I am tempted to experiment using them for dyeing textiles.

Don't invest in fashion, but invest in the world

"Buy less. Choose well. 

Make it last. 

Quality, not quantity. 

Everybody’s buying far too many clothes."

"Kaufe weniger. Wähle bewusst. Gebrauche es lange. 

Qualität, nicht Quantität. 

Alle kaufen viel zu viele Kleider."

Dame Vivienne Westwood

To my readers who understand English, please listen to this powerful talk by this amazing, inspiring Lady:

Und für meine deutschsprachigen Leser hier absolut lesenswertes Interview mit Vivienne Westwood.

Hier zwei Filme, die sich mit den Auswirkungen unseres Textilkonsums beschäftigen: Im ersten Film auf das Leben der Menschen in Fernost, wo unsere Kleidung produziert wird und im zweiten Film auf das Leben in Afrika, wo unsere Kleidung landet, wenn wir sie nicht mehr wollen. 

Der Preis der Blue Jeans

Die Altkleiderlüge - wie Spenden zum Geschäft werden



"Die meisten glauben, dass die hierzulande gesammelten Altkleiderspenden direkt in die Katastrophengebiete der Welt gehen. Was sie nicht wissen: Der größte Teil der gespendeten Bekleidung wird weiterverkauft - zum Kilopreis. Einige Hilfsorganisationen platzieren oft nur ihr Logo auf den Sammelcontainern von Altkleiderfirmen.

Ein geringer Teil der Kleidung wird direkt in Deutschland an Bedürftige ausgegeben. Die besten noch brauchbaren Sachen gehen nach Osteuropa und in die arabischen Staaten. Sechzig Prozent der heimischen Ware gelangt nach Afrika. Doch was passiert dort mit den Altkleidern? Die Reportage-Autoren Michael Höft und Christian Jentzsch haben in Tansania nach Antworten gesucht. Ihr Fazit: Nicht nur deutsche Firmen und einige große Hilfsorganisationen verdienen gut an den Kleiderspenden, auch für viele Händler in Afrika sind Altkleiderspenden ein lukratives Geschäft. Selbst die Ärmsten der Armen müssen dafür bezahlen. Die Billigkleider überschwemmen die Märkte des Landes und zwingen die afrikanische Textilbranche in die Knie."

 - Die Reportage, ARD und NDR

Black Russian Terrier Bag

A couple of weeks ago I did some screen printing to make a christmas/birthday present for my brother and his girlfriend. The original drawing is based on photographs of their award winning dogs. 

I used a cotton fabric that I found at IKEA to sew a tote bag. I like the bright green as it makes the black stand out. 

Please contact me if you'd like a bag.

If you'd like a Black Russian Terrier, contact my brother Bastian and his girl friend Annina at Zarski Podarok.

Crochet your own coral reef

To get inspired you can virtually dive into the Coral Sea and have a look around the Great Barrier Reef with Seaview Underwater Virtual Tour. Seaview will soon be a part of GoogleEarth, but is already available on this website. It's well worth looking at snorkeling around.

There are tons of images of crochet coral on Flickr.

Also there is the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef,  "a woolly celebration of the intersection of higher geometry and feminine handicraft, and a testimony to the disappearing wonders of the marine world"  created by Margaret and Christine Wertheim. Find out how start your own satelite reef.

100 years of East London style

Now here's one for all fashion lovers: 100 years of East London style in 100 seconds.
A couple dances their way through a century of fashion. [via Kottke]

Der Webstuhl

Loom, Muenchberg, 2005                                                            © Katrin Freitag

Frau Heuberg's Swap

My old baby bedding needs mending before our little one arrives. The baby will sleep in the cradle next to our bed for the first few months, but when it moves into its cot it shall have the baby bedding that I had, when I was a baby, which naturally I deeply love!

The two designs on top and the one with the apples are by German textile Designer Graziela Preiser. Her iconic and award-winning designs from the 1970's are currently relaunched. Have a look at her website here.

It's amazing how cheerful and bright the colours are after 35 years, 4 children and lots of little visitors. Just the corners suffered a bit, as my younger sister used to fall asleep with one thumb in her mouth and the other one busily scratching through the fabric she held in her tiny little fist.

So when I saw that Ines from Frau Heuberg is offering exactly the fabric I need in her weekly swap, I tried to find something in my studio which might make her happy to swap with me.



So I offered lovely Ines one of my handmade corsages and a paper garland.





































The music sheets I used have aged beautifully with a warm tint of brown. A few month ago we moved into a building that was owned by a pianist and member of the London Philharmonic Orchestra. I found lots of old music sheets and as this pianist also was a printer by profession and our house used to be his printing workshop we also found some paper punches, which I used for the smaller circles. The bigger ones I had to cut by hand. I also used pages from and old copy of Jane Austin's "Sense and Sensibility".

I quickly hung the 3.6 metres long paper garland  in our living room, took a photograph and send it to Ines.




She instantly agreed to the swap.

Thank you so much, Ines. You made've my day!

Inspiration in sunlight

I took some more photographs of my inspiration board on Monday. The sun was pouring in through the big pane windows and it was a lot of fun to capture some details.

Inspiration

So here it is, my inspiration board.

I'll print this image and put it in the notebook you see in the bottom left corner, where I keep a record of things that inspire me. As this inspiration board should show my personal style and how I want my blog to look like, I decided to assemble some of my work* on the table, instead of  just sticking cut out pictures from magazines onto a board, like I have done previously for coursework at university. I will take some images of those mood boards this week to share them with you here on my blog.

I should have taken the photograph in natural light, but I admit, I didn't. Sorry. 

I had a very busy week and today, after lunch, I wanted to have a short nap, before I finish my homework and woke up hours later. By then the little daylight that we get here in the north of England in February was gone. I can sleep for hours and still feel tired - maybe the energy burst you should have in your second trimester of pregnancy is just a myth.

Anyway - I got up and took some images of the board, without flash, in my textile studio, but was not too happy with them. So I went through to my partner's photography studio and used the big daylight flash.

[image I took in my textile studio - not too happy with it]

I left the arrangement on the floor and will go back tomorrow afternoon (if I get back home early enough that is) and take some daylight pictures from different angles.

*I put two of my fabric designs in the background and arranged some of the things I make and sell in my Etsy shop on top, together with some of the materials and tools I use, oh - and a couple of pictures I cut out from a magazine.

Please comment! Don't be shy.

Recollection

Here are some images of  my work I took a while ago.

Dionne's invite form the previous post reminded me of a picture I took for my degree project.

That's just a snapshot of the piece still at the sewing machine, but I liked it so much that I wanted to have it on my invite and the cover of my book. So we took some more photographs

and finally came up with this one:

Holmfirth ArtWEEK

I will be exhibiting at the Holme Valley Warehouse in Honley
next week as part of Holmfirth ArtWEEK.

‘thoughtful art’

an eclectic mix of fairies & 3 dimensional art

Thursday, 2nd July - Saturday, 11th July 2009

Holme Valley Warehouse

11 Westgate
Honley HD9 6AA

You are welcome to come along!

Art Market Holmfirth

I have had a good day at the Art Market in Holmfirth yesterday.



Me on my stall...



just finished setting things up and waiting for the first people to arrive.



And my friend Rebecca, with one of my corsages in her hair, helping me at the stall. She's been great!

News from my Etsy shop

Spring special: FREE SHIPPING!



★★★FREE POSTAGE ON ALL ITEMS ORDERED IN MAY!!★★★

Just click here to get to my etsy shop.

Gardening and textile flowers

I did some indoor gardening yesterday. I put flower seeds in big old terracotta pots. Everything grows like crazy here at the studio, because of the fantastic amount of light and heat - and my green fingers.



And then I did some more work on the textile flowers. Soon my corsages will be available as clips, hair ties or headbands.





This is my niece Sonja, wearing one of my corsages as hair clip. We had a really good photoshoot recently and I am very thrilled with the pictures.

Blogger Quilt Festival - My Favourite Quilt

Just came cross The Blogger Quilt Festival. I think this is a nice idea, read more about it by clicking on the icon below.



So here is my entry for The Blogger Quilt Festival:



nimmermehr quilt "palimpsest"

200 mm x 260 mm
silk, yarn, wadding, ink

I made this quilt in 2008 and there were many things going on at once. It was an experimental piece, I used different techniques and was very pleased with the way it finally came all together. The quilt was part of my Diploma work and it is in fact part of a series.


detail

The main theme was vulnerability. The poem on the right is taken from Goethe's Faust - it is one of the most beautiful poems I know. Gretchen, a young girl, is describing how she feels, when she realizes that she has fallen in love and given her heart away.
I did digital printing on silk, by using my ink jet printer. The poem was actually a scan of a old book page and this is the reason for calling it palimpsest as other words shine through. The image on the left is a scan of an old medical book that used to belong to my great grandmother, who was a midwife.



I used to do life drawing and transfered one of my drawings onto the fabric by using an ordinary sewing machine to embroider the figure.

While I stiched pieces of fabric together things started to make sense, and I can still see all the thoughts and work that went into it.

Thanks for reading - feel free to leave a comment.

You can see more of my work on my website.

Blog entry about the Quilting workshop in Kosovo here.

Alexander McQueen Fall 2009

Amazing looks and an unexpected luxury show by Alexander McQueen. Outstanding and brilliant. I love it.

See the whole collection for Fall 2009 here.

Work in progress

Though it is Sunday I am working away here at the studio since lunchtime. Just leaving every now and then, to get myself a cup of coffee. When I entered the room again, some strips of fabric that I just ironed, hanging over a board, looked like a painting to me.

Naked people

Clothes are our second skin, used for hiding or expressing our inner self. But can we trust the shell? What's underneath?

Naked people. Click on the images and the clothes disapear.

Found via clusterflock.

The great sleeping bear

This seems to be the most cosy sleeping bag ever. Brilliant work
by Eiko Ishizawa.
Found via Monster-Munch.

Working with new colours

Keep watching my etsy shop for more.