Ticked off the list

Yesterday's public holiday flew by with a cranked-up soundtrack of Midlake, Laura Veirs and Gillian Walsh, as I locked myself in my studio, finally managing to make a dent in my pile of custom orders .

I made this Three Sisters cushion for an Etsy customer. It looks pretty sweet edged in rik-rak, I think.



I made these curtains from old embroidered tablecloths and napkins. They took an extraordinarily long time to put together, but were quite fun to make. The cuckoo clock cushion is for the same customer.

Still lots of things left to do, but boy, it did feel good to cross this lot off my list!

New on Etsy - Summer Weeds cushion covers

Finally, I have made my Summer Weeds print into cushion covers. Check 'em out in my Etsy shop.

Wood on Etsy

There's a rather peculiar thing in my Etsy shop today - this satin woodgrain cushion cover that I made. I'm not so sure...

Eep! cushions

I put up some olive and slate Eep! cushions in my Etsy shop yesterday!

New on Etsy - Cushion selection

More Etsy stuff today. These are for sale in my shop as cushion covers only (to save on postage costs).

Pile o' Pillows

I've been making heaps of cushions, and was very pleased to finally send them off for a magazine shoot yesterday, along with the embroidered lampshades. Once they've been shot, I'll get 'em up into my shop.

Life's feeling rather overloaded right now. All the things I have to do are really, really interesting, enjoyable and engaging, but I have such a yearning to just lie on the sofa with cats on top of me until I've finished reading my detective novel.

This weekend, we're off to an old friend's wedding (in our new car!), I hope to catch a couple of yoga classes, have to fit in a heap of illustration work for a Monday deadline... and perhaps I'll get to lie on the sofa for a bit too. Hope you have a good one, bloggers.

Valentine

Last year, I had some cushions in the window of MeMeMe in Long Street. In a shamelessly commercial move, I put this one in just before Valentine's Day, thinking it would get snapped up.

It did get bought, eventually, but looong after Valentine's Day. So much for my canny business sense, eh?

Have a good weekend, bloggers.

Bingo!

I knew my archive couldn't have run totally dry!

I sold this cushion from the HandMade Now! stall at the Neighbour Goods Market a few months ago.

I cut paper stencils and silkscreened the colours, and stitched the stems and outlines with my sewing machine.

I want to make more of these!

Scraggy dog

Another machine embroidery, currently in service to a small Siamese for afternoon naps.

(And in case any dog owners think they can see a striking resemblance to their little Woofles, I must clear this up here and now: I did not use a photo of your dog as reference for this embroidery.)

They shoot horses. Don't they?

The horse cushion's back from the magazine, but it didn't get shot.

No kill fee either...

Righto, putting silly puns and wounded pride aside now, here's the completed cushion, exclusively for readers of Skinny laMinx, in the home of moi and mon homme.

Cushion by me, chair by clever husband Paul, as is the table (copied from a magazine pic), and heck, he made the bookshelf too (a birthday present to me)! The wonderful painting is by my studiomate, Medina Morphet, bought last year with some well-timed royalties money.

There also was a slice of Christmas cake by my mother-in-law on the table, but by the time I'd taken a pic I liked, it had been eaten (note denial implicit in use of third person).

And in the interests of overkill on this topic, here's my attempt at a super-saturated Elle Decoration UK style shot. Look closely and you can see me and Paul getting married in the snowdome.

Enjoy your weekend, everyone.

Being Dion Chang

Dion Chang is a fashion and trends guy here in South Africa. I don't know much about him (although I think he went out with my cousin for a bit).

Anyway, last year, I found this magazine photo of him that really tickled me and I started drawing him.

I didn't keep all my drawings, but this pencil version was the September page on my homemade calendar last year...

... and I think it was screenprinting and machine stitching him onto a piece of fabric destined for cushionhood that finally got Dion Chang out of my system.

Cheers, Dion. Nice knowing you.

Horses

Aha! I knew I could find more in the archive.


I finished this tapestry ages and ages ago, but only just sewed it up into a cushion. I can't photograph the finished product, as it's gone off for a House and Leisure shoot this week, but will get round to it when it returns.

As I was fairly new to designing and to tapestry at the time when I made this, I copied the design (more or less) from a photo of a notebook cover I saw in a magazine once. It was a red and white horse repeat, made by Sisko or Sekko or somesuch name. Anyone recognise it? Any clues?

Buck

I've silkscreened this design onto a cushion, and it looks very pretty.

Letraset chairs

I found wonderful illustrations of chairs in an old Letraset book borrowed from Jesse. First I traced the image with carbon paper onto fabric, then screenprinted the colour sections, and machine-stitched the rest.




I made lots of others in this style, showing different chairs, but seem to have neglected to photograph them. Life pre-blog, eh?

Tapestry resolution

New Year's resolution: make another dang tapestry! I loved making these.



The blue one is a traditional Florentine embroidery pattern, and the red one I made up. I made it too small to begin with (looked like a pencil bag, not a cushion!), so had to add the solid red panel afterwards.