Sewing mega-project.

For the last few months, 'hobby hour' has been relentlessly filled with a MEGA sewing project I've been working on. I don't want to give the game away completely, but I will say this is, without a doubt, the biggest thing I've ever sown. More details soon...

Screen printing week 3

Word on the street was that we'd be doing four-colour separations this week. So I asked my photographer friend at work aka 'the amazing Carole; aka 'CXE78' if she had any images she'd like me to print up. I had a snoop around her flickr and this pic of a Yayoi Kusama sculpture from her trip to Japan last year. Love it!

But then when I got to the class, it turned out there wasn't time to print our own personal four-colour separations (booo). But we did learn do half-tones, so I printed it as one of those. I was REALLY happy with how it turned out.



And Carole really like it too. I gave her one of the prints, and she didn't even do that thing where you say 'ooooooh', then put it under your bed for seven years. No! She took it straight to the framers, and look at it now! What an awesome, humbling compliment.

Oh, and we did do a four-colour separation in the end. But we didn't get to choose our own images. And as it turns out, they look reeeeeeally tacky. So I didn't take one home.

Screen printing week 2

After a week of the basics, we moved swiftly on to two colour prints. Which is waaay more fun. I really like mine too. It started as a fluoro-green print of the animal silhouettes. Then I scratched into the original acetate to make the details and printed a black layer of the top. Bit difficult to photograph, but really satisfying.

Screen printing Week 1

After much screen printing assisting, I decided to take control of squeegie and start printing things myself. Problem is, I don't really know how to do it. So I've enrolled in a three week course at a place up the road.

Here's what we did on week one: stencils. Probably not going to make it to the wall of fame, but quite fun to do!

Then we coated screens and fooled around with one-colour printing. Again, pretty basic. But again, fun!

And the winner is....

After a whole year of being totally amazing and awesome, Pig Pen had their annual awards ceremony in December. So my good friend Ben (who runs the night) asked me to make one of the trophies.

Thinking about it, I noticed that whenever men win something, they get big, shiny (but ugly) permanent memorials - like trophies and cups. But if women win something, they get a bunch of flowers - which (although beautiful) are ephemeral and disposable. **Cue outrage at gender politics**

So I wanted to make a traditional trophy, but mix things up a little by creating it out of flowers. The process was fantastically epic, but the final result wasn't exactly how I was expecting. So let me take you back through the mists of time...

...to the very beginning.

After I did the boring glueing and drilling bits to get the frame sorted, I started carving the Oasis (which is florists foam). If you've never done that before, go out and get some immediately. It's so satisfying, and a sharp knife goes through it like butter. Actually, it's easier than butter. It's so therapeutic. I could go on all day about it. Honestly. But....

Pretty soon, I had the main shape - minus the handles (which were super-70s floral ones from eBay).

I kind of ran out of time, so I had to put the handles on at the club. Which I did. And I was getting really excited about how it would look with the flowers on it.

The flowers go on - still looking good.

Oh.

When it was covered in blooms, it kind of turned into a shapeless, slightly creepy beast. Ha! I like that it seems quite alive though. So that's good (if unexpected).

Learning for next time: make the shape much skinnier. Or make the object much bigger. It's a really nice effect though, so I'd definitely be up for doing something like this again. Perhaps as props or wearable accessories for a photoshoot. Anyone want to commission me?

Nice pair.

After a posting drought, I've got a flurry of projects I've been saving up for this VERY MOMENT. Actually, I'll come clean. I've just been a bit lazy. But I digress!

So, two Christmases ago, I took on the challenge of re-upholstering a chair we had knocking around. I'd never upholstered anything before, so it was a very steep learning curve (translation = I had a tantrum, and swore I'd never attempt it again). But a year later, I'd forgotten all that and got stuck in reupholstering its twin over the Christmas break. And the super-depressing fabric that was on there before looked like rejected prop from Abigail's Party, so I really had no choice.


I began by rigging up a mad-professor/carpenter fetish rig to fix the frame and make it sturdy again.


Then I made the cover and started nailing it on. Last time I did this, I hammered in the nails all the way. And then the other half of the cover didn't fit properly (hence, the tantrum). Thankfully, I remembered to NEVER DO THAT EVER AGAIN, so it was fine this time.


I didn't want to enter the OCD nightmare of trying to get the two chairs to match exactly, so instead they're kind of the positive and negative of each other. Which looks great I think!