Today I caught the tram into the city and found myself sitting opposite a sweet looking japanese girl who appeared to be in Melbourne on holidays. She was clutching a map of the CBD in her hands and she was teary. The poor girl - I couldn't pull my attention away. The guy beside me must have been giving her directions because he showed her where we were on the map one last time before he got off. For a little while I wondered what to do - all I could think about was why she might be crying and wishing I could reach out and ask her if she was ok.
In the end I just asked her where she was heading and helped her get to Bourke Street. I asked her where she was from - Tokyo. I said I'd love to visit Japan and that it's very beautiful, and she replied in limited English - yes ... but Japanese people are so ... busy, and Australian people (she paused and searched for words) "...their hearts are very peaceful".
What a beautiful Japanese way to say it.
And in keeping with my fondness for all things from that country, a pattern inspired by a Japanese pine forest illustration: Still trying to figure out the right colours for it though.
Hola! A couple of interesting things I've come across recently.
Firstly, if you're interested in taking action re climate change, sign this petition at GetUp.org.au. They're after 250,000 signatures 'to show our elected representatives we're serious'. By signing it you're simply saying "I want my government to take sweeping action to dramatically cut greenhouse pollution, shift to clean energy and solve the climate crisis now." It looks good. Do it. It takes two seconds.
Secondly, I've been doing a bit of rummaging around the Forums and Guidelines of Flickr, and there's some interesting rules that you might not be aware of:
1) "...Flickr is for photos. With some exceptions, it's OK to post other images, but if the majority of your photostream contains content other than photographs (like illustrations, screenshots, diagrams, etc.) it's very likely that your account will be marked Not in Public Site Areas (NIPSA). NIPSA means your photos won't show up in photo searches, but they will still be visible in your pages, your groups and contacts."
I did a bit more research into this, and found that even taking photographs of your art/craft isn't deemed proper use either, and could also cause your site to be marked NIPSA.
2) "Flickr is for personal use only. If you sell products, services or yourself through your photostream, we will terminate your account."
This seemed like a bit of a vague umbrella statement, so I did some more research into this also. Turns out it's okay to link to your shop in your profile, but it's not ok to have links to your shop within the CAPTION of your photos. I couldn't get an 100% straight answer on this one, but I'd recommend not even mentioning your shop in the caption. Saying "available in my shop" is going to look very much like you're using Flickr as a sort of catalogue, especially if lots of your photos say this.
Interested to hear if anybody else has a different take on these, or know of some more subtle "no-no's".
Yaaaay, I sold my first thing on etsy today!! One of the blue dot necklaces to the lovely Marnie of Felt Up Design. Thanks again Marnie:)
I've been dilly dallying over whether or not to submit some patterns to Rag & Bone Bindery's call for submissions. I read what they're after and it seems they want patterns that have 'no obvious repeats' when covering a book. Which, looking back over all of my patterns, is a requirement that very few of mine suit.
However, I think I'm gunna give it a go. I might be able to scale some of them up, and i'll add this newbie into the mix:
This week our apartment has some new friends! Firstly the three Ashley G prints, which I managed to frame nicely for a grand total of $10 all up - yay for dodgy little $2 shops on Smith St! Yeah I know, they deserve a bit more attention than that, but it's an effective short term solution until one day we have some better wall space.
Our second new friend is a living one! Don't get too excited, this little friend only needs to be fed once every month. It's the cutest little Golden Jade tree, and I confess, I'm a little overly obsessed with it at the moment. I picked it up from the Vic Market today after spotting it when doing the groceries last week.
We'd been talking about getting a Jade tree for awhile, and when I saw it I knew it was perfect. It's so bonsai-ish and seriously looks like a quirky illustrated version of a tree! Yay! Although unfortunately, when I brought it home it wasn't what Pete had pictured in his mind at all. Turns out we were thinking about two quite different plants. I blame Google image search :)
Look at that stumpy little trunk!
sorry for all the pics. I couldn't seem to adequately capture it's cuteness in a single photo.
The moment has finally arrived - I've put some items up in my etsy shop!! I was motivated in part by Jessica Lim of Modamuse, who has offered to have some of my items up in the upcoming Modamuse shop. How exciting!!
So I had to take that final, scary step and decide on some prices. It's hard! Very reminiscent of trying to decide on my hourly rate for web design back when I was a newbie. I really don't want to charge too much, but don't want to undersell myself either. Each of the pieces takes at least an hour to put together including the printed packaging, so I tried to base it on that. I asked around and got a few suggestions, and sort of averaged them out. But at the end of the day I'm still charging more than a lot of people of etsy, which is a worry.
Anyway any feedback or suggestions would be much appreciated. Note that all prices on Etsy are in US dollars but they don't actually stipulate that (which is a concern amongst lots of non US sellers).
hmmm, I've got that post-holidays back-at-work blues. It's times like these that I'm markedly aware of the sort-of 'wrongness' of working from home alone, all day every day. I know i'll get back into the swing of things and before long it'll just feel like normal again... but is that really a good thing? to get used to something that's not-quite-right? Anyway not to worry, after my big client jobs are finished I'm going to start actively contacting studios for some part time/contract work.
In good news, my Ashley G prints arrived and they look great. I just need to find some of those simple borderless clippy frames to frame them. Does anyone know where I could find them??
No crafty photos today, so here's some shots of a cute, lichen covered birdbath at Pete's parents' place in Ballarat :)
Back in Melbourne today! Pete and I just got back from a short trip to Ballarat (to visit his folks) and then on to Fairhaven near the beach where we stayed a few nights and did bookbinding.
And what crazy weather we had. The first two evenings in Fairhaven were spent huddled round a roaring fire heater, and I could barely sleep for the cold. Then the next two days the temperature hit 30 and 36 C (86 and 97 F). 'Hottest October day in 90 years' they said on the news. We tried to cool down with a swim at the beach, but there was a very strong wind that whipped sand on our legs and the water was still freezing from winter which made our feet numb. We had fun anyway.
Anyway, our bookbinding project was a complete success! Photos and more details below:
My first book :)
I stuck a little envelope on the back enpaper for storing little bits and pieces (and to cover up a bubble, hehe).
I made three books all up - one A6 size and the other two about A7 - tiny but so fun to construct! And they only need about 5 sheets of A3 paper to make :)
Pete found a whole bunch of great tutorials online about how to do bookbinding. The ones that I followed (kind of mish-mashed their processes together) are:
Dave's bookbinding tutorial - easy to follow, good pictures 'Binding books' - lots of details photos 'How to make a simple hardcover book' - good diagram on binding signatures together The Evilrooster Bookweb - heaps of info on different techniques and handy equipment you can make The Evilrooster site had instructions on how to make a book press and stitching frame in one unit. You don't really need either of these, but they make life heaps easier. Here's the one we made, with me half way through stitiching my signatures together (note: the 'sea view' is in the background - it got washed out in the photo but it's there, honest!)
Signatures all stitched together, aka the 'book block'.
Petey stitching his signatures together by lamplight :)
I know I've posted a demonstration of this before, but since my shiny new Gocco 'Stamp' came in the mail, I've found a much nicer, cleaner way to print properly aligned pattern repeats onto fabric + paper. And it's good to show the Stamp in action too. Contrary to my previous posts, it is actually a very handy tool to have.
Here's mister Stamp.
The stamp has a spongey base that's slightly sticky, so your screen sticks to it. The design on the screen is a pattern tile that interlocks with itself, to form an endlessly repeating pattern.
Here's my piece of paper with a couple of prints already on it. Sitting on top is my polyprop 'registration plate' with the design printed on it also. The registration plate is cut to be the same size/shape as my B6 screen, (plus a little bit extra at the top and bottom - i'll explain that later). The print onto the registration plate was done with the plate+screen perfectly aligned.
Okay so here's the stamp sitting on the paper, or should I say above the paper. The curved clippy things on the side make it so the screen 'floats' there until you push it down. Directly underneath the stamp is my registration plate. The top and bottom of the plate line up with the clippy things because of that extra little bit of height I added.
Once the registration plate is slid out from underneath, Stamp! My hand looks weird and huuuge in this shot!
The final print. The alignment is much better than my previous method - yay :)
For anyone wanting to print free of the Gocco machine I highly recommend the Stamp. You can get with or without the 'Stamp Kit for Cloth', nice and cheaply from Welsh Products for $36.50 USD. They're not sold anywhere in Australia unfortunately.
Thanks for the lovely birthday wishes :) Pete and I are spending the first week of our holidays just grounding ourselves before we head down to the beach. This means hanging out in the city, enjoying the art & craft supplies that Melbourne has to offer, and Pete getting ahead on a little bit of freelance. It might sound a little bit too 'worky' for a holiday, but sitting on the floor doing crafty stuff is what we love doing when we actually have spare time.
This holiday's project is bookbinding. Pete's found some awesome online tutorials on various bookbinding methods, and some vintagey book covers at a secondhand book shop to rebind with blank paper.
We weren't sure where to go for bookbinding supplies (none of the stores actively advertised it), but we found some great stuff at Melbourne Etching Supplies (go figure) and Melbourne Artist's Supplies (Little LaTrobe St). Here's what we got:
From left to right: headbanding (the decorative stripy stuff you see when you look down at the binding from above), a bone folder, binding needles, binding thread, a nice new stanley knife, binding ribbon, an awl (for making clean holes through which the binding thread goes), flexible binding glue.
If we get good at it I might post a simple tute if anyone's interested. A lot of the things above are nice-to-haves rather than must-haves.
Monday, October 02, 2006
Hello! Hope everyone had a great weekend - it was soooo warm and sunny here, which was extra nice because Sunday was my birthday. Now I'm 25! There's something strangely significant about that number. Like it's the end of one era and start of another. I know it sounds silly, but it makes me realise that I'm not going to feel 'young' forever, and is motivating me to really try and figure out what I want to do with my creative career.
Anyway, I might be a bit quiet on the blog front over the next couple of weeks - Pete and I have taken two weeks off work to do whatever we like with. Feeling a million times more relaxed already.
Lots of jewellery making has been going on and I should be able to post photos soon. I'd like to start putting things up on Etsy but first I need to figure out if I can get away with posting things as 'Letter' post rather than 'Parcel' post. Huge price difference, but 'Letters' have to be less than 20mm thick.
Two posts in two days! I haven't done that in ages. Holiday mode has definately started early around here - I spent almost all of yesterday doing crafty stuff. I felt guilty to be doing it during "work hours", but really... if I plan to make a business out of selling jewellery etc then this IS work. It doesn't feel like it though!
Yesterday was spent printing one of my patterns onto sheets of A4 paper - using a repeating-pattern-tile Gocco screen. This screen turned out heaps better than my previous ones. I think because this time, after the flash went off, I remembered to keep holding down for 5 seconds. This lets the heat transfer a bit longer and burns a better screen.
Damn, that was a lot of work, but definately worth it! These sheets will become packaging for my earrings etc.
Oh, I also discovered something cool for any PG-11 owners out there. If you want to be able to stamp your design onto surfaces outside of the machine, you don't have to buy the Stamp Kit for Cloth (although I've ordered mine already, bugger). All you need to do is release the stamp pad from the machine - it has a simple spring release if you detach it from the right hand side first. Ink up your screen as usual, place it down onto whatever surface u want to print on, and then push down on it with the stamp pad. It's basically the same as printing inside the machine, just upside-down! You might be able to do this with the other Gocco models, i'm not sure.
Have a great weekend :)
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Sometimes you work on these really labour intensive projects that just don't end up working. Like these two prototypes below. I spent hours cutting little shapes out of poypropolyene, to find the end result just didn't make a good earring. Maybe the left hand one would work as a pendant with some darker coloured material.
The whole process can be pretty disappointing... but at least it's one step closer to finding an idea that works. If doing this stuff was super easy then I suppose more people would be doing it, and then it'd lose it's uniqueness and value. For that reason I kinda enjoy working on labour intensive stuff ... so long as I don't completely ruin my back working over the coffee table :)
Anyway there's lots of good to come with the bad. Firstly, the awesome Shannon has been helping me out heaps, suggesting I try to sell my patterns here and also offering to take some of my jewellery to sell at her sister's upcoming craft party. Thanks again Shannon!
Also I went on a bit of an impulse buying spree and bought these three prints from ashelyg's etsy shop:
Veeeeery much looking forward to receiving them in the post. Aren't parcels great?
Meanwhile, I continued my purchasing spree by buying this design-nerdy hoodie from veer:
Ok, less spending and more doing - time to think up some new ideas that actually work this time. Wish me luck!
Hello, hope everyone had a good weekend! As usual Melbourne had some mad weather in store for us - warm & sunny one day, sideways-winds & buckets of rain the next.
Our weekend was good. Pete and I had some great success with one of his freelance clients - a natropath who is developing a range of herbal/organic body & health products. I've been helping him out by designing patterns for the labels, and all the while we've been keeping our fingers crossed that she'll actually LIKE them. Last time she came over the reaction was not so good: too 'cottagey', too 'old fashioned', 'looks like a doily'. So, we moved away from the classic/vintage feel and went for something a little more modern, which went down well:
It feels good to take my experiments with pattern design and put them to practical, commercial use.
Some progress was also made on the Etsy shop front. I stocked up on some more supplies at the bead shop and made some earrings, experimenting with some different designs and working with polypropylene. If only the stuff wasn't so damn hard to cut. And if only laser cutting wasn't so expensive - that would be so much fun to work with. Oh well maybe one day!
The shop banner will look something like this :)
Thanks for reading/listening and for all the support and 'company'. Sometimes I think i'd go insane without this blog and wonder how I survived without it.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Ooh excitement - I just ordered a Gocco Stamp kit for cloth! I remember reading about this kit awhile back but completely dismissing it because I couldn't see how it could be useful. But now, now that I'm trying to tile my design across fabric and paper and using my no-so-good squegee method to make prints... I can see how being able to use the in-machine "stamp" method outside of the machine would be very handy indeed. It's discontinued stock (whyyyy???) but I managed to find one Australian place that sells them. My order isn't completely confirmed yet but fingers crossed nothing goes wrong!
I wish I had more crafty stuff to post, but as it often goes my 'real' work is taking priority. But holidays + birthday are coming up soon which should provide ample time to seriously knuckle down and get that etsy shop going.
Meanwhile, some earrings WIP. Just trying to figure out a construction method that lets the flowers dangle nicely, before I make the other one:
The new ad for Melbourne is finally on TV! Awhile back I stumbled across them filming part of it in Centre Place - there was an actress walking a giant red ball of string down the laneway! I was immediately captivated and curious as to what the end product would be like.
It's an awesome, beautiful piece of cinematography that really capures what I love about Melbourne. It's backed by Joanna Newsom, and you can watch it below:
I love my city, and I also love productive weekends, like the shopping expedition we had this Saturday. It included our first trip to the Rose Street Artist's Market. Pete and I parked our car in the back streets of Fitzroy, but on the way there we stumbled across a quintessential little haberdashery shop down a side street (how very Melbourne). It had a sign out the front advertising fabric coated button making services, so we popped in to have a look, and came out with some trim and some huuuge buttons that Pete picked out.
On to the market. It was everything and more than I expected. All the stalls were great. There was so much good stuff to buy but I held back in case Pete decides to buy something from there for my birthday. I gave him lots of hints :)
There was a lovely chick there called Carla, who designs really nice handbags under the label of Emotional Baggage. I happened to be wearing my blue dot necklace and she commented on it, and encouraged me to try selling them. That's the second complete stranger in two weeks to say that, which is very motivating. So... I'd best go get on to it!
Friday, September 08, 2006
It's friday night and i'm home being boring whilst Pete's out at a poker night with workmates. I feel kind of lame, like i _should_ be out, but it's cold and wet out and I don't much like poker. So it's soppy movies for me tonight.
On the fabric printing front, I exchanged a couple of emails with a screen printer who'd be interested in printing my patterns - yay! So I'll go down to his studio some time soon to discuss prices. I've been there once before, it's very cool. A massive messy/arty/painty warehouse space on Easey st in Collingwood which is shared by a range of different artists. Such a contrast to my little office.
Took the quite-night opportunity to finish off one of my pattern ideas. I'm glad it turned out alright. The colour choice was accidental but looks quite retro so I kept it like that.
Today is a better day - I had a client meeting that went really well. We went to the cafe 'Journal' at the City Library which I really like - it has large communal tables which are good for meetings with a laptop. I am starting to feel back on top of things, yay.
I got a reply from the digital fabric printing place. Lengths of 1-5 metres (140cm wide) costs $100 (AUD). Preedy expensive, but I was expecting that. So hmmm, what to do, what to do. I can't exactly sell yardage at prices like that, so maybe this would be a venture more suited to printing packaging for jewelry and what not. Or perhaps I need to investigate the screen printing option further... any thoughts/suggestions out there?
I couldn't very well make a post without including a picture. So here's a little diagram I made recently about how to make a pattern repeating tile in illustrator:
Ohhh, I've been working way too hard this week. All my clients seem to want everything at the same time. Some of them have the weird notion that I should be working on their project and their project alone. It doesn't really work like that. And it also doesn't work in that if they take months to get back to me with content/feedback and are suddenly ready to go - I wont have been sitting around waiting for them with a nice big window of free time. But ahh well, i'll try my best to keep them happy :)
{/rant}
Anyway onto more happy things. I've been inspired by the very talented Kristen Doran to start getting some of my pattern designs out there onto *stuff*. Fabric hopefully, and maybe also gift wrap. Although with gift wrap, you really need to print sheets that are about A2 in size, which means they need to be offset printed, which isn't cost effective unless you get a large run done. Sooo, maybe I just need to prove to myself first that my stuff is saleable before embarking on that journey :)
Fabric printing however might prove to be a little more acessible. I've found a couple of places online who offer digital fabric printing services, and you can order as little as 1m for sampling! I'm just waiting to hear back on prices. Fingers crossed it's not too spenny and looks good.
It's mum's birthday coming up, so I've made her some earrings - some from scratch, the others from some old jewellery of Oma's. At the ripe age of 61 my mother has only just gotten her ears pierced. My brother brought a pair back for her from overseas not realising that she doesn't have pierced ears. Boys! So I took her to Hairhouse Warehouse to get them done :)
This weekend we wandered into the GPO* and this is what we saw - about 50 bright yellow canaries in cages hanging from strings in the central void. At first I couldn't decide if it was cute or cruel, but in the end decided 'cute' because they were so damn adorable and their little chirpings filled the whole space.
* For non-Melbourne people - the GPO is a fairly new (and very schmancy) shopping space in the middle of the CBD, built into the building that once housed our GPO.
Sunday, August 27, 2006
Sometimes I come on here to write a post and wish that I had some interesting life stories to share, rather than just posting a torrent of crazy patterns. But it's just been work work work around here, and nothing I can legally show until it's in the public domain.
I've been giving a lot of thought to what to call my Etsy shop, and a few people have reinforced the notion that it should be Kirin something, to match this blog. Kirinmade? Kirincraft? Kirin Small Goods?
Oh I do have some news - I farewelled my brother and his wife today as they're off to live in the US for the next few years. He landed himself a job at Microsoft, whilst my other brother is already over there working for Google. (So i'm nerdy and cool by association).
Anwyay they got me a webcam and a microphone as an early birthday present so we can Skype together, which is pretty cool :)
I've decided to take the plunge and begin setting up an Etsy shop. What's the worst that can happen? Nothing sells. What's the best that can happen? At least one or two things sell... and maybe lots! Either way, it'll be fun to try. So, here's what I need to do first:
1) Buy materials (done - went to the bead shop and stocked up... forgot to buy more crimps though!) 2) Make jewellery (some based on existing designs, some new) 3) Print some more gocco paper and make packaging 4) Take photos 5) Think of a name for my shop 6) Research postage costs etc 7) Set up on Etsy
Any advice / suggestions would be very appreciated!
Meanwhile, here's some more patterns, which are a bit more geometriccy than my usual ones. Swatches:
Today I figured out how to print my Gocco pattern "tile" in multiple repeats, using a home made registration plate. In case anybody's interested, I thought I might document the process. Here it is!
My home made registration plate, made out of some polypropylene from the art store. It's the same size as a Gocco screen, but you'll notice I've cut an indent out of the top edge, leaving two little tabs sticking up at either end.
When printing onto this plate, I made sure that it's edges were lined up with the edges of the screen. None of this printing is done using the actual Gocco machine by the way... just my modified squeegee method - I'll explain that later.
Okay so here's the registration plate positioned carefully on the paper so that it continues the pattern. (I'd already done a few tiles at this point before I decided to take photos).
Here's a delicate bit - the edge of the screen is placed down on the paper so that it's touching the top edge of the registration plate (being careful not to bump the plate).The two little tabs sticking out of the top of the registration plate sort of fit under the curved corners of the screen.
The registration plate is removed, and the screen is slowly lowered down onto the paper (being careful not to let it slip around). The indent cut out of the registration plate means that when lowering the screen from a standing position, it lands exactly where the registration plate was, rather than slightly higher.
To perform the print outside of the machine, I ink up the screen as normal, cover it with the transparent film, and use a hard piece of plastic to squeegee the ink back and forth. Probably not very "screen friendly" but it's the only way I can think of. Other suggestions are welcome!
The final product. Not perfect, but I suppose that just adds character :)
*AKA Kirin Notebook, the name I gave my blog back in the day when I had a thing for giraffes (’Kirin’ - ‘giraffe’ in Japanese).
About
I am a Melbourne based textile designer and co-owner of Ink & Spindle, a boutique, organic and sustainable yardage screen printing studio located in Kensington.
