My Creative Space

Well my work week has been distinctly uncreative, being fraught with tedious but stressful issues that i just want to forget about.  So I am surrounding myself with wonderful, creative purchases - and yes, most of them have been bought this week, except for two of the books that I bought a month ago and then forgot about!

After six months of working for a living I had saved up enough to buy myself a new sewing machine in a sale.  The last day of the sale!  It is a Janome Memory Craft 6500 and it does whizzy things.  I believe.  It will probably be Saturday before I have the concentration and energy to actually try it out.  But the instruction manual is interesting! 

Graham certainly thinks so, anyway.  Now he will be able to tell me when I am doing something wrong!  And to give him his due, he actually does know quite a lot about the subject in general and I expect he will soon be up to speed on this particular beast.  Maybe I will follow Baby Bear's lead and give it a name (she names all her musical instruments).

And then I bought some books, mostly at the Craft Fair at Jeff's Shed the other weekend, all which I am hoping will provide creative inspiration of one sort or another.  And I actually bought another three today but they can wait for another photo session!

For more creative spaces, pop over here.  Maybe some of them have actually made something rather than just buying inspiration!

Stitches and Craft Fair

I went to the Stitches and Craft Fair at the Exhibition Buildings last week. And a good time was had by all!  I decided not to do any classes, as I wasn't really in the mood.  So I spent my money on THINGS instead!

From top to bottom:

Three books (obviously).  I had been looking for the Paintstiks one for a while.  I have quite a few Shiva sticks and have played with them, but this book pulls the techniques together quite succinctly.  The Stitch magazine (OK, not a book as such) I used to be able to buy in the newsagents but they haven;t had the last few copies, so that will be fun to read.  And the collage book was an afterthought, not actually bought at the fair but at a bookshop afterwards.  It looks like fun and I want to brush up on my collage skills, not that they are much to brush up on in the first place so maybe improving them might be in order.

Middle photo - yarn.  And two postcards from one of the yarn sellers showing some of the amazing stuff they do.  The two cones are (left) a fine dark denim merino (I know it looks black here) and the right hand one is a fine black and glittery mixture of cotton and stainless steel.  No, that is not a typo.  I think it might either be that Japanese Habu stuff, or else is similar.  They had a scarf there knitted in stocking stitch with the two yarns together and then lightly felted.  It looked amazing.  The yarns are incredibly fine and I will probably go bonkers trying to knit them together on biggish needles, but I don't have (and don't like) a knitting machine and want to have a go.  The turquoise and purple and green is actually a Habu yarn, raw silk I think, which I will knit in a very simple shallow V shaped shawlette/scarf thing on big needles.

Bottom photo - beady things.  A bead mat, which I had never got round to buying.  A twirly thing for making paper beads, and sparkle Mod Podge for sealing paper beads in a sparkle arkle way.Some new beading needles.  And a new set of pliers and things, because I am always losing the cheapy ones I have and because these come in a pretty case and include, I think, tweezers and a reamer, which I didn't have.

An expensive but fun day!

Loot

I went to the Stitches and Craft Show in Melbourne yesterday, and generally had a good time.  There was lots of interesting stuff to see, and to wonder over, and some of it followed me home...

There was some cool textile art, like this from Prudence Mapstone, which was as amazing as everything she does (and it was nice to say hello to her again too).

The Quilt Show was obviously very popular though I admit that to my tastes there are never enough 'art quilts'.  I really do admire the work and the patience and the artistry of the more conventional quilts that are there - I would never in a million years be able to sit down and do them - but I seem to gravitate towards the more weird and demented types of art quilt these days.

All in all a fun (and expensive!) day out.

Friday Update - the Sequel

I had fun at the Australian Quilt Convention! See the goodies I bought.

There was interesting quilts there, too. As usual, I liked the smaller art quilts the best, but could appreciate (and like) a lot of the more traditional quilting as well.

I thoroughly enjoyed myself. But I came away feeling perturbed about something. The three years I spent studying textile art was supposed to enable me to discover my 'voice' and come away with a defined body of work which I would build upon for ever afterwards. In one way I did discover my 'voice', the very detailed bead embroidery that I love the best of everything. But nobody is ever likely to pay the price for that sort of work that I would like to sell it for, so I am unlikely to make money out of it. Maybe I could write and (probably) self-publish books on it, which is a possibility but would still not make money in any serious way. I am a lousy teacher - too impatient. There are other things I love to do too. Nothing I bought today had anything to do with bead embroidery (I already own the books I like the best on that subject, though there may be some new ones that I don't know about yet!) but with other things that I have already experimented with but want more inspiration and technique to encourage me. I have had a couple of forays into selling on Etsy, or rather NOT selling on Etsy, though I am planning to start again. There is also an Australian equivalent that I am building a shop for ... From the market research I have done, for things to succeed in these online marketplaces they need to be reasonably inexpensive and postable (obviously), and preferably have a unique selling point. I am working on things like this.

Anyway, that isn't meant to be a rant or suggest that I have not enjoyed my day nor that I am not feeling creative. But I wonder if I suffer from some art-related form of ADD - can't I stick to any one thing but have to keep experimenting and trying to find new things to try? All of which require new supplies and books. If only I could add the hyperactivity part to it - I am so slow to get anything off the ground.

And now I will indulge in the wonderful procrastination of doing nothing about any of it, but drinking tea and knitting a sock instead. Oh, and I might start to flick through those new books!