My Taste in Art

Your result for What Your Taste in Art Says About You Test ...

Extroverted, Progressive, and Intelligent

5 Cubist, -11 Islamic, -10 Ukiyo-e, -18 Impressionist, 5 Abstract and -13 Renaissance!

Cubism was a 20th century avant-garde movement, pioneered by Pablo Picasso and Georges Braque. It revolutionized European art and inspired changes in music and literature. The first branch of cubism, known as Analytic Cubism. It was both radical and influential as a short but highly significant art movement between 1908 and 1911 mainly in France. In its second phase, Synthetic Cubism, (using synthetic materials in the art) the movement spread and remained vital until around 1919.
People that chose Cubist paintings as their favorite art form tend to be very individualized people. They are more extroverted and less afraid of speaking their opinions then other people. They tend to be progressive and are very forward thinking. As the cubist painting is like looking into a shattered mirror where you can see different angles of the images, the people that prefer these paintings like looking at all angles of a problem. These people are intelligent and they are the transformers of our generation. They look beyond what is seen into what things could become. They are ready to leave the ideas of the past behind and look at what the future has to offer.

Your Analysis (Vertical line = Average)

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  You scored -18% on Impressionist, higher than 5% of your peers.
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  You scored -11% on Islamic, higher than 9% of your peers.
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  You scored -10% on Ukiyo-e, higher than 8% of your peers.
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  You scored 5% on Cubist, higher than 81% of your peers.
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  You scored 5% on Abstract, higher than 80% of your peers. 
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  You scored -13% on Renaissance, higher than 28% of your peers.
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• Interesting test!  And, for what it's worth, I think I agree with the results.

My Creative Space

Another week fraught with tedious personal and work stuff.  But at least I got to play with the new sewing machine at the weekend, and a love affair is definitely in progress!  I tried out lots and lots of stitches and stuff :)

Then I did some more playing in black thread (rather than the white which I had been using for the samplers), realising that, on the random fabric I had pulled out of the stash to practice on, it would look good for something specific I was vaguely thinking about.  (Can you think vaguely about something specific?  What I mean is that I was thinking I could use some of these stitches on fabric and then cut them up and make brooch/hat adornments from them, and then realising that the black and red would work well with the yarn I was using to make hats).

And the hat with the attached glasses and antlers?  From the other day?  Well, I canvassed opinions from people on here and on various Facebook groups and decided that it might be better to make it a little more mainstream.





So it now has a gum nut type scrumble on it.

And these are all going to be adornments for other hats in a similar style.



This was meant to be a brooch in the red/orange MazeyPrettyThings collection, but somehow got left out when I was sewing backing fabric on them.  So it is going to be sewn down to a slightly larger piece of the red and black, machine embroidered fabric.


This a dreadful photo, don't know what happened there!  But there is a glittering green button in the middle of this.



And another green button on this one.

These three will probably have brooch backs sewn onto them and pinned to hats and sold together, so that they can be worn together or separately.

Please go and enjoy some other people's spaces :)

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!

My Creative Space

I spent this week finishing off a prototype hat design.  While I still think it was an amusing idea, various feedback from people has made me think that, though I might make a vague attempt to sell something like this, it might not work.

We start off with a simple, comfortable cloche-cum-beanie.  This one is knitted out of a nice, smooth acrylic/microfibre mixture that feels really nice to the touch (though obviously it is less warm than wool).

We gather together some embellishing supplies.  Pipecleaners, a bag of - well, what do YOU think they might be? - and a bag of assorted yarns.

Silliness ensues.  A pair of retro, vintage specs are sewn in place just where you would put them if you were to push your retro, vintage specs up on top of your head.

And then a pipecleaner is wrapped in novelty yarn, bent into shape (sort of) and wrapped around the nose-piece of the glasses, thus making removable antennae/antlers.

Well, I thought it was funny.  A couple of people have told me that it would not raise an eyebrowin their local neighbourhood.  I might wear it myself.  But would you?  Would you BUY something like this?  Is there any point in me putting in my new born MadeIt shop which so far has not even sold anything at all?

OK, at least I was creative.  And to see how other people have been creative this week, here is the linkety link :)

My Creative Space

What with the (currently stalled) Knit Along, and this lot 'ere, I am behind in the Bead Journal Project.  But I feel an urge to bead returning and will catach up sometime soon!

I finally had some time, and some courage, to pop into Open Drawer (see last post) and hopefully they might be able to sell some of my things.  And I was asked to make some more things, which I took in at the start of the week.  These are they - my creative space for the last couple of weeks:





Patchwork scarf - a variety of yarns of completely different textures and weights, with some of (now specially named) Mazey Patchwork on the bottom.  Because I was running out of time (this was the last one I finished) most of the embroidery on that was done on the tram, the train and in the Melbourne Central food court at lunchtime.  It got a few weird looks, but who cares!





The first of two feral hats.  This one has some of the ends pulled out through the top and tied with big beads.  It is a floppy tam-o-shanter type of hat.





The other feral hat.  Again floppy.  This time the ends are like a fringe down the back seam.






This blue hat is what you do when you find half a scrumbled hat and don't have the time to finish making it properly.  You knit a tube, using a hat block and pins to judge how long it needs to be, then you carefully sew down the scrumbling to the tube.  Add an extra row of stitching underneath the scrumbling (repetition, and tying the design together) and hey presto!





Simple scarf knitted lengthways in a variegated yarn, and some crocheted bits sewn down in a viney pattern (plus I needlefelted the long ends of theyarn in a similar pattern).  Finished off with Suffolk Puffs and cute buttons.






The final, blue, scarf, knitted lengthways and the ends turned into a feral fringe.  They were lightly needlefelted crossways for the first third or so of their length, so hold them together but still keep them defined as separate yarns, and then I sewed buttons and beads all over the ends of the actual knitting and the start of the fringe.

These were fun to make, and all my own designs.  Currently working on a prototype new design which I might try to sell through my new Made It Shop.

For more yummy, inspirational Creative Spaces, pop over here.

Me-Made-June Whenever It Was...

I have been a bad blogger.  I did finish Me-Made-June without any duplications, though I only made one item instead of two.  But I haven't felt like blogging recently.  Now ... I'M BAAACCKKKK...

Because it was a while ago, I can't remember which day I wore these things, but I did have them marked down as the last week of MMJ so here goes.



Good old Entre Chien et Loup!

This brooch was part of my Graduate Exhibition for my Diploma.  This is a shocking picture!  I take terrible pictures of my work :(  It was part of a set called Full Fathom Five and is meant to look like coral and seaweed and pearls (those are seed pearls that were his eyes!)

This cowl is the one I blogged about earlier and, because it took me an unneccessarily long time to finish it, counts as the one thing I made in June, to wear in June.  It is the Tilting Tardis cowl from Revelry (too lazy to look up) made from a Wendy sock yarn that is mostly bamboo and is silky and soft.  It is meant to be buttoned up.  When I was sewing in the ends I used them to sew up the seam without thinking, and then, as I could get it on over my head, just left it be!

A ubiquitous Clapotis of much Knitty and bloggy fame.  I made mine longer and narrower to wear it as a scarf.  It is one of the few things I have ever knitted in the recommended yarn, splashing out of Lorna's Laces Lion and Lamb, if that;s what it's called?  Anyway it is utterly luscious and I wear it a lot.

A pair of Jaywalker socks knitted in , I think, a Regia wool-cotton blend.  Again too lazy to find a link.  Hey, it's taken me over two weeks to write this post at all!

And that, I think, finished Me-Made-June.  It was fun but towards the end I got a bit distracted, at least in terms of recording it, as must be pretty obvious.  Sometimes life you actually have just gets in the way of the life you want to have.  That's happening a lot at the moment.

On a lighter note - I have just formed a hopefully fruitful relationship with the gorgeous textile art shop Open Drawer  (to which I obviously can be bothered linking!).  Whether they actually sell any of my work remains to be seen but at least they were willing to give it a go.  And that has given me a bit of a kick in the pants to do some other stuff.  I have had a couple of Etsy shops at various times, and set up the framework of a MadeIt shop earlier in the year, but have never really achieved anything with them.  I am inspired to start all over again with a new name, new goods, and, well, watch this space!!!

My Creative Space

I haven't done a Knit Along (KAL) for yonks, and in fact I don't think I have ever finished one really!  This one attracted me because of its freeform, oddball nature.  See Jane Thornley's site here to see what it is about, and while you are there, have a browse - even if you don't knit, or don't like stuff like hers, the site is a riot of colour and texture and FUN!!!

From top to bottom - the collection of yarns that I grabbed to make the freeform vest - mostly purples with touches of greens and other colours.  And a variety of textures, too.  I may not use them all, but I like to pick a palette and work from it, picking them out from the pile as I go.

The first couple of inches - a chenille yarn (from Lincraft I think - most of these yarns have been maturing in the stash for quite a while, and not many are complete balls) and moss stitch.  Jane recommends moss stitch (only she calls in seed stitch) as good foundation stitch because it adds strength to the overall construction, and I have to say that I like that idea.

And then more progress.  As you can see I moved on from the chenille yarn to a bit of leftover Lincraft Prism, to some stuff I picked up in the Bendigo Woollen Mills backroom years ago with a boucle thread in black and brightly coloured slubby stuff wound in with it.  And in that picture you can barely see it, as I had only knitted about two rows, but now I am using remnants of a yarn I spun and dyed myself several years ago, which will make up the rest of the back.  I am almost up to the neckline now and will post more progress pictures next week.

To see more creative spaces, please pop over here for a riot of colour and amusement.

Me-Made-June Week 3

Another chilly week.  But not quite as bad as last week!  It did however start with a scarf.

This is knitted from Lincraft Prism and is 70% wool and 30% soysilk.  The pattern is from Knitted Shawls, Stoles and Scarves by Nancie Wiseman and it can be knitted either as a shawl (my MIL has a lovely pink and purple one) or a scarf.

I had to get my favorite glass brooch in somewhere this month!

Then it was a wet day and I had to catch the tram to work, which means walking through a park (which is pretty at sunrise, but gives you wet feet), and so I wore waterproof shoes and carried office shoes in the felted bag I made for Me-Made-May. 

This brooch, made some years ago, sits on the lapel of a designer denim blazer that I bought in an op shop about the same time that I made the brooch. 

A cold Sunday meant hand knitted socks.  These are Jaywalkers knitted in a mixture of wool and cotton.

I've worn very little of my own jewellery this month, mostly because I have had the perfect opportunity to wear the handknits!!  But I did wear these green and blue coralled earrings.

And finally, as Arctic blasts assailed Melbourne, I wore my Fetchings, knitted from the same Prism yarn as the scarf at the start of this post.

I haven't been doing My Creative Spaces for the last couple of weeks, because of the planning and photographing, etc, of Me-Made-June.  but I am going to this week, because I am participating in a KAL (Knit-along, for those who are wondering) and I want to show some progress pictures, and it's pretty much what I have been working on all week.