My Creative Space

Playing with some new bag shapes this week, something to give a good peek at the lining. I liked the look of this one, but my machine had issues with areas of it.


I'm trying it a bit more like this now, and it looks good (I finished it since I took these photos earlier), but it's not there yet.

Back to more experimenting...

For more creative spaces, drop into Kootoyoo.

The Little Day That Couldn't

I think I'll blame the dust in the air. The dust that made me close all the doors and the window, that then made the air in the house stale and sticky. The dust that I must have breathed in and clogged up my brain.

Today was a day when things didn't work. A new design that I've been working on this week just wasn't coming together. To make it all the more frustrating, threads kept snapping in my machine (time for a service me thinks). I had a moment of wanting to be a drama queen and threw a failed piece across the room, then felt stupid for doing it.

I then played with making paper lanterns for my market display, but wasn't happy with those either.

That then had me going through my Japanese craft books for inspiration - books that I cherish, books that are usually clear enough to understand despite not reading the language (despite having lived there for six years - yeh, I know!). But not today. Today I just couldn't get it.

Today is the day that just couldn't. Tomorrow will be another day.

Decisions

I'm not sure if other people have this problem... There are times when my heart races before cutting into a fabric. I worry that I'm unworthy to a gorgeous piece. The fabric may be one I have little of, one that I've been saving or one that I splurged on, or as in this case, all three.

I can't decide what kimono fabric to line this bag with. The embroidered design has touches of lovely earthy browns and greens, but then I think a fabulous floral blue would look really pretty too.


And then I have to choose a handle. I've since decided against the curved, it's a great repurposed one, but a little difficult to attach to this fabric.


No wonder it takes me so long to make a bag!

Catching up

Sorry I haven't posted in a while, I've had good intentions of doing so, but time just seems to disappear on me. In lieu of a real post today, I'm going to leave you some photos of what life's looked like lately....

What I'm playing with today

I'm having a bag cutting day and these are the fabulous pieces I'm playing with.


This weekend, I'm selling at a market with a friend and am busily sewing up a storm. You may notice that these are all black based... I promise I do have other colours as well, but I'm starting off with black thread in my machine.

As part of the cutting process, I match each piece to a kimono fabric for the lining.

I just loooove this spider lily obi! Sadly, it was a Nagoya obi, so I will only get two bags out of it.... I think I may have to keep one bag for myself.... I think the black and red matsu pine kimono fabric in the background is the perfect lining for it.

Hope to have some results to show soon...

The one that didn't quite make it

Sadly, I had an unsuccessful bag making session recently. Isn't it frustrating? To make it even more disappointing, it was a bag on order and it was one of my favourite fabrics.

Well, maybe I should be more specific, the fabrics had one of my favourite designs on it. I just love origami cranes and actually, I should live a very long and healthy life as I have folded literally thousands of them for my card business, ki creations.

This fabulously embroidered obi was on a stiff synthetic fabric, unlike anything I'd worked with before. In the bag making process, I use an iron at a rather high temperature. Of course I use an ironing cloth to protect the fabric, but sadly, it wasn't enough for this one. While the bag came out super cute (if I must say so myself), there are some shiny spots on it from the heat and the pins have ever-so-slightly pulled the weave in spots.

I really love the lining too. I recently snatched up a fabulous black haori decorated with pine needles in red, gold and white with a touch of salmon.

Luckily the customer was very understanding and chose another fabric for her bag when I emailed her with the bad news.

I have put it in my eBay store, selling it as a "seconds". Despite it's slight flaws, I was planning on keeping it, but my bag collection is starting to get a bit out of control with no where to put it.

Back to the machine

Ahh! It's been a long time! Life of late has been hectic, but sadly not with many creative pursuits. At school I've been busy writing and recording , outside of work I've been to a few festivals, a funeral, have been doing a lot of business planning and have been madly trying to nut out plans for next year.

Trying to decide can which country to live in can be a real roller coaster ride! A few months ago, because of staff problems in my card business, ki creations, we decided to return to Australia earlier than planned and go at the end of our current contracts, March 2008. We were happy with that decision and looking forward to having more space and hopefully a new family not too long afterwards. Not that long ago I did the budget for the relocation, and boy, it wasn't pretty! We then decided to stay on and both work here for one more year and put off baby plans. Now, we're not so sure.

All this backing-and-forthing, pros-and-conning, is quite mentally draining and I must say, time consuming. We hopefully have a couple of months before we need to decide for sure, so I'll keep you up to date with what where we decide to live.

So, finally, I've been able to get back to my sewing machine and about time! I've had three orders for bags come in so far, so that will be my plans for the weekend. My husband has to work tonight and on Saturday, so it will be nice being able to sew without him getting in the way. The pictures are of fabrics that I hope to sew into bags in the near future.

Another decision I've been trying to make is a web-based one. My website. I haven't had a website up for ki creations for a long while and would also like one for Kimono Reincarnate. I have a web designer on hand, but don't feel I can justify the expense until I have some stock to sell.

In the meantime, I'm setting up my mailing list, the sign-up should appear on this blog soon. With the initial sign-up, I'll be offering a chance to win a bag and then from time to time, I'll have different competitions and discounts on offer.

I've also just ordered a few new patterns from the fabulous Nikki over at Nicole Mallelieu Design. I'm very excited and can't wait to play with them. I have some gorgeous kimono fabrics stored and need a new outlet for them.

Getting more adventurous

I'm getting more adventurous on the inside.... of my bags that is!

I whipped up a bag the other night - I just love that I'm now getting to the stage that I can say that I "whipped up a bag" rather than "wrestled with a bag" or "struggled with a bag". It was for a dear Japanese friend's birthday. She's an older lady and loves red, so I chose a beautiful obi with fans on it.

With this bag though, for the first time, I tried something a littl more fun for the inside. I used some funky kimono fabric which I just happened to have that matched so well!

You get a hint of the lining as you open the bag....

And then (excuse the bad photo) you can see how it looks on the inside. I'm getting better with the pockets, but I'm still not finding them fun.

Luckily, I have some holidays coming up soon. I can't wait! I so need a holiday! For the first few three and a bit weeks, Wayne and I are off to Vietnam, Cambodia and will do a couple of days in Thailand before we head home. I've always wanted to hike up to the hilltribe areas in Vietnam and can't wait to see the textiles. Mmmm.. I think my backpack may be a little heavier on the trip home.... Before I go, I hope to go through some of my kimono that I have collected to have re-made into something else by the tailors in Vietnam. I'll let you know how I go.

After we get back, I still have a few weeks off, and I can tell you - I'm going to be so busy! I've just sent off my bag label design for a few quotes and really want to get stuck into them. I also plan to get a website up and running, have two books I'm working on at the moment (stay tuned for them - one is on Japanese motifs used in kimono design.....), I have some new card designs I'm working on and want to get stuck into scanning my film photographs to convert everything to digital and finally get a Flickr account running. We'll also be back in time for the last of the summer festivals, so there'll be some great photo opportunities. I just love having the time to do this sort of work, lately I've had so many designs and ideas running around in my head and no time to do anything with them. I start to go a bit crazy after a while.... I can tell you - all (non-creative) work and no (creative) time, makes Melanie a very crabby girl!