Sleeping Mask

Hullo!

My friend Lauren is super talented. http://lauren-watson.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/brighton-university-ma-illustration-2012.html

I went to her MA show last week, she's an illustrator, and it was bloody amazing. A couple of weeks (months, maybe years) before, she asked me to make her sister a sleeping mask. I did. 

I thought about ideas for sleeping masks. Lauren's got a particularly good one from here: http://www.etsy.com/shop/swiedebie/sold?ref=shopinfo_sales_leftnav

My ideas included the following themes:

Pacman

Dinosaur

Fox

But I may have been feeling hungry, because I settled on Jammy Dodgers.

I used 2 layers of black fabric, one layer of lovely floral fabric that my wonderful neighbour gave me and felt for the Dodgers.

I like after you stitch, the back kind of tells you what's happened on the front, but doesn't tell you everything.

Jammy dodgers.

I had considered putting more stitching on the dodger to demonstrate the biscuit-ey grooves on the biscuit, but I got scared and didn't. Someone who saw the mask prior to giving it to Lol recommended that I do next time, just so there's no confusion about what the monkey the circle heart filled shapes are.

This was my first attempt. I stitched the dodgers on the floral fabric first and then stitched the mask together (inside out technique). But after I pulled the material all through so the outside was on the outside and not the inside,  it had misshaped the Dodgers. So I scrapped it (I didn't really, it's in my collection of rejected makes, or lessons learned).

So I tried it without the Dodgers to see what the monk was making the fabric go a funny shape. I have to do things in practice because my theoretical brain can't always keep up. I realised it was the nose curve making the fabric crease...duh!

So then I thought, OFF WITH THE NOSE CURVE. and just did a block-ish shape.

And voila, the final piece. Must remember to put the Dodger bits on the Dodgers next time.

And from attempt 1 to the finished product. Just in case the four individual images were not enough. 

I hope Lauren's sister likes it. I enjoyed making it. I'm going to make the dinosaur one next, and maybe a Sega remote one after that. We'll see.

Renegade Craft Fair

Hullo!

I think it's important to clarify that that I DID NOT MAKE the Renegade Craft Fair. I just went there. ok?


I went to the Renegade Craft Fair last weekend. It was really lovely. It was everything I had been hoping for and I spent far too much money. But I'm GLAD. I felt really uncomfortable taking pictures of people's stalls and products and I hope no one minded too much. I'd been waiting to go since way before Christmas and I honestly just wanted to make the most of all its glory. I don't want to steal your ideas. I will try really hard to link to all the correct people and that when publishing these photos. 

So this was the first stall I saw:

This is the work of Sean Mort http://www.seanmort.co.uk/ 

Isn't it brilliant? He's worked with some pretty cool bands.  

THEN I saw the store next door:

Mellybee on the right http://www.mellybeeillustration.co.uk/

and Hello Dodo on the left http://www.hello-dodo.blogspot.co.uk/ 

Hello Dodo made a really lovely blog post summarizing the event, which is certainly worth a gander  

http://www.hello-dodo.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/renegade-o.html

After that, I came across this fella:

His name is Bob Motown, or that's what he seems to call himself at least: http://blog.bobmotown.com/

On the left, we've got Birds in Hats (which is a genius idea): http://www.etsy.com/shop/birdsinhats 

And on the right, you can see the work of Adam Pobiak: http://pobiak.com/gallery/silkscreen/ 

I really loved this illustrated map of London by Lovely Jojo's: http://www.lovelyjojos.com/blog 

These are the prints of Ink and Sword: http://www.etsy.com/shop/inkandsword

These are pictures from Debbie Greenaway Illustration's stall. I love her style of illustration and was really glad to be able to buy some brooches! You can find her blog here: http://www.theimaginationofladysnail.blogspot.co.uk/ and her website here: http://debbiegreenaway.com/

I also really liked the brooches and illustrations of Kayleigh O'Mara: http://folksy.com/shops/kayleighomara 

This was the stall of Miwary (where I bought this BRILLIANT postcard): http://www.miwary.com/Showcases-my-work%282422205%29.htm

This was Miso Funky: http://shop.misofunky.com/

I've really liked her work for a while. Cross Stitch is great.

This was the stall of The Stitch and Make Studio: http://thestitchandmakestudio.blogspot.co.uk/

I really, really, really liked Superfumi's stall!! Their website is here: http://superfumi.co.uk/page2.htm

This was Jess Quinn's stall: http://jess-quinn.craftlaunch.com/ AND http://jessquinn.wordpress.com/

This was the stall of Helen Steel, which was beautiful.

Her website can be found here: http://helensteeldesign.com/categories/

And this was the brilliant stall of The Cat in The Shoe: http://www.thecatintheshoe.com


A list of all the artists can be found here: http://www.renegadecraft.com/london-artists

This was some street art outside the Truman Brewery. That's where the fair was. It was really fun. I definitely recommend following Renegade, because it's such a brilliant organisation of events, and it's great to give independent artists a platform. I really enjoyed it.

Thanks guys.