Get the basics - Embroidery threads

Posted on

23 Jul 2009

DMC Tapestry Wool
Made from combed and twilled pure virgin wool, this 4-ply, superior quality, non-divisible thread offers an even finish and is used primarily for needlepoint, due to its durability and colourfastness. The 8.7 yard pull-skein is available in an extensive range of colours and is ideal for wall hangings, chair covers, cushions or fashion items such as bags.


Perle Cotton Skein Size 5
A highly mercerised, non-divisible, lustrous 100 per cent cotton thread on a twisted skein is available in solid and variegated colours. It is ideal to use for cross-stitch, embroidery, needlepoint, hardanger, blackwork, redwork, pulled thread, smocking, applique and many types of creative stitchery.


Light Effects  - Precious Metals
A glistening collection of specialty threads that will add light and reflective qualities to any needlework or craft project. A six-strand divisible thread that is colourfast and tarnish resistant. Also available in Pearlescents, Jewels, Antiques, Fluorescents and Glow-in-the-Dark.


Six Strand Embroidery Floss
Made with 100 per cent long staple cotton this double mercerized quality thread is perfect for stitching on all types of fabric. This brilliant six-strand divisible thread is available in an extensive range of solid and variegated colours that are washable and fade resistant.


Perle Cotton Balls Size 8
A highly mercerized, twisted, non-divisible, lustrous 100 per cent cotton thread on a ball. Available in an xtensive range of solid and variegated colours, Pearl Cotton balls are used  for crochet, knitting, tatting, hardanger, embroidery, cross-stitch, applique, quilt tying, blackwork, redwork, lacemaking and other types of creative needlework.

Tags:  dmc embroidery skein

Artist profile - Hilary Peterson

Posted on

15 Jul 2009

Late last year at TAFTA (the Australian Forum for Textile Arts) in Geelong, Victoria, Gale from the ‘get creative’ team met Hilary Peterson and was blown away by the work produced in her class, ‘Mixed media and the artist book’. This month we’re privileged to have Hilary share her story with us, explaining how nature and specific locations inspire her work, and why planning doesn’t necessarily work for her.

Hilary is not the kind of person who can provide traditional project steps to students or publications. “When I teach I like people to be encouraged and learn techniques they can later use for creativity,” she explains. “It’s not necessarily about making things in the class, it’s about what you’ll do when you go home later.”

What Hilary, as a mixed media artist does, when she goes home is immerse herself in the scenery and environment around her. Able to develop her own papers, colour fabrics, make books and more, Hilary’s home base, in picturesque Pambula (a quiet location central to NSW’s Sapphire Coast), serves as a great asset.

“The work I focus on at any given time is constantly shifting. I usually use one site or location as a focus, start out with drawings, then it deepens and then I can never really say what will come next,” she says.

Banksias, the sea, wildlife, all of these inform her work. Hilary sometimes paints, sometimes dyes fabrics, sometimes works on a large scale and sometimes makes small books. “I find one thing feeds into the other,” she observes. For instance there are pieces at the moment that I started working on three years ago. I’ve just come back to them and am enjoying that.”

Suffice to say that her unstructured approach can sometimes be unnerving for first time students. “At Geelong, for instance, I was aware that some people might come to class and think ‘Hang on, what are we doing here?’ because there’s no project as such. But we were developing papers and rusting fabrics using acrylics. We put them into books and did cotton linter paper making. We made covers for the books.”

Hilary began her working life as a professional textile designer, creating carpets and commercial fabrics. Like many, it was not until she left full time paid work to have her family that her art, once a hobby, began to flourish. As her children grew up Hilary started teaching both children and artists and today can call herself a professional artist.

“One of the best things about teaching is watching the students work through from a chaos of ideas, materials, techniques and uncertainties to producing fantastic pieces of work,” she says.

Hilary has a home studio with its own hanging system and she tries to ensure a couple of days a week are spent there concentrating on her own work. “I try to be regular, disciplined about it,” she explains. “You just can’t wait for things to fall out of the sky. Sometimes you have to create your own momentum. Even if I don’t feel like actually working on a piece I’ll force myself to at least clean up the studio; sometimes I will even rediscover a forgotten item in that process and be inspired all over again.

“Exhibitions made me deadline driven too which is helpful. I am a member of the Spiral Gallery, a cooperative in Bega (NSW). It’s less pressure because a whole exhibition doesn’t rely on just you, there’s a group, but it is a good driver.”

Hilary has also tackled art quilts. She says she likes to have a project she can sit down with at night and, because she prefers hand sewing to machine, quilts - using hand dyed fabrics and stitch - fit the bill. “I suppose it’s really more like embroidery than quilting,” she adds.

While 2008 marked her debut as a TAFTA tutor, she plans to be at the Ballarat FORUM at Easter time this year. “We’ll use plant dyes on silks,” she explains. It will be cool - literally - we’ll do it outdoors.”

Name
Hilary Peterson

Based
South Coast NSW

Gallery website
www.spiralgallery.org.au [spiralgallery.org.au]

Email
peterson@asitis.net.au

For more information
See the TAFTA website at
www.ggcreations.com.au/tafta [ggcreations.com.au]
for 2009 FORUM details or call (07) 3300 6491.

Tags:  artist hilary peterson mixed media painting

Handmade Weddings

Posted on

15 Jul 2009

In recent years the average cost of a wedding, based on Australian Bureau of Statistics figures, has been around $28,000. Couples often invite 100 or so guests to the big day and pay caterers $100 a head for the privilege. The cost of dresses, cars, flowers and rings still has to be considered. No wonder then that in a world that’s fast learning to tighten its belt, and a generation keen to express its individuality, weddings are becoming the new frontier for those handy with a glue gun.

A number of websites, blogs and books have come onto the market in recent times guiding crafty brides through a swathe of ideas for adding bespoke elements to the big day. ‘Wedding Crafts’ by Catherine Risling is a book inspired by the author’s own nuptials. Once the Managing Editor of USA magazines, ‘Romantic Homes’ and ‘Victoria Homes’, Catherine says writing about “fabulous ideas” got her creative juices flowing. “By the time my own wedding came along, I had all sorts of fun ideas for personalising the event,” she explains.

Her first book, ‘Pretty Weddings for Practically Pennies’, highlighted a lot of the ideas that Catherine had used at her own wedding. “There are just not that many really original items out there to buy,” she says. “I believe a wedding isn’t just about the bride and groom, it’s about celebrating those people in your lives who got you to that point. Also, just as it’s very sentimental to wear your Mum’s pearls on the big day, or carry your Grandmother’s handkerchief, I think personal touches you come up with and make yourself make you and your guests feel really special."

One of those “great” ideas Catherine came up with was photo cards as table decorations. “I had asked every guest for a copy of their wedding photo... I trimmed the photo to 3x5 inches using decorative-edge scissors and then mounted it on a piece of cardstock. Then I grouped them together by table in a wire photo holder. This way, everyone at the table could share their own wedding tales - and dated dresses! Also, the place cards were actually little envelopesand, inside, each had a note from my husband and me thanking every guest for sharing our day.”

But surely the wedding, a traditionally stressful event, is the last moment a bride needs extra, time consuming jobs? “Not when you have a room full of close friends and family to help,” says Catherine. “Those nights really turned into some of the best memories for me. Everyone would laugh at how detailed I was but they helped and that really meant a lot to me.”

Ariel Meadow Stallings, the scribe behind the book, ‘Offbeat Bride: Taffeta-Free Alternatives for Independent Brides’, and her Offbeat Bride website, has written for Disney, Microsoft, Amazon.com [amazon.com], and ‘ReadyMade’ magazine but, she says, has focused on subcultures and “fabulous freaks doing beautiful things... These days, that means wonderfully weird people having wonderfully weird weddings.”

Although Ariel warns brides away from becoming too obsessed on everything being perfect and handmade (“Those that think they’re a failure if they don’t letterpress every invitation!”) she does believe personalised weddings are “the best way to start your very personal marriage off on the right foot”.

“Unless you and your partner plan to have a marriage just like everyone else’s, why should your wedding look like everyone else’s?” she asks. “I’m all for the de-templatisation of relationships and since weddings are the ultimate reflection of your partnership, it’s great to have your wedding embody your unique relationship.”

A favourite component of her own offbeat wedding was the Muglies. “Instead of renting glassware or using disposable cups, we enlisted the help of a few friends and collected dozens and dozens of ugly mugs from second hand shops,” says Ariel. “We’d had vinyl wedding stickers made for our invitations and we stuck these stickers onto the ugly mugs and distributed them to guests. Guests were encouraged to take their muglies home with them... and I love that four years later I still see muglies in our friends’ kitchen cabinets.”

Both Ariel and Catherine feel there are a few areas that perfectly lend themselves to the DIY touch. For Catherine that’s place cards, party favours and just about anything for the guest tables. Ariel, on the other hand, says it depends on each “craftster’s personal tendencies” and so she says graphic designers might love to do invitations, programs, save the date cards, and thank you notes while “fashionistas will obsess over handmade, indie-designed attire. Hands-on crafters will take décor details like centrepieces and bouquets over the edge of awesomeness... it totally depends on your personal creative proclivities,” she adds.

For Ariel, the primary message is mostly one of empowerment... “that whatever odd ideas you have, your wedding is awesome, as long as it truly and authentically reflects you and your partner”. And as to the most impressive things she’s seen people make for their weddings?

“I originally made offbeatbride.com as a way to support the book but the blog has totally taken on a life of its own,” says Ariel. “It is now much more popular (and lucrative!) than the book. I’ve got an online community of over 6,000 offbeat brides, and it just keeps growing. I’ve featured several brides who’ve made their own wedding dresses - that’s probably the most impressive.”

In 2009 Ariel launches a new partnership where brides and grooms can have their own websites. “There’ll be custom templates catering for offbeat wedding themes like rockabilly, steampunk, goth and more!” she says.

For Catherine the most impressive thing she’s seen is the bride who did all her own flowers but the most eccentric in recent times was friends who got married in October so, in observance of Halloween, they spared no expense. Not only were the party favours handmade - candied apples, cellophane bags of candies - so were the spooky decorations. That was a fun wedding,” she says.

Whatever you choose to do, Catherine suggests sticking to this advice: “They have to be projects that can be done en mass and not take hours for each one.” And Ariel adds: “I believe very firmly that weddings are a game of prioritisation, figuring out which details are truly important to you and delegating the rest. Pick a few key projects that you want to focus on and let your crafty friends, enthusiastic mother-in-law or a hired vendor take care of the stuff you don’t feel as strongly about.”

More information:

Ariel Meadow Stallings
www.offbeatbride.com [offbeatbride.com]
www.arielmeadow.com [arielmeadow.com]

Catherine Risling
Director of Editorial
www.redlips4courage.com [redlips4courage.com]

Tags:  bridal diy wedding wedding

Special occasion stationery

Posted on

15 Jul 2009

Designing and creating your own invitations along with co-ordinating stationery can make your wedding, birthday, engagement, anniversary or other special celebration more memorable & distinctive.

Hints for creating your own designer stationery.

• Decide on the theme or mood of the occasion.

• Select a range of papers to suit - metallic, transparent, textured, patterned papers co-ordinate beautifully with plain colours.

• Decide on the size and shape of your invitation.

• Consider decorative elements - crystals, brads, eyelets, ribbons, etc.

• Tools - laser printer, plain or decorative scissors, paper trimmer, cutting mat, craft knife, metal ruler, double-sided tape.

• Try different fonts and make a sample using plain paper.

• Use card weight for the base layer and sheer papers to create an overlay.

• Adhere ribbon using double-sided tape.

• Use a hand punch to make a small hole for brads and eyelets.

• A bone folder helps create professional looking fold lines.

• Allow sufficient time to make your invitations without feeling hurried or stressed.

Tags:  bridal invitation scrapbooking stationery

Scrapbook paper - the basics

Posted on

15 Jul 2009

Most scrapbook paper or cardstock is available in 12” x 12” (30cm x 30cm) sheets. Some smaller formats 8”× 8” and 6”× 6” are also available. Scrapbook papers and cardstock come in a  wide range of colours, patterns and textures and are available in single sheets, packs or tear- off pads. Many papers are now double-sided with a primary pattern on one side and either a co-ordinating colour or a complementary pattern on the opposite side. Many companies now only produce double-sided cardstock as it is so much more versatile than regular patterned paper. It provides a variety of matching colour schemes and comes in visually appealing pattern combinations.

1. Patterned paper - to suit every occasion from everyday events to special occasions for baby, kids, teens, adults and even your pets.

2. Solid colour paper - in pastels, brights and deep shades, a colour to suit every theme.

3. Printed vellum - designs printed on vellum in metallic, pastel or bright colours.

4. Black and white patterned paper - comes black on white and white on black in a range of designs.

5. Textured cardstock - a fine washboard stripe in a single colour.

6. Distressed paper - can quickly add that ‘worn look’ to projects without the mess.

7. Glitter vellum - patterned glitter vellum for that special occasion.

8. Flocked paper - patterned paper with flocking (velvetlike pattern) on some areas of the design.

9. Textured cardstock - a fine linen weave in a single colour.

10. Glitter paper - patterned paper with a touch of glitter for that twinkle effect.

Tags:  paper papercraft scrapbooking

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