Mod Bag progress update

I'm making slow progress on the embroidery on my Mod Bag. Anyone would think I'm on holiday!

I've used simple back stitching for the cogs and gone for the obvious choice of chain stitch for the chains (duh). The chains came out wonky but I've decided wonky is cool. I used three strands for everything, but I'm tempted to pull out the bulky-looking chain stitch and redo it with only two strands. I know I won't get around to it though.

I'm using a stem stitch to create a thick outline for the pocketwatch. The cogs inside will probably all be done in backstitch.

Craft in the Bay

Hello again! I've been out of touch in deepest darkest Wales. Not really, I've been in highly civilised Cardiff having a lovely time. So lovely that Hubby T and I have decided to retire there. Cardiff has everything I love about Melbourne but with Welsh accents. I admit there are advantages to being married to a UK & EU passport holder, and escaping Melbourne after the next 35 years of climate change is a big one.

High on my list of priorities to visit in Cardiff was Craft in the Bay, the retail space of The Makers Guild in Wales which is the Welsh equivalent of Craft Victoria. (See? Everything I love about Melbourne.)


Craft in the Bay has a gorgeous selection of work from established craftspeople. Yes, I asked permission before taking photos!

I fell in love with the work of Rebecca Raudaschl of RRArtWear, a textile artist creating bags, accessories and tiny collages on greeting cards of which I just had to start a personal collection (mainly because I couldn't afford a bag).

One lovely thing about Craft in the Bay is that it's run on a collective basis and the people working there are the makers themselves. So, when I enthused about the cards I'd bought, the woman behind the counter pointed out maker Rebecca assisting another customer and I was able to tell her in person how much I enjoyed her work! That's always my favourite feature of makers' markets. It is now my life's goal to work at Craft in the Bay. Try to add up how many individual steps I have to take to achieve that.

I can see some similarities in style between Rebecca's work and that of Cas Holmes who I was mad about at the Oad Street Centre (and who is now following this blog - hi!). Am I unexpectedly becoming a collage person? One thing I'm aware of when I really admire someone's work is that they have a genius for art and design which I feel I could never meet, even if I did learn every technique they use. That is intended as a compliment to those I admire. See, I don't even know enough about the techniques these artists have used to distinguish that their styles are in fact very different. I see two people making unique collages and group them together under one heading. Me = not an artist.

In the next few days I'll take some photos of the collage cards I bought so you can see why I liked them. For now, here's Little Jack in front of the Millenium Centre, where Hubby T took him after his shouting practice inside Craft in the Bay.

French Letter

On the ferry from Dover to Boulogne, this is what I found in my handbag:

Bill Book and notebook by Finki; two passport covers by Pepperberry & Co. That's some well-travelled Melbourne craft!


French essential: a meringue the size of my head.

JEM's Sewing Machine & Needlecraft Centre

In Canterbury yesterday I spied a fabric shop. With a quick promise over my shoulder to only take two minutes, I dashed inside with nary a thought for my husband and son.

J.E.M.'s Sewing Machine and Needlecraft Centre is a little shop selling what the name suggests. Their shop window features the Britannia Fabric range, which I know you can get in Australia as my mum has previously bought me some of their Routemaster fabric.

I still couldn't resist buying their London Icons print in both white and charcoal, with the idea I might use it to line my steampunk bag (or maybe not).

After ordering half a metre of half of those I spotted this stunning print.

(Please forgive the bad lighting - don't photograph before sunrise in dim artificial lighting!)

Amazing! At the same time I spotted a sign saying they are happy to cut fat quarters from the bolt. I glanced at the counter but my half metres had already been cut. Ohh, I could have bought half as much as the London prints and spent the money on the vintage dress print instead!

Of course I ended up with a half metre of each. And some other stuff as well. Never promise to only spend two minutes in a shop! It's much cheaper to spend twice as long looking at everything before scissors get put to fabric.

Textile Art Exhibition @ Art House Gallery

Yesterday my MIL took me to the local arty crafty enclave, Oad Street Centre. Mostly it was a huge giftshop filled with tea trays with poppies printed on them and decorative ceramic shoes, but out the back were actual working studios with craftspeople doing their thing. Everyone seemed to have Monday off - the furniture restorer, the potter, the glassblower - but it turned out there was a textile art exhibition on in a hidden corner.

I was most impressed with the work of Cas Holmes, Caroline Hoy and Anne Hawkins.

Cas Holmes makes wonderful textile collages highlighted with thread sketching. Reading her profile, I'd love to participate in one of her adult education workshops.

Caroline Hoy is a textile printer. From what I've read I expect Caroline creates these prints by painting grasses and branches and pressing them onto fabrics to achieve these beautiful images. At the gallery she had some beautiful prints made with gold paints and multiple types of grasses - sadly I haven't found a picture of one of these prints on her website!

Anne Hawkins creates felted objects images highlighted with embroidery. I wish I could find a photo of work similar to what she had at the exhibition, it was gorgeous!

Op Shopping in Sittingbourne

Today I visited seven op shops - charity shops as they are known in the UK - in Hubby T's home town of Sittingbourne, Kent. I made two excellent finds.


Red knee length Marks & Spencer skirt, £4.25. I'll probably wear it with ribbed black tights and Docs - not a ballet flats girl.


John Bull Printing Outfit, £3.99

After having been to every op shop in town, I spied this in the window of the first one I had visited while walking back home. I raced inside to ask what it was...


Yep, a full text printing kit! It includes the original ink pad in a little tin, the sponge completely dried up and shrunken. The stamps are rubber. The six little picture stamps are an odd seelction - my favourite is the battleship.

Tomorrow, Canterbury.

The Mod Bag - marking my territory

This morning during Little Jack's nap I cut out the pattern pieces for my Mod Bag. As I'm going to be folding up the body pieces which I'm going to embroider and popping them in my suitcase, I didn't want to cut them out and risk fraying the edges. The body pieces need to be interfaced so I cut out the interfacing and fused it to the fabric pieces I'll be embroidering.
This allows me to see the shape of the pieces I'll eventually cut from the fabric.

I printed my chosen Urban Threads designs and cut them out. To figure out where I wanted the embroidery placed on the bag pieces I used my 'light box'.
You can just make out the piece outline thanks to the interfacing.

I've separated the cog and chain design into two pieces with one set of cogs on either side of the bag front. I'll extend the chain line up to the top of the piece.

When I'd positioned the front and back designs I used my latest eBay purchase, Chaco Paper, to transfer the designs onto the fabric. I didn't do any research into transfer papers, Chaco was simply the first type I found. And the Japanese packaging is so cute!
I put the Chaco between the design and the fabric, with the ink side of the Chaco in contact with the right side of the fabric. I secured the pieces with pins.

For a stylus I used my mechanical pencil with the lead retracted. After a bit of experimenting I found I had to rub repeatedly, hard enough to scratch through the design paper, to transfer the ink onto the fabric.
Voila! The design is now on my bag fabric. I'll need to refer to the printed design while I'm doing the embroidery as I didn't always rub with an even pressure and there were some slight shifts between the layers as I went along. This makes the design on the fabric a bit hard to see in places.

Do you notice the four is represented as IIII rather than IV? Is that unusual, or is that what pocketwatches usually have?
I guess it's traditional if my 19th century pocketwatch is a reliable source. Aces!

Now I have to start thinking about colour and stitches.

Bespoke Press

Bespoke Press is a Brisbane institution creating couture paperwork on a letterpress. They've just launched their range of illustrator prints, featuring ten emerging illustrators from around the world.
They've got an amazing giveaway of all ten prints, valued at $650. You can check out the wonderful range and enter the giveaway here!

My favourite is A Motley Brew.

My Mod Bag progress

My progress is snail-like. Last weekend I bought my Mod Bag pattern at GJs Fabrics.


I found some wonderful fabric at Rathdowne Remnants.

The emerald and gold damask was from the upholstery section out the back, and the cream and gold stripe was an upholstery remnant. I had to buy the whole 2m piece but luckily they had 25% off remnants! The damask will make the flap, handle and gusset and the stripe will be the body of the bag.

I'm going to use brass bits to put the bag together. I think I can get a good Victorian/steampunk look by combining these fabrics with brass. Using the damask means I can't embroider the flap but I still want to put embroidery on the back. Still hopelessly lost over which of these to use.



Maybe I should do a big pocketwatch on the back and the gears and cogs along the bottom of the front, so you can still see them when the flap's closed? I think it'd all have to be in black.

I've just found a new contender:

Maybe a dirigible on the back?

Any other suggestions?

Northside Makers Market - the day that was

It was a beautiful day in every way. A huge, heartfelt thankyou to all involved. Didn't have much time for photos, so here's the few I did manage to take.















Here's my loot for the day:

Melway envelope with Hey You card by Little Elves (Erin, if I've got your business name wrong please correct me!)
Craft pirate magnet and hair tie sets (for my English nieces who I'm seeing next week) by Buttonlicious
Knitted Christmas pudding full of lollies (for my English mother-in-law, as above) by Ros Chambers & Jo Woodbury
Custom made for Little Jack rocketship passport holder by Pepperberry & Co - thanks Sandra! If I let Little Jack anywhere near his passport I'm sure he'd love it.

I've just created a Northside Makers Markets & Events group on Flickr. Click the 'Join' link, tell us who you are and we'll approve you ASAP!

Routemaster Cushions

Having grown up in a country where 'root' is the equivalent of 'shag', I can't bring myself to pronounce these any way other than Rowt-mastah Cushions.


Modelled on London's famous (retired) Routemaster buses.


One north...


...One south


Personalised (to me) number plates


The destinations are screenprinted, thanks to Anna's generosity with her Gocco. I love this piece of fabric - I'm going to use the imperfect prints to line my Mod Bag when I get a chance to make it.

One thing I'm still wondering - should I give in and put ads on either side of the destination boards? For something other than The Lion King musical, of course.

And yep, these will make their debut at this Saturday's Northside Makers Market.

Northside Makers Market - what it means to me

It's only a few days until we declare the first Northside Makers Market open for business. I'm ignoring the long-range weather forecast - we organisers have opted for outdoor stalls.

One of my first tasks come 10:30am Saturday will be to walk up and down High St with my face painted and wearing a tutu, handing out balloons and flyers to unsuspecting families. This is how committed I am to our market.

My main motivation to jump on board with Jay and Margaret and do all this on a not-for-profit basis was my desire to provide emerging craftspeople like myself a venue to sell their wares without paying the high fees of for-profit markets or taking the deep discounts of wholesaling.

I want a thriving, eclectic and unpredictable market full of talented home studio crafters and innovative fine arts and design students. It's been such a thrill to receive a diverse range of applications, and I think that when we all look around the market space at 10:29am we'll be delighted with the range that's been gathered together.

Having a sausage sizzle, facepainter and established cafe on site makes me confident of the market's success. The smell of a barbeque, entertainment for kids and real coffee is a winning combination. The fact that we're smack in the middle of Northcote's High St precinct guarantees a lot of walk-in traffic (as long as the weather's on our side). We really do think we've put an unbeatable market package together.

This week we organiers are busy postering the local area and today our Facebook ad has gone live. If you're already a 'fan' of Northside Makers on FB or have RSVPed to the event listing you won't see the ad, but thousands of other Melbourne women aged 18-45 will. We're being included in The Melbourne Times' 'World News' listings this week and have our fingers crossed for the big papers on the morning of the market.

So how do I feel about the tens of hours of planning and organising coming to fruition? Not quite how I'd expect. I'm happy to hold it at arm's length when I'm able, and focus on sewing for my own stall or reading to Little Jack. But pretty much every other minute of the day is spent in mental preparation - Have we sent the email about X? Who's doing the layout for form Y? I'm trying maintain a feeling of control rather than letting myself be excited that the big day's nearly here.

Last Thursday's stallholder meet & greet at the Wesley Anne was another confidence builder. The response to our invitation was three times what I had anticipated, and the enthusiasm our stallholders have for the market is contagious. We want to give you all a market you can feel ownership of, and from our own market experiences we know the importance of ensuring all our stallholders feel individually welcomed and valued. We hope you enjoyed yourselves - we sure did! It was refreshing to take a couple hours off preparation and making and enjoy each others' company.

The teamwork in bringing Northside Makers Market about has been the best part of the experience so far. Jay and Margaret have become like sisters to me - sometimes we all get mad at each other but deep down we know we couldn't do it without all three of us being in it together. Jay and ML, thankyou for helping me realise my dream and I hope you've reached yours too.

Whatever the weather, there'll be a lot of love at Northside Makers Market.

Three Sisters photo originally uploaded by Richard Seaman. Geddit?

Another Giveaway!

Not mine, my mum's.

Two Bits Patches has a charm square giveaway, with a lovely set of twenty charm squares up for grabs. Just head over and leave a comment about your favourite colour combination. Too easy!

And if you feel like finding out why I grew up the way I did, become a Two Bits Patches follower. Soon you'll feel like one of the family.