Sewing!

 I'm lovin' my new tote bag. It has a pocket, for your mobile, or wallet or to hang your glasses. Way cool!

Kids' Stuff

For these prints, I went back to cutting the designs from plastic sheets and printing from a template. It meant my screen was available for multiple prints and I could work faster.
I'm getting better at using the photo emulsion tactic, but it's rather time consuming! 

I will be using these prints for a variety of kids' related objects such as aprons, decorative pillows, and stuffies.

Tribal Textiles in Zambia

I recently returned from Zambia. While there, I took the opportunity to visit Tribal Textiles, near Mfuwe.
Driving along a bumpy country road lined with trees, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, there is a signpost for Tribal Textiles. Turning off the main road, you are greeted by white-washed buildings, lush greenery overhanging wooden benches and stone courtyards. The air is cool and fresh under the shade. We stretched our legs, cramped from the long road-trip and walked through the shop and workshops.

Colors pop off of pillow cases and aprons. Bold geometric shapes and traditional patterns cover everything from bedsheets and curtains, to table runners and other home accessories. Everything is made with 100% cotton, designed and painted individually. I first thought the designs were created using Batik, like in Indonesia. But the designs are made using a starch paste that is sun-dried and then hand-painted. Baking the fabric makes it durable in countless washes. We arrived during the mid-day meal break so we missed out seeing the process, but there's a great little video (by Will Benson) that explains the How To part.

Enjoy!

Canvas Painting Time Lapse

Painting

I find screen printing to be very controlled and with the final outcome to be the result of much thinking, preparation and planning. To shake things up I enjoy painting. So far, my painting extravaganzas have been limited to throwing painting on a canvas. The bigger the better with some of the paintings being 6x3 feet. There's no plan. There's no initial idea. I don't sketch anything and definitely don't aim to create anything visibly recognizable, i.e. a person, a house, a tree. I just choose a color I like. I quite enjoy adding that first dash of color on a blank canvas. It's similar to when you first lift the silk screen after pulling the paint through the stencil. "Aah, look how it has changed, there's a mark now! How fun!" This little initial mark of paint creates an energy or perhaps more accurately, a stepping stone for the next mark. Should the next blob of paint be close or far away? Do they connect or is it all separate? It's like a dance. And soon enough the canvas is full and I have no more paint in the bucket, but plenty on my apron!

A Handmade Stamp

As you may have noticed the Little Viking is gone. Last I heard she's out biking somewhere in the sunshine, drinking beer and trying to prove that the earth is indeed flat. In any case, you can't trust Little Vikings with your business.

So, I guess it's just you and me now.

I'm back to creating a logo/stamp for my products with the new shop name, You & Mia. I decided the best way to get a truly handmade feel is to, well, make it by hand. Go figure.

Linocut is pretty self-explanatory.  You do need to pay attention though or you may inadvertently cut out the wrong part of the pattern. Also, keep your free hand behind the cutting tool. It's easy to accidentally jab your hand as the tool slips out of the linoleum. Not a nice feeling. The natural thing to do is to mark the linoleum with your design and carve out the marks, only to realize you want to carve our everything else except the markings. It's that whole negative/positive print thing. Don't be confused. Just look at the photos below.

We're bombarded with images, colors, information all day, every day. Non stop. Sometimes I feel the only way to get anything done, I mean really done, is to take the leap and settle on something, anything. It's the only way to avoid rambling on and on, getting lost on the internet, losing countless hours trolling through magazines, city streets, and (insert source of inspiration here) to eventually end up with something equally good as the first image I saw. 

Marimekko. Need I say more? I love the colors. I love the patterns. I love the photos on the site. I love that their products can be spotted a mile away and you just know it's from Marimekko.

Throughout the entire process of my apron production, I was thinking of Marimekko. I wanted large, colorful patterns on an item you can actually use. For the color scheme I came across a colorful little "catchall" in the April issue of Dwell magazine. Again, it was from the infamous Finnish textile giant.

 I set out, with the best intentions, a "look" but the final result of my productivity becomes something organic, somehow changed, improved, (one can only hope) and morphed into something new and slightly off center from where I had originally aimed to be.