chocolate and teal

While I was printing particles in chocolate brown on fabric last weekend I decided to also print some cards for the shop. I printed some in single colours and others with two colours: chocolate and teal.
My beloved favours the single coloured teal ones whereas I prefer the cards with two colours. What do you think?

I plan to print on fabric again this weekend but this time with a different design. I picked up some small fabric samples during the week which should be perfect to use. And I'm so so so tempted to buy a second hand sewing machine.

particles in chocolate brown

For a long time now I've been wanting to put part of a screen print design I did a months ago on fabric. And yesterday I did! Introducing: particles in chocolate brown ink on natural Indian cotton. I don't have a professional set up at home so this was quite a challenge. Since my previous print on paper had been made with a hand cut paper stencil that had the lifespan of just that one printing session I had to hand cut the stencil for particles again. Mixing the ink for the exact shade of chocolate brown took longer than I expected. These pics make the ink look black but it's a delicious, dare I say very edible shade of chocolate brown.
And because the Indian cotton I printed on is in a lovely natural shade I'm quite excited about how well the chocolate brown sits on it. I printed about 2 metres of fabric using the placement method of screen printing which took a while as I had to take care not to smudge wet ink I'd just printed. I'd like to use the fabric to make a shirt for summer based on the design of one I already have. Or even some simple serviettes. Now if I only had a sewing machine and could sew!

sculptured loveliness

Cross Poly-nate by Emma Davies

Generations by Annee Miron

I've had a funny couple of days. I'm blaming my strange, foggy mood on the winter solstice. Thank goodness the days start getting longer in our part of the world from tomorrow onwards. I don't mind winter but I do mind how late the sun rises at this time of year.

So to try and shake the winter funk out of my mind I went and submerged myself in sculpture. The top pic is a gorgeous piece by sculptor Emma Davies who works with found polypropylene, mostly in the form of discarded woven vegetable bags, creating the most incredibly beautiful forms. Her work is currently being shown at Craft Victoria.

And yesterday at the Yarra Sculpture Gallery I happened upon Annee Miron's installation/sculpture (pic 2) 'generations'. Made from beaten metal, it shimmers as it hangs along the old warehouse wall. Jackie Ralph also has incredible sand sculpture of a giant horse in the same gallery. Go see.

crusty matters

I have flowerpress to thank for this little piece of baking inspiration: my very first loaf of bread. The 'no knead' type made famous by Jim Lahey from the Sullivan Street Bakery in NY. It's so easy even I can make it. The trick is to plan ahead to give it enough time to work its magic (without you doing any work). For me that meant some simple maths: 18 hours of sitting plus 2+ more hours of sitting (the bread that is, not me) plus 45 mins in the oven = I need to make the dough about 5pm the day before I want it ready. And you also need to have a cast iron pot to cook it in the oven with (mine is a Le Creuset in cobalt blue - the colour is important you know ;)

It tastes really good too. I chose to roll it in a bit of polenta at the end which is why it looks a bit grainy and this gives it a subtle roasted corn smell too which is wonderful. I think I could even get the hang of it and bake bread on a regular basis. Oh and the recipe is Jim's too. He shared it with the NY Times about 3 years ago because he wants people to know how it easy it is to make gorgeous crusty bread at home. Now how lovely is that?

lines & shapes

Some lines and shapes from the past few days.

1. the Convent Gallery roof, Daylesford, Victoria.
2. lichen, Daylesford, Victoria.
3. networks, woodblock print

head stories

Martha would be so proud - I bought a scone cutter the other day so I can now make round ones. I have a feeling I'll be making a lot of these over winter.

If you ever have trouble getting to sleep because you suffer from 'busy head' as I sometimes do try this: think of things that happened that day that you're grateful for. Even little things like 'I'm grateful it didn't rain while I was riding my bike to work' or 'I'm grateful the soup I made tasted ok'. I know it sounds a bit like psycho-babble (and I'm not usually much a fan of anything in that range, ask anyone I know) but you'd be amazed at what you can list. And then it has this wonderful ability to make you feel all calm and happy and peaceful. Then zap, before you know it you're asleep. Try it and tell me if it works for you.

tea and books and comfort

Lately I've been thinking about comfort zones a bit and things that make us want to step out of them. And also things that generally make us feel uncomfortable and how we react to them. In yoga we're encouraged to stay with a pose that we want to flee from (for me that's backbends) because it helps us to work with the uncomfortable things life throws at us.

At work some of us have found ourselves reading the same books at the moment (completely coincidental) and have been heatedly discussing our reactions to them. Books like 'The Slap' and 'Revolutionary Road'. These 2 in particular create strong reactions in people. I loved reading RR even though the characters are quite sad (no, I have not seen the film yet). I'm fascinated with the idea of people having to come to grips with 'being ordinary' when they imagined their lives would be so much more. I like that it pushed me out of my comfort zone. My colleagues at work found RR hard to read, almost painful, and really did not like it. I liked it so much I bought Richard Yates's collected short stories yesterday. I wished he'd written more while he was alive.

I know this is a bit of a stretch but drinking different tea can push me out of my comfort zone at times. You know how you have your favourites and stepping away from them to try new ones can be bit like hard work. Last week I bought some Rose Black Tea mostly because of that pretty tin (pic above). I'd never heard of this tea before. When I got home I made a pot and tasted it. It's a bit rosey but not bad. I googled it and sure enough there are rose petals or rose hips in there with black tea. Even though I bought it for the tin I am going to drink the tea too. I'm not going to be the girl who always drinks green tea and earl grey. No way. But I will draw the line at lapsang souchong.