Work in Progress: Boro Inspired Denim Cloth

Here you see the whole project: A Boro inspired cloth with (very simple) Sashiko stitches all over.
The Japanese craft form called "boro" is a method to reuse worn and torn clothes by adding pieces of leftover fabric, often combined with "sashiko", a traditional technique used to reinforce points of wear, or to repair worn places or tears with patches, using a simple running stitch.

It began with a pair of jeans of my little one that I did not dare to throw - too many sweet memories - so I decided to incorporate it into a cloth project. The idea of a boro jeans bag with cute little pockets for a cell phone - or anything small - was born.

 Everything attached with simple running stitches for stability and structure. Now the cloth is in the washing machine for nicely frayed edges - and because somebody wiped her chocolate stained mouth with it :-D

Finished! Freeform Crochet Handbag

 Finally! It took me ages but now it's finished :-) I tried to incorporate a colour range between pink, lilac and orange to catch the various tonalities of sunlight all over the day. Then the freeform crochet pieces were attatched to an already existing handbag with many practical pockets.

And here are a few details.

Garden, plant dye and a surprise

Probably like many of you I was totally excited when I discovered the wonderful work of India Flint - what an inspiring person!  The beauty of her books is amazing and I still soak it in whenever I feel empty or dissatisfied.

So one sunny day I rushed into the garden, harvested all my woad and started, after having searched for long an easy recipe for this medieval technique without fermentation and having to use strange ingredients like human urine. But I failed... probably in the last step. The dye did.not.turn.blue.at.all.

Sigh.
In the meantime I gathered some walnut leaves and rolled it to a bundle, where I had hidden the last woad leaves (in the picture below) put it into al glass filled with water and boiled it for a while.

What a surprise when I opened it - at least some blue stains are visible, together with the brown of the walnut leaves the form a pretty structure.

Colour Palette for Freeform Project

It is so rainy these days and so I felt like mixing very bright colours ... psychedelic colours ... for my next freeform crochet project. Because of the flamboyant nature of the material I think the patterns should be as simple as possible and mostly flat. We will see how it turns out.
Here are the first pieces:

The Art of Recycling: Evelyn Roth

Since I discovered how many ways there are to recycle and upcycle any kind of fabric and a lot more stuff which is commonly regarded as trash I have started to collect a lot of things, mostly textiles and I enjoy turning them into pieces of Wearable Art or any kind of useful thing. I thought initially this was a quite recent phenomenon born out of a new awareness of the absurdity of consumerism, but of course there is nothing new under the sun if you look at the work of Evelyn Roth in the seventies. She has published a book on several recycling techniques for textiles and even more unusual materials like leather, fur and feathers.



More than fascinating I found the section on crocheting with discarded videotape.
Videotape is a very fascinating material, absolutely sturdy and it looks very elegant as it is shimmering and black. I have tons of old VHS cassettes, but the material seems to be highly toxic and so I will probably throw them away with a heavy heart.

Evelyn Roth's Work is very inspiring. She looks at clothing as a kind of scupture which was very forward thinking for that time.



Stunningly beautiful are the Wearable Edibles and other works of art. Look at them here.

If I Needed a Big Fence it'd Be a ...

.... LACE Fence for sure!
Functionality and beauty in one. The combination of industrial wire and lace compositons is thrilling. Hostility versus kindness, industrial versus craft.

Introducing a patch of embroidered wire within industrial fencing, Dutch design house Demakersvan combine the small and sensitive with the powerful, large and industrial. Lace fence is a customizable high-end metal fabric for outdoor and indoor use, suitable for anything from fencing, staircase railings, room dividers, to balcony railings and building facades. Lace Fence is available in two types of wire with an outside wire diameter of 2.5 or 3mm in mesh width 40x40mm or 50x50mm. Available in galvanized iron or PVC coated, both suitable for indoor and outdoor use.


Lace Fence is a design of Dutch Design House Demakersvan.
Find: here.

Subversive crocheting: Joana Vasconcelos

This was love on the first sight. Joana Vasconcelos, born 1971 in Paris, works and lives in Lisboa, Portugal. Wonderful 3-D, room filling crochet work between beauty and absurdity.



Good taste or kitsch? Personally I love the painted faience ceramic by late Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro covered with handmade cotton crochet.

Everyday objects transformed. Teapot from lacy wrought iron.


Gorgeous. A giant crocheted tablecloth handmade by 500 persons.

All pictures from here. Look and get enchanted.

Love Miake's Crazy Knitting

For all those knitting addicts out there a few inspirations from the Fall 10 collection of Issey Miyake. Finally some wild knit stitches. The world needs more!

Picture credits here.

Colour Magic and a Love Letter

Sometimes my friends give me clothes they don't like anymore, that makes me happy as I do not want to fill landscape with even more waste. This time the colours were not my choice but the size was perfect. After dying with two simplicol-packages, one in dark brown and one in violet, see how cute they became! An orange dress turned chocolate brown, a very flashy turquoise jacket is now the most lovely petrol. The blouses have all different shades of brown according to the colour they had before; plus there are a pair of saved kid's pants and a couple of doileys for tone-sur-tone embellishment. So many new garments for only 12 €!
Another thing made me happy this morning - a sweet love letter from my husband on our vintage kitchen board. I love you too, Amine!

Clothes Make-Up

Today an easy and very rewarding DIY project: I had a few clothes that could`t be worn anymore; baby trousers with a big stain from chlorine, a hoodie and a pair of jeans with a couple of spots. I machine-dyed them dark brown, and - tadaa -
the baby trousers are like new, the spots on the jeans invisible and the fainted hoodie looks ok now. There were only some tiny white spots left which I covered with a cute Russian doll patch and a flower from the same fabric:
Three new clothes for 6 €. Good bargain.

Long Mohair Vest

This vest was knitted from very very sof kid mohair yarn and gold lurex thread for the body and can be worn as a dress also with black leggins and boots. I had asked my dear friend Annemarie to model for me in order to put the vest in my DaWanda Shop, but she decided to keep it for herself ;-) To be honest, I knew she would love it... Thank you for the pictures!

Fabulous Sunset...

... and a crescent moon.

My New Hobby: Freeform Crochet

I can't remember exactly where I saw the first picture of freeform crochet, but I was immediately obsessed. Irregular design, colourful yarns and patterns that look like taken from nature - I had to try this! Not knowing anything at all about the history and the background of this art, which is almost unknown here in Germany I bought a book with instructions from Renate Kirkpatrick, and it turned out to be just perfect, because it explains really everything from the first stitch and a couple of other techniques like felting. So, if you are still looking for something to get literally hooked on go and get "Freeform Crochet and beyond".
My first hat may not be perfect, but it helped me to learn all the different sttches and techniques. My second work, a hood scarf, was a lot of fun. Every day I was looking forward to some free minutes to make another one of the small pieces in autumn coloursa and in shapes that reminded me a forest with fallen leaves, mushrooms, snails, moss and bark.
Then I sew together all the pieces using a simple paper pattern. I like the raw edges but in the front and right along the seam that surround the face I crocheted a few lines with a fringed yarn for more stability and a consistent look. Eh, voilà! This will not be the last piece for sure!

Flower Kindergarten

Today we had mild weather, this made me dream of spring... I planted seeds of some new flowers and some that I harvested from the garden last year. I'm not a gardening expert and so I kept the pictures of the flowers in order to know more or less how they will look like when big... I had kept egg cartons - these are useful because they are quite sturdy and waterproof to a certain extent. And you can plant them directly into the earth where they will dissolve.
I just realize that my window looks terribly dirty with the first tiny bit of sunshine... ok, this will be the next project ;-)

Celebrating with cake "Poire-belle-Hélène"

We were celebrating the birthday of the best husband and daddy of the world ;-) with my favourite combination of chocolate and pears... and some whipped cream... yum! i love the colour combination, too...
For a really easy cake mix 4 eggs with 120 gr. sugar. Add 200 gr of butter and 300 gr. of flour with baking powder. This is the base where you add now ingredients for your taste! Here I put walnuts, 2 tablespoons of cocoa powder and dark chocolate cut into pieces. In the end I arranged three pears cut in slices on the dough.
Bake for 40 minutes and decorate with powdered sugar.