Sneak Peek...

A little peek at this weekend's project... smelly dogs coming soon

A New Toy!

About 100 years ago (ok maybe 14 years ago!) I got bought a lovely Bernina Minimatic sewing machine which I loved intensely and took off to uni with me where I punished it by sewing about 10km of various threads to make lots of lacy projects with vanishing fabric... sewing machine held up remarkably under the strain and then proceeded to move house with me 10 times in the next 10 years.I loved my first sewing machine so much... even tho it weighed around the same as me but sadly a few weeks ago it died, living in a damp basement flat for a year and then being stuffed in a storage cupboard for another year has completely rusted the mechanism so it just sits there sulking now!I bagged my self a super bargain to replace it... In my family we rarely have anything new so I thought maybe it's about time I did! I got my lovely new Toyota machine delivered and then was too busy/tired/lazy to use it for 2 weeks! Today I dragged it out, set it up and, after some confusion as to where the lever to drop the foot was, sewed away!I've made a bunch of new lavender bags and made a small dent in my work in progress pile... and have found my new favourite smell! New Sewing Machine Smell... ooo it's lovely and it also sounds so good too!
I'm off to settle down and try and clear my pile of lavender bags to sew now... see you soon!
x
Happy Mel

No Blog this week...

Ok so this is kinda a bit bloggish... I am wiped out and too tired to blog so here is a pretty picture for you instead!

Inky Squirrel

Getting ready to draw, I sketched an outline in pencil first for this one

The finished drawing

Ready for burning into the screen

The screen burned and ready for inking

Inky Squirrels drying

This is what we generally refer to as an Inksplosion!

This final print on cotton

Folksy Friday

My first folksy friday... some printed loveliness in red

Deebeale,Nikki Made,Dig the Earth ,Lil Sonny Sky

Gocco Locco!

Until I joined etsy I didn't know what a gocco was, I thought maybe it was a kind of lizard... but was swiftly corrected! Then I met Gillian of Fabric Nation at a craft retreat in York and she showed me her Gocco and I fell in love!My Gocco

So since I get this question a lot I thought maybe it's time I told you what a gocco is and what it does. Wiki says :"Gocco (プリントゴッコ, Purinto Gokko^?, "Print Gocco") is a self-contained compact color printing system invented in 1977 by Noboru Hayama. Gocco became immensely popular in Japan and it is estimated that one-third of Japanese households own a Print Gocco system. Using flash bulbs similar to those found in old cameras, an original image is thermally imprinted on a master screen."Screen and drawing

So basically its a teeny wee screen printing system and it's brilliant, Riso (the company that makes gocco's) no longer makes the machines but the materials are still in production, for now! I keep an eye out for bargain inks and screens and have a stock pile!Inked Screen

The system is so simple to use, you draw your image with the special carbon pens or you can use some photo copiers to and then you burn your image onto a screen with the special flash bulbs. The you ink the screen, pop it back in the machine and squish onto paper... depending on your image you can get probably up to a hundred prints from one inking... I usually get about 30 as my drawings are pretty dense with lines and use a lot of ink.A freshly printed wren

I also have a gocco stamp, which is basically a big sticky pad which you can use with the screens like a stamp! This means that I can print on practically any surface and am desperate to try it on my walls! I guess the landlord might object tho so I'll save that for when we can afford our own place!My Stamp Kit

All in all it's a clever little piece of kit and lends it's self really well to my style of drawing, it feels a lot more special than just a laser printed drawing and give a beautiful quality of line. My gocco is my best investment yet... I love it so much and if my house was on fire it's probably the one thing I would take with me!

Here Kitty Kitty!

This week has been all about the cats...I've been busy and have made some lovely book prints...notebooks...and a whole basket full of kitten lavender bags! Now I need to think of some new ideas... and maybe get working on my Christmas designs!