A Year of Making Fridays: 2018

Every year, I take stock of what I managed to get done during my behind-the-scenes studio practice, which I like to call Making Friday (even if it doesn’t always happen on a Friday). Here goes with 2018!

Weaving

My most sustained creative work outside Skinny laMinx was my continued project of teaching myself to weave. I graduated from my kiddie loom to a rather delapidated… then a brand new … rigid heddle loom, and then I added a larger frame loom to my toolkit, too.

I’ve yet to go to a proper weaving lesson, but I do seem to be starting the get the hang of it. Where will it all lead, I wonder.

>> Here’s where I was at the beginning of 2018…

>> Here’s what I did in the middle …

>> And this is what I’m working on right now.

Chopping things up 

Whenever I don’t know what to make, I get out my fancy magazines and colour swatches and chop them up to stick into scrapbooks. It’s super fun, and I never know what’s going to come of it. This crazy hand I made almost ended up as a mural, and almost ended up on a blanket, but in the end, it’s still just sitting in my scrapbook.

I also chopped up colour swatches to make yummy colour collages, and invented a useful interior decoration technique, which I call Decorating with Scissors >>

Batik in Swaziland 

In April 2018, I went to Swaziland (renamed eSwatini shortly after our trip) with Ace Camps to teach some of the principles behind designing for batik, before we went to Baobab Batik to learn from the masters.

Batik was a quite a learning experience, and once I’d realised the complexities of painting with wax and the dying process, I was forced to think on my feet and change my design ideas to fit the medium.

Read more about the trip >>

Snakes

My batik snake sent me off on a bit of a peculiar snakes tangent. I’m not sure this will ever enter the Skinny laMinx catalogue, but hey, it happened!

See all the snakes >>

Needle punching

Possibly the trendiest craft in the world right now is needle punching, so I was pretty thrilled when the Crafter’s Box sent me a kit to try our. My results were kind of ok, but I’ll definitely give it another bash.

Let me know if you’d like to learn this craft, as I know how to get my hands on the needle punches.

Printing

On and on I go with carving little blocks and printing pattern. I find it to be a great way to. 2018 saw me doing more printing on paper than on fabric, since having discovered the wonderful Versafine stamp pads from Japanese company Tsukineko.

Take a look at all the fun I had in my studio with this simple stamp >>

Mending

Does fixing and mending count for Making Friday? Visible Mending of textiles has become quite a trend, as we slowly begin to recognise the consequences of a single-use throwaway society, so I was happy to spend time on rescuing a seriously motheaten jumper, and then I also gave this broken vase another chance.

Workshops: How Pattern Works

Throughout June & July, I taught a number of four-part-hands-on courses designed to help people understand how pattern is constructed, and give them some skills to print their own. I also made a little Riso Printed booklet.

I’ll be running more workshops this year, so to make sure you get first dibs on spaces, sign up for our weekly newsletter . where you’ll also stay updated with what’s happening in my studio for whole of 2019!