a little paper tree

A simple thankyou card mum commisioned me to make inspired by the autumn colours on a recent trip up north...

stunning!

re-weaving

After reading my sister Sarah Elizabeth's blog post a few weeks ago and watching the 'story of stuff' videos she linked to I've been thinking more and more about where stuff comes from and have been making a real effort to recycle old stuff instead of buying new. I'm a bit of a hoarder as it is (much to my parent's exasperation) collecting everything from wine corks to old jumpers that I've had in my mind to reuse in that magical utopia of 'someday' so I've certainly no shortage of materials.

As a designer in training I realised that I have the potential to use my creativity to promote sustainability by using recycled or upcycled materials in my work. This semester I'm designing a woven interior fabric with trees being my initial point of research. Here are a few pages from my sketchbook.....

I began pulling apart an old pair of jeans and a scrap of fabric (bought from the Borders scrap store) thread by thread and re-wove the wiggly little threads onto a tiny basic loom which I made from cardboard and cotton yarn. This created a lovely irregular effect but the lengths of yarn were just a little too short to create anything very big so I called in the boys.....

Ronnie & Kev from Hawick Upholstery Services very kindly let me raid their workshop for off-cuts and scraps, of which they have plenty, for these gorgeous fabrics. I particularly like the honeycomb weave and think it would lend itself to my theme perfectly. I then set about weaving a little circle with the new yarns on another small handmade loom which has turned out beautifully....

The plan is to incorporate this technique in my basic weave structure for my interiors fabric adding a contrasting texture as well as creating little circles and shapes like this one to add on as embellishment.

....in the spirit of sustainability my Jones knitting machine kindly donated to me by the lovely Katherine through Freegle and the Jones sewing machine rescued from the dump!

a new skill

Last week I visited the Borders Textile Towerhouse in Hawick to view a small exhibition by Rosemary Eribe - a successful local knitwear designer who designs and produces a range of beautiful hand knitted garments and accessories. I especially love her use of colour in these fairisle scarfs.

Whilst I was there I was invited to attend a beginners crochet class being held at the Towerhouse that afternoon. Now I have tried crochet before but have never got past the frustration stage and so decided a proper class might remedy this.

The class was run by Helen, a lovely local lady, who says her granny taught her to crochet and knit before she even went to school! We began by learning a brief history of the craft - apparently Queen Victoria learned to crochet around the time of the Irish potato famine where the women were selling their crochet to make ends meet. Crochet was often looked down upon as being a crude imitation of lace however Queen Victoria played a key role in its popularization amongst the wealthy English aristocracy and in doing so helped the Irish cause. Most interesting!

So after getting to grips with some of the basic stitches (and a few cups of tea later) we all became a bit adventurous to the extent that we each managed to produce an actual completed flower corsage which you can see below.

A special mention to the lovely Eileen for giving me the amazing button from one of her old cardigans! Thank you - its the perfect colour! I've decided to give the corsage to Px's granny for her 80th birthday this weekend - as she is of Irish decent, and will no doubt be an expert crochet-er, I hope she doesn't spot too many mistakes in it!

I really enjoyed the crochet class, there was a really nice atmosphere and I'm glad to have fully completed my first little crochet project!

click click click

I've been taking some nice pics of jewellery for inisonline over the past week and I think they mostly turned out ok but I've been feeling a bit frustrated as my photography skills are not quite up to scratch and I can't bring myself to buy a book or trawl through the internet for decent tutorials...so.... rather than taking my usual approach of - 'i'll do something about it someotherday' I decided to take action......

Craig Mcbeth is the wonderful man who photographed Sarah Elizabeth's wedding in August and we were all blown away by the beautiful and unique shots he took so I emailed him and asked if he might like to give me a few starter lessons and amazingly he said yes and now he's coming over to give me a lesson on Sunday! I'm so excited and glad that I bit the bullet and actually did something rather than just 'someotherdaying' it! I'll be sure to post about my lesson next week!

*!FREE GIVEAWAY!* antiqued heart necklace

...in celebration of the launch of the brand new inisonline blog we are giving away this beautiful big metal light antiqued heart necklace to one lucky new reader....

simply follow this link to find out how to enter.....

one spectacular summer

I'm feeling a bit guilty as I've done so little blogging of late but only as I've had the most spectacularly busy summer with....

photos by Craig McBeth

....my beautiful sister's and cousin's weddings....

....my eldest sister and family visiting from Australia....

...a holiday on a boat...

...and falling in love with Scotland again on a trip to Assynt...

...so you see I've barely had time to concentrate on my own bits and pieces...

....and that's not to mention my work.....

...I've started a blog and facebook page for inis the fashion boutique I'm working for and have been working hard to get it going and am loving every minute of it! It's a great challenge and I thrive on finding inspiration from the clothes and accessories instore and turning it all into an attractive and hopefully interesting post. Please have a look and let me know what you all think!

thank you

L x

RADish

Who knew one could find art dans le supermarché??? More pics from le grande voyage soon....

Finished Fashion Fabrics!

Still waiting on results coming in..............

My brief was to produce a shaped front panel for a garment designed with a style icon in mind. I designed a 70s inspired playsuit for indie/folk singer Jenny Lewis, encorporating frills, bib, smocking and lace, and of course my favourite colour of yarn.......... .................please click to enlarge images - they're much more interesting close up!

today I am mostly....

....photoshop-chopping, cycling to the shops, eating hula hoops and drinking coffee, not doing chores, listening to Cloud Control and looking forward to going to the mighty Sandy Bell's with my wee bro and Px before heading to the Edinburgh College of Art degree show. Hurrah for Thursdays!

Things you might not know about me No.4

You may not know that I am a country girl at heart.

I've really been blessed with an idyllic upbringing on my dad's sheep farm in the Scottish Borders along with my two amazing big sisters and coolest little brother. After a few stints in the city and overseas I now find myself, through circumstance, living back at home and actually wondering where else I could possibly live that would bring me an equaled sense of belonging and content.

Here's a picture of the view from dad's 'office' where I helped him mark lambs over the weekend.

Mrs Scott's Wonderful Sewing Box (and other treasures)

A few weeks ago my friend Gina very kindly asked me if I could make use of a sewing box, knitting needles and yarns which had belonged to her granny who sadly passed away a wee while ago. Of course I jumped at the chance and said yes I'd love to give them a home and called round to collect them. Well, what a delightful pile of goodies I did receive! A bin liner full of yarns, a carrier bag of knitting needles and this lovely little box of treats! And buttons! Hundreds and hundreds of lovely buttons! I cannot wait to have a really good rummage through, organise it all and start crafting with all these lovingly collected materials.

Receiving this wonderful gift has made me realise what a personal thing a sewing box can be, with a lifetime of work and skill unravelling inside. Although I don't think I ever really met Mrs Scott I feel honoured to have inherited a little piece of her life and thank Gina and her mum for sharing this with me.x

I love love my job!

I've had a pretty exhausting and varied week at work making changes to the website, stock taking, photographing and even modeling! However without a doubt my favourite task was making up and sending out my first ever newsletter. As I've only recently started using Photoshop this was a great achievement for me and now i'm feeling super inspired and can't wait to get started on the next one! I really hope its a success....in fact why don't you sign up here!

(credit to Px for his amazing photography skills!x)

I've also fallen a little bit in love with this white Hobbs dress and am desperately trying to justify buying it for my holidays! What do you think?