A pinny and a pleat.

Aprons, pinnies, smocks – whatever. You can never have enough. Especially when they're 50's style, linen, with a cute pocket and tea towel loop. I made this one last weekend with my ever dwindling supply of linen. I think I need to stock up again! (fabric-store.com here I come).



I got the pattern from Amy Butler's 'Stitches ' book. To be honest, I wasn't a fan of the fabrics used and some of the excessive frills, but if you can see past all that, the basic patterns are really simple and easy! Some of the projects even come with paper pattern pieces in the front of the book (unfortunately not the apron.)



The other book in this series that is REALLY great is 'Simple Sewing' by Lotta Jansdotta - the Scandinavian textile designer. The colours and fabric used are beautiful... Lotta's website is also quite inspiring.



On a totally unrelated note - I just started listening to 'The Cave Singers' new album. Amazing!

It's all Japanese to me...

Easter this year means Lindt chocolate bunnies (with the cute bell) and gocco printing! I finally opened my predictably neat little package from Japan to find an assort of supplies... Now, as I haven't actually used a gocco before, I had to do some research... (clearly all instructions being in Japanese was going to be of absolutely no help.) After a combination of Google and You tube I made my first print.

As it was all a bit of an experiment I wasn't too precious about the final product.



Gocco supplies: ink, cleaner, print lamps & screens.



My original drawing which I scanned and then printed on a laser printer. To expose a screen your artwork needs to be carbon based. Hence, photocopies and lasers prints work really well.



Gocco with inked screen in place and final print on the foam pad below.





I did a couple of experiments printing on to thick brown card and also red paper. In traditional offset printing white ink is never used so I was pretty excited about printing onto some different paper stocks.

The awesome thing about the gocco is that once it is all inked up and ready to go, you can do about 50 prints in a row without losing quality and without having to add ink! I really need to get one of those nifty print holders to stack my prints when they are wet – for the moment my toast holder will have do.

For anyone interested in all the details of the gocco printing process from exposing screens to printing, below it a funny little film put together by the team at etsy as a demonstration.

Balloons. Tomatoes. Ice cream.

It's been a while. I know. But I'm back and better than ever before (maybe). Although I haven't had much time for craft in the past couple of weeks - I have been enjoying having my digital camera with me and at the ready. Here's a snapshot of the past couple of weeks.



Balloons flying over the top of my house. They made this great 'whooshing' noise that makes all the dogs go crazy.



The last harvest of our tomatoes for the season.



I had a bit of a bad week last week and my lovely friend Zoe brought me over a tub of chocolate gelati to cheer me up. Read into my melted leftovers what you will.

Since Easter is coming up and I'm staying in Melbourne I am planning on cranking out the gocco printer and doing something creative. It's been sitting in a box for the last two weeks since it arrived just willing me to print. Hopefully I'll have something to show over the weekend!