A Few More Items

Still sewing... it is really just fun with color & pattern for me.

Sewing the Suzanis

I had some time last week to begin sewing again. I went to a store in Evansville specializing in fabrics for interiors (Grateful Threads) and thrifty me found the table of sample swatches they were selling off for a pittance. I came home with a fistful of new fabrics, all carefully selected to go with my Suzani range of ribbons, and each big enough to make 2 small zippered bags with or a couple of sachets. Just the kind of simple, pretty thing I like to make. The fun for me is in matching patterns with other patterns -- nothing so easy as pattern to solid which is conventional design wisdom! Here are some pix of the fabrics, and a few of the things I have made. Some of those bags are for sale at my Etsy store.

Christmas Spirits

I have never been a big fan of the red-green thing, other than the deep rich natural green of the holly which inspired it, so I was quite surprised when my colleagues at Renaissance Ribbons delicately insisted that it would be a good thing to use that Christmas kelly green we all know, on a couple of ribbons. And I remain surprised. Aren't they fun? there is a lot to be said for fitting -- colorwise -- within the mainstream sometimes: e.g., these colors will actually match people's wrapping papers and Christmas fabrics so can be used in many more ways! So I re-colored Ribbon Candy and Tiny Cakes (our best seller anyway) in these cheery colors.

I was also persuaded by Crate & Barrel to attempt something in terms of what they refer to as an "icon" for holiday linens, so last summer, when I found some fabulous vintage rhinestone brooches as an antique fair, I knew I had found it. First I translated it into a ribbon for RR, and next it will be embroidered/printed/woven/decalled onto any number of C&B products -- but for those, alas, you will have to wait for Holiday 2008.

(these images are courtesy of Crafter's Vision, where you can buy all of them)

big cute

I sell a number of the things I make at the Racine Art Museum Store, and as they are having a shoe exhibition right now I thought it would be fun to make some ribbonny shoes for them. Big shoes are sort of a fuss to make, so I decided to make baby slippers instead.
The ribbons are from a collection I did for Renaissance Ribbons last winter called the Little Darlings collection, all 2-sided damasks and childlike and fresh.

The charming bootie pattern came from an esty vendor, melimade.

two new cushions

Yesterday I dug into my fabric again and made two small buckwheat-filled cushions with new ribbons. The first is a great piece of embossed felt which I decorated with the large, turquoise & brown Suzani ribbon, and trimmed with mini ball fringe; the second is a nice bird print cotton which I framed in my Butterfly and Dot ribbons (available from retailers in my Friends column). Each is about 9" x 12" (the size of a piece of felt!) and is filled 3/4 full with buckwheat hulls to which I added a scoop of dried lavender.

new designs

I'm working toward a group of new ribbon designs to introduce in January. Now that I work with a company, Renaissance Ribbons, all development is a committee affair, and all of my designs go through an informal but through process of evaluation for market-worthiness. I am thrilled with the success of the Suzani collection, which we launched in August, and really gratified that as so often happens, my nose for a trend has proved dead on.

We are discussing ideas for the next collection right now: as usual I have about 15 times as many ideas as we can afford to produce. Each ribbon, each color of that ribbon, is run in lots of at least 3300 yards, so we are talking a lot of ribbon here. One needs to be very sure that the design is a good one! I am happy to say that we will be producing coordinates for many of the existing ribbons, so projects can be designed with a range of patterns & widths which all go together. We did this from the get-go with the Suzanis, designing 3 patterns in separate widths and 4 colorways.

So, friends, here's a chance to have some input! Do we need more vegetables? More flowers? Poppies in pink? Tiny Tomatoes? Or other subjects? Do leave me some feedback, and watch this space as new ribbons emerge.

kittens and ribbon

Well, much of my time these last two weeks has been taken up with caring for four tiny kittens I found at the back door of my studio. They were probably 3 weeks old, which meant eyedroppers and kitten formula. Today they began wolfing down solid food -- which means freedom!

They have doubled in size in these two weeks but are still quite tiny -- and would not sit still to have their picture taken!

They all are black with white markings, each distinct enough from his siblings, and they all look like a wonderful black & white cat called Marbles, who belongs to my friend Michelle. My daughter Rose drew Marbles several years ago -- she must have been about 10 then -- and I always kept the drawing. Last winter we made it into a ribbon, which you see here sewn into a little gizmo case I made last week.