High Tea with Mrs Woo

Last night was a bit of a wild and woolly night in Newcastle but I braved the conditions and was lucky enough to attend a seminar put on by Renew Newcastle.  The  presenters were the three sister design collaboration - Rowena, Juliana and Angela Foong who are 'High Tea with Mrs Woo'.

It was wonderful to hear about their passion, starting out with $1000 each, buying an op shop in Darby Street Newcastle, where they manipulated some of the clothing, then deciding to make their own range partly due to the hay fever experienced from the 2nd hand clothing. 

As they say on their website; We stumbled into the world of fashion design by winning the 2005 NSW Mercedes Start-Up Awards and the AUSTRADE-POWERHOUSE Market Development Award. This led us to the runways of Shanghai Fashion Week (China) and Australian Fashion Week (Sydney + Melbourne). The unique craft and style of our work invited formal exhibitions with the Victoria & Albert Museum (London), Anne & Gordon Samstag Museum of Art (Adelaide) and Object Gallery (Sydney).

Not bad for a couple of Newcastle girls. 

Sounds like they've had a great time, but have worked really hard, sewing from 8.30am to 2.30am each day, and have now gone from earning about 50c per hour, to about $15 per hour! (They now outsource their sewing to Sydney).

Check out the Renew Newcastle website for more seminars.

Year of the Dog.

Well I let another birthday slip by . . .  oops.  Yep, the Arty Dog has turned one!  I'm so glad I stuck in there and so glad my followers stuck in there as well - all ten of you (thanks).

This blog has helped me get my creative journey back on track. Sometimes this journey goes flat out, other times it hits a few bumps, slows down, then picks up momentum again.  Thanks for showing an interest and thanks for giving those helpful comments.  Always nice to read.

Anyway enough talking, more making, and here is my satchel bag which I made at three consecutive Brown Owl meetings. It was a mix of vintage table cloths and screen printing.

I used snoopy for the lining of course.

Speaking of the Brown Owls, next week Wendy is willing and able to show us how to knit.  Yes, she promises she will have us doubters knitting a scarf for winter in no time.  See you next Tuesday 17th May at 6pm. Bring your needles.

Mixed for Mother

Thursday night I quickly decided to make a couple of mixed media works for the Mothers Day stall (the next day!) and I'm finally getting around to putting them up. 

They were small 8x10 canvases and I began with an acrylic wash, then another coat of acrylic, then when that dried I used silver spray paint and plants from the back garden as templates. 

The round one is a nasturtium.  I then decided to tone down the silver and went over it again with a white wash.  Materials and tissue paper were used for the mixed media. Oh, and then I used graphite to go around the flower shapes.

I think they sold, but it's always hard when your buyers are aged between 5 and 12 years old.  I probably should have left the silver paint, cause they like shiny.

Little books

I've been trying to come up with a few easy crafting options for the school Mothers Day stall later this week. 

I must admit I struggled. I wanted something easy to make, yet be something I would use myself.  I finally made a couple of these small notebooks which each took approx 10 minutes to make.  In fact I'm going to do a few of them tomorrow night at the Brown Owls.  I used the sewing machine for the applique on the front and the seam down the middle.  The most time consuming bit was cutting the paper.

The Brown Owls meet tomorrow night, Tuesday 3rd May at 6pm, Nords Wharf Community Hall.  We'll be making more Mothers Day gifts including cushion covers, bunches of paper flowers and perhaps a bag or two?  Come along if you're keen to spend a couple of hours creating.