Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Late night musical inspiration


Up late last night working on a small graphic design project for a friend, I was listening to The Waif's 'London still' on youtube and I stumbled upon another of their songs 'Bridal Train'. I love Australian story-telling songs, Paul Kelly is a favourite of mine, and this song interested me (there's an interview about it with the lead singer here if you're interested).

So I watched the video (work, what work?) and I noticed the great bracelets the singer had on in the opening scenes. They looked just like beads with a bit of red string wound around her wrist, which isn't particularly practical to recreate, but it reminded me of a project I've had in mind for a while... I had a flash of inspiration and had to make this cuff before I went to bed for the night.

I saw a few fabric cuffs recently in a designy shop in Newtown and had a vision of using a great scrap of fabric I've had for ages now to make one. It's from a pack I bought from my favourite Australian textile designer Julie Patterson's company Cloth. It's a pinky-red heavy cotton screen printed with red and white galloping horses (though all that's left of this scrap is the legs... never mind, good for a bit of visual texture).



So I cut the scrap into about a 10cm wide band, cut some wool felt for the backing, sewed around the edges with a few rows of machine stitching, left the pinked edges raw to get a 'deconstructed' look (and not get to bed any later!!). Then, taking inspiration from a post I'd recently seen on Treefall (of some very lovely, not deconstructed, finished, considered cuffs probably not made in the early hours of the morning) I finished it with an elastic and button closure. I went to bed feeling satisfied with my bleary-eyed crafting, but did wonder if I'd still like it in the cold light of day next morning!






Luckily I do still like it (imperfect as it is), and now of course I'm looking at my scraps of printed linen etc and thinking cuffs... but sleep is probably the more sensible option tonight...


my friend the coffee machine

4 comments:

  1. The cuff looks great Jo! I'm thinking you could do some screen-printing on all that second-hand linen and turn them into cuffs as well?
    I remember listening to Bridal Train years ago for a history class- a really interesting story behind a good song.
    -Chiara
    x

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  2. Love it Jo. Ive been looking for the 'right' leather cuff for ages and you've made me think that maybe i should ditch the leather idea and think about fabric instead. As always reading your blog reminds me that I keep looking at my sewing machine and thinking "one day I must figure out how to use you" xx

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  3. i LOVE 'London Still'... and super fabulous cuff. Would love to have a crafting bee with you sometime! xxx

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  4. Thanks for your comments girls, makes me feel like I'm not just talking to myself... which is fine too but nice to talk to you :-)

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