Leavenworth, WA, USA - New Year 2015

Happy New Year! 2015 already - wow. My Adventure in nearly over!

Well - for new year, we travelled to Leavenworth. A little bavarian town, in the Cascase Mountains of Washington in the United States of America.

What a place. WHAT A PLACE! A winter wonderland, which has definately got me interested in a new bunch of surface patterns. So today, a day after i return to Canada, I am drawing. There were quotes of adventure all over the hotel, skis mounted on fireplaces, the attention to detail in the decor here was completely amazing. I would 100% recommend this little getaway in the winter!

Here are some photographs of my adventure.

We visited Red Tail Canyon Farm for a horse drawn sleigh ride, and hot chocolate in the Teepee after. Lovely!

The view from our hotel, over the villiage square. At night, you forget you're in the mountains, because they are in darkness! 

A sketch i created this morning just from a few photographs. I can definately see this place becoming inspiration for at least 7 surface prints. This quote was on a plaque in our rooms, and its thrown about alot, but its fitting in this little villiage a long way from home :)

Coffee Cup Travel Style

My degree collection focused on travel bags and accessories. Ive always wanted to branch out to more non-handmade textiles based products, such as the umbrella, welly boots, coffee travel mugs etc. Today, the first step! The travel mug.

I found these awesome travel mugs last month. Id love to stock up on them, but i cant really get them back in my case! I wrestled with the fabric to get it inside the tumbler for over an hour - so not sure if this is actually a sellable item! Although it is something i could sit with infront of a movie or something :)

Im quite pleased with this. Im using it for our road trip tomorrow. It also has a matching market bag, as you can see pictured, although this product is still in development so thats why you only have a sneaky preview :)

It also goes with the Matching Lunch bag, which ive uploaded a photograph of again!

The tumbler gets it test run this week!

The lunch bag i created in October/November! This matches the bag, the tumbler matches the bag.. and yet the bag is incomplete!

Make it! Handmade Revolution

This week? Make It! A huge fair which im super excited to see. The equivilent i would say is the handmade kinda zone of Top Drawer, London.

Here i am again with the lovely Clara from CYarnHut, and Rachel Rainbow.

And heres a little CYarnHut bear i couldnt resist! He now lives on my coat alongside my Kayleigh OMara Lion :D

Okay - Fave Makers

Uppdoo.

This awesomet little bag company, which is unfortunately out of my budget, was awesome. You buy the leather outer shell, and you can change the inner products. Im almost annoyed i didnt come up with this awesome idea and im totally planning on making something as awesome as this!

Heres a great picture from This Little Port which shows it in use, and with some extra bags. i completely love it!

 Little Wren. 

Maker of Candles and also cute little earrings, but my favourite are these intial necklaces. Awesome hey? Click here to buy one of these necklace from her Website!

And Lastly, Foe & Dear.

Rachel has one of these rings and they are kinda completely cool! Her stand has a lovely feel to it too, with the use of book pages, mirrors and little glass dishes. Click here to buy one of these rings.

Graphtec Vinyl Cutting

So my uncle being the gadget man that he is, bought a graphtec plotter cutter. Its the ce-6500 i beleive, and i have a little bit of experience using our plotter at University, we cut onto vinyl, transferred onto glass, weed out the pieces we dont want, and sandblast. Remove the vinyl, you get an awesome design. 

Now that i realise how super easy and cool this machine is, im almost annoyed that they had us bringing in glassware, electrical tape and a craft knife, to do our intial designs the hard way. Can you believe we wrapped our glasses in tape and drew on the curved surface, only to try and cut out with a knife. this is SO easy!!

After about a week of not being able to do anything with it, i finally cracked it. We used this lovely matt black vinyl and i created this pair of pinking shears, and then the dreamcatcher. I know its a bit cliche but i do love it!

Portobello West Vancouver

Today, i visited a local art and design fair. this is my first visit to one of these in Vancouver, so im only used to nottingham (great) and felixstowe (awful) craft events. I didnt know what to expect, but the fact that the first 50 people get a goody bag was enough to get me there at 8am. 

First of all - its a snow day. Awesome! My first experience of snow in vancouver. And its not slush. COOL.

This lovely stand belongs to my friend Rachel. Her business is branded as Rachel Rainbow, and its handmade goodies for little people, but i totally love them. Her newest products here are her shrink plastic earrings and brooches, which i cant belive she had never really experimented with before i showed her how fun they are! ..And also the dreamcatchers. Im quite sure, she did sell out of dreamcatchers. They are completely lovely.

Another little closeup of her necklaces. They have magnetic closures, handpainted beads and handmade tassels too!

You can find more about Rachel Rainbow by..

Visiting her Website - RachelRainbow.com

This is the stand of C Yarn Hut. I have been following Clara and her lovely little makes on instagram since may, when i knew i was coming out to vancouver. im shocked yet flattered to say she actually recognised me from my instagram and came up to say hello before i had even seen her! then of course we had to get a photograph :D

Its so nice to meet other makers. I met so many lovely people today!

You can find out more about CYarnHut by clicking here!

Sewing a New Lunch Bag!

Ok - new project - operation lunch bag.

Because im out and about, i need a lunch bag! 

And i might aswel teach myself how to make one.

Remeber that lovely leaf print i created onto Linen? No? Okay - click here to jog your memory on that one, see you in two minutes.

Okay here we have it. Ive sourced some of this cool thermal fleece stuff which basically looks like tin foil on fleece. I quilted it to the linen, to create an interesting puffy effect, and also i didnt want it to get bunched up inside somewhere, so this is my easy way out of that situation!

All the Layers

My lunch bag before i sew up the sides!

Da-da! Finished. In the background you can see the calico mockup version i made. I made the finished one wider and taller too, and changed the position of the handles. the quilted lines are super wonky. but i kinda like that!

Museum Of Anthropology

This week we visited the Museum of Anthropology, which is situation in UBC Campus zone.

Its reallly awesome, although there is so much stuff you almost dont know where to start...

I particularly liked the knitwear they had featured, so i attempted to copy up some of the designs on Illustrator when i got home. Here are some of my initial drawings!