Tag: create

Posted on by — Leave a comment

The Slow Clothing Project

Every day, we eat and we dress. We have become conscious of our food, it is time to become more conscious of our clothing.Tamara-making-1024x610

I love the Slow Clothing project instigated by Jane Milburn at Textile Beat textilebeat.com . The project is a social enterprise inspiring a creative approach to the way we dress, through slow clothing. ‘We believe in ethical, sustainable choices that don’t harm people or the planet. We want to know the story about where clothing comes from and we believe in care and repair, refashion and restyle of existing clothing using old-fashioned home-sewing skills.’

I have contributed to this project.  http://textilebeat.com/a-meditative-process-tamara-russell/

textile-beat-banner-fash-rev-banner

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Sew You Want to Sew

I have had a love affair with sewing for more years than I like to admit to!  My mother was a great sewer who sewed and knitted our clothes as children and taught me on her old Anchor machine, which I still have and still sews brilliantly.  I purchased my first very basic Husqvarna 3610 when I was 16 on which I sewed my clothes either from a pattern or to my designs for years.imgres-2

I upgraded to a second hand Husqvarna Viking 400 in my 30’s and started sewing my children’s clothes.  I spent hours when the girls were at school enjoying creating home wares in the form of curtains, cushions, bedding, and decorative objects for our home and also began to play with freehand embroidery on this machine.  imgres-3

In my 40’s I purchased a trusty old Bernina 1230 from a stitcher who was moving into age care and couldn’t take it with her.  This has become my first choice now for my freehand embroidery with my wonderful Viking still being used for clothes and home wares.  It is fantastic to now have a studio where I can have both machines and my overlocker, a Babylock Enlighten set up and ready to sew all the time.  imgres-4

If you are thinking about starting to sew I recently found these two articles by   titled Sew you want to learn to sew – All about sewing machines and Fabric-patterns-and-resources. They contain great information for anyone starting out.  Give sewing a go it is so rewarding to be able to make clothes, accessories and homewares from scratch or to up-cycle charity finds into your own style and even create your own art! And you can often pick up good machines to start you on your way from charity shops or on gumtree very cheaply.

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Black Holes – Restructuring Matter

In 2015, the curatorial theme for the Banyule Award for works on paper is In Space

Space surrounds us; we are in space, as space is in us.

Space is private and public, it is emotional and psychological, and it can be transformed, stimulated and activated, or neutralized and void.

Space is subjective; it is social, cultural, and psychological.

I have just submitted this piece comprising of 4 black holes so fingers crossed!

‘Black Holes – Restructuring Matter’, takes the challenge of representing the visually unrenderable: gas, light and movement. With stitch in paper I interpret the fascinating phenomena of Black Holes; each piece uses thread to represent the colours of space. Hand stitching allows time for mediation and contemplation.

A black hole is not empty space. It is a great amount of matter packed into a tiny area resulting in a field so strong that nothing, not even light, can escape its pull. Black holes are thought to hold matter and energy prisoner before eventually releasing them, albeit in a garbled form. This may be an analogy of many people’s lives today; pulled into the dark prison of consumerism.

 

Posted on by — Leave a comment

The Great Stash Swap

The Great Stash Swap is a community driven project created to help reduce piles of excess materials and yarn stashes and bring fresh life to those teetering piles of stash we can so easily end up hoarding.

Over the week of 15-21 August people can drop in their unused material and yarn stashes and swap them for Crafty Bucks, which will be redeemable on Saturday the 22 and Sunday the 23 August for Stash!

Artists in Residence in The Stash!
The Great Stash Swap will also host craft artists every day in the gallery making items from the piles of stash.
The Great Stash Swap will be streamed on the web (www.sayraphimlothian.com/greatstashswap) so participants can watch the space evolve and the artists at work.
Drop your stash from 11am-8pm, Saturday 15 August to Friday 21 August.
The Great Stash Swap opens 10am Saturday 22 August and Sunday 23rd of August. Produced by Sayraphim Lothian

Gallery 314, Church Street, Richmond, VIC 3121 Australia

sayraphimlothian.com
her@sayraphimlothian.com