East Central Cycles

I have just entered t-shirt design competition at East Central Cycles, my local bike shop on Exmouth Market where I got my bike built. Their original logo features bike wheel and greyhound. I have applied my own illustration twist to it. Hope I will win! (winning is not everything but losing sucks...) Watch this space!

Mina Perhonen in the making

Just watched this serene and calm sequence. I enjoyed seeing the process of how the textiles and garments of mina perhonen were born and eventually bought by customers from their shops. So satisfying to see hand drawn images turned into textiles by skilled crafts men in Japan. 

End of summer

This is our last weekend before the new school term starts.  We have managed to fit in one more little break away from London. It was freezing and I had to pull the toggle of my sleeping bag in the middle of night to snuggle my head in. But glad we did it!

Shoulder bag making

I recently made little purses and clutches with luxurious Scottish linen. Then I experimented to make one of them into a shoulder bag with a leather strap. I got the basic principle from a friend and bought hole cutter, rivets and natural leather strips from a local leather merchant. I made some leather washers first to test out the cutter. Massive whack with a mallet on our kitchen table but it only made a little impression onto the leather! It was actually not as easy as I thought but eventually I managed cut through nice little holes onto 4 washers, 4 holes onto strap, 4 holes onto a linen pouch. Then another sharp whacking to fix rivets onto strap and bag itself. I need to find out if it's better to use something like steel block or it will ruin the teeth of the die cutter? There must be a better way! Anyhow here's a end result which I'm really happy with. This is a very first sample I will use and see if there's anywhere I need to improve. So far it has been a perfect little bag to go out with, really hope my riveting will stand the test of time.

Tree House

We booked very special tree house accommodation for our Welsh adventure. It was totally worth booking one year in advance. Everything fits, works and luxurious! Tree house was built  or more like cramped on 4 stilts of tree trunks. It tolerate swaying and floats when it's windy! Really enjoyed cooking, get the fire going, composting loo and woodland shower! Yes, water get heated by wood burning stove, you go down the spiral stairs around the tree naked or towel wrapped to have a shower dangling under the tree house. There's a modesty cubical but it's so liberating to have a shower in a middle of a wood.

Trefriw Woollen Mill

I had a little summer break and visited Wales for the first time. Second day raided all day, we gave up nature walk and instead we drove out to visit Trefriw Woollen Mill.
We learnt how the traditional woollen tapestry and blankets are woven from woollen fleece to all the way to be made into products.

So much wool and smells like sheep, in a nice way! We saw working spinning mule like victorian times.

This is a process called warping. Wrapping yarns which will be lengthwise on the loom. It have to be right colour, right order and right tension.

This is shuttle weaving loom. Man and machine collaboration. Shuttles are sent back and forward by power loom but he needs to stop the machine every few minutes to top up the yarns in a shuttle.

Display of original tapestries, some dating back 200 years ago.

The loom is powered by the water turbine. Factory is built by the local stream. Such a clean energy!

Some example of finished textile. Then Finally...

Turned into products to be used! I'm little sad that only tourist visit here. Seems like locals think they are ancient and out of fashion... Didn't witness any local shops selling traditional products like these. But I love them and I want to visit here again!

Antique linen tops

Finally the idea I have been slowly working on turned into a physical form. It's only a initial stage but feels good to get one of my dreams off the ground!

I made these SIMPLE tees to be sold at Family Tree, my another business, using very old French linen in mottled green/grey/blue tone. 

I cycle everywhere on my road bike so mostly wear jeans or chinos on my bottom, I had an idea of making a top which has little or no design twists, more about the material and possibly the prints of the textile. By taking away cuts and shapes from the garments they hang beautifully and looks flattery on. I will keep working with this shape, lighter cotton would be nice for the hot day like today, would love to print my own pattern eventually too.