Cousins Collaboration

My cousin came to visit me here in London in June and together we printed my cushion patterns in lots of different colours onto fabric. When I was in Copenhagen last week, she invited us over for a lovely dinner and surprised me with these beautiful creations!

I never imagined my patterns being used like this and I love it! She's such a talented seamstress.

Olympics

Today the Olympics starts here in East London and you can definitely feel the excitement in the air. I was on the train yesterday and it was packed with people who were here for the Olympics. I was carrying lots of cushion covers over to a shop that's going to sell them (I'll write more about it later) and three lovely American ladies, who's sons were going to play in the orchestra at the Olympics, were asking me about them, and payed them so many compliments, it really made my day - so if you happen to read this; thank you so much!

I'll be supporting Denmark, Great Britain and Luxembourg at this Olympics. Luxembourg has only ever won four medals at the Olympics, the last one was a gold medal for the 1500 meters won in Helsinki in 1952 by Josy Barthel. So they've gone 60 years without a medal. They definitely deserve one this year!

Image from wort.lu

Copenhagen

One of the nicest things about Copenhagen is that you're always near the water, it's something I miss living in London and even more when I'm in land-locked Luxembourg. You can take the metro from the center of Copenhagen to a lovely sandy beach in 5 minutes (which we did but I forgot to take photos), and Copenhagen is an old harbour and is full of lakes and canals.





A great thing about showing someone around Copenhagen is that you have a good excuse to go on a Canal Tour, I love it. It takes an hour and you sail around and through most of Copenhagen soaking up the sunshine (if you're lucky), while a guide tells you about the architecture and history.

We even brought a lunch pack consisting of my grandmother's amazing home baked buns. They are the best buns in the world!


Our last afternoon in Copenhagen was spent on a Café on the lakes.



And this is me wearing the dress I made. I know I look grumpy, but it's just the sunshine!

I'm Back...

In London and it's a very different city from the one I left. The sun is shining, it's hot and it's swarming with people who are here for the Olympics.

We had a great time in Copenhagen, the weather was amazing and we had plenty of time to do all the things we wanted to. Copenhagen is so clean, easy, small and quiet compared to East London - it's going to take me a few days to adjust, but it's good to be home.

Here are few photos I took on the way to my cousin's house in Nørrebro by The Lakes.

Wonderful Copenhagen

Ben and I are off to Copenhagen for a long weekend. We're flat swapping with my cousin who lives in Christianshavn, right in the middle of the city. I can't wait! It's been a long time since I was there and I usually don't stay in the city for more than a night, so it's going to be great to have four days to explore it and show Ben where i grew up.

I plan on eating here:



Jumping in the water here:



And eating lots of danish pastries from here:



*** Sorry in my rush to get to the airport in time I forgot to mention that the pictures are all taken from the great blog designs on denmark

Today...

...it's grey and rainy, but we're used to that here in London now. I've got errands to run on my bicycle today and I keep putting it off, I would much rather stay indoors working from my cosy office.

The view is from my kitchen window into the communal area of my building block. Most people here own and use a bicycle. East London is really easy to get around by bike and when it isn't rainy, it's enjoyable too.

More About Cushions

Sorry I know I seem to only be posting about cushions lately - but it's pretty much consuming my life at the moment! There is so much work involved, but today they're ready to send off to the seamstress and I can't wait for them to be out of my hands.

I'm really pleased with how the colours turned out, I used the grey in both patterns as I think some people might not like to have too many colours on the sofa.

Now I just need to sell them!

Hope you all have a lovely start to the week.

Screen Printing Cushions

Some pictures from yesterday in the studio. It all went very smoothly, hardly had any wastage and I managed to print all three colours of the danish pattern. In the beginning mixing the colours was so time consuming, but it's almost a bit like learning a language, as now I just get it and can see exactly what colour and how much of it is missing in the mix. I love that part of printing.

I'm exhausted today, but need to go and expose the screen with the Faroese pattern, so it's ready to use on Tuesday. Then off to the post office to post the latest cushion orders, after that I'm going for afternoon tea and cake at a friend's house, and finally a swim in the lido before treating myself to an evening on the sofa with a good film.

Fabric

Yesterday turned out to be less about printing and more about waiting around for deliveries! At least I finally received the roll of linen I ordered for the next batch of cushions. It was such a struggle to source this, the world of fabrics is new to me and I really didn't know where to start. All I knew was that I had to get it straight from the suppliers, otherwise my cushions would end up being too expensive. I finally found a great supplier in Lithuania (apparently Lithuania is well known for their linen), and they let me buy 'just' one roll of 55 meters. Last night I started cutting it into the squares needed for the cushion covers and today I'll (hopefully) be printing some.



One of the problems with sourcing the right fabric is making sure the colour of the fabric dye comes out right, it changes so much from fabric to fabric.

There are still some of the original cushions on sale in my shop; €30 each!

Screen Printing

I'll be printing today. I'm going to start on my second batch of cushions - another good thing about rain and cold weather, is that it's so much easier to spend the whole day in the studio and the warm weather makes printing difficult as the paint dries on your screen really quickly.

The Weather

I think this might be the rainiest summer I've experienced during my 14 years in London! I think it pretty much rained all weekend. There are positive sides to all this rain though; it's much easier to work, I'm definitely not tempted to go outside and lie in the park or finish early to have a beer in the sun. You can make it all cosy at home, with a blanket, a cup of tea and a good film and not feel bad about not leaving the flat. And when you exercise in the rain, it feels like you're being even more healthy and dedicated!



I went for a swim on Sunday morning, in the pouring rain, I was literally soaked before I even got to the showers and had to cycle through puddles that looked like mini lakes in the park. But it felt great to be swimming in the rain and when I got home, I put on my pyjamas, ate cake and still felt smug the whole day - wouldn't have felt as good had it been sunny and warm.

The Danish Barometer in the top photo is pointing towards rain and change, so it must be working.

DIY fabric printing project

I just found this DIY project over on the Norwegian blog Deas & Mia. It's so quick and simple, and I really like the result. All you need is some fabric paint and a toilet roll (or anything else you can use as a stamp).

To make the label on my cushions, I use a rubber stamp and fabric ink pad - they come in all colours, and might be a bit 'neater' to use. And instead of using a toilet roll, you can design your own rubber stamps, it's pretty cheap and fast - I use Blade Rubber Stamps in London.

Before I started my own business I imagined that it would be really idyllic, that I would have coffees in cafés every day, that I would read a lot, be and feel inspired constantly and basically have all the time in the world to go on impulsive holidays.

Although there is no one stopping me from taking a break and treating myself to a coffee, I rarely allow myself to do it, I'm always quite strict with myself and will feel guilty if I'm not working and producing. I worry that if I stop for one minute, let alone a week, then I'll lose out and everything I've built up will crumple around me.

Because my income is at times sporadic and I never feel certain that I'll have one next month, I'm always very careful with my money and will feel guilty spending it on something "unnecessary" like a coffee or a magazine. Even though the last three months have been good and I've been able to "pay" myself a decent amount, I'll still assume that next month will be much worse.

Although I love my work and don't feel like it's a chore at all, I do love taking a break, reading a magazine, people watching or just being on my own. So yesterday I did. I bought an expensive magazine and an expensive coffee and I sat by myself for half an hour not working and not thinking about work. Instead I thought about how lucky I am, how I love the way my life is and that it is pointless worrying as things have a way of just working out the way they were meant to.

I know I wont ever stop worrying though, it's in my genes.

Sewing Project II

Just bought some fabric for my next project. Love the colours on this one but I'm a bit worried the pattern is a bit too busy for a dress! It's so hard to tell before you've made it. I guess I'll just have to give it a go and learn along the way.

It's funny how, once you've sewn a garment, you start to look at clothes in a different way. I now see clothes in a shop and think about how it's made, the quality and the fit much more than I used to.

Ben is going to have to start taking me out more, so I can wear all these dresses!

Patterns

I love this embroidered pattern on my granddad's footstool. It's what first inspired me to use traditional Scandinavian Knitting patterns on my cushions.

My granddad made it when he was a child and gave it to me when I was little.

Colour Tests

When my cousin was here a couple of weeks ago, we printed some fabric using one of the patterns for my cushions. I wanted to try out some different colours on different types of fabric and I had so much fun doing it. I think my favourite is the black on the white cotton, it would look really nice in a bedroom with white bed sheets.

Now I just need to find a way to incorporate it into a dress somehow!