BirdBrain Designs

the virtuous and useful pouch–did I say they are adorable?

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I use every inch of my leather and what’s more…I enjoy it. These pouches are made from recycled leather clothing–skirts and jackets–and the final pieces of my favourite fuchsia dot and lipstick red. Their inspiration was the piece of gorgeous African cloth I got at the last sale at the Textile Museum of Canada. You can see it peaking out in the first photo.

Pouches have all sorts of uses. When I travel I always have three of four with me. The small ones are to store different currencies and to keep track of my receipts. The bigger ones are for makeup or pencils/notebook.

These pouches have a beautiful texture and that alone could justify their existence–but their virtue is their usefulness and their environmental quotient. Check the online store if you would like one.

some thoughts on 2019, slow stitching, recycling, using up and paying attention

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It has been over a month since I’ve written here. What was once a daily adventure for me, writing my blog and connecting to readers, has become a rarity. As I’ve told you before I’ve been posting on instagram and enjoying the connections and inspiration there. It’s quick and fun to hear from others and see what they are doing. Slowly I’ve been giving slow stitching, sustainability and reducing waste more and more thought. So, it’s time to share some of my musings and projects.

Several years ago I was on a cycling trip in Austria when we came upon the Geiger mill. Geiger, like Marimekko, is a brand I have loved since my teens. I was thrilled to visit the factory and to purchase some remnants. You can see the blog post here with the photo of the pile of beautiful boiled wool remnants.

I’ve been sewing in the last year, using remnants from my bins and the Textile Museum sales. (I line my leather bags with the off-cuts I find there.) There was a time I sewed all of my clothes, actually wove the fabric first and then sewed. But then a career and a family intervened. I sold my looms and packed up my sewing machines. After I retired I started rug hooking and then making leather bags. And then over the last couple of years I started slowly to make some of my clothes from the remnants I had on hand.

One of the big differences now is the global sewing community available online. Below are two pieces I made from a pattern designer in the UK, Tara at Paper Theory, using her versatile LB Pullover. I encourage you to read Tara’s reflections on ‘slowing fashion down’ and buying ‘ethically’. I’ve written here before about my principles of buying second-hand or handmade from local artisans. This year I have added to that by beginning once again to make my own fashion using recycled and remnant fabrics. I hope you’ll follow me here on my journey.

The tops below are from the Geiger boiled wool and I’ve been wearing them non-stop in frigid Ontario January. The pattern used is Paper Theory’s LB Pullover.

And below is a new day bag for an order. It is made from a recycled leather jacket. The first photo shows the jacket before being cut, the second the finished bag. The quality of the leather is high and it was a pleasure to sew with and to give it new life. 

two new bags for christmas

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Here are two new custom-made bags which are on their way to be given at Christmas. They are each 11″x 11″x 4″ with adjustable shoulder straps and metal zippers. The first is made from two textures of beautiful caramel leather with a double external pocket and inside a zipper pocket and a leather phone pocket. The second which is made of chocolate and tan leathers has a flap with magnetic closure, an external zipper pocket and three pockets inside. Both are handsome day bags which are comfortable and easy to wear. I hope they become favourites!

falling in love with Portugal part 2: Lisbon

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We had four glorious days in Lisbon at the start of our holiday. My son and I got there early in the day so had extra time to explore the city. We walked up the steep streets to an art store I wanted to check out, Ponto das Artes Chiado. (Ironically we found a second location about 3 blocks from our apartment in Alcantara–but more on that later.) The views looking back were spectacular. 

I fell in love with the sidewalks, seeing rug border designs everywhere. 

Our apartment was a couple of blocks from the LX Factory, a reimagined art and design space in a former industrial complex. The Ponte 25 Abril Bridge which spans the Tagus soars overhead.  Below  is LX Factory with the landmark bridge in the background and my sketch from an outdoor cafe. This is where, we found a second Ponto das Artas store.

   

This is the view of the Tagus from our apartment windows.  You can see the pillars of the bridge on either side of the photo. It totally dominates the area, in some cases just skimming roof tops. Below you can see the bridge from the distance of one of the seven hills in Lisbon.

And finally a photo of the spectacular colours of Lisbon. The white stonework set against the blue of the sky, the yellow walls and the clay-red roofs. This is the Augusta Street arch, Virtutibus Maiorum: to the virtues of the greatest. 

falling in love with Portugal: part one, Ericeira

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I’ve just returned from 11 days in Portugal, travelling with my older son and family. We spent a week in Ericeira Portugal, a small village about 45 minutes up the coast from Lisbon. And before I knew it, I had fallen in love with the place–the landscape, the food, and the warm, helpful people. Ericeira is an active fishing village with all that entails–the boats and nets, the protected harbour with the gnarly old men playing chess, the freshly-caught fish. But it is also a surfing spot with wonderful low-profile facilities for surfers from around the world. The coastline has been designated a World Surf Reserve–such a wise move on Portugal’s part. 

We stayed right in town and enjoyed what it had to offer–outstanding seafood, an excellent grocery store, surf shops, cafes, magnificent beaches.

I had lots of time to sketch and our airbnb had two (!) balconies from which to view the many red-roofed buildings and the ocean! My favourite cafe was right by the sea wall and it served a delicious Galao in a very sketchable mug–the colour of the tiled rooves, of course.  

There were lots of narrow streets with great shadows and geometric shapes. Many, many of the buildings in town were painted with blue stripes on the corners and bases. It was a hard blue to capture.

Here I am sketching on the top balcony with the Atlantic peaking through. How perfect. And below our first meal in Ericeira, octopus. Fabulous! 

first two hooked pillows

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These are the first pillows made from my hooked villages. Each one has a fabric frame around it, a fabric back and closes with an invisible zipper. The hooking is inspired by the work of Ton Schulten.  I love how he uses values and geometric blocks to build his landscapes. You can read the story and the evolution of the work here.

reset and inspiration on Lake Ontario

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This past weekend we spent a beautiful afternoon on the shore of Lake Ontario. We ate our lunch on the beach and I had time for a quick sketch of another tenacious tree. It’s been a while since we have been out to that gorgeous isolated expanse and the colours and textures of the day have remained with me.

I had taken an extended, unplanned break from the studio, leaving all leather and sewing firmly under wraps and was actually looking for a way back in. I have a list of projects but nothing inspired me to actually thread the machines and start. The colours of the day on the lake held the key. When we got home, I pulled out my box of remnant leather pieces and began building some pouches in the colours of the day–shoreline and sky. The small Strand collection of pouches is made of leather remnants with salvaged cotton linings–mostly from the Textile Museum sale. It feels good to make useful things of beauty from left overs. 

I find this size of pouch, approximately 7″ x 4.5″, very useful for travelling. My passport fits in comfortably and I like to keep different currencies separate and also to save receipts, tickets etc. I often take two or three along in my backpack. These pouches will be in the online store soon. Send me a note if you are interested.

Houses, Houses. Hooked house runner–the process, the questions

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The first side of the hooked house runner is all but complete. You can see how much I drew on each side, hoping as I hooked that I’d find inspiration for sky and border. At one point I thought half circles would work for the border, but I didn’t like them at all. I’ve decided to do rectangles of teal, turquoise and related colours on the two longs sides and something different for the shorter sides. Possibly circles. And the sky? Still waiting…

I do love hooking houses. If you follow the blog you know I’ve been working up to this, doing smaller studies. I use mostly remnant strips and small pieces. I pin together 2″ strips of related colours to keep a little order in the chaos and that forms much of my supply basket. I love what happens when the supplies are scarce–just a line of red, or a final strip of a favourite wool, placed just so. Somehow it makes things more thoughtful. And it’s a crazy thing, but I’m emotionally attached to my wool–it often has a history with me–someone significant dyed it or it came from another project that I laboured over–or the colours combined perfectly in the dye pot. By using it again here, I capture a little of the magic.

It’s always interesting to follow the development of an idea. Here are two small studies from December 2016, the start of my hooked house mat obsession. I’m at the gallery tomorrow, so I’ll take my stand and a pile of strips from the turquoise/teal bin and see how much progress I make on the border. And who knows, maybe amid the paintings on the walls, I’ll get inspiration for the rest of this piece. 

sketching in Provence June 2018

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It’s a couple of months since I came home my trip. I’ve talked about the time in Glasgow, London and Avignon. But I haven’t documented the best part–6 days sketching in Provence with Shari Blaukopf. We were based in Fontaine de Vaucluse and sketched each day in the surrounding villages and countryside. It was a wonderful week. Here are a few of my sketches.

The following sketches were done at the monastery in St. Remy where Van Gogh spent his last years. We all loved sitting in the lavender field behind the monastery and sketching inside the ancient building. Both inside and out it was a deeply moving place.

Among many highlights, the sketch below is the most meaningful one for me from the whole trip. Late in the afternoon, four of the class members along with Shari hiked up to the Source, the beginning of the many rivers and streams which flow through Fontaine de Vaucluse. I was expecting a waterfall, not the deep, dark and somewhat spooky pool and surrounding caves. We climbed over the barrier and sat at the edge of the water to paint. For an hour we were silent, caught by the spell of the place–the mystery, antiquity and great beauty. When I look back at the sketch I can reenter that world–the intense and almost meditative quality of the sketching experience. 

sketching in Avignon june 2018

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Here are a few more sketches from my trip to France in June. After London we took the Eurostar directly to Avignon where we stayed for three and a half days before heading off to our sketching course in Provence. We stayed right in the centre of the old town. The weather was perfect and we wandered around the narrow streets trying to capture the views. Lots of perspective challenges.