Ikat?

Ikat has been everywhere, especially this summer.  Though summer is over, I still want to be surrounded in it!  It might be my Colorado upbringing, but something about the South-western feel about this pattern that just gets me, you know?  I've seen many variations on interior fabrics and clothing.  And definitely wanted to include it some how in my apartment.

image from here: 1,2,3,4

At first I thought I needed to paint my own and do the whole sha-bang myself, but when I saw these on Etsy, I just couldn't resist.  I still need 4 more pillows, so may be I can get crafty with those...

Pillows, pillows, and more pillows

After searching for fabric in fabric stores, I still have not found exactly what I want to do with the pillows for my living room.  I did find 2 fabrics that could work as a combo, the navy and the zig-zag pattern.  But I realized that I'll need 4 sqiare pillows and 2 shorter side pillows.  I'm not sure that I want to commit to just 2 different fabrics.  I want the pillows to look sort of handmade and not mass-produced.  Not to say that handmade has to mean poor construction and finishes, but little details that give them character.  Is this too much thinking about pillows?  I want to them to seem *alive*.  OK, so now I'm going overboard...

Aren't these fabrics on Sri Boro Textiles web shop AMAZING?  I think finding these images definitely changed my direction for the pillows.  I can hardly contain myself, seriously.

I forgot to show the finished whale that Naomi Kazama printed on Zach's old t-shirt.  As you can see, Clio liked the results.

There was a time earlier this year when I kept up on many of the blogs I read on the web.  It felt like an accomplishment looking at as many visually stimulating images as possible.  Let's just say that now... I'm really behind.  It sort of feels good, but I also feel out of touch.  Does anyone know how I feel?  There's so much digital stimulation now that it's hard to get time off of the computer!  Is there a good balance?  I tend to go for long periods of one or the other.  Like read several blogs linking to one another for several months AND look up anything I'm interested in, and ~voila~ it's at my finger tips.  Convenient, right?  Well, I'm trying get more balance in my life.  It will take some practice.

So today I did one of the only things that make working in Midtown West worth while.  Fabric stores!  When you need it, it's usually here along with other sewing accoutrements anyone would want or need.

Starting on the pillows for my sofa!  (If it ever gets here!)

Naomi Kazama

I'm finally out of jury duty and back to my regular life!  OK, so it's been about 2 weeks since I've been released from my civil duties, but life has been really busy, you know?  My little attempted project to build a cat toy-wall-sort-of-sculpture didn't pan out.  I ended up making one part of the toy and experimenting, see here.  But as you can see, it was sort-of-a-flop.  I was trying to lure the cats into playing with the fancy scratch pendulum (I admit the shape ended up being suspect).  They were more interested in the laser pointer (no surprise there).

Luckily last Sunday, Naomi Kazama showed up on my block to live screen print his art work, and inspired me to stop making such complicated project choices.  Oh ya, and he also got me excited enough to post about it.  I really should be better about this posting business... though {I think} not too many people read this, I enjoy doing it.  Maybe I'm just a record keeper at heart?

Anyhow, back to Mr. Kazama.  He was the coolest!  We brought some of our old plain t-shirts and he printed some of his art on them, using his marble technique.  Immediate art to go, just around the corner from my apartment.  Need I ask for more?  Check out more of his work here.