Merry-Go-Round - Collaborative swapping project

Jump on our merry go round and join a group of artists/crafts-women from around the world as they link hands and tell you a little bit about their lives in craft.

Do look up the answers from the rest of this band of crafters (links to your left).

If they haven't posted yet, remember we all live in different time zones and check again later...

This month,

we all swapped supplies to play with and see what we could create out of our comfort zone....

Sorry I'm so late...

I'll expand later, but here are the photos, starting with an old beret in need of some patching up and the gorgeous wool sent to me by Sara, of Sara's Texture Crafts.

And then there is also this rather spectacular but unfortunately floppy red capeline I intended to alter but didn't have time to...

Merry-Go-Round - 3 Crafters I love

Jump on our merry go round and join a group of artists/crafts-women from around the world as they link hands and tell you a little bit about their lives in craft.

Do look up the answers from the rest of this band of crafters (links to your left).

If they haven't posted yet, remember we all live in different time zones and check again later...

This month's theme:

Three crafters whose work I really like.

Here are favourites of mine, doing very different things, in different fields. What they have in common is that I love every single piece they make... It was really hard to select only a few photos, I had to stop at three for each of these amazing designers.

First, a photographer whose dreamy world feels very congenial and soothing to me:

Labokoff, whose work can be found on DaWanda and on Etsy

Next, a dressmaker from whom I bought a dress. Yes, only one! You have no idea how hard it is to accept that I cannot one every month. My precious... It's amazing how simple and elegant and easy to wear her creations are:
Larimeloom, whose work can also be found on DaWanda and on Etsy

Last but not least, a jewellery maker whose bead woven pieces are so timelessly elegant, organic-looking and quite simply gorgeous:
Violetta Pretorius on DaWanda

Merry-go-round - Failure sucks but instructs.

Jump on our merry go round and join a group of artists/crafts-women from around the world as they link hands and tell you a little bit about their lives in craft.

Do look up the answers from the rest of this band of crafters (links to your left).

If they haven't posted yet, remember we all live in different time zones and check again later...

This month's theme:

Failure sucks but instructs.

Looks like I didn't want to answer this one.

Fancy that...

I finally got down to writing up (and thinking up, at the same time) my answer— one day late.

And then the Big Bad Blog ate it all up.

OOOps.

This time round, I'm hitting the save button every other sentence.

'Nough said, right?

Now. Kidding apart, let me try to remember what it was I came up with the first time round.

As I remember, I started splitting things. Not hair, but the two sides of this my venture: the crafty side (that's me!) and the business side (not so much, no Sir!).

So I guess that my first, and most interesting—to me, at least— remark was that I completely agree with that sentence when it comes to crafting.

Failure is actually part and parcel of the crafting process. I don't believe you can really learn without trying and failing and undoing and doing all over again etc.

More important still. Well to me anyway. Well obviously... So I'll stop giving you that mock-humble gimmick.

Now, where? Oh yes: what I realized, thinking all this over for the merry-go-round, was that the trying-and-failing-etc. is not just useful in that it instructs— it actually gives me pleasure and a sense of freedom. Child-like freedom, if you see what I mean. Like messing around with anything from play-dough to Mum's make up (now there's an idea— I'm sure there's something in that...). You know...

Not so with the business side.

Of course, I like it when something sells, and I don't like it when all the rest doesn't. And it is a little bit about the money, of course.

But it is not really about success as such. It is about love.

What really makes my day is someone loving what I made— and telling me. Because what I hear when they do is— and of course, you crafters know what's coming: "I love you."

And I love hearing that.

If I work too hard at "what sells", it will be more like me saying "I love money", or "I love it that so many people like to have exactly the same kind of stuff as their neighbours and I'm going to cater to that wish of theirs." And that is not me.

As every fairly well adjusted grown-up knows, we all have to rub off a lot of who and what we are; to adjust to society. I do a lot of that in my day job. Do it well too, and for good reasons.

But not in my craft-life. Because that has to be about me, first and foremost. However much I love the sharing. I guess that would have to change if my craft took over from my day-job.

But not now. What I want and need to focus on and be instructed in is the craft part. Forget the rest. At least when actually crafting.

Have fun, explore, enjoy. Live and Learn.

So there!

I guess you see I'm still thinking very much along the same lines as last month. Just with a little bit more conviction.

At the end of the day, writing up this blog post (twice!) has made me realize that I don't give a damn about being instructed in business— and so I've learnt something about myself. What matters to me is being instructed in my craft, or even crafts, if I like.

Let's see where that takes me...

Actually I think my vision of things is even clearer now than the first time I tried to write about this. But let's not make a habit of this.

To be continued.

Merry-go-round - What's my next Chapter?

Jump on our merry go round and join a group of artists/crafts-women from around the world as they link hands and tell you a little bit about their lives in craft.

Do look up the answers from the rest of this band of crafters (links to your left).

If they haven't posted yet, remember we all live in different time zones and check again later...

This month's theme:

What's your next chapter?

Well, precisely... I don't know.


I guess that I'm in a sort of rut.

It's easy for me to find excuses for not creating anything at the moment, what with all the work I have to do at the moment for my day-job.

And I'm happy to have all the excuses, because I'm still struggling with the "business" aspect of my creative activities.

Part of it is fun—getting a new look and the business cards that go with it. But as I have already "paid my dues" in another (interesting, by the way) job, I don't take too well to the "compromising" part of it.
Yet, it is sometimes tempting to "make what sells".
So, at the moment, my favourite technique, in order to resist this temptation, is not to make myself make anything unless I'm excited about it.

All the while, I'm never very far from that notebook in which I doodle ideas that need experimenting with. Probably why one of the things I've been working on is learning about handbinding techniques. Very much like crosstitching— while completely engrossing, it allows the mind to ramble on.

I also look around a lot, and keep collecting materials, as original and beautiful as possible.

I also fantasize that something I have made attracts fiery enthusiasm... In someone who is not my mother or my best friend, I mean.

I already know about drudgery, and I am no wannabe artist. I want to be, and stay, passionate about what I make.
So, even though everything seems a bit blurred right now, it feels more like a sort of holiday than an actual rut, after all. I need the time— I take it.

Merry-go-round -Summer

Jump on our merry go round and join a group of artists/crafts-women from around the world as they link hands and tell you a little bit about their lives in craft.

Do look up the answers from the rest of this band of crafters (links to your left).

If they haven't posted yet, remember we all live in different time zones and check again later...

This month's theme:

SUMMER

Summer is my season.

Summer is when I can live during the day instead of of working in the day and living my own, real life at night.

Summer is when I enjoy life— things, moments and people.

Summer is a time for new skills and spectacular skies and plants. And fruits.

Summer is for seizing the day.

Summer is when I am alive. Really. Not just for show.

Merry-go-round - Inspiration...

Jump on our merry go round and join a group of artists/crafts-women from around the world as they link hands and tell you a little bit about their lives in craft.

Do look up the answers from the rest of this band of crafters (links to your left).

If they haven't posted yet, remember we all live in different time zones and check again later...

This month's theme:

What inspires us: a peak into journals, pinboards, folders or wherever we keep our little snippets of inspiring stuff...

I wonder.

O.K. This is as much as I could find time to write yesterday.

Now for photos. They will tell you a bit more...

I look around a lot: streets, flea markets, magazines, antique shop, the world WIDE web... But I don't keep many traces of all this really. I don't keep a style notebook, as many designers and artists do. Maybe I should, but, on the other hand, I think it's part of 'my way' to just let it ripen in my mind. Some of it will stick and evolve into some idea, at some point. A lot will vanish.

However lovely some of the stuff I see, it is crucial to me that I do not plagiarize it, consciously or otherwise. So my "designs" (if you can call them that— still shy about the grandd-sounding names here), must be triggered by my ideas and desires. Or made to order. I love custom work.

What I have learnt to keep a trace of is those ideas— if only because I usually get them at the most inconvenient time, like in the middle of a meeting or at two in the morning.

So, at home, I have a beautiful litte notebook on my bedside table— full of ugly, clumsy drawings and notes. Some of these are turned into something right away, others have to way for six months or so and others still are still waiting...

Here, it's the stack of Muscha notelets that you can see on the photos.

When I'm in a meeting, it's my beloved Mulberry organizer. Makes me look very serious, I'm sure, when I start scribbling furiously. Provided no one is looking over my shoulder, I'm fine.

Now, what I'm afraid I really do hoard is materials. They make me tick. I just did a workshop learning mosaics, a skill which I definitely mean to adapt and use 'my way'. When I came across those lovely pieces of wood, glass and clay, my head began to be filled with spectacular pieces of jewellery! Nearly drooling I was.

And that is just the latest...
In my tiny second bedroom, "the room formerly known as a study", I have, well just about everything: fibers, fabrics, paper. AND it's creeping into corridor and living-room.

My cat doesn't mind. Provided she still gets all the seats. And the carpets.

Merry-go-round - Favourite Reference

Jump on our merry go round and join a group of artists/crafts-women from around the world as they link hands and tell you a little bit about their lives in craft.

Do look up the answers from the rest of this band of crafters (links to your left).

If they haven't posted yet, remember we all live in different time zones and check again later...

This month's theme:

What is your favorite publication(s)? Is there a book, books, magazine, or website that has become the bible of your art/craft?

There is actually a book that I keep going back to all the time : Sara Withers's Perles : Toutes les techniques, actually translated from The Encyclopedia of Beading Techniques. You can find it in French on amazon.fr, or in English on amazon.co.uk.

It really acts as my bible as it deals with all the basics in beading and even gets you started in wire-wrapping and bead-weaving.

Since acquiring it and exploring several techniques very easily and confidently thanks to it, I have also discovered beautiful books on off-loom weaving by Carol Wilcox Wells.

I have also been lucky enough to read the great French tutorials on wire-wrapping that our fellow merry-go-rounder Fabs, of Easterya, has been offering on DaWanda.

Books are really my first, most spontaneous ressource, but as French translations and shops are always slow to catch up, the internet is a close second, so I keep hoarding books and web bookmarks, whenever I want to explore a new technique.

I also find that an introductory kit is very often good value for money, as they are a way to take a first step fairly safely. Such a starters' kit allowed me to make my first silver clay piece (mentioned here a couple months ago) and therefore helped me build up confidence. The visuel help is very important to me, so a step-by-step, on paper or on DVD, is always welcome.

Merry-go-round - What did you expect ?

Jump on our merry go round and join a group of artists/crafts-women from around the world as they link hands and tell you a little bit about their lives in craft.

Do look up the answers from the rest of this band of crafters (links to your left).

If they haven't posted yet, remember we all live in different time zones and check again later... Lily and Charlotte are giving it a miss this month but that should not stop you from looking up their blog and lovely craft...

This month's theme:

Did you think you'd be doing what you're doing now (craft/selling), say 5 years ago? What has surprised you the most?

Hello everyone.
I'll be brief this month because life, personal and professional, has been a bit rocky.
So, my answers to these questions, in a nutshell:
No.
How fast your life can change and how surprising it is.

To elaborate a little.
Seven years ago I left Paris and those of my friends who were not already away from me (in the provinces or abroad), and moved to a smaller and sunnier place, closer to the ocean, and also to a better job...
While I was already packing, I fell in love with cross-stitching. For about two or three years, I stitched away, always trying to personalize the patterns or kits I used, and prefering organic materials, making cushions rather than framed pictures.
Since childhood, I had liked dabbling with stuff and pottering around the house, but it had never taken up so much of my time. I often used it to make unique presents for my loved ones and as birth gifts. It was so time-consuming of course there was no way I ever considered selling my work.

Then one day, I bought a kit that included seed beads and it led me to a craft shop which also sold PEARLS.
The rest is history: more possibilities, more gifts... orders. And now here I am, working with silver, learning how to solder metal and exploring the possibilities of silver clay...
I am now an official "entrepreneur", with very little time these days for my craft, because my day-job has been particularly demanding and time-consuming this year, when my online shops have not...

Still, pleasant and heart-warming surprises there have been: over the past few months, this bloggers' merry-go-round, and more recently, the Thursday Sweet Treat, also a very warm, inspiring band of friendly, artistic souls. Check it out!

And now, if you don't mind, I'm afraid I have to go back to the drudgery...

Merry-Go-Round - Sprrrrringtime!!!

Jump on our merry go round and join a group of artists/crafts-women from around the world as they link hands and tell you a little bit about their lives in craft.

Do look up the answers from the rest of this band of crafters (links to your left).

If they haven't posted yet, remember we all live in different time zones and check again later...

This month's theme:

Spring.

Photo exhibition today!

Cherry tree, rosemary, daredevil lily-of-the-valley, lilac, "le Désespoir du Poète" (in the foreground), and chives & parsley.


Because to me, spring means blooming (I could spend hours day-dreaming, lying on the grass, flat on my back, under a cherry-tree in bloom), budding (the buds are all as different as the leaves and flowers shall be)... and messy (so many things to see and do - so little time to blog about it!).


I love the surge of energy, the infinite scale of green hues, the tender blades, the dark buds, the dandelion galore... and (last phot but one) what I only know by its nickname: "the painter's despair", because it moves with the lightest breeze.

I get all this when I go to the country, but I also keep up a little sample of spring on my miniature balconies (in the last photo).


And so I am bubbling over with projects and plans and schemes.


Right now, I am working on my newly established business (not that I am selling any more of course) and on new techniques.


Today, I spent hours browsing along the alleys of our huge Spring Fair (flea market cum antique / flower / regional food market).

I must have been there for about three hours there
and only managed to cover about a third of it...


Crawled back home carrying old books (a French translation of Mrs Minniver, a German one of Ivanhoe, an early 20th cent. map of the North of Scotland etc.); about ten yards of vintage, unused tea towel fabric (to make sturdy tote bags); antique, handcut crystal (not for any chandelier of mine, but to make unique jewellery with, of course!).

Merry-Go-Round - We can even cook!

Jump on our merry go round and join a group of artists/crafts-women from around the world as they link hands and tell you a little bit about their lives in craft.

Do look up the answers from the rest of this band of crafters (links to your left), with three new merry members to meet this week: Jenny, Nikki and Wendren.

If they haven't posted yet, remember we all live in different time zones and check again later...

This month's question:

Share your favourite (easy) recipe.

When I 'm cooking too, I tend to follow the "less is more" rule.

First, let me apologize to anyone who might have been expecting one of those wonderful French Cuisine dishes, to be washed down with some equally delicious Bordeaux wine. You won't be getting this from me, sorry...

My favourite recipe goes back to my early childhood. It is (adapted from) a Polynesian "raw fish" recipe. I've eaten this all my life. Long before sushi became all the craze.

AND it could hardly be any simpler!

Shopping list:

fish

lime juice (or lemon, if you really cannot get your hand on lime)

salt

coriander

carrots

milk/cream of the coconut

pepper

...

Please, don't run away yet - this is not actually raw fish— it's really cooked— in nature's own acid— lime juice.

 

What you need is fish. Very fresh fish... or frozen fish.

I usually use cod, cut into half-inch (or so) dices. But my mother says is can be done with many different kinds of fish, provided you adapt the marinating time.  Cod takes overnight; tuna, which she says is delicious in this recipe, takes a whole day; a finer, more fragile flesh species will take barely an hour. In Tahiti, it is done with clown fish and the marinating has to be really short.

This time, I experimented with small mullet filets and left them to marinate in the fridge for a whole day.

Very important: to the lime juice, you must absolutely add salt in generous quantity. Salt is absolutely necessary for the chemical process of "acid cooking" to take place.

If the taste is too salty for you at the end of the day, you can always rinse the marinated fish.

I have been known to use bottle juice. Yes— I know...

The pieces of fish should be all but completely covered in the juice (see photo 1). It's a good idea to stir things up once or twice during the process. 

At the end of the marinating process, the flesh has gone from transluscent to opaque. As it was supposed to be visible in photo 2...

The original, Polynesian recipe must have involved papaya / paw-paw: you have to used is while it is stil hard and not ripe yet, so you can scrape the pale orange flesh, the way you do with carrots. You should try that if you can.

I can never find the quality of fruit I need, so I use carrots instead. I guess it is also more environmental friendly to use local produce...

In Polynesia, the Chinese community used tomatoes instead. It makes for an interestingly different taste as tomatoes are acid and carrots are sweet...

Coriander is the one thing I am adamant about— I like it so much it is probably the reason why I like this recipe so much...

I tend to use the leaves whole, just snapping them off the stems, but you can obviously prefer to chop them up.

Whether you use this as a first or main course, it is a salad, so it needs dressing. Again, it could hardly be simpler.

It is made with the remaining lime juice (after draining the fish), coconut milk or cream (I used "cream" this time and I quite liked the consistency) and pepper. Proportions depending on your own taste. You must taste!

On photo 3, you can see the dish containing fish, carrot and coriander, the dressing as well as what I added this time (to make it into a more complete main course salad): coeurs de palmier ("heart of palm"???), which I sliced.

You can also make it more of a salad mix and use green salad. I also tried watercress with the mullet and it tasted great.

Of course, the right drink with this is Tahitian lager (photo 4), but you may (I'm so generous! :) choose dry white wine instead— you should never drink wine on vinegar, but it is fine to do so on lemon or lime! Coconut water can be quite nice too.