Ready for Spring

It's just turned to February 15th and I enjoyed the sun and clear skies of this year's Valentine's Day. I hope everyone had a lovely Saturday with their sweeties and loved ones.

With most of the snow finally thawing and some days reaching nearly 5o degrees, I'm getting eager for my first New England spring. I'm finding myself drawn to brighter colors and lighter textures in anticipation of warmer weather. On a recent trip to my favorite fabric store, I picked up a gorgeous assortment of peach linen, robin's egg blue twill, shell pink silk, and lime green linen. The soft pastels look wonderful next to brighter accessories like the purple ribbon and orange zipper that I'll use to make a new round of bags and pouches.

I was especially excited about finding the lime green linen because it is one of my favorite colors and textures. I was so in love that I bought the whole bolt! I feel like a 'real' textile artist to have a bolt instead of just a cut piece of fabric. It's uniquely luxurious and gratifying. I am almost finished with a sweet kitchen apron I made with it and I know it will make its way into the linings of my tote bags.

On the knitting front, I'm slaving away at several projects at once, including this green lace scarf that was started months ago. It is slow going on size 3 Addi Turbo lace needles. But the color is that amazing yellow, limey green and htat's what keeps me knitting. The yarn is Malabrigo lace weight one-ply merino wool and it is beautifully soft. I can't wait to finish and wear it for spring!

























Stay tuned for lots of new finished products, including my yoga tote which I am so excited about!

New York City

So I had my second Manhattan adventure and it was fantastic and exciting. Due to my awesome job at Rag&Bone, I was able to attend the New York International Gift Fair at the Javitz Convention Center. Our booth was absolutely fabulous and in the prestigious and lovely Studio Section of the show. I wanted to check out the show as part of my "market research" efforts for emmalinedesigns. I was fully expecting to see things that looked like my work, but fortunately, I did not! Of course that just means that people who make handmade, screenprinted bags are probably showing at smaller, crafty type venues since it is very time consuming and therefore hard to offer at wholesale prices and in large quantity.

I got to meet the lovely ladies of Hello, Lucky!, a beautiful line of screenprinted goods based in San Francisco. I was also excited about seeing the full line from the NY firm Hable Construction. I've been eyeing their screenprinted canvas totes since I first saw them at the Persimmon boutique in Hawi, Hawaii. The gift show was as huge as I thought it would be, and after running a short marathon up and down the aisles, I decided to hit the streets and head down to Soho.

I was hoping to make the most of my few hours in the city and my first destination was to Sullivan Street to visit Purl for yarn and Purl Patchwork for fabric. Even though I restrained myself from making any purchases, I loved seeing all the yummy colors of yarn and the fun printed linens from Kokka. My favorite had cars on a purple background - so fun!












I headed East (which I thought was South because I totally don't understand New York yet) I found myself at the New Museum of Modern Art on the Bowery. I got my trusty ASU school ID out for a student discount. I love that card for not having an expiration date! The exhibit was great - modern paintings by Mary Heilmann, but I swear it was the bathroom tile that was worth the price of admission!


















I took some other photos of inspiring New York sights, a mural in a school playground that looks like broken glass and a huge cluster of balloons hanging from a tree like gigantic colorful grapes. What a perfect day!

INAUGURATION DAY!

On January 18th my sister and I drove from Providence to Washington DC through a major snow storm to be in our nation's capital for the inauguration of Barack Obama! We have both been on pins and needles throughout the primaries and listened to hours and hours of NPR during the race with McCain. As a student of political science and a budding entrepreneur, I feel personally invested in the fate of our nation and I believe that we finally got this election right and have a great man taking office.

The trip to DC was awesome, cold, and exciting! I met new friends, walked miles and miles around town, visited my cousin Teresa, and joined the millions of people on the National Mall to watch the inauguration on Tuesday morning. Sunday night we arrived in town and after settling into the apartment of our friend from California, our first stop was the Washington Monument. We were there on Monday and Tuesday, too, so it very much felt like the home base for our trip. Then, on Monday, we went out to Takoma Park and had lunch with our second cousin, Teresa Rainey. She has an adorable dog and adorable house and I hadn't seen her in ages so it was great to catch up.


































The day before the inauguration we milled around the mall and hit all the major points of interest, quickly. This was our chance to get up close to the capitol building and see all the flags and swags and what not decorating the arches. We didn't really go inside anything - security and lines and crowds were totally prohibitive! Nah, we just burned calories by walking the vast expanses between the gorgeous buildings. Isn't the capitol building so small? And that's me trying to look especially fab on the steps of the Supreme Court. Let's get some really lefty judges in there and make some ch-ch-ch-changes.













































On the big day, we got up super early, went to four wrong places before finally figuring out we needed to walk about two miles around the mall to get near the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument, which is where we watched a big Obama on giant jumbotrons! And in the evening, exhausted but still excited, we had dinner at the famed Ben's Chili Bowl. Sorry to say the food was not awesome, but it was pretty cool to be there anyway! Note that there is a red, white, and blue Obama ice sculpture behind us - the folks at Bens love Obama. They even added him to the list of people they serve for free (the only other person on that list is Bill Cosby).


































The whole trip was a smashing success and I loved every freezing cold minute of it! Now it's time to get down to business and all do our parts to help re-create the US into a nation we can all be proud of. Cheers to us all!

Keeping it Warm

Hi all y'all! In the midst of all the wonderful things going on in Providence I managed to finish a knitted pair of legwarmers! I know that I'm starting a business based on screenprinted textiles, but knitting is, in many ways, my true passion. As a matter of fact, I'm trying to start up a Thursday knitting night here in town. The sad part is that I haven't found a perfect, comfy, late-night coffee shop yet. More evidence that I need to start my own space that has coffee, yarn, classes, couches, and heck, maybe a yoga studio in the back? This is my idea of heaven - a business that serves the community through my two favorite pastimes and serves a great cup of coffee or tea.






















So here's the scoop on the legwarmers. I bought two skeins of a superwash merino in a DK weight while on the big family cruise to Alaska last summer. I skipped out on buying anything emblazoned with wolves or salmon in favor of buying yarn in every port. This yummy yarn has rust, yellow topaz, garnet, and sage colors that I decided to display in a really simple legwarmer knit in the round. I did some 1x1 ribbing at the top and bottom to help them stay in place. I decided to model them with my favorite high heels which are black, of course. And I'm propping my feet on my sheepskin rug which is my favorite splurge since New Years. I put it right next to my bed so that waking up on these 17 degree mornings is so much more pleasant. And it also makes a great spot to set up my meditation cushion and zen out in my bedroom.



















I made such a big production about my butterfly print, I wanted to show off one of the finished products - little zippy pouches that are for sale on etsy. Of course I have tons of pieces for large totes with the butterfly but I haven't managed to finish a single one! I started spending a great deal of time travelling to DC and NYC in the last two weeks plus I'm working on the product development side right now - I'm designing a yoga mat bag, doing research for some brand spanking new imagery, and knitting a big chunky cowl from another variegated yarn. I think it's going to be a weekend of getting my fiber on and finishing some of these works in progress!

Zen Life

I have been very busy since I returned to work at the book bindery on Monday. I love being back but it certainly makes for less time to create here at my home studio. I am also a bit less productive because I've resolved for 2009 to be a year of deepening my spiritual practices. I am trying to avoid being overly busy and instead, make time for inward reflection. I hope this helps everything I do for myself and emmaline designs be imparted with calm and happiness.

Last night I went to the Providence Zen Center for the second time. The first time I took a tour, listened to a description of their technique and philosophy and then sat in silent meditation for 10 minutes. Over the holiday I practiced a little more, 10 minutes here, 20 minutes there, but not in any consistent way. Last night I went back for a full sitting in the main hall for one hour! The session is divided into three parts - 25 minutes sitting, 10 minutes walking, and then a final 25 minutes sitting. I have to confess, I felt really unsuccessful! I could mostly sit still, no fidgeting or moving around, but my mind is like a totally untrained puppy, getting its curious nose into absolutely everything it comes across. I just think and think and plan and wonder and imagine and then do some more planning and thinking. And was it worth it? Absolutely. I thought I would be great at meditation because of my background in yoga, but without the distraction of the physical poses for my mind to concentrate on I have to work much harder to keep my mind quiet and in the present.



















On the design front, I love the language of my yoga practice so much that I find myself constantly drawing things with blooming flowers and words that remind me to stay calm and centered. Namaste is one of those wonderful words. This gorgeous green bag is printed with two plumeria flowers, fragrant and beautiful blossoms that remind me of Hawaii. I probably won't be making this one again because the actual bag is not totally original (it's a modified pattern from a very well-known designer). However, I hope to be showing some newly finished bags over the weekend!

Until then,
Namaste

Happy New Year!

The first day of the year is off to a mellow start, 18 degrees outside but nice and warm in my cozy apartment. It feels appropriate to be talking about knitting today because that is how my return to art and craft began. Eight years ago my little sister taught me how to knit and my obsession with fiber grew from there, eventually leading me to study design at ASU and now, to move to Rhode Island and get my crafty on, full time. I'm not the first to wax poetic about the wonder of two sticks and one long string being twisted and knotted into a whole and complete piece of cloth. It is an elemental process - the making of cloth to warm, decorate, and express ourselves.

But let's not get too serious, because it is also tremendously fun and creative to knit, as well. My personal knitting style is best described as "fiber first." I fall in love with a ball of yarn, it's color, touch, and smell, and then I try to figure out how I want to wear or use it. A lot of the time it stays in this loosely wound ball for a long time before I am willing to knit with it! What I wanted to show off here is a one-ply teal yarn that is kettle dyed for rich and subtle variation of highs and lows. It's a worsted weight, so I knit this on #9 needles (Crystal Palace bamboos, if you must know) in a simple double moss stitch.

Besides all this techno-knitting jargon, the point is that I get to wear the yarn around my neck! I made a really simple flat piece of cloth with no shaping. I knew I wanted to have the cowl button up (buttons are my newest knitting obsession) so I did some yarn-overs to make button holes. In a flash of inspiration I decided to make a ruffle after these button holes because I thought it would accentuate the "scrunchiness" of the wide cowl. And sure enough, it looks fab! I've been wearing it around the house ever since it got finished because it makes me feel both warm and fancy. Perfect!

L'Espoir Butterfly Print

I got back in the print shop this week to work on some new designs. I mentioned my Chinese paper cuts in the last post and now you get to see how they turned out! After much deliberation and tinkering around I decided to pair the butterfly with the french word for hope, "l'espoir." It felt appropriate as I think there is nothing more delicate and beautiful than hope, and this is shared by the essence of the butterfly.

I took more photographs of my printing process as I didn't do it justice last time. Unfortunately there aren't any good action shots of the ink pulling, since I fly solo most of the time. But then again, it's literally just pulling a squeegee back and forth across a piece of mesh. Magical, right?
The photos show (in order) the films I make on top of the fabric I pre-cut for each bag. I make the films cheaply and quickly with thin acetate on our studio laser printer. The film goes onto the light table and the screen goes over the image. This gets covered with light proof fabric and exposed for about 8 seconds on the high intensity UV tube lights you see there. By the way, the yellow light is from the safe lights that must be used while working with the unexposed screen. The screen gets taken to the sink and rinsed to reveal the printing image.




I'm also including my printshop portrait - a pretty classy polaroid that shows the dark circles under my eyes! That is thanks to my Russian heritage as well as my willingness to forgo sleep for the sake of art. Gotta live it up while you're young, right?