It's not always pretty.....

This is my studio, in various states of chaos. It smells of leather, metal, sawdust, sunshine, and at various times it reeks of hefty contact adhesive.
I am planning to get a lot more shelves on the walls, to alleviate the floor clutter, but I'm starting to realise (after 10 ish years of being a shoemaker) that clutter is how it is. My beau is a minimalist, and I share this studio with his motorbikes and X Box, so he often gives disapproving glances over to my end of the room.




I seem to have no bench space to work on, my shelving plan also includes more benches, but even if I had endless table space, I'm sure my hand tools and patterns and bits/pieces would be strewn all over the place. I'm always packing up in the middle of a job, just so I can clear things away.




This beast is my beloved Esto, a machine from the 50's or 60's. I bought it via the wall of ads at the old Leffler's, from an old Italian shoemaker who had it gathering dust in his workshop. It has a fair capacity for producing a lot of dust, so we have fitted a roaring vacuum unit onto it, but the precious motorbikes still need to be covered. I always wear my safety goggs and earmuffs when using this machine, I can get into quite a zone, sanding away, oblivious to everything else.




I have had this machine the longest, about 12 years, it has travelled from Adelaide to Sydney, and then to Melbs with me. I bought it from a guy who said his father used to use it, it's rather ancient and was originally on a treadle base. I learnt to sew on my Grandma's old Husqvarna treadle, which my mum had at our house, so treadles weren't foreign to me. However, sewing shoe uppers is a very fiddly business, and I found that I was rocking and rolling in my chair and not able to sew neatly, so I swapped the base for an electric one with a teacher of mine. It has a wheel not a foot, this makes it a leather machine, and the classic chisel tip needle. I can sew heavy fabrics on it, but it does have a tendency to chew, and so I get out the old domestic on those occasions.




My most recent acquisition. This machine does in 2 mins what I used to do with my knife, with lots of sweating and swearing, in 20 mins. Soling leather is so hard to cut by hand, and really not cost effective, so the bandsaw has already paid for itself. The heels for the Marcella cowhide shoe would have been impossible without this machine.

I am rather obsessed with looking at other people's studios, how they store everything, what things are close to hand, is it pristine or chaos, is there colour and life , what are they making? I wonder what my studio says about me. It certainly isn't pretty..........


........but pretty things are produced there. These are called 'Chinoiserie' and were made in 2006 for the now defunct Flinders Quarter Award. I used some cherished brocade fabric from Kazari for the fan detail on the shoes, and my newly acquired knitting machine skills for the socks. They were also shown in the TAG show last year at the Embroiderers Guild.

Phew what a ramble! Hope you are not bored to tears. I did have a direction for this blog but seem to have veered off course. Think I will have a cup of tea and compose my thoughts for the next installment.

Soldier on

Have had an awful headcold this past week, no capoeira, no jogging, but a fair bit of Codral and a lot of studio mayhem. On Sunday the beau and our boy spent the afternoon looking under rocks for insects, so I had a few hours in the studio working on far too many projects at the one time, it felt a bit like motor skills dyslexia.

Hopefully in the coming week I'll have a few new samples ready, amidst undercoating the bathroom and planting vegie seedlings.

Twice Bitten

One of my most favourite places to visit is Pieces of Eight, I love the design of their logo, their shop, and their Northside location, 635 Brunswick St, Nth Fitzroy, opposite Edinburgh Gdns.

'Twice Bitten' is the name of their current show, which runs till the 26th of April, so this is the last week you have to see it. Thirteen jewellers were given the brief to make earrings, and so they have! The work shows a huge variety of techniques and materials, and includes my most fave, David Parker.

I have been lusting after his pieces for about 7 years now, and if I was a rich biiatch I would be festooned with his creations. I particularly love that his designs are so simple, so cleanly executed, and with tres tres high quality metals and stones. Apparently it's the way he sets stones that is so special, those in the know speak of this in admiring tones.

Maybe if I had started saving 7 years ago I would be on my way to some Sapphire Earrings by now......or perhaps a Topaz Tension Ring. Do you think I could drop some sizeable hints for Mothers Day?

Northside Muzenza

Yes indeed folks, we are teaching capoeira in Brunswick! Ever since I moved to Melbourne 10 years ago I have lived in or adjacent to Brunswick, and am very excited to be able to ride my bike 5 mins to class.

If you can't read the fine print details are as follows:
Arroz and myself, Maria Trovao are teaching beginners capoeira
7:30 - 9 pm at The Playspace
290 Albert St Brunswick,
which is between Sydney Rd and the Safeway carpark.

Black in Fashion

Last Thursday and Friday I led two workshops as a tutor in making leather accessories, all done at the NGV as part of their Youth Access program. This was in response to their 'Black in Fashion: Mourning to Night' show, which is stunning, even for a non-black wearer like myself.

The workshops were with boys aged 15-18 who are not in mainstream education or employment, and let me say they are feisty individuals indeed! The image below looks like we are about to do a B&D workshop, and one of the kids looked at all the tools we had lined up and said, "Are we gonna torture each other or some shit?"

I had a range of things they could make, but in true non conformist style they all chose wristbands, which they said were a bit too emo for them and that they would all try to sell them to some emos at Flinders St station afterwards. Entrepeneurs.

Thursday's session was a bit chaotic, but everyone left with a finished piece, some cleverly customised, and one bloke was so neat and perfect in his work, I was not surprised when he said he was a Virgo.

Friday's boys were a bit younger, and we did every step of the project together, which was much more streamlined. Some of the boys were talking about Crips and Bloods, acting all hard, and when I started asking them if they had been to Compton or listened to NWA, they were astounded that an 'old person' could school them about early hip hop. "Miss how do you know all that?"



Can't take credit for these, Vivienne Westwood is the one responsible.

Ta-da!

My babies are finished!

It's always the best feeling to get all the touch ups done, photos done, and then you can get them on your feet for the first time. As many makers know, the 'finishing' of any item is so frustrating and time consuming, and speaking for shoemaking, it's damn fiddly and there can be a lot of it. Sometimes when I make things for myself I cheat a bit, and leave a few things that I would finish to the nth degree for someone else.

I am also extra pleased that this week is getting to 28 degrees by Friday, so that I can give these marvellous wedges an outing. I have been a bit unsure as to what to call the style of this shoe, technically it's a mule, which means backless, but I have never been keen on that term. They could be a slide, but to me that signifies a flat shoe. I guess I have settled on calling them my Hong Kong wedges, the reference to HK being the shape of the sail and hull of a junk boat.

Walking in them is a new experience, I feel a bit like a Venetian lady teetering about on elevated chopines. All I can say is that the walking seems to be done from the toe, there is a big toe spring and I'm making the most of it.



I had to include a playing card somehow, to refer to the original below which was made for the Craft Vic window last Sept. The only place it could go was on the sock, which is the tasty detail I alluded to but kept secret a few posts back.

Yay, now there's room for something else on the list!

Mini Sneeks

I made these for my boy, they were started a while ago and now that they are finally done, his feet are too big! I love tiny sneakers, although the pattern pieces are so fiddly and easy to lose, stitching the uppers is an exercise in creative wrestling and swearing.

Generally it's quite nice to use small amounts of materials, and glue, the red suede uppers were salvaged from my scraps bag. It is a shame that he can't wear them though, as they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and if I was a three year old, these would be tasty indeed.

A question for those of you with kids, do you dress them like they were smaller versions of you? I sometimes notice that Leo and I are wearing the exact same colours, and in order to avoid that I dress him in earthy colours like brown and green, as I have a real aversion to all things brown.

My colour scheme is more like Napoleon's army, a lot of red, white and blue. Never ever ever black, it makes me feel invisible, same for brown, I feel like a drab bird. I love that others can wear these colours, they're just not me.

I could ramble on about colour for weeks, tone on tone, pastels vs brights, and can pale skinned people wear yellow? Let me know your preference.

It's that time again

How boring is a post without pics?!
Well you'll just have to have a break from constant visual bombardment while I tell you about the next Creative Women's Circle gathering.

This is your invitation to the next Creative Women’s Circle gathering this Saturday at MARS Gallery.

Our topic: HOW TO PROMOTE YOUR CREATIVE BUSINESS ONLINE
Our speaker: FIONA DYER OF “FEDE”

Fiona is a full time Mum and creative thinker with a background in interior design. In 2005 Fiona established a small business called “Fede”. Fede is a range of hand crafted cushions and children’s toys birthed from a love of soft furnishings and an expanding collection of gorgeous textiles.

Fiona has recently set about creating a strong online presence for her brand and she will be sharing with us some tips on how she has done this through an online shop at Etsy.com and through a blog. You can take a sneak peek at what Fiona has been up to at http://fededesigntextiles.blogspot.com/ and also at her online shop http://fede.etsy.com

As always this will be an informal session with lots of time for questions, interaction and networking before and after our speaker.

WHERE: MARS Gallery, 418 Bay Street, Port Melbourne
WHEN: Saturday 5th April
TIME: 11am – 1pm
RSVP: info@dearneherrenberg.com.au by Thursday 3rd April