Hand Printed Waves

I made another of these hand printed pouches (now in the shop). This ancient asian motif is one of my favourite patterns. It represents oceans and waves and is a really good one to print - it’s a bit like doing a jigsaw puzzle :)

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

block printed nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

Shibori Dip

I've been sewing the shibori fabric I dyed into these pouches. They're a good size to use as an accessory organiser, cosmetics bag, or to hold your phone, keys, cash and cards on an evening out. Inside, there is a pocket running the length of the pouch and they're available here!

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

block printed nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

Spring Printing, Making

Hello! Are you having a good spring? I think March is my favourite month - starting cold and drizzly but with promising snippets of the good weather to come.

Here's what I've been working on the last few weeks:

Pines & Cranes on cotton fabric; Blackbird, Silver Birch Pouch; Mountains Travel Wallet; Denim back to the blackbird pouch.

I love the brilliant colours and detail you can get printed onto fabric digitally and the way the new Mediterranean landscape pouch has worked out is great (more of these soon)! Also pictured is the blackbird drawing you can see on this blog's banner ^up there^ printed onto cotton twill. With the denim back, it makes a really sturdy and tactile little bag.

I've also been experimenting with paints and methods for block printing on linen and cotton. I love the immediate results and great texture of hand printed fabric:

Hand made, hand printed drawstring bag; colours for spring; Two for Joy block printing and finished zipped bag.

To find out more about these images, visit the Forest & Sea Instagram or Etsy page.

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

Six months!

Six months since my last blog post! I'm posting to Instagram regularly if you'd like to have a look and say hello - I will also be updating here more often but here are some of the things I've been working on:

Woodblock prints on canvas for these pouches.

Working on photos and packaging for the new online shop.

Enjoying the beautiful summer weather we've been having this year!

I hope you've been enjoying the summer (or looking forward to it, some of you) too :)

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Slow - Busy - Slow

As I mentioned a few posts ago, I'm working on starting a shop over at Etsy. It's taking much longer than I thought it would - there are so many things, for both production and admin, that I need to research and am doing for the first time - but I'm working hard at it and I hope to open soon!

Motifs for the shop banner & cotton panels in the dye pot.

Clockwise: Sparrow - Palace Garden - Butterfly & Bloom zipped pouches!

I'm impatient to open and send off some goodies! Are you the same as me? Do things take longer than you think they will?

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Cava-ing

Cava / champagne corks are one of the things I have trouble throwing away if we've been celebrating - they just seem too well made to be disposable packaging and the hoarder in me always thinks that there must be a good use for it. This one, from our New Year's celebrations, escaped the bin and got used for some carving; also known as cava-ing :D

Planning and cava-ing!

Printed cotton and the final zip case!

I really enjoyed this project - a great excuse to be keeping Cava corks in the future! What do you find difficult to chuck?

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Nilofar

I'm getting better with the sewing machine and it feels really good to learn something new. I thought the panels I printed recently went great with this old denim and so used them to make a toiletries bag:

I was also testing out an idea for some snap wallets this week; the second turned out better than the first but it was very satisfying figuring out a good pattern:

I've made a digital version of this print if you'd like to try it. It's called Nilofar, which means lotus or waterlily and it's available HERE on all sorts of fabric, decal and wallpaper!

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Cinnamon

Palace Garden in Cinnamon

ÝA new pouch made from Palace Garden in Cinnamon (on linen-cotton).
ÞI'm getting a bit of a collection of these; after a bit more practice I think I'll open a shop.

'Evening Snow in Kamubara' by Andō Hiroshige - Palace Garden in Aubergine - Palace Garden in Indigo - Pines & Cranes

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Hiroshige

'Nihonbashi Bridge on Snow Morning' and 'Mt. Fuji Scene from Satta' both by Andō Hiroshige

'Evening Snow in Kamubara' by Andō Hiroshige and 'Mt. Fuji on Fine Day' by Hokusai Katsushika

Hiroshige Pouch from the 'Evening Snow in Kamubara' postcard.

When I was about 12, a family friend returned from a Tokyo business trip with a huge pile of beautifully printed, thick, mat postcards with old Japanese woodblock art on them. Everyone was allowed to keep a few and above are the ones I chose. They were blu-tacked to my bedroom wall for all of my teenage years and are a bit worse for wear, but as you can see the colours haven't faded. A while ago, I digitally cleaned one of them up and had it printed on some linen-cotton from Spoonflower. For textiles, digital printing is perfect for this kind of thing - it couldn't have turned out better. I've finally made something of it (the last image here) and it's great to have something to use, made by hand, from an image that's always been there.

I hope you have a great weekend. Spoil yourself at least once :)

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Insta-pin

Hello, are you all having a good start to 2014? I hope so.

Are any of you on Instagram? I've just started over there and I love it, so come and say hello if you are. You can click on the tab in the margin over there ➵ to see my profile. I've added one for Pinterest too if you're pinterested :D

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Augghh-i-wuaah unh!

I thought that the Piepster's Chewbacca impression would be a good way to end the year on the blog.. uncanny isn't it? Augghh-i-wuaah unh! actually means Happy New Year! in the Wookiee language, so have a great New Year's Eve and a wonderful 2014 from us!

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware

  

Pines & Cranes - Night

I made a new pouch with some of the Pines & Cranes Night linen. Of course the Piepster wanted to know what exactly was going on on her mantelpiece :)

Have a brilliant weekend and a lovely Christmas, whatever you're up to!

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Forest & Sea ▪ www.etsy.com/shop/ForestAndSea

hand drawn nature on fabric, accessories & homeware