WASPS Open Studios 2017
When: 28th & 29th October, 12noon—5pm on both days
Where: 2nd, 3rd & 4th floors Meadow Mill, West Hendersons Wynd, Dundee, DD1 5BY
I will have my new Dundee Delights cards, enamel pins and tea towels available (and hopefully some screen prints)
I’ve moved to the countryside allowing me to be surrounded by my inspiration of Scottish wilderness and thousand of pheasants! After days out exploring the area I would come home with muddy welllies or walking boots, so I decided to make myself a doormat to keep my house nice and clean! Here’s some examples of my hand painted doormats.
Hand Printed Doormat
Indoor use only
Helping to keep your home clean
Each one unique
Material – Coir Mat, PVC backed.
Introductory offer of £25, only available for collection from my studio, please email me if you would like one hello@louisekirby.com
I also had a little play with some other silhouettes and patterns I like!
I’ve been creating some one-off, hand printed scarves in my studio. The Sneak + Peek collection is inspired by the pheasants hiding amongst the fields. Where I live there are thousands of pheasants but it’s not till you come close that they reveal themselves with their distinctive call warning all there pheasant friends to look out. The mono printing technique that allows me to capture the textures of the fields and no two scarves are the same. Each scarf is reversible to allow you to change your look and get two scarves for the price of one!
Material – 100% Silk Crepe de Shine
Dimensions – 32cm x 180cm (aprox)
Price – £120
Scarves are available to buy directly from me, please email me hello@louisekirby.com I will include free postage and packaging to any UK address.
I’ve spend Saturday in the Anthropologie Edinburgh store doing a Stitch Workshops for Anthropologie customers. We were located in the lovely garden area downstairs, with lovely plants, paper tree trunks from the window display and surrounded by lovely Anthropologie products- perfect!
My workshop uses stitch and embellishment to decorate little bags. I brought along some stencils of things I use in my work – trees, leaves, pheasants, words and a wee Christmas pudding for a bit of festive cheer. I made some samples in advance to give people the idea of what to do and we used a range of wool, buttons, beads and ribbons….
I love it the window display at he moment! Pop along to see the giant paper owl!
Lots of passing people watching us from the windows and shoppers interested in us doing crafty stuff.
It was also great to be in store where my artwork is being used on Anthropologie wool scarves, with one of the style now half price – you’ll need to be fast to get one! And I’ve got such a connection with the store with originally doing the temporary storefront which is now being featured in store on the stairs area and I’ve also created collections of hand printed scarves for them.
Lots of happy makers with their finished bags!
All the money raised is going to The Woodlands Trust Scotland (once I know the amount I’ll update you!) Thanks to all that came along and enjoyed the workshops!
I’m going to be in the Anthropologie Edinburgh store on the 17th November doing a Christmas Craft workshop. Using Drawing with Stitch and embelishment, where you can create you very own little cotton bag. I’m sure there will be a pheasant or two sneaking and peeking amongst the stitches and some woodland inspiration and of course some christmas cheer!
This event is for Charity and all the proceedings will go to The Woodlands Trust Scotland. I wanted to pick a charity that fitted with my work and thought they fitted perfectly.
This event must be pre-booked in advance, see above flyer.
Looking forward to it!
This Sunday I will be doing a Drawing with Stitch workshop at the DCA please follow the link for more info here . This will be a relaxed session using a mix of simple stitches, buttons to create a reusable shopper bag.
I spend a lovely few hours with some creative crafty ladies at my ‘Create your own bespoke shopper – drawing with Stitch and Button’ workshop for Fife Contemporary Art & Craft.
To start the session I showed some of my samples with various stitch techniques, then we all had a rummage through the buttons – everyone loves buttons! Stripy ones are my favourites! I really encouraged creativity in a relaxed atmosphere and I hope all the participants enjoyed the session and it has given them a taster or inspiration to continue being creative!
I created a stripy snail design meandering across my shopper. I am fascinated with snails and their trails. I’m continuing to work on it in the evenings to as I find it really relaxing.
All the participants created lovely things from – tree with button leaves, art deco flowers with a lovely red and black button border, flowers using all the stitches, chain stitch bamboo using lovely wool, intricate patterns and motifs.
It was a lovely relaxed atmosphere at the venue Vic in St Andrews, where we got the tastiest scones with cream and apricot jam – yummy! (i had more than one!!!)
Thanks to Fife Contemporary Art & Craft for inviting me to run a workshop in St Andrews.
My first export order has gone over the pond and far away… all the way to New York! They have flown to 2 of Anthropologie’s stores in New York – the Chelsea Market store and 16th & 5th store.
These hand printed scarves are all handmade by me in Scotland; and each scarf is ever so slightly different. It’s intensive and very much a labour of love to design and craft my scarves to create the finished product.
Here’s a wee bit of info on the processes from start to finish: From the mixing of dyes to create delicious pots of colour, I do lots of testing to get the right shades. Hand screen printing each scarf individually using complicated blending techniques and stencils of pheasants. Mono printing the reverse side, gives a very unique hand made quality where each mark is scratched in. Washing the screens, hanging to dry, steaming of silk to fix the dyes, hand washing till any loose dyes are removed (and by this time my fingers have all gone wrinkly), ironing, sewing and adding in the care labels. Then attaching the official Anthropologie labels, felt good! Packaging up and to note the massive amount of paperwork from purchase orders to packaging list then Fed Ex-ing over the pond!
It’s been a real learning experience working on this project and I’d like to thanks to the whole Anthropologie team that helped me get through all the hoops for exporting. I felt like a very little fish swimming across the Atlantic Ocean or perhaps more apt, a wee Scottish birdie flying across the Atlantic Ocean!
My work sits so well with Anthropologie’s brand and values; with their ethos of quality, love of pattern, and how they really embrace working with artists and makers. I think this makes them them unique even though they are such a big company.
Their unique shopping experience means you just want to spend time in their stores. The beautiful displays are always a feast for your senses; and so many beautiful things mixed with very good styling and visual merchandising.
It’s great how having created the storefore front for their new Edinburgh store in May (see video), I’ve since designed a small collection for the Edinburgh store and now scarves for the New York stores. I really hope the ladies of NYC like my scarves, who knows who will be wearing them!
My studio will be open as part of this fab event. I’m based at Airlie Place (just off the Perth Road and down from the students union) There’s a great mix of Artists and Designers and Special Guests taking part. I will have a range of luxurious silk and wool scarves for sale, and a bargain box for you to have a rummage. Feel free to invite lots of people to this creative event happening in Bonnie Dundee. For more information the facebook page click here.
WASPS Artists at Airlie Place – Genna Delaney, Nicola Morrison, Jennifer Robson, Paola McClure, Louise Kirby, Volker Rosenberg, Neil McIntee, Casey Campbell, Jill Skulina, Louise Ritchie
WASPS Artists at Meadow Mill – Kirsty Doig
WASPS Artists at Douglas Court – Cathrine Holtet, Jonathan Hood, Allan Beveridge,
SPECIAL GUESTS –
Two Dolls
Steven Higginson artist
Howard Callow
Dot Stewart
Juliette Townsend ceramicist
Amanda McAllum
Patricia Griffin
James Skelton Smith
Lee Mitchell
Christina Hirst
The Scarlet Bakery
Yoke
Here are some of my recent paper designs created during my time through the Crafts Bursary in conjunction with Creative Scotland and DJCAD.
Reluctantly I’ve cleared and moved out of my space in ‘the room’ in the textile department. I’ve finished my time there and have taken my wings to fly to pastures new. I’ve found the experience so valuable to take time to consider my crafts practice, looking at all the strands I have with workshops, making products, designing surface pattern. I’m going to reposition myself to being a surface pattern designer who creates patterns and illustrations for all surfaces from stationery, fashion, furnishings, ceramics and architecture…
During my time I had a chance to try new things, learn new skills, reconsider my business model, have mentor support and meet lots of other creative people, such a great vibe at DJCAD. I highly recommend the opportunity.
