Fabric Art by Martine Myrup

I am blown away by the work of this lady. 

She is the Danish textile artist Martine Myrup, and she has chosen a method, for creating most of her strikingly beautiful pieces (she works in many fields, but these words will focus on her work with re-used fabric); she rummages thrift shops, flea markets and garage sales for old men's shirts, aprons, tattered bed linens, table cloths - well you know: those things you find in heaps, and for next to nothing, sometimes.

Then she creates these incredibly sophisticated garments and objects, with painstaking care and craft.

Explore her blog, where she often shows steps of the process, starting with the original thrifted garments and scraps, and ending up with some very surprising designs. Her blog is called Elusive Owl.

I borrowed all these images from Martine's blog, and you can also follow her interesting work on Facebook and Instagram.

Pillows must be a special love for her; she has made so many, and her awesome patchwork skills really shows, when she turns a couple of nondescript old men's shirt into these:

The pillow above (which is made from some rather plain gingham pattern cloth, by the way), she also shows seen from the backside, and that is almost as beautiful as the front (the true mark of an excellent seamstress):

Another specialty of Martine's is her urns (see also the first two images).

This one is made from a ladies blouse, and the not-so-interesting floral print, becomes so elegant, in this delicate 3D object. Check out how she saves a color detail for the bottom of the urn!

And see what becomes of this lovely old peach and blue embroidered table cloth, when she gets her hands on it.

A sleek, stripey pillow - and the most adorable little Christmas ornaments from the leftover square embroidered details.

Self restraint

I managed to spend an entire day at a flea market and purchase (almost) only this and make a bit of money at the same time. Okay, to be honest I also bought a cheap cotton dress and a small cardboard box. Plus two small gifts for my sweet little niece, but that really doesn't count. 

I guess it's an easter egg and I thought it was just too amazing to pass. It cost about ten Danish kroner. Somebody has glued those hundreds of seed beads onto a polystyrene egg, and they are not strung on thread, as one might think. What a job!

It reminds me of Hundertwasser! I had to turn it a couple of times to properly display it...

Flea market gold - and a folksy heart for you!

Even though it sometimes seems like a waste of time (and money) I still cannot resist going to flea
markets. I honestly cannot think af many things I actually need, that I might find there - but. But.
It's the thrill of the chase, as they say.

I struck gold a couple of times the past summer, let me show you:

Small Höganäs pitcher, framed embroideries and a trivet from Arabia, handpainted and signed by
Ulla Procopé. And none of these items cost more than about five euro. Yeeha!
Now that is why I keep coming to these things.

The embroideries are especially fascinating, I think. Such work, such detail. Fantastic.
I could never make anything like that.

But I did get inspired, and made a kind of folksy heart for you to weave.
Download it right here! Enjoy.

2021: I have a new location for my downloads, go here (A) and here (B) for both of the folksy hearts.