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.

It was a lovely Easter

And now it's over. Back to the goldmine, so to speak. We had a lot of guests, some sun, I took a great trip to Arhus, and had a bit of crafting fun, even though I don't see where I found the time.

As you can see, there is always some kind of Easter Tree thing going on in some corner, this year on my beloved birch branch (dry and old, but I can't bring myself to throw it out). 

I had some yellow paper flowers (from a shop), but they looked a bit lonely. So I made some very yellow Easter Himmeli (well, why not?), and got into making flower pompoms, which is something I have been wanting to try for a long time. I saw them on the brilliant blog Mr Printables, and they are such fun to make. A bit tricky, so follow the instructions very carefully.

Here is Mr Printables Flower Pom-Pom tutorial - and here are my first attempts!

Small DIY project: a nice set of balls - Cecilies candlestick!

I'm sorry for not being able to resist that pun in the headline. That's just me.

So, the other day my friend Cecilie posted this image on facebook, and since she always makes the most adorable things in crochet, I assumed it was something she had come up with herself. 

And right I was.

   

I think it looks great, and even though it is essentially an advent-candlestick (in Denmark we have a certain ritual with these: we light one candle, first sunday in advent, two the next, and so forth), and therfore a bit late to post here - it is also just pretty and festive, and a very doable little project. 

I could absolutely also see it with the balls in different red and pink hues, or perhaps in glittery yarn, yay!

I asked her how she had made it, and here are her instructions:

"This candlestick requires a bit of crochet skills, especially when it comes to crocheting a perfect sphere.

I used eight polystyrene balls of the good quality hobby kind you would use for dolls, sturdy decorations etc. (four 80 mm. diameter and four 60 mm. diameter), four metal candle holders, a stanley knife, yarn, crochet hook, a long ('dolls') needle, and, obviously, four candles! Use the quality kind, where the wax could be scratched off easily, if it should run into the yarn a bit.

Materials are widely available in hobby/crafting material shops, in DK they have all of it right here.

First, you'll need to cut a perfect slice of the bottoms on each of the large balls holding the candles, in order to stabilize them. To do that in an easy way, I found a small plastic container with a sharp edge in an appropriate size, and pressed it into the four balls - that gave me a precise line to cut from.

In these four large balls, you'll also need to cut out holes to squeeze the metal candleholders into  (make sure they are exactly on top, so the candles are in balance). I used the candleholders to press a marking line in the ball - same as before - before I cut out the hole.
 

When the hole is cut - don't make it too wide - press the metal candleholders in place (fasten with a bit of glue).

To do the crochet part, I did the small balls as a full cover, and the larger ones - from top towards bottom - starting around the metal candleholders. I did them free style, but there are many instructions to crochet a ball or a sphere out there. For the large balls I used a wool yarn and crochet hook no. 6, and for the small ones ordinary cotton yarn and hook no. 3.

A coat of base paint in the same color as the yarn, can be a good idea, especially if the yarn is dark, or if the yarn is of a thinner quality. Any kind of water based hobby paint will work.

When the balls are done, they are threaded together with some strong string, using the dolls needle -
and you don't necessarily need to tie them in a circle, you could also just have them in a curvy row.

Make sure that you use glues and paints that work on polystyrene.

Note that this is meant as a festive centrepiece or decoration, it is made of rather light materials, and should - of course - NEVER be moved around when the candles are lit, just as you should make sure to watch it, keep small kids at a distance and put out the candles before they reach the metal holders. 

Merry Christmas!"

Trees

I don't feel quite ready for the full xmas monty yet - it's always like that.

But it is coming. In some shape or form. Such as the sudden urge to crochet little trees.
So, yeah, I made these (with styrofoam cones from the hobby shop, and olive jar lids to give them
a bit of stamina) and the question is whether they will be encircled by dancing elves or topped by
golden stars in a few days. I do get carried away. I love a corny christmas window, like the ones from
my childhood with a small village of odd sized creatures, gathered around a lake (= a mirror) in the
cotton wool snow. And the church - with the little candle in it... Sigh.

But right now, these are just green and quietly tree-like.

Don't forget to check the first heart tomorrow....!