sometimes one simply wants to disappear

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I just made these bags this morning for two of my oldest friends [we have been a trio since I was 8 and I'm now 23]. Every year our families get together for what we all call "the Soirée " but really it's just christmas dinner. Anyhow, it's on for young and old this sunday night and so these presents were created today.


The bag section of these bags [:)] is made of an old scarf I got at the thrift store and then this scarf is lined with a fake micro suede I appropriated from the supplies of an old job I used to have. I made these into a bag and then went back to the thrift store in search of belts to use as handles. I don't have any leather working tools so I wouldn't have been able to sew through a solid sheet of leather belt. But I was lucky and when I walked up to the belt section of the shop, lo, there were two old Country Road woven leather belts sitting next to each other. Almost identical, their only difference is the buckle but this is cool because then they are slightly different for each girl. I simply sewed in between the weave and hid the cotton behind by pulling it tight.

Hooray!
I think they look superb and I really hope the ladies will like them.

Song of the day: Where is My Mind by The Pixies

:) peace from the cloth moth x

i stared at the fake stars

This quote is my favourite one of the month. It's hanging on an ornament by kylie johnson just behind my computer screen to the left a bit so that it's always in my periphery. It's a good reminder and a beautiful thought and pretty much sums up my feelings about life.

The bows happened. I could only make 26 but I felt this was not a terrible effort. I had a pre-cut pack of quilting squares so I turned almost all of them into bows with buttons (we have about eighty thousand buttons in this house).


Then when I was finished I thought "what on earth am I going to do with all these?" And the answer was staring at me in the form of a blank spot where the christmas tree should have been and was not. They then became christmas tree ornaments.

I would like to have more on the tree but it looks much cuter in person than in these photographs. Even so I am still of the opinion that it is an adorable christmas tree and adorable is not awful.

I have decided to take all the titles of my posts from now on from one of my favourite books in this whole world. Every time I'm going to make a post, I'm going to delve in to this book at random and pick the most beautiful / interesting / hilarious sentence I lay eyes upon and make it the title. Today's post marks the inaugural post-title-series of sentences from Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer. I hope they tantalise and inspire in more ways than just making you want to read the book (which you probably should if you haven't already).

Inspiration of the day: Paper Cuts

Go HERE to find more clever clever works made of A4 paper sheets.

Hope you're keeping cool in this heat & listening to some good relaxing beats.
heart from CM

humbug

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I have just then ( like I mean JUST then ) become obsessed with making a thousand ( or so ) fabric bows. Who knows why but there you have it. I've done a tutorial search and will probably begin this afternoon after work! Eee :) [standby for photographic evidence]

It's christmas time and as happens every year I walk around the shops despairing, trying to find cheap but beautiful presents for my friends and family but I am never successful. The items I want to shower all over my loved ones are too expensive for my tiny waitress' pocket. So I end up spending quite an amount of man hours making the one thing for everyone, slightly changed for each person. Last year I made origami flowers into brooches (or christmas tree ornaments for the man-types):


This year I have started to make Spiced Blueberry Syrup:

It is delicious and the bottles look so cute! It was super fun making the labels as well.

I just did this up quickly in photoshop and then printed it on coloured adhesive scrapbooking paper.

I got the recipe out of a book called Simple Pleasures:

It's a super easy one and pretty impressive. The book is awesome too because not only does it give you recipes you can make as gifts for people, it gives you tutorials on how to make the packaging as well. Win!

It's very sad but I have to go to work now. While I'm there preparing food and taking orders and cleaning dishes, I will be thinking about a field of small fabric bows, full of pretty promise, overtaking the mess that inhabits my boudoir and giving me something to do that isn't searching for a design job ( which is depressing ).

Song of the day: Autumn in New York by Billie Holiday :)

<3 CM

a short lived beginning with an extended hiatus

Starting a blog during the penultimate semester of your degree is not on the list of recommended things to do due to the immense amount of pressure and stress attributed to stupid university endeavors. HOWEVER, here I am on the other end of the ultimate semester of my degree and with a bit of spare time to use on blogging. With so much time in between last and this, I won't bore anyone with a long list of events, I'll just start afresh beginning with my recent past.
Recently I went to the Finders Keepers trial market deal thing in Brisbane and was immensely happy and in love with what I found :)
The stalls were all lovely and I definitely put my vote in for a return visit. I spent quite an amount of money (!!) and came away with some stunning one off pieces from here (paperboat press) and here (maiwaku) and from this lovely lady (simply phoebe). I was even featured on Phoebe's blog wearing my delightful purchase - looky!! (I am the last adult before the bebeh). It was incredible to walk around these markets and know that there are others out there who love creating and producing beauty just as much as me! Although they were all considerably more practiced than I am.
After this spectacular sojourn, it became time to organise things for my year's graduate exhibition. My outfit comprised the following wonders:

Dress by Dogstar and shoes by Wittner.

The resulting effect was as follows:

It was a stupendously stunning night and copious amounts of champagne were consumed with soporific results!! Blissful imho.

Recent musical purchases provide magical experience! Marc Bolan. T-Rex. I need say no more except to quote a delicious song.

"I know the truth. She's a dude. But all I want is easy action baby."

Get into that!! It's glam-tastic-fantasy-licious. Inspiring and more than a little bit special.

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"your diamond hands will be stacked with roses
and wind and cars
and people of the past"

<3 Cloth Moth

i fought the law

...the law being uni and right now it's looking pretty good for the law's odds at winning.There is only a week and a half left of my semester at uni! And in that time, about 5 assignments need to be completed. So last night, completely contrary to what I should have been doing, I sewed my first ever solo semi-successful item of clothing. It is this skirt that you see here. It's made out of a stretchy-kind-of-jersey-type-tshirt fabric. And it is a dusty lilac colour. It took about two and a bit hours because I am self-taught at sewing (with a bit of help from my seamstress mother!) and at first I sewed it about three sizes too big for myself! So two and a bit hours included alterations.

So yay for a new (free!) comfy stretchy skirt to wear to the computer labs at uni where I'll be for at least two full days and nights this week!

On a more exciting and bitchin' note, I went shopping today (further inhibiting my chances of passing this semester) and got a SWEET bargain on a pair of Levi jeans.

That's right yes, they are black and red acid wash. The minute I saw them I knew, it was love. They are very rock compared to stuff I usually wear but everyone needs some rock in their lives! Also these are the first jeans I have ever purchased that have been too long for my too-long-legs. Bitchin'!

My two favourite songs for this week are: Laughing With by Regina Spektor and a really amazing version of Feeling Good by someone/someband called My Brightest Diamond. So beautiful!

Go here to play/participate in a supercute verification-code-game :) You post a comment, see what nonsense word that you get as a verification code and then come up with a definition for that nonsense word! Gorgeous idea simi :)

My next craft project that I want to undertake is a cloud-blue leather wallet. But probably after the 4th of June when my last hand-in will be safely tucked under the arm of a bristling Interior/ Architecture tutor.

Lots of beats and biscuits,

The Cloth Moth xo

lost memories of a pivotal motion

For my first post I wanted to share the most important time I have spent in my own-life so far. It was when I was in Paris with my family at the end of 2008.

I spent three tiny hours in Montemarte on my own walking around the little cobbled streets.

There were crooked buildingsstone staircases
art in nooks and crannys

It was a pilgrimage to the type of place that I had previously only dreamt about from time to time, when inspired by a glimpse of a French painting or a few bars of French music.

While on my peditravels through this little nook of Paris, I was drawn to this book which I simply had to buy - even though I cannot understand most of it. (I think it is about the travels of a Frenchman through England.)

I felt like someone completely different walking through these streets, clutching this book which held secrets created only by different words. As I walked, I had nothing with me, or on me, that showed to these Parisian Montmarte-ers who I really was. I was completely anonymous so I was able to soak in all the magic and amazing history that was seeping from the bricks of every building I walked past. I passed a stall in a flea market selling hot spice wine and thought "this is the place for me!" I wanted to document my tiny stay in this amazing little corner of the world in some other way than just photographs of the streets. I remembered some scenes from my favourite movie and decided exactly how to do it.

This is me.

In Paree.

On a spree.

Of the most beautiful corner of the earth that I have been to so far.

Hello :)

I am 22 and interested in craft and fabrics and design. I have started this blog to document my forays into the crafty abysses and to document as well the things that inspire me and are beautiful. I hope you enjoy it and agree with me most of the time.

<3