l'ete

    

      Attempted geometric nails 

         

4 weeks until I go to Bulgaria Sunny Beach with my best friends

3 weeks until my exams are over

2 festivals I will attend this summer

1 stone lighter than I was a month ago

1 happy mongrel = me

post coursework celebration

I deserve more clothes, I've sold half of my disgusting wardrobe on ebay this week bringing in a grand total of £85 and so I've compiled a sensible list of clothes to buy for that £85. And it's come upto £208 :) So my plan is to sell my bed and with that money buy everything on the list and sleep in the bath. Only joking bed, I love you, you exquisite double sized night time tender cradle of warmth ... forgive me 

asos flatforms £50 want for post-exam summer hol. 

• repeated swans.... all over trousers... what is not to love?                £38 from Topshop

• Holiday print pair of Classic Toms, remind me of grandpa slippers.. so adorable. £40 though- no. Gunna ebay them like the proud ebay mistress I am.

• Mango, £40. simple but pretty and a lot better in the shop- the fabric of the skirt is lush

• 

And dont even get me started on mint jeans, hot dang. Yet to find a pair that don't make my thighs look like minty ham.

Polly x

p.s: dear beautiful 50 followers, i suggest you head on over to Edies Fashion Blog for a lot more hilarious and frequent blogging...she also enjoys the odd repeated animal print!

After a lot of sweat, tears and urine I have finally finished..

Finished my final exam project for textiles, bit sad but also the words 'thank fuck' come to mind. They're bold and funky and just what I look for in a pair of trou! The making of them is OKAY, it was pretty hectic and one leg is a lot darker than the other- Chloe models makes them look a lot better than they actually are. What I do know for sure is that I am never going to tie dye anything in my life ever, again.
 

Hello April

 Beautiful, love matte nails.

This ready to wear collection titled Boogie and the History Maker by Sass and Bide.

 

I went to a couple of partays this month too, 

 lots of love! all my friends are so beautiful!  me and emma ( far right) had purple streaky hair although it hasn't really shown up in the photo. I used Kevin Murphys Colour Bug but I had a voucher heh heh. 

A huge doodle I just found in one of my old folders: 

These beautiful trou from Zara which my mother bought me out of pity for my current woeful wardrobe. 

And finally -despite the beautiful alliteration in the last sentence- I have seriously re thunk doing english at university. I simply do not enjoy it and shouldn't waste 3 years of my life and a hull of a lot of coin doing a course simply because i'm adequate at the subject and also to please my parents. 

More importantly I have stumbled upon www.aventure.co.uk , a gap year company which organises 18 year olds to go to Africa or Asia and teach in schools and live in the communities. I would teach a specialist subject to the kids (in my case art and drama!) for 3 months followed by a month of independant travel with other travellers- kayaking, bungee jumping, safari etc! 

Recently I've been thinking a lot about my 3 weeks in Ghana 2 years ago, with missing the kids etc, and it just makes sense to go back to Africa. 

currently LOVING these old old classic toons: 

Sowing the Seeds of Love by Tears for Fears

Layla- Eric Clapton

Au Revoir! - goddamnit I wish I had been better at french

Frey Wille

                                                                           Frey Wille

the Pure Art collection by Frey Wille jewelry. The colours and abstract patterns fits in nicely with my project, and I know it seems simple but I've found their colour combinations to be quite influential.

Fabric cuff Ive produced as a response to the brand:

 lol at my mums malnourished forearm 

I can't think what this needs- perhaps some black outlines. I was obviously limited with the materials I had at home, I wish I could encase it in resin or something to make it look all shiny like the Frey Wille collection :(

Technique: Digitally printed fabric (derived from a piece of felt) and stitched into to add rigidity. 

Sketchbook pages.

Collage of the pages in my sketchbook.

[Unrelated picture]

Spent most of my miserable weekend horizontal watching the most miserable films I could think of; Schindlers List, P.S I Love you,  Girl Interrupted and started My Sisters Keeper. 

So unsurprisingly I came across this miserable song (How to Fight Loneliness- Wilco) in the miserable film Girl Interrupted soundtrack which I actually kind of like.

Proj Upd8

Ashish AW12

As part of my artist research I've looked into Ashish's Ready to wear Autumn-Winter 2012 collection. I have been really inspired by the dried fruit I found at the Turkish markets and their shapes and textures so I was lucky to find this really interesting collection with its layering , tie dye and circular shapes. I particularly liked the organic and abstract feel to his prints. Also what is relevant is his inspiration for the collection; his home back in India and modern 90's rave culture- a very random combination.  

Here is some of my original imagery of turkish delight and pineapple rings

                    

                  varying mediums                                                   oil pastel and stitching

I haven't started tie dying yet but I have responded to his collection using batik and heat transfer prints.                               

batik

experimenting with different colour ways

heat transfer

 Inspired by J.W Andersons SS11 menswear collection, I experimented with doilies but I layered transfer dye and stitching to make more interesting pieces  

Having one of the weeks..

when I'm feeling all bummed out and questioning life etc. Also can't stop thinking about that little village I visited called Dwabor in Ghana in 2010. I know I look hideous in this picture but its one of the few Ive found of me with the kids. The girl i'm holding was so sweet, she's called Ogly and is 4 years old in this picture and we were inseparable! I think about her most days. 

Oh yeah, and lol at the cornrows. 

I don't know the little girl and boys name on the left but Ogly is in the centre, with Sorja her little sister beneath and Becky on the far right.
I'm becoming more and more determined that if I take a gap year I'm going to raise the money and go back.

Yayer

www.yayer.co.uk

 

 

Yayer.co.uk is a small brand online selling hand picked vintage and modern clothes to fit one size mostly (although the models are skinny minnies so i dunno what they're talking about!) I really like the clothes, they're very eclectic and modern & so far my favorite stuff has been around £18 so not too bad!
Somebody buy me the bottom right
xxx

Felt bowl

For my Mums birthday I decided to save the cash and make her some stuff with left over bits. I've made her a pencil case using some left over stuff from my Rome project and also just spent 6 HOURS yes thats right 6 HOURS making her a felt bowl... i'm a very slow and clumsy worker! 

[The bottom of the bowl]

  I stitched some swirly patterns using left over gold thread

I prefer the other camera setting but they came out quite blurry. Also the bowl isn't quite as blue as the photos. The process to make the bowl was simple but time consuming. Using a circle shaped resist in between 2 pieces of felt, I bonded the wool tops together and then cut a small hole in the top, removed the resist and worked and stretched a bowl shape with a spoon to get this felt 'vessel'. It was a slow and careful process separating the wool tops and bonding them together but it made the felt a lot sturdier which is important for a vessel. I feel I should include the link I used to help me make it. 

  I had to rinse it in white wine vinegar apparently to keep it stiff, so I was just pouring expensive white wine vinegar all over it and it felt wrong

  I was thinking she could put her keys in it. 

And this is the pencil case I made her using t-shirt iron on transfer paper. Its a bit scrappy and I admit I rushed it, it took me 2 hours though. And once I'd turned it the right way out after stitching it all up and looked at the finished thing, I didn't have the mental strength to unpick it and start again.