Lost & Found in East Brunswick!

Fabulous furniture and found items at the new Lost & Found market in East Brunswick


My friends daughter was captivated by this very funky purple bike! 
Various kitsch accessories  
I loved the little red dress above - very cute indeed! 

This retro enamel cooking pot came home with me!

I headed along to the new Lost & Found market in East Brunswick over the weekend.  It was the opening weekend for the market, which is a an addition to the other Lost & Found market in Collingwood (which I've  purchased from many times before!)

The new market is on Lygon Street, East Brunswick - and I'm very scared that it's so close to home.  This could be very dangerous for my little wallet!  As with the other market, Lost & Found is full of retro and vintage furniture, second-hand clothing, random found items and fabulous kitsch accessories.  Perfect. 

Of course I couldn't resist a little purchase on my maiden visit, and found a very cute and fun enamel cooking pot.  Maybe I'll see you there on my next visit....

Piccallili by Edith Farmiole


Buying the grapes 
 A friendly bite
Carriage Folk 
 King of the castle
 A tragedy on the wall
 Jack selling his boats
 A sea picnic
Daylight robbery

I received this very unusual and scarce book for my birthday to add to my small collection of old children's books.  The book is called 'Piccallili' and is written and illustrated by Edith Farmiole.  The book is very old, published in 1900 by Grant Richards, London, and is a first edition.

Piccallili is full of charming lithograph illustrations by Edith Farmiole, with short stories to accompany each illustration.  All the stories and illustrations focus on children she observed playing in the streets or at the beach, and there is also quite a multi-cultural aspect to the stories and children she captured - with definite reference to Italian children and stories, possibly Spanish children, as well as quintessential old-fashioned English children. 

There appears to be very little information available about Edith Farmiole, but I did find a snippet of background information below from the BibliOdyssey blog;

Mrs. Farmiloe is the second daughter of Colonel the Hon. Arthur Parnell, a retired officer of the Royal Engineers and a second cousin of the late Irish leader, Charles Stewart Parnell. She has four sisters and four brothers, and a talent for humorous drawing runs in the family. Her husband, the Rev. William D. Farmiloe, is Vicar of St. Peter's in Soho. The parish, lying chiefly between Rupert Street and Great Windmill Street, is thronged with children of all nationalities, and Mrs. Farmiloe never tires of watching the youngsters play when school is over.    

I love the simple linear illustrations capturing the children at play, and the naive quality to the games.  No iphones, ipads, video consoles necessary to amuse these children, who are happy building sandcastles at the beach, scribbling on walls and playing with dolls and sailing boats!         

Home-made, recycled baby bunting

Some of the second-hand children's clothing bought from the Salvo's for the bunting
Pinning the paper triangle template onto the washed fabrics and cutting out the shapes.  A very interested Jolly cat comes to investigate the crafty activity   
All the fabric triangles pinned face-to-face ready for sewing.  Jolly cat 'helps' by pressing the triangle pieces so they are nice and flat!  
After sewing the sides together the fabric triangles are turned inside out - so the front of the fabric is now on the outside   
The fabric triangles are stitched to the tape mixing up the colours and patterns 
And here is the finished bunting suspended from each corner of the ceiling - very cute!  

I've also made a few toys recycled from gloves and socks below (the monkeys rather fabulous jumper is an old pair of my thermal leggins!!)  I used the book Sock and Glove - Creating Charming Soft Friends from Cast-off Socks and Gloves by the very clever Miyako Kanamori.  There is a link here with some images of people who've made much better toys than me!   
Well, things are getting ever closer here in preparation for the baby!  So, I've been busy making a few things for the baby's room.  I recently made some bunting recycled from second-hand children's clothes, some old pyjamas of mine, and some offcuts of fabric.  

It's been fun to make the bunting, and I love the mix of all the different coloured and patterned fabrics!  I've used different fabric on each side of the bunting, and as we don't know what 'flavour' baby we're having I wanted to make something suitable for a boy or girl - and using the children's clothing has been perfect to get some cute patterns and colours for either.

The bunting was really very easy to make, and just requires a sewing machine and some time.  You could use any old or second-hand fabrics for different looks - vintage fabrics and teatowels would be cute, or un-used clothing and bedding for example.

Here's what I did:

1. Firstly I washed all the second-hand clothing (and pressed any particularly wrinkly fabrics so they were nice and flat), and made myself a paper triangle template.  Because I decided to have different fabric on either side, I made sure my triangle was about 1cm larger than I wanted the finished pieces to be, to allow for stitching the pieces together.

2. Then, I pinned my paper triangle template onto the different fabrics and carefully cut out the triangle shapes.  I made sure I had lots of triangular pieces of fabric in different colours and patterns - including some plain colours.

3. When the triangular fabric shapes were cut I pressed them to make sure they were all nice and flat, and then started to pair them up, making sure there were different colours and patterns on each side.

4. I then pinned each pair of fabric triangles face-to-face (i.e. so the front of each piece of fabric faces each other) and using the sewing machine stitched along the two sides of the triangles only - leaving the top unstitched and open.  The stitched pieces are then turned inside out - so the front of the fabric is now on the outside.

5. When all the triangles have been stitched and turned inside out, press them again so they form nice flat and neat little triangles!

6. Organise the tape you want to hang the triangles from, I went for a natural coloured twill tape - but there are lots of different coloured and patterned tapes depending on the theme of your bunting.  I made sure the tape was quite wide (about 2cm) and thick enough to support the weight of all the fabric pieces.  Measure the length you need the tape to be depending on your room size (or wherever it's to be hung) and make sure you include extra to allow the bunting to drape. 

7. Then pin each triangle onto the tape, making sure you get a mix of different colours and patterns dispersed along the tape length.  To do this I placed the top (open) part of the triangle halfway up the width of the tape and then folded the tape over, this way you should have an even amount of tape on either side of the fabric triangle (about 1cm each side) and when pinned the triangle should be firmly attached to the tape.  I also left about 10cm of tape at each end free of triangles to allow for hanging.

8. All you need to do now is to stitch the tape to the triangles using the sewing machine.  Et Voila!  Your own bunting is completed!           

Website & logo update

 
My updated website and new logo!
 'Portfolio' section with individual galleries to showcase the different work and design projects I'm involved with.  Including....
Children's textile designs - boys and girls 
 
Illustration examples 

Repeat pattern textile designs and bedlinen designs 
 
 Tableware designs
Images from my studio and personal sketchbooks
And the online shop for my new melamine plate collection

I've been a bit behind in announcing my website and logo update.... It was about a year ago that I posted about changing and updating my logo (wow - where has that year gone?!) and after much consideration I did finally decide to go ahead and change my logo.  The logo essentially follows the same format as previously, with 'Lucy King Design' falling underneath each other and the graduation of colour from black to light grey.  The main change is I've updated the font to Jeanne Moderno which is a bit stronger and bolder than the previous font, and I love this fonts mix of modern and vintage appeal.

I've also been working on giving my website a bit of an overhaul and updating the content.  I've worked on so many different freelance projects over the last few years, covering textile design, tableware design and illustration, plus then my own side project with Me Old China and most recently developing the melamine tableware range.  Phew!  So, I needed to update the content of my website and organise a proper gallery to showcase some of the work I've been involved with.

And here it is!  If you get a chance do pop over and have a look to see what designs I've been working on over the last few years.  A big 'Thank You' to the guys at Bonsai Media for helping put the website together and for their patience with my questions and requests for changes!

You can visit the website at: http://www.lucykingdesign.com/