Kids In Love Collective
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Small Works in Cord, Roving & Copper
I’ve be re-reading Lucy Lippard’s book on Eva Hesse, my favorite artist, for inspirations. Her works always hold a certain fascination for me because they look as if they would be made out of very delicate soft and sensuous materials, such as fiber! But Eva was more interested in latex and resin, which in their final presentations have the visual luminosity but not as much the tactile qualities they seem to promise (the giant exception being the Accession series). A photo of her studio:
I made some literal interpretations of an early Hesse piece I love, Ring Around the Rosie, with cotton cord that I dyed and wove with copper wire. I had some raw wool roving that I knit and wove with copper wire. I wanted to re-imagine choices she might have made had she had the privilege of retrospective knowledge of the toxicity of some of her materials. She died so young! Our visual landscape has never been the same since.
Kids In Love Collective
I am so excited for the Textile Arts Center online shop to be finally open! The herringbone and hand-woven suspenders by Visnja are beautiful. The canvas totes are all dyed with natural dyes and also screen printed with natural dyes like logwood and indigo. Everything was designed and produced in the TAC studios in Brooklyn and everyone has been working so hard on it, I think it looks awesome. The Manhattan store will be open this week, I’m bringing my camera during set-up so hopefully I’ll have some photos to show the new space.
Sow+Dye Kit – Combo below = my personal Xmas gift to myself . The Sewing Seeds Project began in early 2011 with with a mission to preserve the growing and use of natural dyes as well as provide resources for our community. To date, the project encompasses classes and workshops, a Living Library in our community garden, digital and physical resources, and coming in early 2012, a Natural Dyes CSA.
The Sow+Dye Kits are complete with all you need to begin growing natural dyes at home. Each combo kit contains 1 packets of seeds (indigo, lady’s bedstraw, OR correopsis), and information on how to grow the plant as well as use it for dyeing.
Best of all, all the proceeds from these are going towards center activities including sponsorship and scholarships for kids to take textile classes at the center. BEST. GIFT. EVER!
3rd Ward and John Ruscher did a really nice write up of us: HANDMADE HOLIDAY GIFT IDEA #81 // Kids In Love Collective: Where Avant-Garde Design And Organic Hand Craft Collide. Thanks to 3rd Ward, Tom Tom Mag and Textile Arts Center for a great fair. It was fun but kind of exhausting. I’ll be a lot more prepared next time.
Our holiday shop is up at Big Cartel!
PLEASE JOIN US & TOM TOM MAGAZINE at the 3rd Ward Annual Holiday Craft Fair this Saturday Dec. 10. from noon to 6pm. 195 Morgan Avenue Brooklyn NY.
Holiday Foldover Pouch – - > hand screened original three color design in a foldover canvas clutch. Pastel blue three quarter zipper, hot pink interior lining. Dimensions width 12″ x 8″ length folded, 12″ x 12.5″ unfolded. $40, on sale NOVEMBER 21st!
Unfolded clutch front and back below
Original Missionaries bassist and uber-talented artist Maggie Simpson wed also uber-talented tattoo artist Mark Cross this past weekend. They had a reception party at The Hole in the Bowery and it was so lovely and fun and beautiful and drunkenly, just like them. Sniff sniff she was so pretty in pink I had to post this photo that their friend Sona took. Makes me want to reunite the band!
I just finished my moccasin making class at TAC and it was amazing to work more with leather! Got to learn great little details and intricacies about sewing with leather that aren’t always so easy to learn on your own. Leather is an entirely different material from fabric and I’m excited to experiment with it more with my bags and with more moccasins! Like maybe some hand sewn mocc house slippers. I thought it would be a nice way to help spread the word about the next moccasin class happening in November.
In fashion as in most other things, the debt we owe to Native American design, ingenuity and engineering is great. I’ve been more and more interested in learning traditional Native American crafts for awhile now and I’m currently taking Mark Schuyler’s October Moccasin Shoe Making class and getting an education in many things. Mark is a bona – fide, old – school character who is also a wonderful fount of knowledge on all things moccasin.
For instance, did you know that the fringe we all take for granted on those Minnetonkas and what I thought was decorative was originally intended to conceal one’s foot tracks from animals in the mud during hunting? Or that the Ugg boot is basically a rip – off of the ancient design of the Mukluk boot worn by the Inuit, Yupik and other aboriginal peoples in the Artic? (Apparently so are high – top sneakers according to Wikipedia). Ugg Boot vs. Mukluk. I think the winner is clear …
The most commonly recognized moccasin shape today is composed of a top vamp piece and a lower bottom piece in addition to a hard sole if it’s for the outdoors. Because a vamp can be tricky to sew for beginners, in this class we focus on designs that are vamp – less, but no less fun.
The patterns are taken from the Craft Manual of the North American Indian Footwear,which has been our little bible of sorts introduced to the class by Mark because it contains different patterns for the moccasin from all over North America’s various tribes.
There are patterns from the Inuit’s ‘Mukluk’ to the Navajo ‘Pueblo,’ the Apache ‘Pointed Toe’ and the Iroquois ‘Center Seam.’One could go traditional and follow a pattern very faithfully or one could go more modern and adapt the pattern to make a cool pair of house mocs. I’m so impressed with this manual. It’s more like a zine of collected wisdom. One of my next projects is to illustrate some of the patterns and create my own homage to George White’s Craft Manual of North American Indian Footwear.
This is a Sioux pattern that mine is plainer leather version of.
These are children’s moccasins from an exhibit staged by the ‘National Museum of Ethnology’ in Japan.
An Apache pair above
Another pair of Sioux moccasins housed at the Detroit Institute of Arts. The DIA is a great resource for exploring the art of the Sioux and Plains Indians. The Craft Manual isn’t included in the class fee (but leather, waxed thread, leather sewing needles, awls and everything else is) but I recommend snagging a copy anyway, it sells for only 8 bucks at Crazy Crow Trading and I love looking at all the little feats of leather engineering devised to suit each tribes’ specific climate, locale and way of life. I asked Mark to elaborate a bit on his knowledge for potential folks out there who might be interested in shoe making and Native American moccasin techniques and his response has been blurb for the class ever since:
“The footwear we call a moccasin has become defined by any footwear by all the Native American tribes of North and Central America. Usually known to be a soft-soled leather shoe, the variety and form of this object is far greater than the open leisure shoe we know and wear during summer months. Come and explore over seventeen different solutions handed down from Native American artisans, each honed over millenia to be the best foot covering for a particular region, climate and geography of North America. In this four-session workshop, participants will choose a style, make their own personal pattern, learn the craft of hand sewing leather, fit a sample, cut their patterns, construct and wear their own hand-made, but not home-made, leather footwear.”
Shoe Making- North American Footwear:
BROOKLYN LOCATION Sat 11:00AM – 2:00PM, November 5 – December 3
No class 11/26
Class Details: Click Here
Instructor(s): Mark Schuyler
Location: TAC – Brooklyn Location
New Linen 12″ LP Vinyl Record Holder Sleeve up in Etsy
Holds up to 4 LPs, re-salvaged Belgian linen, formerly paint canvases. Lined in white cotton with lavender bias binding.
I really loved making these.
Now that it is finally feeling more like fall, I’m thinking knits knits knits in interesting combinations. Designer Claire-Anne O’Brien‘s knit sits definitely fit the bill. I love that she mixes surfaces and textures of the soft and the hard in the smoothness of the wooden and metal legs and the chunky seat bottom. She really ‘knits’ together industrial and textile design! Sigh, sorry for such a knit-witted pun.
British wool chair below
The chairs have an extraterrestrial slash 60s Pop Art vibe that I dig. They remind me of Claes Oldenburg soft sculptures, like his squishy alphabet:
Ina Grau are “a collaborative shoemaking endeavor” started last year by LUISA FERNANDA GARCIA-GOMEZ and CRYSTAL QUINN. Their shoes are full of whimsy and detail and it makes complete sense that they’ve made shoes for the uber-talented Annie Larson of All For Everyone.
love the embossed dots on the soles
They are totally inspiring me for my North American Footwear: Moccasin class at TAC where we are choosing from ‘over seventeen different solutions handed down from Native American artisans, each honed over millenia to be the best foot covering for a particular region, climate and geography of North America.’ WHOA amazing. I also posted the class at SkillShare, a new community I’m pretty excited about as a lifelong crafter, learner and teacher. Look for me there if you happen to be on it!
Had a great time yesterday at the Etsy Summit and heard a lot of interesting projects from designers, architects, and small business champions on how to sustain ecologically and ethically conscious practices. It was pretty inspiring and I thought I’d make my own Etsy-inspired post. These are some photos that I took while I was there and then ‘Etsy-fied’ with Photoshop and pencil sketching. Thanks so much to Textile Arts Center for sending me and ‘Vive la craft’!
Golubka is my go-to blog for amazing mouth watering inspirations:
Fresh Spearmint and Chocolate Cheesecake
Coriander Tartines with Coconut-Cilantro Cream Cheese
She’s a total food artist yum!
Nanna van Blaaderen‘s knits have ‘animal life and nature’ as essential sources of inspiration. I love how her designs flow organically from braids to body. “More or Less” collection below:
Her “Species a Tribute Collection” is here
Hello Etsy Summit on Small Business and Sustainability is Sunday. Kids In Love is excited to go to the Brooklyn events as part of Textile Arts Center. Panels I’m looking forward to include: “Matthew Crawford’s The Case for Working with Your Hands,” “New Mutualism Will Save Us” by Sara Horowitz founder and executive director of Freelancers Union, and “The Challenges of Sustainable Design in a Local Ecosystem,” a panel on:
“The challenges of sustaining a local economy while pursuing innovation by design. Laetitia Wolff, executive director at desigNYC and founder of futureflair, will moderate a lively discussion on how to sustain small businesses, engage local communities, and bring innovative, design-centric products and projects to market while remaining socially responsible. The panelists will address the unique considerations and opportunities available to businesses and community organizations at a local level, and conclude with practical advice for focusing on sustainability in a local ecosystem.”
Woo Hoo go local and see you at the summit!
I’ve been inspired by Finnish influenced Japanese line Minä Perhonen’s prints for their 2011-2012→ Autumn / Winter Collection:
Their furniture and upholstered chairs are so imaginative and adorable.
More from Spot On: TEXTILES: Holly Giselle Hilden. I’m so enamored with the talent on display in this blog, I constantly go back and re-read the interviews.
Holly is a Bath Spa University Textile Design Graduate. I love her aesthetic: the harlequin motif, the shape of the knits, and especially the giant pom poms on the sweaters!
Spot On: TEXTILES is a great blog featuring surface, knit and textile design from up and comers all over the globe.
Matisse designed this costume in 1920 for the Ballets Russe: Costume for a Mourner in the Ballets Russes production of ‘Le Chant du Rossignol’ (Song of the Nightingale); Headdress and Robe 
I’ve been quite inspired by this piece in designing the “Graphic Fonts Recycled Suede Alphabet Bag” below (whew what a mouthful, I need to come up with a shorter name)
Navajo Blanket inspired bag – Hand dyed and hand painted canvas with black triangle stitching, a very sturdy yet beautiful tote bag. Canvas is 16 oz weight dyed rose with edges left undyed for a ‘stained’ effect. One side has black and rust orange triangle screenprint with embroidery, the other has black, rust orange, brown and metallic gold triangle screenprint with black thread thread stitching. Lined in a cream charmeuse twill blend with a lovely soft hand and silkscreened with our label in Japanese. The straps are also lined in the same silkscreened charmeuse twill fabric. Large & roomy, perfect for stuffing blankets, records, a picnic in a bag.
Kids In Love’s Visual Mixtape tumblr 
made the Tumblr Spotlight. Thanks Tumblr!
for his sister Laura is soo lovely! Lucky Lady Laura ♥ I’ve been staring at it all day before it gets sent out to the mail.
Jonathan Gold, our favorite Angeleno foodie, is hosting a pancake breakfast with the LA Weekly. So excited.
Cheim & Read Gallery exhibit of one of my favorite artists Louise Bourgeois’ fabric works:
UNTITLED 2006 (above)
Fabric and fabric collage
11 x 18 1/4 x 2 inches
EUGÉNIE GRANDET 2009 (above)
Mixed media on cloth, suite of 16
11 1/4 x 8 1/2 inches each
DAWN 2006 (below)
Fabric book, 12 pages
I’m enchanted by the delicate dyes and intricate patterns of Bourgeois’ work. So beautiful.
Spot On: TEXTILES is a great blog showcasing student work in textile and surface design from all over the world. I’m enamored with Louise Ravnløkke from Kolding School of Design. Her Rumanian Folklore project is whimsical, colorful and beautiful. The entire website is full of inspiration!
Kids In Love Collective is the Indie shop of a musician & city planner.
Cathy left philosophy for design and occasionally writes/copyedits Tom Tom Magazine, a print magazine for lady drummers. She plays guitar and sings in The Missionaries. Mark plans and approves all types of entrepreneurial enterprises with the LBC. We are lovers of music, books & arts; abandoned spaces, maps & charts; animals, vegetables and the world at large. And of course everything DIY crafts & design. We hope you are too.
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