Sarah Appleton - Textile Artist Blog

Well in all my excitement at blogging about Nothing New yesterday I forgot that I do, in fact, have Something New to blog about! How silly! It's actually technically not new either since it's a refurbished second hand garment; unfortunately I forgot to take a 'before' picture but here's the 'after': Suits you sir Now you will have to use your brainbox to imagine this shirt with no collar at all; just a plain round neck. Retro-a-go-go, but not terribly flattering. My mum made this shirt many moons ago (I don't ever remember seeing her wearing it); she'd even hand sewn all of the hems; and earlier this month I found it shoved in a 'to go' pile! Whuuuut! Obviously I was not going to cut this bad boy up, so a collar was the only option. I confused myself totally with the button / placket situation, so I made the collar finish short of that area and then created a bow tie effect to fill in the weird-looking space. I am really pumped with h

Here's an update on nothing new! I've added all of the following to my online shops: Super Kawaii! Feed dem birds The Sally Bag Keen readers will recognise these from previous posts, hence the nothing newness. I am slow at adding things to my shops for some reason... Of course my favourite is still The Sally Bag , which is the son of Wilma Flintstone and Andy Warhol. My online shops are here and here (no, I still don't know why I have two). Not much else to report, I have a few exciting upcoming personal projects but don't want to say too much for fear of jinxing it all. This post was fuelled by Mickey Lee Lane, Ainsley Harriott's Cauliflower Cheese flavoured cup soup and vegetarian moussaka!

Hexopus is back (did he ever go away?)! This time he has dressed up as David Bowie (or Cherie Currie?) with a sparkly lightning bolt just like thisssss: Well maybe not just like it but a good affort anyway, well done Hexopus! If you like him so much that you want to take him home go rescue him from here ! And if you're thinking you might have seen something like this before; maybe you are thinking of this ! This post would not have been possible without the help of Jurassic Park III!

Hey y'all Cast your collective mind back a wee while and you may remember that I took a screenprinting class at AUCB and then promised to show you all the work I'd done and then forgot. Well today I have remembered! I have turned 4 pieces into canvas wall art: Feed the birds St. Paul's Cathedral - being a ginormous Mary Poppins fan, this is a big favourite You're Westminster Crabby Westminster Abbey Westminster Abbey shabby chic negative print Tower Bridge This has to be my favourite - an accidentally 80's Tower Bridge. Apparently I am a subconcious West Ham fan as well, who knew? Yes, so these are all samples from my printing class, but I'm not going to tell you anything about how I did them because I am selfish like shellfish. If you luurve them why not check them out over at my Folksy shop ?! This post was brought to you today by Michael Palin, Mary Poppins and International Twin mix CDs

He's back! Back in badge! I was talking to the Hexopus a couple of weeks ago and he said that what he'd really like most in the world would be to be all 3D and come alive to be all up in everyone's collective face. So I helped him and now he looks a bit like this: Badgers or Hexopi? And a lot like this: And then I took him over to Number 83 and the humans there said that he was 'cute' and they'd help him get out and about in the world. We didn't let on about his sinister secret plans or anything. If you want to visit the Hexopi you can see them at Number 83, Poole Road, Westbourne - I also plan to make some for online very soon!

 Clicky below to read the story behind one of my birthday gifts and read my amazerad friend Helen's Highly Recommended amazerad blog: Nelly's Treasures: Collar Me Good : So this week it was Miss Appletini's birthday. A very good friend of mine that moved away last year to the south coast. I miss her terribly... Yeeeooow!

Hoot! Today I bring you offerings, offerings of gold (not frankincense and myrrh though, I couldn't afford those too). Here he is because he really needs no introduction: Hang him on your wall so he can watch you sleep Iesu Gwdihw And if you are still like 'who the heck is that?' then it's Owl bloody Jesus of course! The wisest of all creatures decorated in a religiousy kinda Jesusy kinda way. Isn't he lovely?  Owl Jesus is a hand embroidered textile wall art piece, I used metallic gold thread for a pop and to give it that super expensive religious look like from the icons of Olden Days, which I really love and am obsessed with since we studied them for GCSE art (yeah, I went to school - sometimes). I used as many different embroidery techniques as I could for a fun and textured finish. That's all I have to say about Owl Jesus!

My mum wanted some bunting to decorate my parents' hallway so I offered to make her some. My dad is currently working on/off in Dubai so I thought it would be a neat-o idea to combine something for him with the bunting for my mum, so this is what I did: I used scraps of fabric I already had, plus some that I picked up from charity shops. Then I used white felt for the lettering. I made it double sided so that she can have it plainish if she wants to: How d'ya like them apples? Although I almost feel like it's too plain and boring so I might tell her she can add to it if she likes. Again I used scraps and for the apple shape I drew around a cookie cutter. This didn't turn out as one of my neatest projects but since it's a freebie / family thing and I've been kind of under the weather I don't think it'll matter too much. Tough anyway!