In honor of Earth Day this year, Anthropologie collected corks for use in their store window displays. As someone who has been saving corks from my wine bottles for years now, my interest was piqued. I haven’t yet decided what to do with my collection, but now I’ve collected some great inspiration! Of course, it takes time to collect enough corks to make much of anything, and now my collection of dozens (maybe a couple hundred?) looks tiny compared to some of these large scale cork projects. So, I doubt I’ll be making a Corkxedo (yes, really, a tuxedo made of corks) anytime soon!
After Anthropologie breaks down their cork window displays, the corks will go to Cork ReHarvest where they will go on to become fishing bobs, brand-new flooring, paper pulp and more.
Cork is a green resource and is 100% natural, renewable, recyclable and biodegradable. “Trees are not cut down to harvest cork, rather, the bark is harvested by hand every 9 years. Cork oak trees can live up to 300 years, so they are very sustainable resource! Approximately 6.6 million acres of Mediterranean cork forest extend across Portugal, Spain, Algeria, Morocco, Italy, Tunisia and France. These oak forests support one of the world’s highest levels of forest biodiversity, second only to the Amazonian Rainforest.” -Cork ReHarvest Read the rest of this entry »
The instinct to reuse, repurpose, salvage, recycle, and reinvent has long been a part of Ladybird’s DNA. Like a bowerbird, this Ladybird compulsively saves odd bits and scraps with visions of a future purpose for materials that would often be considered trash or waste. This new pillow design was created out of Ladybird’s stash of selvedge edges of fabric that she has been collecting for several years now, and include many nice silks and wools from numerous pillows, suits, curtains, and other textile projects that have been cut out by Studio Ladybird.
Selvedge stripes are lined up side by side, raw edge to selvedge edge, and then steam fused to a backing layer of fabric, with diagonal topstitching across the stripes for extra stability and dimension. The back of each pillow features an overlapped envelope closure that also showcases the selvedge edge of the fabric whenever possible. Each of these 10″ X 18″ pillows is one of kind, and represents close to a dozen feet worth of selvedge edges from Ladybird’s collection.
This bird especially loves finding selvedges that have script along the fabric edge; this pillow includes a stripe with the words “Tasmania Stretch Extra Fine” woven into the selvedge.
Back envelope closures showcase another selvedge edge. Read the rest of this entry »
It’s been an exiting week so far…actually, it’s been pretty busy in my world lately. I haven’t had the spare time to blog, and decided to take a few minutes tonight to continue acquainting myself with my new home here at Studio Ladybird. I’m excited to have my new site up and running, but I’ve been working on so many other projects the past few weeks that I haven’t even had a chance to break in my new nest! Lots of sewing has been happening this week, and multiple new custom projects and alterations are in the works. Plus, I’ve sold 3 sets of napkins and a couple of my favorite leather pillows on Etsy in the past 4 days! As a new shop (launched at the beginning of 2010), these first sales are quite exciting and I can’t wait to hear feedback from my new customers once they receive their items.
Read the rest of this entry »
Her designs may be far more refined than the popular children’s Lego sculptures, but the concept of those classic toys led to the design of these beautiful interlocking pieces that can be taken apart and refashioned into a completely different end product over and over again. This sustainable concept was the focus of Eunsuk Hur’s “Nomadic Wonderland” project that she completed in late 2008 for her MA in Textile Futures at Central Saint Martin’s School for Art and Design in London.
I came across the work of Sandy Stone over on the Junk 2 Jewels blog and now I’ve got a hankering to dabble in some furniture upholstery projects! I’ve started to keep an eye out for a potential furniture canvas or two when I’m out thrifting, so we’ll see what develops! I love Sandy’s use of zippers and old fabric bits in her projects; I try to make use of such things myself (although right now I feel like I just keep collecting those odd reuseable bits!) I especially love how she wove old fabric dress belts to make a chair seat.
