BrisStyle indie Twilight Market, King George Square Brisbane

BrisStyle indie Twilight Market, King George Square Brisbane Australia.

They came, they saw and they experienced, what an amazing night was had at the last brisStyle Indie Twilight Market of the year. Such a dense array of shoppers, but all had one common theme uniting them, a smile of joy as they discover new treasures at each and every stall.

Over 100 stallholders braved the impending rain to be rewarded by a clear starry night worthy of Van Gogh himself-just perfect for marketing! Set against the backdrop of the spectacular Brisbane City Council Christmas Tree in King George Square.

It was a handmade, art and craft extravaganza, I saw jewellery and heard jazz, cards and cushions, buttons and bags, bunting and brooches, prints and pincushions, and even, yes you guessed it a partridge in a pear tree!

BrisStyle, a not for profit incorporated association representing over 150 Brisbane handmadies and artists has played an important role in the growth and promotion of Brisbane’s burgeoning handmade scene. Stallholders at these markets are made up entirely of the very talented brisStyle members. With this in mind the talented folk at brisStyle always manage to put on a knockout array of stalls with a focus on handmade quality and variety.

These markets are totally everyone friendly, families, kids, prams and even dogs. With plenty of room to spread out and enjoy King George Square these markets can get pretty busy with browsing market goers and kids happily running around, creating a real sense of community, something that I believe plays an important part of what handmade means.

If you love hunting down the latest trends, general handmade goodness and supporting Indie business then you have to make it your mission to get to the next brisStyle Market, the 2012 dates have already been set and it all kicks off again on Friday the 24^th of February.

You can find all of next years market dates and out more about brisStyle at www.bris-style.com .

Story by Guest Editor – Emmaline Lamond

www.emmalinelamond.com.au

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Lately I have been feeling like all of my clothes are looking a little worn or feeling a little tired. I don’t want to buy new clothes, though, so there’s been a lot of mending, altering and adding special touches to things that otherwise might get overlooked or not worn at all.

As an example, not too long ago I added a little bit of embroidery to a T-shirt, which was a lot of fun to do and made me start eyeing all my solid-colored garments and wondering how they might look with some stitching added.

Of course you can cross stitch on garments, too, whether T-shirts or woven tops, skirts, pants and more. But it can be tricky to transfer cross stitch designs to your garment to make stitching easier.

Much like with embroidery, it’s great to use a water soluble stabilizer to keep your fabric in place while you stitch and to transfer your design (or your cross stitch grid at least) while you’re stitching. Then you just wash away the stabilizer when you’re done and it will look like the stitching has always been there.

Ashley General Handmade uses Sulky Stick ‘n Stitch, which is a product I use, too. It’s easy to use and washes away cleanly.

To make it even easier, she designed some printable cross stitch grids at different counts that you can print out to draw your own cross stitch designs, but you can also print the grid right on the Sulky, so you can stitch on top of squares and then remove them when you’re done.

Brilliant, right?

She has pages as big as 8 count and all the way down to 20 (remember: the bigger the number the smaller the stitches will be) that you can download and print to make your own designs and also use to make stitching on clothing easier. I’m definitely going to try this the next time I want to cross stitch on fabric!

You can grab her printables over at Ashley General Handmade.

[Photo: Ashley General Handmade]

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