Gotta Love Digital Printing

When I was over in Sweden last year, one of the most valuable experiences I had from the exchange was being able to print digitally on fabric. 

This was a student project which allowed the students to have complete freedom and reign over what we wanted to experiment and achieve, as long as it is textile related. Some of my friends tried embroidery and knitting. I chose fashion illustration, something that I first did when I was 14 years old. The entire process was just soooo fun!! I loved every part of it!! Loved researching and reading blogs of illustrators and had much fun just drawing, experimenting and learnt that even a tiny stroke to the eyes or mouth (for example), could greatly alter the facial expression or look to the illustration. 

This project was meant to spread out over a period of 2 months but I had to condense much of the experimenting and designing leading up to the final outcome to just 2 weeks...because I squeezed in half a week of traveling to Spain into it with a friend, which was fun :). The 2 weeks after the trip basically saw me being stuck in my room the entire time, playing and re-playing all my Pixar movies whilst frantically sketching. My friends were so nice to even cook for me during that time! Love them to bits. Too bad we're now all scattered at different parts of the world now :( 

My desk in the midst of design- chaotic

I put together the illustrations into two patterns. Here's the final outcome!

Tedious project with lots of work involved, my design diary for this was thick as. But oh so worth it :)

Spiky Snow

Didn't know snow could look like this...

Taken when I was taking a train to Gothenburg somewhere around mid Jan this year. It was my last trip to Gothenburg from Borås by bus :(

The texture and form of the snow stuck on branches really surprised me!

Textilmuseet I Borås- Part II

Here are some photos that I've taken as soon as we came up from the underground archive from the Textile Museum :)

They're mostly photos of machines from past and present that are used for textile making.

Textilmuseet I Borås- Part I

Those that have been following my blog might have already known that right now, I'm on an exchange program in Sweden at a small, textile producing town called Borås. 

About a month or so we visited the Textile Museum of Borås. Just one trip there totally made my entire exchange experience absolutely worthwhile. The amount of collections and preservation of the archives are orderly, neat and every articles handled with much care. 

The photos will be devided into 2-3 posts as there are just too many that I've taken!

Here's a post of the underground archives. Felt a little like a dungeon, sort of. I was the only one taking photos in my class therefore fell behind and was locked inside here alone for under a minute. Kinda scary.

There are only 10-12 of us in my class. One of them looks like Diane Kruger and Agyness Deyn. See if you can spot them ;)

One of the museum curators/ staffs handling a kid's garment

 Traditional Swedish costumes

 Clothes are all alphabetically categorised

 An item from a wedding in the 18th C, with initials of guests all embroidered on it

 A wedding gift to a bride from her husband. As dated

 Collections of fabric swatches

That's Malin on the left. She could be the sweetest looking girl I've ever, ever seen. Maybe a pic of her next time

I like!

A designer from Marimekko. Just passed a couple of years back

That's my teacher, Tonje on the left :)

See you in the next post!

Lagerhouse

Was exploring the places around my student accomodation/ uni just beginning of this week. I walked past the huge ICA (huge grocery store like Safeway and Coles) that my student host brought me to and behold, I found Knalleland! One of the stores that they have there is Lagerhouse. Once inside the shop I didn't really get out of it till at least 45 mins after. So much to see! Totally LOOOVED the prints, designs and the prices were reasonable. The Swedes seem to put much thought in their designs and they're so adorable!

I couldn't help myself but to take a few snaps from the shop whilst people weren't noticing. Really wanted to share it over here with you guys! :)

Rubber duckies for 99kr, around AUD$15. Okay these ones are steep.

Cute Aprons! Good present for mum :) If you look carefully, notice this apron is a slip-on!

Tin cans

Crochet and woven blankets

This would by far be the cutest marshmallows EVER! Look, even the marshmallows are cloud shaped!

Teeth in your drink. Yum.

Candies and chocolates! The green jelly beans on the right said "Eat your greens or else you won't have your candy"

More candies...

A Hello Kitty lolly that also spells fat. Cute to see but I wouldn't eat it.

Couldn't resist myself. I felt like I had to get this place when I saw it there. Approx AUD$6 for the plate. The red plastic one was from here too.

The pillow case that reminded me much of Sam's band, Bus Company. These are VWs and caravans, close enough to a bus haha

My AUD$3 pillow case!! That's around 20kr or SEK

Another 2 items I bought were the green/ dark blue printed cushion (shown in previous post) and an umbrella with the same prints as the VWs and caravans. 

These little prints, colours and designs make me real happy :)

My Room In Borås

Hej San! As some of you might have known, I'm am currently in Sweden on an exchange program for about 5 months. I've just arrived 3 days ago in Borås, a small but comfortably sized town that has a history on textile design and production, after spending about 2 first nights in Stockholm. I have already got some photos posted on Facebook of Stockholm but I thought I'd make my debut entry of Sweden of my room here! 

My arms and legs must be quite toned now for literally being trained from 3 full days pulling, tugging and carrying heavy loads and walking about the town, frantically looking for shops that would have what I needed.

This is how it looks like after 2.5-3 days of full-on cleaning, washing, scrubbing and shopping for household items including bedsheets and linen.

My room door with door to the bathroom on left. Yes, I only brought 2 pairs of shoes from home

What you'd see when you open the room door. I love my red floor mat. Makes my new abode a little homier

If you wanna go on a diet by having poor appetite, that sucker of a drainer on the bottom right corner of this photo can certainly help when you turn it upside down

I always imagined mops as the big and wild hair of rockstars when I was little. I always liked taking mum's mops and swinging their 'hair' about. Swoosh!

My beautiful and bright bed!! You got no idea how these colours cheered me up whilst not having my loved ones around

"Looking out my window, I see the trees, blowing in the breeze"- Praise Him, by Ps Sam Evans

I've got a street view from my window. I rather be living in the apartment opposite haha

I found this cushion selling for 39kr or AUD$6 from Lagerhaus. I love the print, colour and how it makes me feel- happy :)

For those that are curious, here's an unintended long entry of my account of my first day in Borås.

It was the worst compared to the other subsequent 2 days. I woke up before 6am, took a train from Stockholm to Borås, changed 3 trains whilst having to carry a handbag, a 10kg camera & laptop bag and pulling 22 kg of luggage. If pulling the bag and walking about searching for my way didn't leave me panting already, I had to fight with the other commuters for space to put my bags. With a small designated luggage area crammed with bags of all sizes already, I had to resort to putting my TWENTY-TWO KG bag at the overhead compartment. That was madness. Wouldn't have been possible without the help of another girl, who laughed when I said my bag's too fat when it becamed jammed halfway after we shakily brought the load up to the compartment. I was amazed that the women were more helpful than the men I've seen. No guys offered to help in that train. 

The thought of doing this for another x5 times, up-and-down thing, was like....OMG, in the span of 3.5 hours. To make things worse, the intervals between changes were short, which meant I had to rush. I found out I had to rush even more when my first train arrived late at the station that I needed to board my 2nd train at. And guess what, I had to change platforms while carrying that stupid fat junk around, which involved taking the escalators WITHOUT even having any extra hands to grasp on the rail. Same rush happened when I arrived at my last change but now with a lift :), though a very slow one. 

Arrived in Borås FINALLY with shaky hands and wearied arms and legs from all those load carried. Walked a bit to locate my accommodation.

Got to my room. Very different from how the website showed. A little disappointed. But got over quickly and got my hands on cleaning my room. Several trips later of getting all my cleaning mates like the broom, mop, brush, detergents etc from Ica, I spent nearly the next 5 hours cleaning my 19sqm room. 

Though my bathroom constitutes to maybe 15-20% of total area, I spent the longest cleaning it. You name it, I scrubbed it. Heck, I even wiped some walls and mopped a part of the ceiling. What left me most traumatised was the shower drainer when I took it out and turn it upwards. THE GAPS OF THE DRAINER HAD ALL THESE SUPER GROSS PURPLE FILM ALL AROUND IT that I literally had to turn my head away while scrubbing it as I immersed it a shallow bucket filled with mostly detergent. Had dinner and a shower past 10pm. 

At least I knew the room is clean. I could then sleep in peace :) :) I must say I got this cleaning trait from mum. She's most pedantic bout details when cleaning. 

Enough of venting. It's time for some sleep...

A cute VW and caravan printed pillow case from the same shop I got the green printed cushion. I got an umbrella from there in the same print as well. Reminded of my friend's band, Bus Company.

...my bed is calling me!