Tipi Living week one

The Big Lodge

The view from our tipi door

Momma and Whitman

Gary waking up.

Michael at the Hearth

Warm weather dish station

Where's the lizard?!?

Fair found a friendly butterfly

Fair and Isla

Whitman taking a break from the Legos

Whitman's moment of triumph!

Fair outside of the tipi

Ophelia of the Woods

Tipi Village  Ashland, Oregon

We just stepped into a new chapter of our lives, moving the family into Tipi Village and begining our transition in a new way of existing.  We are all excited about slowing everything down and being more connected to the routines of day-to-day living.  We make a fire for every meal, collect water from a Mountain Spring and share our moments with the other inhabitants of Tipi Village. 

Fair Ophelia Designs will be morphing into an off the grid set-up, using a treadle sewing machine.  I am excited to see how our tipi living with influence my creations.  Rogue Dwellings is based out of Tipi Village as well, a tipi-making venture of the founding family.  Ande has quite the sewing studio set-up and will be helping me fine tune mine as well. He has offered to let me have to scraps of canvas for my own projects.  I plan to focus on using natural dyes wildcrafted from native, local plants for my bags and clothing.  There is so much to learn and some many things I want to experiment in!!!!

My hope is to use this blog to share our families experience of tipi living and also continue to showcase Fair Ophelia Designs.

If you have any questions please email me and I will respond as soon as I can... we check emails at least once a week.

If you would like to learn more about Tipi Village here is Kayla and Ande's blog:

http://ourtipilife.wordpress.com/

Burlap Creations -- The Last 6 Years...

Coffee Coasters

Wrist Cuffs

Large Pleated Market Bags

Messenger Bags

Shoulder Bags

Small Messenger Bags

Tree Skirts

Over the past 6 years I have found a lot of things to make out of burlap coffee sacks.  It all began with a gift request from a friend who owned a coffee shop in St. Charles, MO and from there my desire to make things out of re-purposed materials grew.  I had to take a break from burlap for the last couple of years, to pursue other sewing creations, but I am ready to take on the coffee sacks once again!

If you want me to make you a custom burlap creation email me!!!!

fairopheliadesigns@gmail.com

I'm up for a challenge, so send me ideas for other things I can make using coffee sacks.

TODAY ONLY!!!!!!

SHHHHH!!!!!!
30% OFF EVERYTHING IN MY ETSY SHOP!!!!!
coupon code: 30PERCENTOFF

fairophelia.etsy.com

new bags!!

medium messenger bags

raw canvas market bag

teal market bag with hemp/yak twill interior fabric...fancy.

moving on and getting one step closer...

Let me introduce you our new neighbors!! We moved the family out to an amazing converted historic milk house just fifteen minutes from our old house. We were offered this wonderful opportunity by Gwen, owner of The Green Grocer , in Oregon City. The whole family loves it! Michael has decided to make all of the furniture for our new home and has been working really hard for the past week building a bed, a table, three bookshelves and many other wonderful shelves and additions. I'll be posting pictures as soon as everything is put away and in order!

I also have been making bags again! I want to wait on making more slip dresses and skirts until the festivals start up. The bags are looking really nice. Moving has forced me to go through my fabrics and I found some really great bag-making remnants I had tucked away and forgotten about!!

So even though I'm putting adult clothes on hold... I have been designing some new little kid dresses from pillowcases and linens. This one has a sash and a bustle!!!

Our new home does not have internet, but I will be working at the Green Grocer a few days a week and will try to post on a regular basis. Farewell till then!!!

The Crafty Underdog

I will be selling my stuff at The McMenamins Crafty Underdog, on Dec. 11th. 11am-5pm. I'm really excited, but need to work on display ideas... It's half to space I'm used to working with. I hope people drop by and say hello!! Lots of great Portland crafters and musicians. Until then I will be finishing moving my studio into our new shared creative space, getting aquainted with my borrowed serger and building up my supply for the holiday bazaar.
The family and I have been learning a lot of new skills (twining, basket weaving, cordage, and more in-depth natural dying)and I can't wait to share our creations!!!!

Putting Our Feet Down- A Sewing Machine Basics Workshop

This weekend I taught my first sewing workshop, at In Other Words!! I.O.W. is one of the first bookstores I found, when I first moved to Portland in 1998, and it has evolved into an amazing community/feminist resource center. My workshop is focused on teaching basic skills to people who have sewing machines. (I'm trying to get donated machines for those students who don't have access to one) It started off slow, as I went over each students machine, because each sewing machine is unique, especially the older models. We figured out threading and tension and a few troubleshooting pointers on how to find out why things are not going as planned. Everyone caught on pretty quick and a few went home with cute wrist cuffs and applique patches. This next weekend we will begin our bag-making project and wade through all of the amazing fabric donations I received for the class!!!

I really believe that the less one has to depend on others for resources, the more sovereignty one has over their own life. Providing skill shares, like sewing classes, to others is one step each of us can take to start taking control over our lives. Learning these skills from older generations can reconnect us to the past and give us insight and sometimes a new perspective. The more inter-generational my community is the more grounded I feel. I hope that the younger generations can look past any political/lifestyle differences they have with their elders and glean as much knowledge and skills they can before all pre-high tech knowledge dies out.

That said... anyone in the Portland area, who wants to attend my next session of workshops, in December, should email me to ensure a spot. fairopheliadesigns@gmail.com

my love for oddities

I have been making magnets from found ephemera and odd images for the last six months for craft fairs, but never thought to photograph them, until now...
I really love my oddity magnets and they are doing really well at my booths. They are made from formica samples and really cheap to make, so I can sell them at a really low price! Most of the images are from really old alchemy manuscripts or vintage clip art.

tattoos

My husband, Michael, has started tattooing again with both methods of using a gun and the traditional stick and poke... so I got another one done a few months ago in his new studio area...

Michael also likes tattooing himself... these are some new ones he did on his leg.

We often work as team, where I draw/design the tattoo. Here's one we just did on one of our friends of an Oregon Elderberry plant.

It's pretty addictive to get them and really exciting to help Michael and take part in something that going to be a with someone for the rest of their lives.
...And this means more tattoos now that I don't have to pay for them.

Etsy Update

I've been working a lot on my clothing creations. I have been looking at many victorian techniques of draping and ruffling to create a slightly steampunk aesthetic. Since it's getting cold here, in the Northwest, I think that I'm going to venture more into things that can keep you warm (i.e. hooded scraf, wrist warmers) and adding bustles to anything I can (i.e. vests, skirts). I may hold off on anymore slip dresses until the weather warms up. Here are a few of the clothes that I just added to my etsy store...

Hand-dyed gathered Slip skirt

Skirt made from a hand-dyed bedskirt w/ a bustle

Fair modeling a tablecloth skirt

Beautiful hand-dyed slip dress

Bloomers from a pair of hand-dyed slip pants

Using vintage slips and linens to make these clothes, fits in line with my belief that we really never have to buy anything "new" again... and it makes me work with patterns even less!!!! I hold firm to my policy that I use mainly salvaged, upcycled, recycled or vintage fabrics and materials. I'm still using thread that I salvaged from an abandoned embroidery shop, fabric samples from my days as a sewing tech for an interior design boutique, linens donated from nice old ladies, and unique table clothes and bed skirts from thrift stores and of course finding vintage treasures at the two places in Portland that every seamstress should know about... The Goodwill Bins and Knittn' Kitten.

in the studio..

fancy wrist warmers...

My first bustle...

Tonight was the final Last Thursday of 2011, so now I will be posting all of my new clothing creations on my etsy store site. I almost sold out of my slip dresses and have a list of custom order customers. I hope this holiday season is a busy one! I will be a vendor at a few Holiday Bazaars, here in Portland, and will post the details as I get them.

Thanks to all the folks who stopped by my booth tonight!!

my new obsession

Hand-dying and embellishing slips and lace is my new found obsession. A few of my friends have started playing around with slips and I caught the bug! I have no training or experience in dressmaking, but when you have the foundation already provided with the slip it is really amazing what you can create. I have always been fascinated with the steampunk aesthetic, so I have been researching more victorian styles and really want to start incorporating bustles, ruffles and draping into my creations. I'm up to my neck in vintage lace and trims and it's time to put it all to use.

...and I think I'm finally finding uses for the tons of neck ties I've been hording...

I'm going to be uploading a lot of slips, dresses, and neck collars,to my etsy store, at the end of the month. I'm also working on some overskirts made from vintage table clothes and trim. I really need a grommet/snap bench press to finish a lot of my other projects, but they are really hard to come by, unless you have a couple extra hundreds laying around...

I'm really enjoying this new direction of sewing and the inspiration I'm getting from steampunk. I think the eccentric, yet practical, stylings will be a nice challenge.

Back from tour again!!!!

So I just got back from another tour with my band holy! holy!holy!. We went on a three month tour circling the entire country. Thirteen people, including three little ones, all sharing our school bus and invoking the spirit of resistance and wildness. It was exhausting, beautiful and life changing.

Oakland, CA @ The Revolution Cafe

Canon City, CO

I've been busy making bags and a ton of new accessories. Go over to my etsy shop to see what I've been up to!!!