Mexican Embroidery Birthday Card

My friend loves Tatty Devine. So for her 30th birthday I made her a special Mexican Embroidery inspired birthday card! I love the green and gold leaves.

London, Christmas 2013

Mum and I made a day trip to London together. 
We went to Selfridges especially to see the Tatty Devine and Rob Ryan  jewellery collection. 

The display around the stand was lovely and I was very excited to see this collection for real. But I have to say, I was a little disappointed when I got up close. For a start, the display cases were low down, and bending to see these tiny things was a mission. The cabinets were back lit with blinding white light, making it very difficult to get a real good look at the pieces on display. And when I eventually managed to squint enough to see them they were so tiny and thin… I'd be terrified to wear these pieces. 

I was slightly more excited by the giant mirror balls in the stair-well:

We went over to the Barbican centre, where my cousin had a stall in the Christmas craft fair. She had been so creative with making tags and fold-flat display stands out of corrugated card. Her jewellery was mostly made from decorative buttons. Her online shop is The Old Biscuit Tin. The stall was well lit so all the buttons shone beautifully. She did well for sales on this day, even though it seemed fairly quiet there. 

We also squeezed in a quick trip to Columbia Road to see Rob Ryan's shop. 

Winning entry of the Tatty Devine Hot House Animation competition!

In June, Henning and I worked on a short animation to enter the Tatty Devine Hot House competition. 

We had the idea of working with a travelling mandala. This was a perfect theme for the piece, as the mandala is associated with the far east – hot countries – something the Spring Summer 2013 collection is taking inspiration from.

I started by drawing all the pieces of the Hot House collection in Illustrator… 

I also drew some extra patterns, taking inspiration from henna tattoos. This was a natural connection, inspired from the Tatty Devine Holi party back in March! This is my beautiful faux sister, Auria, with a fresh glitter henna tattoo at the TD Holi party in London, March 13.

I also worked on the title and credit screen, animated background sun rays and sound design.

As the Hot House collection features jungle leaves and animals, it was really important to me that the film had a warm, humid atmosphere and tropical background sound. With the mandala's connection to the far east, it seemed fitting to adorn the scene with the sound of a sitar. This instantly gives the piece a relaxed ambience, which also connects to the mandala's association with meditation. 

The overall effect is a fascinating array of curiosities circling before you…  

The Hot House Mandala from Charlotte Vogel on Vimeo.

It took the majority of the weekend to get it done, but it was well worth the effort. Firstly, we enjoy working collaboratively – sometimes things get hairy, but we always find a way to make things work. Secondly, WE WON! 

Ours was one of three animations chosen to receive a prize and be screened at the London Short Film Festival in January 2014. 

We got a really lovely comment from Harriet Vine: 

“This is one of my favourite entries! I love the soundtrack and the way Charlotte incorporated elements of the collection in the pattern.”

See the other winners here.

A very big thank you to Henning for making making it all come to life! You can see more of his amazing animations here.

Bunting bracelet!

I completed my bunting bracelet! 
I had to take a few flags off my necklace, but it didn't notice. 
Yay for matching jewellery! 
It's just a shame it doesn't have a Tatty Devine plectrum!

THE TATTY DEVINE BUNTING WORKSHOP

Saturday 21 July, 2012 

236 Brick Lane, London, E2 7EB

 18:00  The perfect welcome: tea and brownies!

 18:05  We started by choosing colours. This was the most challenging part of the workshop. I had been worrying about this since the day I signed up. I changed my mind every day. As I thought more about it I realised several things came clear for me: 

• It's spring / summer jewellery, so should be made of fresh tones that compliment colours I wear in these seasons.
• I have always liked wearing white and blue.
• I like a little element of something special – mirror or glitter looks great in the sunshine
• I tend to wear more silver jewellery than gold.

There are many colours which I could eliminate straight away, because I'm not so confident in wearing bright colours.

My first plan was white + silver. Then I found out they were not making mirror flags.
After seeing (and falling in love with) the film Moonrise Kingdom the week before the workshop, I instantly wanted more yellow in my life! However, I don't dress bright, I struggle to get it right. I think I'm often too safe. But I'm comfortable that way.

Blue + white + yellow was quite a strong contender. But the day before the workshop I was certain that only white flags would be the best solution for me. Simple and very easy to wear.

On the morning of the event I changed my mind to dark blue + white: this should also be easy for me to wear, still fairly safe, but not as plain as just white. When I got to the workshop I found they didn't have dark blue. To my delight though, they did have glitter pieces! I had to have glitter somewhere!

My final decision was light blue + white + gold glitter. Normally I'd go for silver over gold, but it was a bit too cold together. The addition of the gold glitter pieces gives it a special sparkle, warms it up a bit, and because it's quite a light gold tone it still looks fresh.

 18:15  Lovely Lucy, wearing the white Posie Garland Necklace, demonstrated the right way to hold pliers and the best way to open and close jump rings. It was so much fun fixing the pieces together I got carried away and made the longest single-line bunting necklace the Tatty Workshop Girls had seen. Their design has 12 flags. I wasn't satisfied until I reached 21 flags.

 18:50  After lots of fiddling I finally accepted the main part was complete.

 19:10  Lucy helped me to shorten the chain and re-attach the smallest rings. The chain needed to be very short, since my bunting was so long. It took a few attempts to get right, and Lucy was much quicker at attaching chain that me! 

 19:30  I left Brick Lane with a beautiful self-made piece which I will cherish and enjoy wearing as much as I enjoyed the making. 

I also left with a few other bits, including a few gifts and the first edition of the Rob Ryan newspaper.

The Tatty Devine Studio is full of magnificent things. 

I found Ashleigh on Facebook when we signed up for the event – she was going to the morning session. We messaged each other during the weeks before the workshop. It's a shame we didn't meet, but I'm really pleased to see the colours she chose. Gorgeous dress too. Someone needs to buy her the matching Tatty Devine swallow earrings!

Also in the morning session was Elisabeth: I didn't meet her either, but I found this image of her on Tatty Devine's Twitter and I think this might be my most favourite design I've seen. I really love the little sunshine surprise! I wish I'd thought of that!

MY NEXT MAKE:

Lucy let me take away a bit of chain, a few jump rings, and a few flags. I'm planing to make myself a matching bracelet, as soon as I find some tiny long-nose pliers. 

UPDATE:

I finished the bracelet…

See it here!