summer market double header!

hello again, we have a very nice announcement to make - just a quick blog post to announce our latest market round up. and we have a very, very nice double header ahead in our favourite scottish venues in edinburgh and then glasgow! celebrate the summer with some colourful block prints and browse all the loveliness scotland’s designers have to offer.

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19th - 20th august - dovecot studios, edinburgh

first up is our bestest most favourite venue in scotland, the dovecot studios in edinburgh. this fabulous venue will be home to a fantastic line-up of local makers, curated by support the makers. the dovecot is also a fringe festival venue with exhibitions and of course, their lovely café and shops so do come along.

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26th - 27th august - the briggait, glasgow

and afterwards, our favourite market returns. we absolutely love coming to the wasps studios markets as these markets are always very well organised and lovingly curated with some of the most engaged, creative audience of shoppers. it’s just a great experience all round and i can’t wait to talk to visitors and browse the lineup again. do come along

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after all these fairs we will take a little break before we come back in the autumn and winter - but our shop remains online always so do browse our collections and let us know if we can help with anything at all. happy browsing!

ZITOZZA ON TV!

we have been waiting to announce this news for a while, but we’re finally allowed to say it out loud: zitozza will be on TV!

i am absolutely thrilled to have had the chance to participate in a new project for the BBC titled ‘make it at market’, filmed in beautiful leicestershire earlier this year. the idea of the show is to explore how some talented makers and crafters are turning their hobbies into a business with the help of being mentored by an expert designer - and i got selected to be one of these, to be mentored by the wonderful piyush suri of handmade in britain!)

the challenges were a lot of fun, and obviously the business mentoring has been a huge help, all this while also having met all these amazing and talented people completely flourishing from all kinds of creative disciplines made this a really, really inspiring experience. it will be definitely worth a watch, if not for some “zitozza-behind-the-scenes”, then for the variety of creativity and the immense amounts of talent that this show will cover.

the show is finally confirmed to have an airing date: 3rd january 2023! save the date and do tune in…. eeek!

edit: if you want to learn a bit more about how the experience went, read our next blog post about the episode!

festive market triple header!

with the festive season in full swing, we’re announcing our upcoming festive market dates - we’re not leaving scotland for this season but we do come to glasgow twice! so make sure you come to one of these to touch our tactile textiles and leave with some brand new handmade homewares - for yourself, or a loved one!

first date: 19-20 november 2022, kibble palace, botanics, glasgow - from 10am to 4pm
- a beautiful, unique setting with a bunch of talented scottish designers, as usual with tea green events, the line-up is going to be exciting, colourful and sustainable.

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second date: 26th november, CRAFTED market at the dca, dundee - from 11am to 17:30pm
- another fab line-up, curated by the team at the dundee contemporary arts themselves, it’s guaranteed to bring you the best of the most cutting edge and contemporary designers. please note this is only a one-day event, not the full weekend, so make sure you come and visit on the saturday!

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third date: 3rd - 4th december, wasps studios winter market, the briggait, glasgow - from 10am to 5pm
- this is a brand new one for me, but with the hosts being wasps studios, the talent and the quality is guaranteed, at the fabulous setting of the briggait in glasgow. this will be the last one of the year for zitozza, so please do come.

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it sure will be a busy few weeks ahead, but it is always worth to meet in person, and new pieces, not yet listed on the website are definitely coming, curated to fit in with the line-up with each of these events so please visit. and although the live events finish on the 4th december, we remain open online 24/7.

for deliveries before christmas though, please place your order before thursday 15th december. thank you and have a fab winter.

zitozza coming to handmade oxford!

hello! this is just a short announcement but a very, very exciting one: zitozza is now coming to handmade oxford, a 4-day festival of arts and crafts, taking place between 23rd june till 26th june at waterperry gardens in oxfordshire, organised by handmade in britain.

it’s a very special opportunity for us to meet a new crowd of interested buyers and clients, so we are preparing to launch some new collections for this. it feels really amazing to be included in the line-up with so many talented makers from all over the UK, so we’re working on making a good impression there! we are incredibly busy growing our product range and develop new surface pattern designs, it will all be worth the wait and we really look forward to debuting there! you can buy your tickets here and we hope to see you there soon!

guest post for support the makers!

hello readers! it’s been a while, but i have been blogging, i promise. just not here, but over there at the support the makers, whose network i joined earlier this year, and decided to introduce myself in a short blog post, in which i share a little bit about my background, my motivations and what really is behind the zitozza brand. go have a read for yourselves here!

unfortunately, my participation in their 1st may market at bellfield, portobello (the one announced in the march newsletter), had to be cancelled again - at least not due to covid, but for a much more exciting reason which i will be able to share later! however, it’s still worth a visit so please do go and support the line-up of talented makers from all over the UK.

i’m sure i will be there at some point with other of their markets (a pop-up shop in london is also in the works now - more of that later!)

i will have more exciting news and markets to announce soon, and until then, please keep an eye on the blog, our instagram and of course the newsletter!

market alert - support the makers

good afternoon - this just a very quick announcement that zitozza joined the support the makers network and will be attending the spring market on sunday 6th march, at bellfield, portobello, edinburgh (16b bellfield st, portobello, edinburgh EH15 2BP) between 11am and 4pm.

this is a ticketed event (costs £1.50) so hurry up and purchase yours now - and see you there soon!

UPDATE 03/03/2022

many apologies but due to a positive covid test zitozza will be unable to attend the market. we are definitely, definitely going to the next one though (same place, in may), so stay tuned and i will leave this post here because i’m sure that it will be still worth attending!

jutefest comes to an early end with cancellation (but still plenty of reasons celebrate!)

hello! we’re so sorry to have had to share the bad news with you on saturday, about the cancellation of our social media about our last jutefest event. i hope you haven’t travelled to dundee this weekend! if you haven’t heard, the very last jutefest was unfortunately cancelled due to staff having to isolate at the venue (scrapantics, our landlords have been utterly fantastic about this whole venture though so huge thanks to them!). and to be honest, for it only to happen to the last in a series of 4 is not a bad record, so we are celebrating our success and we are also thinking about how to come back with something bigger and better next year perhaps.

so if you only just heard of us, the best is yet to come. jutefest consists of three of us - jist jute, knotty but nice, and zitozza. because we all work with jute in different, but consistently modern and contemporary ways, we set out to bring the cloth back to its city and celebrate its sustainable qualities - and maybe showing the locals along the way why it’s cool again! while dundee has an enormous heritage to build on, jute is not a thing of the past but very much the future too.

photo by deborah chapman at artantics

photo by deborah chapman at artantics

we’ve done a lot of cool things together and it’s been an achievement in itself, i think, to pull this off on a shoestring with a few weeks notice. indeed there’s a lot of potential in our abilities to do something bigger and better soon! throughout the event series, alison has successfully managed to crowdfund a whole weaving loom and lessons to learn to weave - you can see the progress of all this on her instagram along with the first pieces. don’t they look fabulous? and maite was busy crocheting, unstoppably producing her work live at the fair whilst chatting to visitors about those durable bags! it was fascinating to witness that speed.

as for zitozza - of course, the embroidered wall-art collection also debuted at the jutefest and it did look good on the turqouise wall of the venue! and as a demonstration of our craft, two smaller lengths of fabric were printed live in front of enthusiastic visitors... i think one will become a lampshade, and the other a rug (see the pictures below!) and it’s coming very soon so watch this space and subscribe to the newsletter, to make sure you don’t miss out on any of our new plans (and the nice things made of these!)

in conversation with kate mclaughlin of align jewellery

hello february! we are well into the grind of 2021 now - and for an extra dose of creative stimulant i decided on a new series of blog posts. as you know i’m constantly looking for new things to look at, read and new people to know about so i figured you might feel the same after a busy january. therefore i am happy to publish the first in a series of conversations with designers, makers or craftspeople of all disciplines whose values or inspirations i share. my first virtual guest is kate mclaughlin, architect-turned-jeweller of align jewellery.

ZITA: hi! first of all, tell me a little bit about yourself, what you do and how you got there?

KATE: hi! i'm kate, and i'm a jeweller but my background is in architecture. i create architecturally influenced jewellery that is quite minimal, bold and uncompromising in its linear and geometric qualities. i studied architecture - i went straight from school to edinburgh college of art so it was very much "art school architecture" and we were really taught how to design over many many years and this is so deeply ingrained now. we were taught a kind of design process and we were just doing it over and over and over again to the point where i can't not do it.

ZITA: i think i know what you mean!

KATE: and after i studied architecture i went into practice and i realised that commercial architecture wasn't for me and my jewellery hobby kind of took over unintentionally, in a series of happy accidents. i didn't consciously decide to quit one and do the other but one faded in and one faded out. but that "drilling in of a design process" of being really critical, and analytical, and questioning everything - i couldn't make anything in any other way. when i explain to people that i was an architect, they always immediately understand, i guess it makes sense, aesthetically. but i think my process is also very influenced. and some of the tools i use came with me too: occasionally i think the easiest way to do it would be a CAD drawing. sometimes i still think of things as "plan, elevation, section", and i look at the different sides and draw an elevation of a piece of jewellery. i'm fairly sure that regular jewellers don't think like that or use those terms even! so there are layers of how it is architectural. does this make sense?

ZITA: yes, it totally does! and i like how you describe your work on your website and social media, that you call it "wearable architecture" and to me as well it signals that you haven't really shifted from that mindset. or was that not an easy shift? you talk about a gradual change, of one fading in and one fading out. did you find it easy?

KATE: the architect in me will always be there, it’s just how i earn money shifted, one eased in and one eased out. but actually, part of it was really really hard because i spent so long aspiring to be, and in a way fighting for architecture, that it's really, really hard to give up and walk away from all of that. actually, i still do a little bit of practice and a very little consultancy work for a local practice as well. part of it is keeping my hand in, but part of it is a comfort blanket thing... my last ten years strand back to my previous life!

ZITA: i understand that!

KATE: as for "the how easy it is" thing - i did, at one point, in my jewellery tried not to do architecture. at the time i think i was in a huff with it. i thought “nah, don't want to do that anymore”, i’d just turn my back on it and do something completely different. so what i was going to do was freeform and floaty and natural, and i made these things that were all organic and petal-like, and i didn't know how to make them into a piece of jewellery. so i made a box, to put the things in, and by the end of finishing the jewellery, i had kept the box and ditched the organic freeform things and had this really really geometric cage thing. so at that point i thought, oh, okay, so it's not a choice!

ZITA: wow! that's exactly what i was trying to get at, whether you can change your mindset or not. but you explained about your training how that's so deeply ingrained so i was wondering if it's even possible to get rid of that.

KATE: yeah i'm sure it's possible, i believe people and brains have the ability to re-learn but i don't know i if i want to re-learn badly enough to put in that effort.

ZITA: i can relate to that! and is there a particular style or school of architecture that you're inspired by or is it more about the space? is there anything very particular you look out for or have a "trained eye" for - or is it just space and form that really catches you?

KATE: i don't like subscribing to a particular school - what i really appriecate and notice are small parts. i’d never say "that's my favourite building" or style, but there are details. either really little, like a window surround, that little. or a specific view, or it's often about how different things meet. how a building meets where it is or how different materials meet each-other or how spaces meet each-other, it's that kind of intersection. and it's interesting and beautiful in really mundane architecture. if you notice those things you can see them all around you all of the time, even in what should be quite uninspiring places.

ZITA: oh yeah, that does absolutely resonate with me. i work like that too, i find patterns, not jewellery in the same forms, but i find the beauty in the same things too. i find rhythm and texture in cityscapes and gas tanks, cranes and places like that.

KATE: yes!

ZITA: and i guess where i find a pattern you find a spatial form?

KATE: yes, flat forms to me feel unsatisfying, i always try and find three-dimensional forms, which is what i mean about wearable architecture. when i'm out and about and looking, i get quite often drawn to textures. the rough, building material textures, do you know what i mean? concrete or things that are cracked or worn.

ZITA: oh yes i get that! me too.

KATE: i know that doesn't translate to my jewellery but when i come home with weird architectural photos it's quite often a textural thing!

ZITA: yes! that's interesting. i was just going to ask about that, would you consider using other materials? right now your jewellery is silver, isn't it?

KATE: it is!

ZITA: so do you look to expand or incorporate other materials in your work?

KATE: i would love to. i'm not sure what form it would take. and, i'm a also slightly wary, because if a new material was going to involve a new skillset, which really excites me and i really want to do, i would also see myself disappearing into a rabbit hole... and never coming back!

ZITA: yeah there’s always that danger.

KATE: but i'm interested in it and also there is a nice thing in taking something that's really common and everyday and making it into something that's really precious. like using concrete. or using found objects but setting them as if they were precious stones and making them feel as if they were really precious jewellery. actually, i've recently commissioned a lady who works with jesmonite to make me little props to take my photographs on, and they all have slightly different patterns on them. they are all super smooth and the texture is beautiful, and there are patterns in the colour - they are not just grey, they are really lovely and looking at them makes me think "woah i see the potential".

ZITA: that sounds really cool. so if other materials are not the immediate next step for you, then what is? what can we expect to see from you next?

KATE: so going back to the texture thing, at the moment texture doesn't really feature a lot in my work because i always thought it's about the form. it had to be about form and nothing else so texture hasn't really been in it, so texture is my next thing! it's been ongoing and i have a "shopping list" of some traditional and not so traditional things to experiment with. i don't know what it will look like in jewellery, so my next thing is a non-jewellery experiments on how to create different textures and maybe going back through my architectural close-ups and look into how i can re-create some of that. but step one will not involve any jewellery because it's less of a pressured way to do it! making it into jewellery will be step two.

ZITA: maybe you could exhibit your experiments as sculptures!

KATE: yes i would love my experiments to be a beautiful thing, even if it's only a “sketchbook” of samples. because then you could back to it over and over again and you might end up discovering loads of textures or loads of techniques so it might just be a case of keeping your records - so i would quite like whatever it is to be a beautiful thing to keep and go back to in the future.

ZITA: that sounds like a great plan!

KATE: i think that's quite achievable in lockdown, it's something i can do by myself in the studio so that's the immediate plan.

ZITA: and, having spoken about inspiration - does it find you spontaneously or do you go and actively research?

KATE: it is very spontaneous. when i go out and about and i see something i like i take a picture of it without thinking too hard why i like it or what i'm going to do with that, it's just a photo of a weird thing. i don't think it's any more than that, it's just like a gut instinct. often when i'm making i've been making it up as i go along more. sometimes things just take a turn as you're making, and you see an opportunity and follow your nose. i do have collections that are way more thought out and involved a lot more research. they were a bit more engineered in a way, i thought about how a collection of pieces sit together, but it's been a while since i worked like that and i've been thinking recently that maybe i need to go back to working like that.

ZITA: thinking about research - and this is something i want to ask from everyone i have these conversations with - can you recommend a book, or recommend someone whose work you find inspiring?

KATE: the person i'm going to recommend to you is karlyn sutherland, and she is a glass artist. i studied with her so she also started out in architecture. she did a phd and in it she looked to place and it lead her to glass, she made glass art about place as part of her architecture phd. she is a world renowned glass artist and her work is really architectural. it's really amazing and deceptively simple. you would really have to look to understand - you should definitely, definitely look her up.

ZITA: thanks, that's great! i’ll check her work out. i'm a bit of a design junkie and it's why i want to ask from everyone, i love discovering new work and it also says a lot about the person recommending it i think what they find most interesting.

KATE: that's a good question to ask!

ZITA: and the very last one - apart from your own website, where else can my readers find your work or buy your jewellery?

KATE: right now, a lot of my stockists are shut obviously. hopefully you can find my work at yorkshire sculpture park, as part of their made exhibition - whenever they're allowed to open back. and just yesterday i found out that i've been given a place at the digital craft festival which is happening at the last weekend of march (26th - 28th). so you can find my work through that!

ZITA: brilliant! i think that's an excellent news to close this with! thank you so much for your time, i think it’s been a meaningful and inspiring conversation, and i hope to speak in person some time.

KATE: thanks!

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links:

A L I G N J E W E L L E R Y

Kate McLaughlin - maker profile on Craft Scotland

Digital Craft Festival

Yorkshire Scupture Park - Made exhibition

Karlyn Sutherland - Heller Gallery

stitched patterns

ok so this is going to be another more visual blog post and i might have to share a little bit more of the history behind these prints. (if you’re interested in the full origin story, you can visit my other website where i have already written a blog post about it here, however i’m quite willing to write more if you want to read!)

anyway, one of the base of zitozza was a uni project called “anthropocene” where one of the three collection called “GRIDS” consisted of block printed jute (now the SOROMPÓ, TRANZIT, FÁZIS and a small part of the SKÁLA tilesets). however each of these also had an extra “haptic” layer over the print and on the “GRIDS” collection these were stitches.

the main inspiration behind these initial patterns were of course actual grids, transport networks, cranes, gas tanks, industrial architecture, signals and signs, that kind of stuff. so naturally, more lines, straight and zigzag stitches were applied for that kind of “wiring” effect.

i’m going to put some products with these surface effects up for sale in the coming weeks to test and see how you’d like them. below then is the picture gallery of these older ideas. these are all from that old project (hence the aligning colours) with the more grid-like tiles, and linear or zigzaggy stitches that complement the surface. the colour inspiration came from industrial signage too at the time but i just love the nautical effect of these.

as for the future, i’m especially interested in this effect on the lampshades for the potential contrast against the illumination. what do you think? would this work on a rug? or a cushion?

and about the other, more brutalist, blocky patterns… combining embroidery with these is also possible, even with different colours and bolder areas, however these will be an entirely new category of haptic, tactile rugs and lampshades and cushion. see also the BRUTEJUTE project and watch this space….! :)