Hello 2010 - and some thankyou's

Happy 2010 everyone!! 2009 was the year of great change and growth, and I reckon 2010 will be the year of simplifying, streamlining, and doing things right. A calmer sort of year. I hope!

I was hoping to do a recap of 2009 at some point soon, but firstly a couple of quick thank you's to some people who have mentioned my work recently (I often forget to do this, so thanks to anyone who's blogged my fabric at any time, I really do appreciate it).


Thanks to Katja from the gorgeous Nestled In blog for featuring my Ginkgo print in a wishlist!



And thanks to Kaydee from The Quest To Become A Well Rounded Woman for including my Cushion tutorial on her blog.

xx

Market Trolley - refashioned

Market Trolley - refashioned :)

I love how the Christmas holidays finally give me a chance to be creative-for-the-sake-of-it, to do non-work-related crafty stuff. The reality of running Ink & Spindle is that there's not really a lot of creative work in my day to day. It's a lot of admin and management and strategic stuff, with a splash of creativity here and there.

I was actually quite worried about how I'd spend the two weeks break being freshly single and living alone, but have successfully managed to fill the time with friends and family and bike riding and making, with not too many miserable moments.

So anyway, one of the projects that I invented to keep myself busy was crafting up this market trolley! I've seen these trolleys becoming more and more common around town, and ended up finding a black one which I thought was a bit plain and boring. So I decided to crafthance it :)

I took photos to document the process if you want to have a go:


Getting started

-Plain market trolley ($15 at Big W or $20 at Safewa- i mean Woolworths)
-Thick red thread of any variety (I used crotchet cotton)
-Design sketched in sketchbook
-Tailor's chalk or anything else that's removable


Chalk outline of my design and the beginning stitches

I started by sketching some design ideas in my sketchbook and then transferring them onto the bag with tailor's chalk. The chalk comes off really easily though which is good for fixing mistakes in your drawing but it also rubs off as you work. I just went over my lines as they started to fade.


Stitching away...

I found a nice large needle and started to topstitch the design. The waterproof fabric of the bag is quite thick though so it can be hard to get the needle through and it made my thumbs sore. I just persisted and spaced the work out over a couple of days.


Almost finished!


Et Voila! Market Trolley with Kangaroo Paw design

I ♥ Melbourne

Melbourne 'tea bag' by Reaburn Design (Westgate Bridge!? Oh yeah THERE's a landmark...)

I'm sure you all know how much of a devoted fan I am of my hometown. So when Glenda from Reaburn Design came by our studio with some lovely totes that she'd been making from vintage teatowels, I laid claim to the Melbourne one straight away!


Melbourne 'tea bag' by Reaburn Design


Melbourne 'tea bag' by Reaburn Design - back

Reaburn doesn't have a website yet, but she does have a pop-up shop appearing in Kensington as of 2nd January I think! I'll blog about that properly when I have her flyer in front of me :)

Oh and whilst we're in the kitchen, I couldn't resist taking a photo of one of my favourite things - my Measuring Ducks!!



I bought these measuring ducks in an arcade in Kyoto - for only 350 yen! I so so so wish I'd bought more sets. I can't find them again anywhere. They're actually just modern reproductions of an original antique item, which I know some people are lucky enough to have as a hand-me-down.

Hope you're all having a great xmas break. Mine is going far too quickly...

Merry Christmas everyone!!

Merry Christmas to all my very lovely and supportive blog readers!

Here's a snapshot of my Christmas in pictures, mostly involving chocolate making & baking...


A little festive corner in my flat


A trip to Cake Deco in the city yielded 2.5kg of Lindt Couverture and gingerbread making supplies. I had to exercise a LOT of restraint in that shop


Melting & tempering the Couverture


Filling the moulds - I made orange, peppermint and strawberry fondant (see that bench space? That's the ENTIRE bench space of my tiny kitchen)


Mmmmm choc-orange-alicious


Finished chocolates and all packaged up!

And on Wednesday I drove to Geelong to visit a friend and we made Gingerbread! I love Gingerbread, and next year I'm going to use a traditional German Lebkuchen recipe that I also found. But these were good for decorating (and nice and dark and spicey and full of molasses - mmmmm)


Christmas Gingerbread (how cool are those icing sugar snowflakes from Cake Deco!?)

Have a lovely xmas day everyone :)

Ink & Spindle Open Studio TODAY!

I'm leaving things to the last minute as usual, but we're having an open studio today (Saturday 19th) from 10am - 1pm! More details over here!

We're a quick train trip from the city if you're heading in already. Here's us on a map. We'll have lots of gifty stuff available like fabric packs and kits :)


artwork by Sixto from Too Yeah Media.

The illustration above is actually my desk area at the studio! Very cool. Thanks again Sixto for donating the awesome artwork :)

Hope to see you there!

Melbourne Design Market ... take four

When I really stop and reflect for a moment, I still get the giggles to think that we're a part of the Melbourne Design Market. This is the fourth time I've been there (3rd with I&S) and I don't take it for granted one bit. Getting in to this market is tough, and it's always a spectacular day. And freaking exhausting!

Bianca, Teegs and I have been busy preparing for weeks, but I wouldn't be sitting on my couch here the night before if it wasn't for Theresa our latest intern from 'Noo Zulland' and all her help.

And I managed to get my lamp making mojo back on and made these for the market:


Lamps for the Melbourne Design Market

Anyway, hope to see you there! Here's the details:

Melbourne Design Market
Sunday 6th December
Fed Square Carpark, 10am -5pm

Lara xx.

P.S. - thanks everyone for your very lovely comments on my last couple of posts. Your positive and supportive words really mean a lot.

Hello Flemington my new friend

My new flat - living area with nice big north facing window

So, it's still a work in progress, but I thought it was time to show you some pictures of my new flat. Right now it very much feels like my safe place, where I can be myself, do whatever I like. I feel very fortunate to have such a space. That said it's been a hard, hard few weeks so far... and I hover between not wanting to be sociable at all and knowing that getting out and about is probably good for me.


My new flat - bedroom & trainscroll finally up on the wall :)


My new flat - trying to fill up the walls

I spent about half a minute looking at this place before handing in my application form. I didn't spend any time looking at the bathroom or kitchen or bedrooms properly, I just knew straight away that it felt right. With loads of natural light and windows facing almost all directions I was taken by it immediately.


The kitchen & still messy spare bedroom - full of sunlight :)

The kitchen - albeit tiny - is a robin's egg/mint kind of colour. Win! And even tho it has hardly any cupboard space I don't mind that open shelving, it's kind of cute.


My new couchy friend, some familiar looking cushions and my Kirin (giraffe) collection.

So yeah. That's where I'm at so far. Emotionally bleh, but trying to stay positive. And at least this new home helps cheer me up a bit.

xx

Of changes and growth...

So... if you happen to have been paying attention, you might have clued on that my 'weird life stuff' has involved a change of location. Yup, I've moved house, and now I'm living in a flat of my own in Flemington. It's been a difficult time... but I'm optimistic for the future.

It's definitely been good distraction going through the whole 'settling in' phase and setting up my new place. I'm feeling super lucky to have found myself a cute little flat with lots of natural light, and have kept myself busy making it into the home I've always wanted. I've never lived on my own before, so there's all those things I've always dreamt about doing that I can finally do. Needless to say the place looks pretty girly :)

I'll take some more pictures soon once I've done a bit more decorating, but meanwhile I'll show you some pics of my new windowsill garden!


Little herby seedlings growing on my windowsill (yes that is rain! OMG)

I got super excited last weekend when I stumbled across Box My Garden at the Flemington market last weekend. Ray and Marge are the very lovely owners and their speciality is garden boxes of all sizes which they make themselves in Geelong! I fell in love with their little window box sized ones and promtly ordered two. They are gorgeous!


Australian Cypress window box by Box My Garden - oregano and rosemary (will they fight?)


Australian Cypress window box by Box My Garden - mmmm parsley

And I couldn't write a post about plants without mentioning the little tomato plant that Lou dug up from her garden! She said she has seedlings popping up all over the place so Teegs, Bee and I each got a tomato plant (mystery variety) and some basil. Thanks Lou!


Little mystery tomato plant from Lou

a home for pegs

Thanks to one of our Little Basket Kits and a Sunday crafty catchup at our downstairs neighbours' studio, I now have a place to keep my pegs (exciting, I know). I figured there was only so long that I could get away with 'borrowing' my neighbours pegs before I had to buy my own.

It looks tres cute:


Peg basket using Bianca's basket kit (which we sell at markets and are too lazy to list in our online shop - but maybe soon!)


Peg basket with rooftops print (again, I know...)

Fun. Hometime!

In Good Company

Hello! I'm a bit belated in writing about this but last weekend a great little article appeared in The Age M Magazine about local handcrafted goodness. My Rooftops print was featured amongst a whole bunch of other amazing things by talented peeps like friends & neighbours Aunty Cookie and Volker Haug. Good company indeed!


The Age M Magazine


The Age M Magazine featuring red Rooftops fabric - yay!

Wendy June

I'm back - kinda. Still in the midst of weird life stuff, more on that later when I have the head space.

Meanwhile I love how the small worldiness of Melbourne brings together people I know from all sorts of places. I first met Wendy June back in the day when I was working with her hubby - I was freelancing at a web/graphic designer at the time and Andrew said something like "my wife is into crafty stuff, she has a stall at Rose Street". And so I met Wendy June.

It's many years on now and I'm super excited that Wendy is now collaborating with another of my favourite peeps, the lovely Matt of Mattt bags!



The exhibition opening night is THIS THURSDAY, at Matt's awesome shop, and you should definitely come along!

Oh, and how awesome is this new product that Wendy's just launched! Little haunted houses as wall art. They're rad. I love houses! Maybe Wendy and I can do a trade ;)


"The houses are inspired by the streets of North Fitzroy, and cut into woods that come from wendy june's childhood.

Available in two Tasmanian woods: Birds Eye Huon Pine and Myrtle. Dimensions: Tallest house is 95 x 150mm. Retailing at $179."

Email Wendy for more info!

:)

Ummm, has it really been a whole month?

Wow. I can't believe it's really been a month since I lasted posted. A month! I do have some good excuses including general work craziness and a hefty dose of big life changes, which aren't over yet and there's plenty more developments to come.

So yet again I'm super glad that there's crafty peeps like you out there making gorgeous things that I can blog about in lieu of my own crafty workings. Like this gorgeous Organic Blanket by GreenThreadShop on etsy (thanks to Steph for the heads up!):


Little Forest Organic Blanket by GreenThreadShop


Little Forest Organic Blanket by GreenThreadShop

In other news, there's some new designs & colourways in the shop!


Chalk in snow on Natural


Birch in Robins Egg on Natural (mmm nice new basecloth for this)

Yay :)

How to sew a cushion cover with an invisible zip - A Tutorial!!

Cushion covers with invisible zips - let me show you how!

It has been a very, very VERY long time since I've posted a tutorial on this here blog. Truth be told it's been a long time since I've learnt how to do any new and exciting things, until last weekend when Pete's mum showed me how she made cushions with invisible zips!

They look great, but the thing that excited me most was that it was EASY. Like 10 gazillion times less fuss and hassle than any other technique I've tried for sewing zips. So I decided to document the process and share it with you lovely folk. Now I must say that although Heather showed me how to do this, she originally learnt the technique from here, so huge kudos to the Sew? I Knit! Blog!

Step 1) Cut your fabrics to size. I'm making covers for a 45cm cushion so my pieces are 47cm x 47cm including a 1cm seam allowance. I also overlock the bottom edge of each piece where the zip is going to go.



Step 2) Prepare your invisible zip! Pictured below are the sort we buy. They're "heavy duty" ones, and you'll see that the bulky teeth side of the zip is the BACK rather than the FRONT like on normal zips. We use a 40cm zip for a 45cm cushion.



Now it makes the sewing process a LOT easier if you iron the zip out flat before you begin. Open the zip completely and see that you can kind of 'roll' the teeth outwards to expose some tiny stitches beneath. Iron the zipper with the teeth rolled outwards as shown below, and just go as close to the zipper head as you can. Use a low heat setting so as not to melt the teeth!



Step 3) Pin the zip in place. Open the zip right up and lay it along the bottom edge of your fabric. The RIGHT side of your zip should be facing down, with the RIGHT side of your fabric facing up. The zipper tape should be lined up with very edge of the fabric.

Also, you'll notice below that I've positioned the zip to one side, with the closed end starting right in the corner. I'll explain this later.



Step 4) Prepare your invisible zipper foot. Okay these are often very weird plasticcy contraptions, but they're not expensive and you can get them from most sewing places. There's generic ones that come with various attachments so you can fit them on any machine. YOU MUST USE AN INVISIBLE ZIPPER FOOT. Trying to sew an invisible zipper without one would be very tricky indeed.



Step 5) Sew your zip in place. You'll see that the invisible zipper foot has two grooves in it's base. Your folded out zipper teeth will fit in one of these grooves whilst the needle stitches very closely beside the teeth. You'll probably need to adjust the position of the foot or the needle to get a nice close stitch. Begin sewing where the zipper teeth start and stitch towards the zipper head. Keep the teeth folded out flat as you go.



Sew along the length of the zip, removing pins as you go, until you reach the zipper head. You'll probably get to about 1cm away from the zipper head before you have to stop. That's fine. Just do a locking stitch and raise the foot. You're done with that side!



Step 6) Sew the other side. Repeat steps 3-5 for the other side. Be careful to pin the correct side of your zip to the correct side of your fabric:



Sew along the length of the zip as you did before, this time with the teeth of the zipper in the OPPOSITE groove to the one you used before. Sew until you reach the zipper head and stop, do a locking stitch and raise the foot.



Step 7) Finish off the ends of your zip. If you close your zip completely (ooh it's so neatly concealed!) you'll see that the head and tail of the zip are still exposed. Like this:



And this:



But to close these ends off is quite simple. Lay your fabrics together again right sides facing. You'll see where your zip stitching ends - a few centimeters from each side of your cushion.

Attach a normal zipper foot to your machine with the needle to the right of the foot. Sew in from the side of your fabric and try and get as close as possible to your existing stitches. Hold the ziper tail out of the way so it doesn't get caught in your stitches.



Do the same at the other end. When working the open end of the zip, make sure that your fabric & stitches are lined up correctly, and move the zipper head along a bit so it's not in your way.

Step 8) Admire your handiwork so far. Doesn't it look all neat and tidy? Wasn't that so much less painful than you expected? Also notice that your zipper ends up being more or less centered because of how we offset it's position in the first place.



Step 9) Finish it off! Finishing the cushion from this point is a simple affair. Simply lay the cushion front & back fabrics together right sides facing and stitch around the remaining three sides. Make sure you open the zip first before doing so! Then overlock the edges if desired.



Et voila! Here's the ones I just made for our home:


Cushion with Rooftops and Delft


New cushions hanging out on the couch. Featuring Delft, Rooftops & Birch prints.

You can't see me

Cushion covers with invisible zips - ooooh

What does one do with a whole Monday off work? Make cushion covers, o course. You'd think I'd get enough of that at work.

I'd be blogging about them properly right now if I didn't have something much better in store: A NEW TUTORIAL! Yes it's been years since my last one but I'm very excited to share the little bit of wisdom I gained over the weekend:

How to Sew a Cushion Cover with an Invisible Zip!

Stay tuned for tomorrow's blog post and über comprehensive step-by-step photo tutorial. And yes, it's easier than you'd ever have imagined.


Cushion covers - Rooftops & Delft and some apt use of the golden ratio

Quiltus Completus

Finishing my quilt - attaching the binding

Cast your mind back hmmm... 16 months ago and you might remember this quilt that I was working on. Well in true crafting style I left the quilt in a state of mid completion for over a year from being sidetracked by more 'important' things. Okay well starting a new business is a pretty good excuse.

Actually I did have another good excuse - the old Elna Lotus I was working on didn't have a walking foot attachment. So firstly I couldn't actually quilt it, and secondly the last time I tried to machine sew binding without one it was a twisty disaster. And although I have the patience to make lace I do not have the patience to hand stitch binding.

But now! Now that I have my shiny new Janome (and a walking foot attachment courtesy of Pete & his mum - awwwh) I could finally finish it off. Et voila:


My finished quilt - using mostly discontinued designs unfortunately


My finished quilt - zoomy shot

And then I tried to take some pretty, stylised shots of the quilt and realised taking photos of quilts is hard. But I persisted.


With Jhoanna's Peg Bear again - properly this time


On the couch - there are grids everywhere in this photo!


On the bed - hmmm not so sure about this one

So yeah, much fun to be had and now I'd like to make another.

But next up - cushions!

28, slightly wiser and less anxious

Sorry I disappeared for a bit there. We spent the first half of last week printing 240 metres of fabric (!!) and then we closed up shop for Thursday and Friday because Teegs had to go have her tonsils out (ouch, everyone wish her a speedy recovery!)

And... I turned 28!

I always find birthdays a bit difficult. A lot of self imposed pressure to make the day feel suitably 'special' whilst at the same time being unable to enjoy any celebrations I might organize for worrying that everyone's having a good time. So I made an effort to acknowledge these anxieties and do things that felt good and relaxing. And it was. Yay. Plus Pete took me out to dinner to Gingerboy and Oh My God it was amazing. I highly recommend.

But the best part by far was the most exciting present ever, my new sewing machine!!


My new Janome DC3018 - Birthday/Christmas present from my entire family

When I say 'new' I should really say 'first' because I've never actually owned a machine before. I used to borrow mum's old Elna Zig Zag, and then Nana's old Elna Lotus, both good solid machines but also a bit limiting and getting on in their years. So thanks to all your advice I ended up getting the Janome DC3018. And so far, so good!

I've already started making some things, which I'll post shortly!

xx

a special first birthday party

Guess what?? Ink & Spindle is turning 1!!! It feels like we've been printing for a gazillion times longer than that which goes to show just what a full on, action packed year it's been.

So we're having a birthday party, and we'd love for you to join us! Details below :)

paper n stitch!

Oh I'm a bit belated in posting about this but last week Kirin Notebook was blog of the week on Paper n Stitch!!



What a lovely looking post - makes my stuff look so pretty and colourful! Thanks so much Brittni!

open studio tomorrow! (again)

I just went to write the above title and Blogger auto-filled it for me. Because in typically slack fashion this is not the first time I've come to tell you that our Ink & Spindle open studio is TOMORROW!!

Details below:


Awesome poster donated YET AGAIN by the very talented Sixto from Too Yeah Media.

For the first time ever we'll actually be doing a demo print run so if you would like to see how the magic happens this is your chance!

And then you can go on to your Grand Final BBQ's etc etc and get plastered.

Hope to see you there!

xx

simple, tactile & natural

I love love love thinking of better ways to do things. And the best thing about running a small business like Ink & Spindle is that we can basically change and improve things at the drop of a hat. And we do!

Our old packaging for cut fabric pieces has been bothering me for some time now (bio-degradable cello + header card) so I came up with a much simpler and more natural approach. Love it, if I do say so myself.



I can just see these standing up in little rows ordered by colour, like we do our fat quarters. Yay!

A little Orange anyone?

Hellooooo! I've been a little quiet of late but thankfully Teegs has written two nice big blog posts about all the galavanting we've done over the weekend. Including morning tea with Tonia Todman, haha!! Read all about it over here!!

But in other exciting news, we have a new print! I finally found time to put my Chalk design onto screen, and given there was a massive orangey gap in our fabric spectrum I decided to print it in a lovely Burnt Orange on Cream organic cotton/hemp. Looks lovely:


Chalk in Burnt Orange - available sooon!


The printing of Chalk in Burnt Orange - available sooon!

Will definitely put it up in the shop as soon as it's heat set. I'm also looking forward to printing it in white on red soon when some special new organic fabric arrives in a month or so. So excited about that.

My first ever armchair

Melbournians - wasn't yesterday The Best Weather Day Ever?? We're only two weeks into Spring and hardly get weather as perfect as that all Summer long.

I spent the day out and about with friends Karin and Maz, visiting galleries and second hand shops around Fitzroy. Always very inspiring. Maz warned me that it's hard to go into the Lost and Found market and not come out with anything. And sure enough:


1960's armchair to recover, plus Peg Bear by One Red Robin & Quilt-that-I-hope-to-finish-soon

It took about two seconds thought to buy this one after seeing the reasonable-ish pricetag. My first thought was to reupholster it in some of my fabric but have since decided that something neutral actually works well and then I can put whatever cute & colourful things I want on it.

I'm thinking something similarly grey, woolly & tweedy but not so textured & carpet-y as it currently is. Any idea where I should look for something like that??

trainscroll

I've always, always, always loved old signage, especially transport related. I keep seeing vintage train/tram/bus scrolls in antiques shops but can never afford them.

Then during a recent visit to Sedonia I noticed they were selling repro ones. And thought maybe I could make my own one. And maybe it could have a cute twist, since it's obviously not original anyway...

two slightly different options

Still a work in progress, but feedback always welcome! I'll print it nice and big on canvas to hang on my wall...

Ooooooh, pretty

It's that same old drill - I spend so much time printing and admin-ing that I rarely get a chance to actually make stuff with my fabric. Come on sewing machine!

So of course I still jump at the chance to blog about stuff that people have made with my fabric (especially if they actually choose to show me and their photos are pretty). Like these beautiful products made by Jodi Bagley who just sent me a lovely email!


Acacia Clutch by Jodi Bagley


Acacia Tote Bag by Jodi Bagley


Acacia Belt by Jodi Bagley

I really love the way her design and fabric choices really compliment the print! Like many of us Jodi has just started out small but her products are getting some great feedback at markets so I think she'll go far.

Thanks Jodi!

to accompany a good book...

Making lace - the bookmark

Thanks to everyone who gave me feedback on the sewing machine! I decided to go with the Janome based on the volume of positive feedback, and also because it's within budget. I'm so excited about getting this machine but have to wait a few weeks till my birthday ('twill be a family birthday/christmas present, awwwh).

I'm so keen to do some sewing with my weekends and have made a mental list of projects. But in the meantime I'm settling with lace. I'm still in two minds about lace. I find it hard to get motivated to go to class but once I'm there I have a great time and once I have a project started it is SOOO addictive. I also find it's great for ambidexterity, curiously enough.

Teegs and I have each started making a lace bookmark and I finished mine today. Here's some progress shots and the finished result (and yes I do spend a lot of time on my couch - it's welcome sit-down time after days at work standing whilst printing, mixing inks, washing up, packing orders etc etc etc).


The lace design is based on a dot pattern with pin holes. And lots of bobbins.


You 'cross' and 'twist' pairs of bobbins in particular combinations to make the various patterns in the of lace - kind of like weaving?


Finished bookmark!


...being put to good use!

If anyone local is interested in classes email me and I can give you the details! Classes are held at the Ashburton Community Centre.