Stitches & Craft Show Melbourne

I have that really disturbing thing going on where you're working towards a massive deadline but the weeks just fly by in the blink of an eye.

I've got a couple of major events coming up, not least of which is the Stitches & Craft Show where we'll have an indie incubator stall for a full 5 days.

Now, for those who have or haven't visited the Stitches & Craft Show in the past - abandon all preconceptions you might have about it!! The show has been completely bought out by Living Creatively, who's mission is to redefine 'craft' and make the show a much more modern affair.



I'm really hoping the show will be a great success. Myself and the other Ink & Spindle girls will also be putting on a bunch of workshops and seminars (details to appear online soon), so please come along to one of them! My workshop will be about glass etching - with cute and modern designs or whatever you like. Should be a heap of fun.

Studio photoshoot - heee!

Please allow me to be totally gratuitous and show off the photos from our photoshoot down at the studio last Saturday! Huge thanks to Marcel who donated his whole day to taking pretty shots that we needed for our website and interviews :)


We dedicated a chunk of last week to cleaning up the studio, much overdue. Scrubbing the **** out of those floors and making a nice lounge area for when we have visitors.


Inking up!


My favourite photo. This walkway between buildings is very handy for drying screens. And they look pretty.


We took like, a gazillion group shots. This one was taken up in the loft. Aww don't we look all matey? :)


Quality inspection :)


Oh and of course the very posed working-with-swatch-book-casually-fanned-out-on-the-desk-there shot.

All photos copyright Marcel lee of Bulb Studios and not to be reproduced without permissions, ta :)

Remember way back when...

Oh my gosh. Do you remember yeeeears ago, I submitted some designs to a Naked & Angry pattern competition and won? It's kind of like Threadless, but for products other than tees. Only my most loyal of blog readers would remember this - it was back in 2006!

Anyway, this morning I find an email in my inbox telling me that my pattern (Endless Trees) has finally found it's way onto one of their handbags, for sale in their shop:


Endless Trees italian leather handbag by Naked & Angry


Endless Trees italian leather handbag by Naked & Angry


Endless Trees italian leather handbag by Naked & Angry

It's pretty full on I know, but I'm hoping the pattern will look a bit less intense in person. They gave me a voucher to buy it for myself, so we'll see it in person soon :)

A good time for free stuff, I reckon.

no thoughts for a good title

The bushfires have been devastating indeed, and it's fantastic to see how many people are organising ways to help. Pop over to Meet me at Mikes & Handmade Help to find out more about ways to contribute other than monetary donations.

I have to admit, when disasters like this happen I can't help but be heartened by the way it really pulls people together. I get a little bit of a buzz watching the bushfire relief tally rise by the millions each morning - I think we're raised close to $50 million in funding which is amazing.

In happier news, we've just updated the Ink & Spindle shop with new stock. So if you happen to still be in a shopping mood, there's new fabrics, mix packs and Aiko tote kits (finally!).


Mix pack #9


Mix pack #6


New Aiko Tote kits - with small birch this time :)


Birch Forest in Soft Moss


Ginkgo in Teal & Snow

Fire Storms

I keep having terrible mental images of whole families trapped in their cars trying to drive away from the racing flames and just not being able to get away fast enough.

Instead of coveting designer homes & other people's lives on blogs today ... spare a thought for those who might not have either.

Make an online donation at the Australian Red Cross today. It will take you two seconds :)

Pimp my Floral

Pete came along this morning and pimped my floral print:



Makes the print look totally different! Quite cool, had to blog it. I should play with colour a bit more myself, although it's hard to break free of the screen printing mindset where you really need to limit your colour separations...

floral

I feel like I haven't designed or created anything new from scratch in forever. So today, whilst stuck indoors on a 46/115 degree day (although I happened to go out and buy a new pencil at 3pm when it was the very hottest), I experimented with drawing flowers.

It's not my usual style, and I don't know if it's worth screen printing (a little traditional I think), but it was fun to try something different and prove to myself that I can do more detailed botanical illustration.

Ministry of Food

Most of the cookbooks that grace our kitchen shelf usually serve the purpose of gastroporn and then spend the rest of their time gathering dust.

Then we were given a copy of Jamie's Ministry of Food from a family friend who had 'too many Jamie books already', and it's honestly the first time I've really made good use of a cook book! It's full of heaps of basic, staple recipes, and they're written in such a way that makes experimentation/substitution a lot less scary to a 'recipe cook' like me.


The book sans dust jacket. (I love the oldschool designs you can find beneath many a dusty jacket).


What we cooked the other night. 20 minutes. So good.

And somewhat unrelated by whilst on the subject of breakfast, this is what I eat every morning...


Fruit salad, Carman's muesli and natural yoghurt. I make the fruit salad at the start of each week and it lasts the whole week. And Carman's muesli is just awesome. They have such an inspiring business history too.

Okay off to cook yet another recipe from that book ;)

A new look for Ink & Spindle

Yay - I just finished designing and building the new Ink & Spindle website, blog and shop!



With help from Pete, we came up with a design that was simple, clean, friendly & modern, and a lot more Ink & Spindle-ish than the last version.

Glad to have it finished :)