friendship flattery

It always gives me such happiness to see something made out of my fabric. The excitement of it is yet to wear off. I spend so much time printing and selling the stuff that I rarely have time to make things myself. Plus other people make things I would never have thought to.

Anyway, of the many crafty projects I've seen, these two below stand out as special to me because they were made by my 'real world' friends. Not that there's much of a distinction between the two anymore as the lines are constantly being blurred, but these are friends that I used to work with back in the day at a Multimedia company before I even began to dapple in patterns.

Karin's Restored Armchair

The chair before

The chair after - Ginkgo in Olive & Teal

I've mentioned my friend Karin's blog before, and she did such a fantastic job of this chair! I'm heading to her place this afternoon to see it in person for the first time. Nice work Karin!

Maz's Birch Purse

Front, next to her matching Mattt bag

The back

Maz is slightly newer to craft blogging but you should totally pop over and say hello (sorry Maz, I hope you don't mind being outed!). How awesome is this purse, made of course with one of Nikki's kits. And I love that she made it to go with her Mattt bag. Awesome work love!

P.S. - Yep I'm printing more of that Charcoal Birch, back in the shop soon!

open studio tomorrow!

I really should get around to writing about these things more than 24hrs before they happen! But better late than never.

Ink & Spindle is having an open studio day tomorrow!

Please come down and say hello, see the space, have a cup of tea and bikkies if we're organised enough to make them, and even buy some of our fabrics if you feel so inclined. Details are:

10am - 1pm
Saturday 30th May

Suite 206, 10 Elizabeth St (catch lift or stairs to level 2)
Kensington VIC


The lounge, looking lived in


Teegs and myself printing Sumor in deep red

Hope to see you there! Or should I say here... xx

New mix packs, new packaging

I'm loving the new packaging that we've got going over at Ink & Spindle. Simple and clean, doesn't distract from the contents, and also is completely recycled and/or bio-degradable. Yay!

On that note I've just put a few mix packs up in the shop. It's been a while since I've made these!


New mix packs in the shop


New mix packs in the shop

A date with lace

As you may or may not have heard, over at Ink & Spindle Teegs has been dragging Bianca and I along to Lace Class. Okay so dragging probably isn't the right word. After I convinced her that the Citylink tunnel doesn't represent certain death it hasn't been so bad driving over to Ashburton on Monday nights and being all nannariffic.


In class, working the bobbins...


Teegs and I in class

And then we even had homework to do...


Working on my ground stitches homework...


I know, that's a hellava lot of pins....


Et voila!

Okay so you're probably looking at this and thinking that lace making has the potential to drive you certifiably mad. But... surprisingly enough, it's actually quite enjoyable. It's quite a good distraction from all the racing thoughts in my head, it forces me to focus on something else.

So there. A post about something other than fabric! xx

here and there

Wow. So much great feedback on the houses print! It makes me so excited. I'm so glad to be finally printing the idea that has been floating around in my head for so long. It's off being turned into a screen as we speak.

We finally uploaded some pics from our Brissy trip, so you can see them all here. Here's what our stall looked like:


Bianca and I in our Brisbane stall

We were a little lacking in vertical-ness, being without our beautiful tree and all, and relying on a display that could be flat packed back into our suitcases. But all things considered it came out pretty good :)

I know this blog has been pretty sparse of late, so I'll endeavor to post more. In the meantime, here's some new colourways that I've finally managed to put up in the shop!


Bonsai in Deep Red on cream (mmmm, I do like this)


The très Melbourne Birch in Charcoal on black cotton/linen


...and Bonsai in Charcoal on black cotton/linen

Hello, old friend

I'm back! Brisbane was great. Such lovely weather, met some fantastic & lovely bloggers, got lots of great exposure at the show, and decent sales too. And really the days were quite cruisy. 10am starts, finishing up at 5pm on the dot, with heaps of time in the evenings to wander Southbank and be social.

Anyway, given it's my first proper weekend off in almost a month, I thought it about time to reacquaint myself with a distant friend - the pattern designer in me! My sketch books are filled with half baked ideas, and one concept I keep coming back to is houses. If you've been reading this blog for a long time you'd be familiar with my obsession with houses...



But I've never been able to come up with the perfect houses print for my textile range. I've had this vague idea in my mind for ages but have never been able to execute it. Until now. I'm really happy with how this has come together, and I hope you'll like it too...


Houses print... as yet unnamed...


Cushion mockup - not sure of scale...

Anyway I'd love to hear your thoughts. I'm quite open to feedback. I've been thinking about it for so long that I've probably lost perspective...