Beth-Emily & Panelpop

You know when you get a great vibe about someone straight off the bat? Well in the short 15 minutes that I spent chatting to Beth-Emily and Tom in Adelaide at Bowerbird early this year, I knew they were lovely people.

So when they mentioned that they were coming up from Hobart for Design:Made:Trade I barely hesistated before offering them our spare room for a few nights and some delicious home cooked meals :)


Beth-Emily's gorgeous display at Design:Made:Trade

As a thank you for having them stay, Beth gave me one of her prints - one that I had been admiring on their stand. Apart from being spectacularly gorgeous, this was no ordinary print...


'Bird of Sun' Panelpop print by Beth-Emily

It was in fact a Panelpop print. An amazing, wonderful new thing that I had never heard of before.

The surface of a Panelpop is essentially a smooth stone-like substance. It is framed with reclaimed timber and backed with reclaimed polystyerene - materials that have essentially been rescued from landful. Photos or illustrations can be printed onto the surface, and the finished result is amazing.


Hi,
You have saved me from 2000 years of landfill.
As a token of thanks, I will stare diligently at your wall.
Yours sincerely, your Panelpop.

They're funny, too.


Beth's Panelpop print - reverse

I mean how awesome is that!? They even come with a little info booklet pinned on the back which tells you where your materials came from. The timber on my frame is "stringy bark rescued from John's old fence, Camberwell". The polystyrene backing is "saved from the Queen Vic Markets".

Panelpop are based in Fitzroy. Of course, Beth-Emily and Tom being the lovely people they are were more than happy to share how & where the prints had been made. Gotta love the mutual supportiveness of our creative community :)

xx

Design:Made:Trade

Design:Made:Trade. Best thing we ever did. Such a great event. Such great feedback. Everything came together almost perfectly. Interior designers and furniture makers asked for pricelists. This little girl's dream. Definitely a career milestone.

We finished up on the Sunday completely wrecked but on a high after a last minute flurry of sales.

Here's some pics I took of our stall:

The Ink & Spindle stall at Design:Made:Trade

D:M:T - Our little kids corner featuring the Allsorts Quilt Kit, reupholstered stool by Reissued, and Table Lamp by Wilkins & Kent

D:M:T: Our little lounge area featuring mid-century Fler Armchair reupholstered by Reissued

More photos of the show & our fellow stall holders over at the Ink & Spindle blog.

xx!

Reupholstering a little chair

I just blogged about this over at Ink & Spindle but had to share it here too because I'm just so happy with the result... but today Dana and I recovered a small child sized armchair that Sass bought for us from the Mill Markets!

Little armchair - before

Little armchair - after

Reupholstering the little armchair - in progress

It was somewhat disgusting work but sooooo worth it! Cuteness in armchair form! It's also nice to give my Little Forest print some love :)

This little piece will be coming along with us to Design:Made:Trade. Of course ;)

xx Lara.

Flora

I've found another market near my new home - the Boroondara Farmer's Market. And it's awesome.

Native flora from the Boroondara Farmer's Market

I would love to be able to buy all my produce from Farmer's markets or ethical/small scale producers. Just need to be a little more organised.

xx

Progress...

Two things we've done recently that make me very happy.

1) Printing some of our prints onto a canvas weight, so we can reupholster a lovely mid century armchair...


Flowering Gum in Red Orange & Stone on canvas


Flowering Gum in Red Orange & Stone on canvas

2) Sourcing some foot stools from the Camberwell Market, also to be reupholstered in some gorgeous fabrics for display at DMT...


Footstools from Camberwell Market, soon to be much more pretty

It's funny how long I've been wanting to do these things and yet we haven't had the time or finances to do so.Trade shows are good for that ;)

xx

Design:Made:Trade - yay!

Guess what? We're doing our very first trade show! Surely our business is legitimate and successful now that we're doing a trade show.

It's funny how much emphasis I'm putting on Design:Made:Trade as an indicator of Ink & Spindle's legitimacy. One would assume that I'd know that already, but... a trade show! It's the one thing we're yet to tackle, and what better place to do so than the spectacular Royal Exhibition Building.


State of Design Festival Opening Night 2010, photos by Tobias Titz (via The Design Files)

As you can imagine it's been crazy times in the studio again preparing ourselves for this, lots of newness, but that's what keeps us having fun I guess :)

xx

New beginnings

Proteas from Camberwell Market

So... I've completed my transition to the "wrong side of the river". Packed my stuff into boxes, handed in the keys to my flat, and moved into a very cute little single-fronter inhabited by a man-friend who most graciously made room for all my furniture and helped me hang pictures on the walls.

It was probably the smoothest, most stress free move I could have imagined and now that I'm settled in I'm just loving it. My commuting time may have increased to about 1.5hrs a day, but it's so worth it.

Of course another thing that's helped with my transition to the east is having Camberwell Market just down the road. Last Sunday I crawled out of bed at 6:30am, put on a gazillion layers and met up with Sass from Ask Alice just after sunrise. Sass is a Camby Market regular who knows all the stallholders' dogs. We ate hot jam donuts and I bought two vintage footstools for reupholstering and the cutest set of vintage beakers. Now home to 6 succulents!

Vintage beakers from Camby Market + Succulents from Rose St Market!

All in all a good start I reckon.

xx

Getting back on track

NEW Saffron, Robin's Egg & Charcoal Allsorts Quilt Kit!

I think you never really understand how difficult such a thing as "cash-flow" can be until you run your own small business. Cash-flow is something that's always running around in the back of my mind. It's one of those things that - unless you want to dedicate hours of your precious time to projections and bookkeeping - you just need to trust your gut and intuition in order to manage it.

Needless to say, given our great basecloth drought the last few months have been a bit tricky cash-flow wise and we are so, SO relieved to be getting back on track again. We're not quite there yet though - now we just need to sell the 200m worth of fabric that we've been busy printing the last week or so!!

Which is why I'm popping in to tell you that a whole bunch of our fabrics and the much beloved quilt kits are back up in our shop! Including the new Saffron, Robin's Egg & Charcoal colourway, pictured below :)

New quilt kit goodness

In other news, my house move went well and I'm still in denial that I'm living on the wrong side of the river. Camberwell Market is just down the road though so that is helping to ease my mind. Plus my new house (and gorgeous 'housemate') are pretty darn awesome. More on that soon!

xx

The end of an era

So, the last couple of weeks have been a little bit turmultuous.

The first thing that happened is that I lost my poor, faithful old car in an accident on Citylink. A truck merged across two lanes into mine, causing me to swerve, fishtail, spin out, hit the concrete barrier and bounce back into the centre lane facing the wrong way. All very fast and scary but could have been a lot worse! I was totally fine except for a bit of whiplash and general teariness.


Goodbye faithful old Skyline

Dodgy as it was, that car has been in our family for 11 years, ever since my brother bought it from one of our childhood friends who I've known since birth (he played Tao whenever we'd reneact the Mysterious Cities of Gold in the backyard).

The second thing that happened is that my real estate agent called and informed me that my landlord wants to move back into my flat. My flat! My beloved little haven, a space all of my own to call home and decorate as I please.


Farewell little Flemington flat (photos by Lucy from TDF)

My flat! Featured in Peppermint and The Herald Sun and The Design Files! But it's funny, after my little abode had it's time in the spotlight I remember feeling like I was ready to let it go. That it had helped me through some tough times and I'd had my fun decorating it up, but it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world to have to move.

And it really isn't. The whole car and flat thing kind of came at a good time, more or less. A little bit of a kick up the bum with regards to certain aspects of my life... I can definitely see lots of good times ahead :)

xx

Monochrome (and being hipsters)

Hello much neglected blog.

I can't tell you how full and exhausting the last few weeks have been. Or is it months? The weeks just blur together these days.

The good news is that this weekend will see the last of our workplace insanity (at least temporarily) and next week I have a WHOLE WEEK of quiet catch-up time whilst Teegs is away in Byron. That's a whole week of no printing. A whole week of catching up on admin, tidying the studio, taking nicer product shots, updating our website, streamlining things and gathering thoughts. I can't tell you how much that excites me.

In the meantime I'll share with you something a little bit different and funny we're doing over at Ink & Spindle:


Posing as über cool designer types to launch our new range - Monochrome

We're launching a range of Monochrome (with a dash of red) textiles whilst we weather some regular basecloth supply issues. The collection looks amazing and so much more in keeping with our personal aesthetics than the rest of our range (which is absurd when you think about it). We'll be launching "Monochrome" at MARKit tomorrow. Please come and say hi and tell us what you think!

Hopefully you'll hear more from me next week :)

xx

URGENT - Help Save our Building

The Younghusband Wool Store - Photo by Angus Booker

Most of you probably know that we are incredibly lucky to have our Ink & Spindle studio within the gorgeous Younghusband Wool Store building in Kensington.

But our building is under threat and we require your URGENT action! The owners of the Younghusband building are asking the City of Melbourne to rezone the site so that they can erect 12, 8 and 7-story residential towers.

This development will destroy the small business and cultural hub that has emerged over the last few years, leaving artists, designers and other creative small businesses without studio and office space.

Please submit your objection by tomorrow Thursday 19th of May at the LATEST.

Here is an objection letter template:

Dear Robyn Hellman,

I object to proposal C177 because…….. [whatever your objection is] and it would affect me as follows: ………. [however you think it will affect you], [indicate what changes you would like, as in height reduction or reduction of apartments].

Yours sincerely, [your name, address]

Email objections to: robyn.hellman@melbourne.vic.gov.au by Thursday 19th May.

Thanks so much everyone!!

xx

String of circles

Following on the same tack as my last post, sometimes when there's no space for spare thoughts, no room in my head to create... random ideas just pop into my head completely out of nowhere. Right as I woke up a week or so ago I suddenly had a picture in my head - a garland out of random sizes circles using only our saffron coloured fabric.


Cutting circles on the floor at home

So I grabbed some fabric from the studio, ironed stiff interfacing onto the back, took the pieces home and traced circles from assorted round objects.


My string of circles hanging in the studio

Then it was simply a matter of cutting out the circled with some pinking shears. I use the term simply lightly 'cause damn those shears can be hard work and the stiff interfacing didn't help. I ended up with some nice purple dents on the fingers of my right hand. I came back to tackle the rest the next day.


My string of circles hanging in the studio

Then it was just a matter of cutting some slits and threading the circles onto some herringbone tape. I like the fact that they can be moved around and repositioned. And no sewing machine was required!

xx

Lara.

Making.

Sometimes (actually often) I feel like work is just one constant to-do list. Constantly juggling a gazillion different little tasks that I try to write down but some just keep slipping through the cracks and then I remember them again and forget them again and remember them again with a start at 5am.... and repeat.

So on the weekends often my brain just feels numb. Inspiration to be creative is just not on the radar. Don't be fooled, 95% of the time I'm not a textile designer. I'm a small business owner.

Anyway, something clicked last week when I somehow, briefly felt on top of things, and - god forbid - I actually felt like making stuff.

And make I did.

For ages I'd been meaning to make a table runner so I raided the scraps box and whipped this up in a couple of hours after the work day finished.


Patchwork table runner

Sure a patchwork table runner isn't the most original of concepts (Cloth do them, I know) but it is just such a great way to use up odds and ends.


Patchwork table runner

The next evening I made a draft snake, also using fabrics from the scrap box. I'd noticed a whopping big gap under Jon's front door, which does not sit well with a cold frog like me. I told him he needed a draft snake, he had no idea what I was talking about.


patchwork draft snake

The next night I started my third project, but hey, I'm not going to waste the opportunity and am going to write about that in another post ;)

xx

Open Studio this Saturday

If you're not a regular follower of the Ink & Spindle blog you might not know this yet but we have an Open Studio this coming Saturday! We do a printing demo, sell fabrics and wares and provide tea and bikkies. Oh and kids are more than welcome, we had heaps of little ones at the last open studio and they loved watching us print!

Hope you can make it! xx

Dining table project

These photos are from the archives, back a few months ago when man-friend and I recovered his dining chairs in some of my fabric. It was a pretty uninspiring set of dining furniture before but now it looks quite cute (ahem, sorry I mean manly) covered in Almond Birch. Which HE chose. Yay.


Recovered dining chairs


Recovered dining chair - Almond Birch

xx

Autumn happenings

Let me try to make up for my lack of blogging with some pictures from the last month or so. It's been a bit of a weird hodge podge kind of month and I feel like this is the first weekend in ages where I've had space to just sit and calm down and think and write and feel inspired again.

Anyway. Some things...


Berry picking with my family in the Pennyroyal Valley... one of the most beautifulm secluded places I know. Between us we picked 10kg of Raspberries for jam, sorbet, brekkie etc. Possibly too many. Possibly.




My flat is featured (yet again!) in the latest issue of Peppermint Magazine. It was photographed by Olga Bennett who is lovely and we had a great chat about stuff and things and ceramics.


Farewelling Suziam (and an Elly Oak card)


We had a farewell lunch this week for Suziam who is off to the States with her lovely man friend to live/work over there! Suz is one of the few other women in our building, works for Lettuce and amongst other things has been doing nice things for Lucy from TDF. She will be missed!



Completely over exposed but I love the floral arrangements at The Premises.


And last but certainly not least - our stall at the latest Finders Keepers market. (photo by Kristen Doran)

Let me just say, the Finders Keepers market this year was AWESOME. So many great stallholders and so many people! I bought some lovely things but really wish I had more time to shop. Plus... we did quite well as stallholders which has been such a relief... we really needed that boost to a) pay bills b) live, and c) invest in some new product/range development. I feel like we can relax a bit now. Whew.

You know what, I might even do a bit of non-work related crafting next weekend. Who woulda thought!

xx

Finders Keepers

Yay, the Finders Keepers market is on again this coming weekend!! I love a market that spans multiple days, gives us a chance to really make the stall look beautiful and spread out the whole set-up, pack-down rigmarole.



My good buddy & fellow textile designer Kristen Doran will be staying with me for the duration of the show. Kristen's in Sydney and it feels like we only ever see each other when there's a market on. What am I saying? We DO only ever see each other when there's a market on!

But that's one of the things I love about markets, catching up with all our fellow creative buddies since we're otherwise too busy to socialise :)

Hope to see you there too - please come and say hi!

xx

The Design Files... Me? Really?

My little Flemington flat on The Design Files today

I think it's somewhat ironic that less than 12 hours after writing my last blog post the feature about my flat appears on The Design Files.

Just... wow. Don't get me wrong, I am so SUPER EXCITED about my little abode being featured on my favourite design blog of all time. It's been a secret ambition of mine for aaaages but when Lucy saw some pics of my flat and asked to do a tour my first internal reaction was "oh no but it's not good enough!". I insisted she wait a couple of months till I'd made some changes I'd been thinking about.


My little Flemington flat on The Design Files today

That might sound crazy but it's so true that we are always our own harshest critic. I also feel like in the creative world one's own work inherently lacks the magic that everyone else's work appears to embody.

Because when I design something I'm intimately familiar with every step of the process. The first seed of inspiration. All the reference material I gathered together. The sketches that didn't work and the ones that did. The general struggle to turn an idea in my mind into something real. Then there's a brief period of appreciation once it's finished, but that soon wears off when you're looking at it every day.

When it comes to other people's work I tend to think that their ideas came about by a magic lightning bolt of inspiration. Through some "highly creative" process rather than mine which somehow seems so much more calculated.

But I guess that's something we all feel.

xx

Lara.

P.S. - thank you everyone for you awesome comments on my last post. I'm so glad to hear that so many people feel the same way and that being open and honest about our struggles is equally important and inspiring. I'd like to write more on the subject soon...

Reflections, perceptions and pressures

Contrast - what you see versus real life

It's been a bit of a quiet month at work and as we all know quiet times are ripe for reflection.

I've been thinking a lot about the pressures we (or at least I) place on ourselves when running a creative business. There's the pressures of making a living and being innovative, which are hard enough, but I think the biggest pressure is fulfilling one's own expectations.

How do you define personal success? I find it's a definition which can get muddied by the pressure to be everything that other people assume you to be, and to be everything you assume your idols to be.

Sometimes I really feel like our blogging community is one big double edged sword. As many of us are strive to establish ourselves as creative individuals we filter and only present our best images (I'm definitely guilty of that). But at the same time we're reading each other's blogs and feeling so much pressure to measure up to unrealistic ideals that we ourselves are perpetuating.

Contrast - what you see versus real life

Perfect example - the home photo shoot. Select the prettiest rooms/nooks in our houses, tidy them up, play happy families. How much of that is real? I know of many couples who have had to pose for a photo shoot pretending all is fine when the reality is far from it. My flat is another great example. Even in this post I daren't show you my 2nd bedroom.

Even though conciously we're often hiding our dirty bathrooms and relationship issues and financial struggles, at the same time we're blindsighted to the struggles that others might be facing. So we fill in the gaps in our knowledge with the most rose tinted images that are very likely unrealistic.

I guess what I'm starting to realise is that perceptions aren't reality and sometimes we need to change our ideals. I want to feel grateful for what I do have, what we have achieved, and not place all this pressure on myself to be something that's probably not realistically achievable.

From a business perspective this means accepting that it is very, very hard to make a decent living doing something you love! All those creative businesses who I (and you) idealise - more often than not they face the same problems we do, just on a bigger scale with more stress. I'm still striving to prove that it is possible to make a decent living from a creative & ethical business, but the reality is that we're not there yet.

If you've read this far, then thank you. I know this post is a bit disjointed but I hope it makes some sense.

xx

Home

It's been a very long time coming, but my little Flemington flat appeared in the Herald Sun home magazine last Saturday. Three pages. THREE!


My flat in the Herald Sun Home magazine - yay!

I wasn't sure how the article was going to turn out but I'm really happy with it! The text is great (I don't sound too ineloquent) and the photos are really lovely. Although my flat doesn't look anywhere near as big as this in real life. Thanks wide angle lens!


My flat in the Herald Sun Home magazine - yay!

Now I know it's a bit crazy but this post is totally unrelated to my other recent post because my flat is going to be popping up in a couple of other places soon too... when it rains it pours.

xx

New textile happiness

If you've been reading the Ink & Spindle blog you would have seen this already, but over the last couple of weeks we've been releasing a bunch of new prints & fabrics!

Firstly our 100% organic and Australian Made cotton jersey range:

Little Forest, Trams & Bicycles, Pirates & Sea Creatures and Seedling.

Secondly (I've been looking forward to this for ages), we released my Flowering Gum print:

Flowering Gum in Olive & Robins Egg

Flowering Gum in Red Orange & Stone

We're printing all the new prints on a woven basecloth too (some are still on the way):


Flowering Gum, Seedling & Little Forest cushions


Flowering Gum, Seedling & Little Forest cushions

It's been so much fun and so satisfying to see these designs come to life. We have lots more plans for them too.

In other exciting news, my flat was featured in the Herald Sun Home magazine today! Will post some pics soon once I have my camera with me :)

xx Lara.