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...

Brisvegas ahoy

So we're off. It's been another mad week of last minute preparing and packing and packaging, and again we vow to be more organised next time. Myself and Teegs are heading up tomorrow with 6 overstuffed bags between us (eep) and Bianca will be following us up on Wednesday.

We're excited.

Amidst it all I managed to design some new packaging, and some new kits:



Here's the rest of my fabric that I couldn't fit in our bags. Instead I'm putting it up in the shop. It's all up there right now actually! Except for the new new stuff, like the charcoal & black Birch & Bonsai and the red on cream Bonsai. I'll put them up when I get back and have two seconds to take pics.



Anyway hope to see you at the Brissy show if you're a local (do say hi!!) and otherwise I'll be back on the 5th. I'm going to be internet-less for a week, I don't know how I'll cope ;)

xx

Second chances

After such a dry spell I'm finding it a miracle that here I am blogging away with multiple daily posts both here and on Ink & Spindle.

Whilst galavanting down South East Gippsland way I bought these two lovely old dining chairs from an Antiques barn. The selling point for me was the fact that the cushioned seats just pop out of the frame making for a super easy reupholstery job. Something so easy I will actually find time to do it!

The best thing is that I can quickly prototype different fabrics before having to commit. Like this piece of Chocolate Birch I had floating around:


Dining chair reupholstery prototype


Dining chair reupholstery prototype

I was so chuffed with the result - it feeds the growing upholstery 'thing' I've got going on.

On the fabric front, here's two large stacks of fabric we've been printing for the Brisbane show. All my favorites basically. I'm really liking the red, chocolate, white, charcoal and teal colour scheme.


Textiles for the Stitches & Craft Show

I'm not sure these fabrics will be up in the shop before we leave for Brissy. Well I might put them up but won't be able to post them back till after we get back. I'll keep you posted :)

Karin's giveaway

Leather pouch with Japanese fabric cover by Kayi Dreaming

A good friend of mine Karin has recently started getting quite involved in the blogging world. It's great - having a 'real world' friend who understands both sides of my social life.

Anyway Karin's been feeling the creative urge for quite some time now, and has been experimenting with all sorts of different crafty pursuits in order to find her thing, which I think is great. It's not always obvious what your true calling is, and it doesn't really matter anyway so long as you're having fun!

Anyway Karin has recently started working with leather and vintage japanese and screen printed fabrics. Two of my favourite things, and I can tell she has a great eye for it!

Aaand, Karin's doing a giveaway on her blog! She's giving away this lovely little leather pouch, which I think is gorgeous. So do head on over there and leave a nice comment to go into the draw - she'll really appreciate it :)

Leather pouch with Japanese fabric lining by Kayi Dreaming

The house on the hill

The house on the hill - kitchen & dining areas

Over the weekend I went down South East Gippsland way and visited a dear friend who moved there a few years ago. 'Moved' doesn't even begin to describe it, not only has he established a very successful cafe in Leongatha, but he also personally designed & built the most amazing home I have ever set foot inside.

The doors - all salvaged. The windows - all north facing, with sun warming the polished slab floor in winter but sheltered by the cantilevered roof in summer. The kitchen - featuring a wall of recycled weatherboards and bricks, and benchtops made from the offcuts from the rafters. The water & waste system - all self sustainable. Water is collected from the roof and ends up in a worm farm waste system along with the food scraps.

And as you can see from the photos - such a homely space. Look at all that art, all those books. Books books books. It's the sort of home you can just relax in and not have to feel too precious about (although everything had its place).

I was so very inspired by this house. How, with careful thought you can create a beautiful space with genuine minimal impact on the earth. I hope to one day be able to create something similar.

Photos below, more on my flickr.


Entrance hall through to living


Living and dining areas (spectacular hilltop views from those windows)


The kitchen


The kitchen


Living area (with familiar lamps!)


The bathroom

Naomi's lamp

My blog posts are becoming fewer and further between of late! The other day I was looking back over photos of my old projects and it felt like I had so much more time to just experiment with things and take pretty photos and write about them. At the moment it's all just print, print, print, in preparation for the Brisbane Stitches & Craft Show.

Fortunately, other people are out there making pretty things that I can blog about instead! Like Naomi, who commissioned a run of large scale chocolate Birch for a lamp project. Now bear in mind this is the LARGE scale Birch, so the lamp is really quite big!


Large Birch lamp in Naomi's stairwell


Large Birch lamp in Naomi's stairwell


Large Birch lamp in Naomi's stairwell

I love the way the colours & form of the pattern match the balustrade.

Thanks for the pics Naomi!

Freshly Blended collab!!

Oh my gosh, I'd really better get on to bloogging about this before I'm the last person to do so!

It's been a veeeery long time in the making, but finally they're ready to show: lovely handbound limited edition Journals made in a collaboration between myself and Nicole from Freshly Blended!

In Nicole's words:

"These heavy duty journals are bound with the original illustrations of lara cameron and hand silkscreened on 100% organic fabric. Adorning the interior of the books is a custom bookplate and an italian cotton ribbon book marker from angela liguori at carta inc. The books measure 5x7 inches and holds a 1/2 in. of 100% tree free white blank paper...perfect for travel!

There are only a limited amount and will not be reproduced, so head on over to the shop and check them out!"

Ooooooh, pretty :)

Gorgeous work Nicole - it's been great working with you! Now onto the next collab... ;)

25 fun and crafty projects

You know, it's been so long that I can't even remember how I first met Pip. A stitchy night? A morning tea? I know our blogs were involved, way back when there were only a few craft bloggers around like Loobylu and Angry Chicken.

But I can definitely say that it's been an honour to be a part of Pip's new book, Meet Me at Mikes. I received my copy in the mail the other day and I was very impressed with how it was all pulled together. So many fantastic crafty projects and awesome photography to do them justice. Here's a few pics, including the 'Fabric Clock' project that I contributed:









Congrats Pip, you must be very proud.

studio upgrade

The last couple of days at work have been très fun, albeit tiring - Bee and I printed 100m of fabric in 2 days. But we wouldn't have been able to do it without our new toy:


Printing Birch in Deep red

Our new drying system! Built and installed by the very talented Like Butter (of course).


Printing Ginkgo in Teal

The new system is sooo good! It basically doubles our efficiency (or more) because we can hoist fabric off the table and keep printing without having to wait for the first run to dry.

And it looks so pretty, with the fabric hanging like that :)

We also had our first Open Studio yesterday. I had no idea what to expect, who might turn up and if they might buy things, but it went really well! Next time we'll be more equipped with more stock and maybe some tea and coffee and biscuits :)

Work = 1, Life = 0

Juggling work stuff and life stuff can sometimes be just plain hard (and I don't even have kids). I feel like post Stitches & Craft Show I'm only just slowly starting to get back on top of things, and still don't feel quite there. And before we know it well be off doing the Brisbane show at the end of April. And I've learnt the hard way that 5 weeks is a LOT less time than it sounds.

Still, it's good to be busy. Just need to make sure it's busy in a productive & efficient way, not a crazy trying to juggle everything kind of way.

Aaanyway, on that note, I've finally had a chance to update the shop with some post-show fabrics all new colourways!


Ginkgo in Olive & Teal


Bonsai in Snow


Acacia in Inky Blue


Bonsai in Robins Egg

... and more :)

If you're waiting for the return of some popular designs like Birch, don't worry they'll appear in the shop eventually - we're busy reprinting everything for Brissy but will make sure there's some extra for the shop!