More D:M:T

As promised (though a bit belatedly), here's some more pics from D:M:T, this time of some of our amazing fellow stall holders that we had the pleasure of working alongside over the four days.

It's ironic how much we love and respect and admire these people but only ever get to see them at shows! We're all too busy working on our little businesses to actually socialise. Must fix that.

First and foremost, the very lovely and talented Beth-Emily:

Beth-Emily - gorgeous Illustrations with pencil and watercolour

Beth-Emily - gorgeous Illustrations with pencil and watercolour

Beth-Emily and her lovely man-friend Tom came up for the show from Hobart and stayed a couple of nights at my place - my first house guests in the new abode!

Next up, the gorgeous Aisling and Neil from Designed in Brunswick:

Hand printed cushions, lamps and scarves by Designed in Brunswick

If you spent a few days at D:M:T you might have noticed that the unofficial uniform of stallholders and customers alike included a brooch/necklace by Emily Green:

The sweet Emily Green and her amazing, colourful Open Studio space

Working alongside Emily in the Open Studio spaces was our much beloved Matt of Mattt bags, and I was very lucky to get an actual photograph of Matt himself:

Matt from Mattt, doin his thing on the Juki machine

Around the corner sharing spaces under the Craft Victoria banner were Penny from Pocket Carnival, Shelley Panton pottery and Morgan Wills:

Pocket Carnival's colourful display of cuteness

Shelley Panton's gorgeous ceramics (cutest little jugs ever!) and Morgan Wills with her rows of Babushkas

And last but not least, our textile buddies Harvest with their totem of cushions, craft kits and textile swatch sets for the yardage inclined:

Our buddies from Harvest textiles

Of course there was gazillions of other talented peeps that we didn't have a chance to photograph, so next year you'll just have to come along and see for yourself!

xx Lara.

Design:Made:Trade!

The Ink & Spindle stall at Design:Made:Trade

We're here! And so far it's been great!! I know it's a bit self gratifying and we really should be posting some pictures of some of our awesome fellow stall holders, but we're just so proud of how our stall came together and had to share some pics!

It's the first time we've been able to truly put our textiles on display in all our favourite contexts, and I think it's really given people a better sense of what we do (as opposed to what we can show in a market).

Anyway here's some more pics of the stall, we'll have some more show-wide photos tomorrow!

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

D:M:T: Little hanging garden (Teegs' handiwork) and our kids corner again

Our little Inklet dude rocking out in his Pirates & Sea Creatures tee

We're here till Sunday, with Saturday & Sunday being public days, so please come down and say hello! There's so many amazing people here and everyone will have stock available for purchase. It will be like a design market ... but better!

xx Lara & Teegs

Little chair

Remember how I said our lovely neighbour Sass is great for sourcing things? Well the other day she saw this little, child-sized, mid century armchair at the Mill Markets in Daylesford and thought we might like it. OMG, yes we do!

Dana and I set about reupholstering it this weekend and were SOOOO pleased with the result!

Little armchair - before

Little armchair - after

I tell you what though, reupholstering can be disgusting work. Dana had some upholstery experience from a past life that came very much in handy, and I'd recovered a few dining chairs in my time, but they were nothing compared to the filth you find inside an old armchair like this. Here's some progress shots from some of the nicer, cleaner stages.

Reupholstering the little armchair - in progress

Reupholstering the little armchair - in progress

The 'after' shot again - because it's just so darn cute!

We decided to leave the arms in their rough and scratched up state, a nice contrast to the fabric we thought.

Yay! Fun times :)

xx Lara.

Younghusband love

You know we love our building. A lot. It houses a bunch of awesome creatives and small businesses & we all feel oh-so-lucky to call the iconic Younghusband Wool Store home.

You may also know that our beloved Younghusband is (eventually... we don't know when. Hopefully not for a long time..) going to be totally gutted & have horrendous, ticky tacky little boxes (we've seen the plans) built inside it's pretty external walls, so that the wealthy can pretend to live in warehouse apartments.

WHERE WILL ALL THE ART KIDS GO? I'm not bitter about it at all, I swear..

Anyhoo, so we were recently approached by Luka Kauzlaric, a lovely photographer who volunteers his time & skills to the local newspaper. He wanted to come in & shoot a stack of the residents here at work for a feature article & he has just sent through some finished shots!

Smiling prettily for the camera...

Mid print run, probably trying really hard not to slouch

That's Sass!! And grumpy, adorable Diesel - Belle is totally in love with him, it's very cute

Sass in her gorgeous Ask Alice office (plus diesel hiding in the background)

That's Tim, in his natural habitat, serving patrons at the AMAZING Revolt Artspace

The crowd waiting for a performance at Revolt - how amazing is the mural on the far wall??

Angus, bossman of Lettuce

Lettuce office shot

Master Sam, armourer extraordinaire, at his forge.. he's old school. He has no web presence!

Master Sam's workbench - remember the costume wings I made late last year? Master Sam totally taught me how to do all the metal work for them. Skillz. He has them.

He custom makes to order. Email us for more info!

And finally the lovely & tiny Bea of Beaspoke! Yes, that totally is Aslan. THE Aslan. From the stage production. The White Witch's amazing costume is somewhere around here too...

How great is everyone?? And that's only a few of the residents..!

xx Teegs

All photos by Luka Kauzlaric.

Ask Alice

...or as we find ourselves saying lately - ask Sass! Because Sass (of Ask Alice stationery fame) is the newest resident in our Younghusband Building and we are just loving having her as a neighbour.

We've found if there's any cute/quirky/random thing that we are in need of, Sass always has a solution. Be it a cute child size mid century armchair from an antique store or a bunch of whimsical stickers for name tags at a dinner function, or a particular coloured pen or delicious homemade cupcakes for a birthday, Sass comes up with the goods!

The most recent instance was when we asked Sass if she had any tags or cards that we can include as freebies with our shop orders. I have a real issue about sending orders without a little "something" extra - it feels cold and businesslike to just send a piece of fabric without a note. We've been including flyers but that's not the same, it's not something our customers can use and enjoy.

But funnily enough, Sass has exactly what we required! Two boxes full of ever so slightly imperfect stock that she doesn't want to sell. Which to you and I looks completely fine! And once we've gone through those we'll do a formal collaboration. How fun!

cards and tags from Ask Alice - thanks Sass!

Check out Sass's cute stationery range here. Yay! xx

Inklet - online launch!!

Leo wears Trams & Bicycles tee in Apple Jack

It seems there's an endless stream of stuff for us to be "super excited" about right now, and this is no exception! We are super excited (and proud) to finally launch our Inklet range online!

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About Inklet

At Inklet we’re all about doing what’s best for our environment, our community and your little ones.

All our products are locally made with certified organic cotton fabrics and are screen printed by hand with water based, environmentally friendly inks.

Inspired by nature, the ocean and our hometown of Melbourne, Inklet came to life when Dana moved her children’s wear label Twiglet into the Ink & Spindle textile printing studio. It only made sense to combine our skills and produce this little range for you to enjoy!

Visit the Inklet range in the Ink & Spindle shop!

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Inklet! All photos courtesy of Rebekah Lyn Photography

It's one thing to have an idea for a new range, another thing to go through the extensive process of garment sampling & testing and production, and another thing again to find gorgeous little people and a great photographer to do it all justice in photographic form!

But with a bit of luck, a bit of hard work and a lot of generosity we managed to pull together a shoot that we're so proud of and really captures what Inklet is all about. We owe a HUGE THANK YOU to Rebekah Lyn Photography for her amazing work, we kind of threw her in the deep end of a studio full of little people but the results speak for themselves.

Ari wears Trams & Bicycles tee in Apple Jack

Pip wears Pirates & Sea Creatures tee in Pink Mahlie

Also huge thanks to the models and their mums - Leo, Tai, Isabo, Sara, Pip, Jane, Ari & Kim :)

xx Dana, Lara & Teegs

Design:Made:Trade

Guess what!? Design:Made:Trade is on again, and this year we're super excited to finally be a part of it! We've been considering it for years but never felt quite ready, but this year it felt right. It's our very first trade show, ever, and we can't wait!

Design:Made:Trade 2010 - Photo by Tobias Titz

Design:Made:Trade 2010 - Photo by Tobias Titz

Here's some deets!

Date:

Trade & Industry

Thursday 21 – Friday 22, July

Public

Saturday 23 – Sunday 24, July

Time:

10am – 5pm

Location:
Royal Exhibition Building

Really hope to see you there, we'd love the support!

xx Lara & Teegs.

P.S. - We particularly like the fact that the owners of this trade show do not drive around in a bright yellow Hummer.

Friday in the studio, again...

I wouldn't dare suggest that this "Friday in the studio" thing is going to become a theme... I have nowhere near enough confidence in our regular blogging abilities to deem it as such ;) But whilst I'm feeling inspired with the camera, why not!

Firstly, as usual we have some extra faces in the studio this week, including Darci who came to do her year 10 work experience with us. We don't always have a lot for students to do when they come here (depends whether or not we have a market coming up) but if there's enough quiet time we encourage them to stencil cut their own design to print on some fabric.

Bex & Teegs help Darci measure her repeat

Darci's hand-cut stencil taped to a small screen

Darci prints!

This week I was also loving the overprints that have appeared on our latest drop cloth. The drop cloth gets printed on whenever a fabric is less than 150cm wide, so we don't get ink on our glued table:

Overprints on an old Native Grasses print

And last but not least...

Stacks and stacks of fabric! Fresh from the heat setters and back in the shop. Yay!!!

Ahhh it feels good to be back on track with a studio full of fabric again :)

xx Lara.