OMG! QUILT KITS! (And other fabric too!)

We can barely believe it either, but we have finally - finally! - got some stock back!!

We're only part way through our re-stock, but the first things that are ready are the Allsorts Quilt kits & some Robin's Egg Birch ... plus some other fabrics, go check out our shop!

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

I had a bit of fun with the free quilting foot on my machine, this time I followed the shapes of the prints. Pretty cool, huh?

PS: WE ONLY HAVE 14 OF THESE! So get in quick..

Red, Pink & Charcoal Allsorts Quilt Kit! The beloved favourite..

20 available now, more to come.

Those people who are after the Blue, Green & Charcoal Allsorts quilt, I'm afraid we won't be stocking that one again as we have altered a few of the fabrics that were in it.

SORRY! But, have a look at the Saffron one! C'mon, how much better is it?? :)

Ok now to the nitty gritty & some kinda bad news.

Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond our control, we have to put our prices up a teeny, tiny bit! It's been a long time coming and we've been putting it off for ages but...

Come next WEDNESDAY JULY 6TH our fabrics will be going from $22 per quarter metre to $24 per quarter metre. This means our quilt kits will also be increasing in price, from $125 to $145.

We wanted to give you guys the opportunity to purchase the fabrics & kits you have been waiting oh-so-patiently for at the old price, so get in quick to nab something now! No dilly dallying!

xx Teegs & Lara

Friday in the studio

At the end of last week I had a moment where I stopped and looked around me and felt so proud of our little studio and all the things that are happening here. And then realised that these are the moments we should share more often on this here blog. So here's some snaps from Friday afternoon:

Susan and Katie printing

Susan and Katie printing - the second pass

Susan and Katie are two awesome interns who have been with us over the last few weeks - during any down time when we didn't have jobs for them to do they hand cut their own stencils and printed a repeating design. So much fun to see their creativity at work!

Our new little lounge area

... and windowsill garden

When Teegs was away the other week and coincidentally Dana was moving house, we scored a Dana's old retro couch. It needed a bit of work and reupholstering but now looks awesome below our windowsill garden :)

A custom Birch colourway

What better way to view an long standing design with fresh eyes than to print it in a custom colourway for one of our favourite clients.

Yay! xx

The great basecloth drought... (and a cancelled Open Studio)

Oh how we wish our shelves looked like this again...

Hey everyone, hope your chilly Melbourne week is travelling along nicely :)

If you've visited our online shop lately you might have noticed that there's a serious lack of stock in there. And that's because our damn basecloth supply issues are still dragging on and we still don't have any of the cream basecloth to print on! Number #1 lesson learn - don't depend on one supplier! Which is much easier said than done when you have pretty specific environmental and ethical requirements like we do.

Aaaanyway, the good news is that it'll definitely be here in about two weeks, and in about 3-4 weeks we'll have our stock in the shop again. So please be patient with us and know that everything will be back soon!

The other bad news is that we're cancelling our Open Studio on June 18th. Partly because we have hardly any stock in the studio to sell you, and also because Teegs is away that weekend and we can't do a printing demo. But the August one will still definitely be on :)

Thanks again for your patience guys!

xx Lara & Teegs.

Cushions!

One of my favourite things is seeing our fabrics made up into cushions, and lately we've taken to sewing up small batches of them to display & sell at markets.

Since Teegs was away in Byron last week I finally had some spare time to photograph them for the shop. So for those non-sewing-folk out there (or those mortally afraid of sewing zips) here they are!

Cushions! Finally in the shop :)

Lace Fans & Flowering Gum 45cm cushion

Flowering Gum 45cm cushion

Kangaroo Paw 45cm cushion

Trams & Bicycles 45cm cushion

...and lots more!

Hope you like :)

xx Lara.

Teatowel update

Wow guys. 93 people commented on our post about those dodgy teatowels and your suggestions are all awesome!

I'm so sorry we haven't got back to you with a winner yet! Teegs is away in Byron so when she gets back we'll both decide who had the best suggestion. I think we'll pick one person with the funniest/most outrageous suggestion and one with the most practical suggestion.

Stay tuned and thank you again!

xx Lara.

MARKit and State of Green

We had such a good time at MARKit on Sunday. It was so great to attend a show with a fresh textile & product range that we weren't tired of. It was so great to have just a small stall and only one car load of stock. And it was so great to see people walking away with the wheatbags and draft snakes that our super talented assistants & interns made (I have a soft spot for draft snakes - they're just so cute and functional).


The Ink & Spindle stall at MARKit - Photo by Jenny from State of Green

The other great thing is that the very lovey Jenny from State of Green wrote a very flattering blog post about our stall & new Monochrome range, which you can read over here. Thanks so much Jenny!

This week Teegs is away in Byron enjoying some warmth. In the meantime I'm catching up on admin, taking product photos, tidying and reorganising the studio with Dana and generally getting everything back on track.

Oh, and crossing my fingers and toes that we'll have some basecloth soon so we can actually our stock that you're all so patiently waiting for.

xx Lara.

P.S. - happy first day of Winter!

Ink & Spindle goes Monochrome*

Oh yes. We are very serious, über cool, designer types... Look! Cute bike! Old camera! Hipster glasses! An ampersand! Not smiling!!

This week at Ink & Spindle we're doing something a little dramatic. We're going Monochrome.

As of Sunday, our textile range will be limited to Black, White, Charcoal and Almond prints... *with a splash of Red. And we'll be launching the new range tomorrow at the MARKit Design Market at Fed Square!

As with all of our ideas, this one was born over the printing table as we were discussing our textile range and how our market stalls always tend to look. "Too colourful", "too pastel", "too French provincial looking" ...is what we always whinge. How did that even happen? I prefer earthy, natural tones, Teegs prefers something a little bold and dramatic.

So then we thought about the gorgeous hemp/yak basecloth we'd seen. And how it'd look great with black printed on it. Or black and white. And how nice it'd look alongside our charcoal basecloths. "Hey we should do a market stall with nothing but black, white and charcoal. With a dash of red thrown in. And we could do some really w*anky designer photoshoot to go with it because it'd be so 'cool'. HA! Yes! Let's do it!"

The new textiles will be up in the shop on Monday. Come visit us tomorrow for a sneak peek (and a bunch of awesome products & kits we made)!

xx

P.S. - don't worry this isn't a permanent change, your other favourites will be back in stock soon once our darn basecloth supply problem is over ;)

P.P.S thanks to the lads at Lettuce for the lending Teegs the hipster glasses...

Did you see??

Well, I think we're officially "successful". We've made it. Whatever "it" is..

Why, you ask? Because we made our television debut last night, of course! It was on our fav Melbs TV show, Offspring.

Exciting. VERY exciting.

We printed some special textiles to be made in to Nina's bedlinen - Birch & Bonsai in Juniper!

The opening shot! Check out that Birch in all it's glory...

And a nice close up of the Bonsai. WAKE UP, NINA!!! It was just a dream...

Then later in the episode, dear Nina got some hot fake-tv-doctor, fake-tv-lovin' on (or under..?) our fabric. Yup. We were preeeeeetty happy about that!!

There was lots of "squee!" & "lolz!" text messages flying back and forth between us for most of the show. And lots of yelling "zoom out, dammit!" at the TV during the bedroom scene... see the bed there in the corner??

Yay! Thanks Offspring!!

xx T

This is what you get when you mess with us

It may seem like we're doing a lot of fighting battles these days against big evil companies out to screw creative businesses of their livelihood and homes.

Sometimes you win, sometimes you don't. But this time we won:

Dodgy rip-off teatowels recalled from the shelves

See this? See this huge pile of boxes of teatowels dramatically arranged at our front door? These were dropped off to us late last week. Recalled from all the shelves of one big, bad and terrible homewares chain who ripped us off.

After getting our lawyer (the very wonderful Sharon Givoni) onto the offending company they agreed to recall the product, but of course took no responsibility for ripping off the design. OH! no... it was the company in India who manufactured them! Who, when we approached them exclaimed:

"oh golly what a coincidence! We came up with this design our very selves! Please, see this power-point document of 'reference material' that we obviously just scraped together at the last minute as proof we didn't copy you!"

Pah! I really hope some designer, SOMEWHERE got into a LOT of trouble for ripping off our design and then sending it back as product to the hometown of the designer. Stupid.

So anyway, as you can see, we have a LOT of these dodgy teatowels to somehow get rid of. We absolutely refuse to sell them or put them back into circulation. Whilst being almost idential to my Birch print you can see where they've done a hack job of it and we don't want people associating this dodgy version with us.

So, we're asking you. What do you suggest we do with these 1000+ teatowels? What good use can they be put to, without damaging our image? We're definitely open to donating them, but who to? The person with the best suggestion will receive (you guessed it!) a bunch of teatowels! Personal use only of course ;)

xx Lara.

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 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 Lara, Teegs and the folk of Kensington

MARKit!!

The last month or two around here has been nothing short of insane. We've been juggling so many things there's been no spare head space for blogging, hence the lack of substantial updates - sorry guys!

In between working on our new Inklet range (more soon!) attending Bowerbird Bazaar (which was so much fun, thank you for everyone who came and visited our stall!) and printing for Nancybird, we've also been secretly planning yet another new and exciting range which we'll be launching at the upcoming MARKit Design Market at Fed Square:

We've been starting to tire of our usual market stall range, so at MARKit we're going to turn our collection on it's head and do something kind of crazy and the opposite to usual. We think you'll love it! More soon!

xx

P.S. - you might have noticed that our online shop is looking seriously sparse of late! That's because we've been having some huge basecloth supply issues and haven't been able to print a lot of our fabrics. But don't despair - the full range should be back in stock in about 4 weeks! Thanks for being patient! xx

TV love.. made in Melbs!

Offspring 2 - photo from Nancybird

Tonight people!! It's the premier of Season 2 of Offspring!

We'd normally be pretty excited anyway because it's both of our favourite show & we love playing 'spot the location' as it's shot in our beloved Melbs, but we're UBER EXCITED about it this season because we made some textiles especially for Nina's bed!!

So we have no idea which episode they will appear in, but keep your eyes on Nina's doona & look for Birch & Bonsai in our lovely pale blue Juniper colour (we loved the colour selection - thought it was very Nina) :)

The great thing about the show is they are really keen to use Melbourne based labels, such as the gorgeous and much coveted Nancybird! Emily is one of our favourite customers and an all-round wonderful and inspiring person, so we're super excited that her bags will be featured too...

Offspring 2 - photo from Nancybird

Offspring season 2 starts tonight at 8:30! So grab a glass of wine and some chocolate ice cream and curl up on that couch under a granny square throw and get yourself a-watching!

xx Lara & Teegs

Sneak Peek - Inklet!

Eeee! We are totally excited to give you a sneak peek of a little project we've been working on here in the Ink & Spindle HQ! Introducing.... Inklet!

Leon & Mahlie wearing Inklet tee's - Pirates in 'Leon Blue' and 'Pink Mahlie'

Since Dana of Twiglet moved into our studio and we started printing on jersey, it only made sense to combine our skills and start producing a gorgeous little range of organic wares for little ones. And so Inklet was born! (Twiglet + Ink & Spindle = Inklet, get it??)

Leon & Mahlie wearing Inklet tee's - Pirates in 'Leon Blue' and 'Pink Mahlie'

We'll be soft launching the range this weekend in Adelaide at the Bowerbird Bazaar which we're veeeeery excited about. We just have tees, lovely soft blankets and bibs for sale, with onesies and legging to follow soon.

Of course everything is 100% certified organic, printed and manufactured in Australia (even the jersey!)... and sweatshop free. Yay!

Leon & Mahlie wearing Inklet tee's - Pirates in 'Leon Blue' and 'Pink Mahlie'

How cute are Dana's little ones posing for our shoot. So good in fact that we decided to name the colourways after them ;)

Raaarh!

Yay! Hope you like them :)

xx Lara, Teegs and Dana

The IOU Project

While we are madly printing for one of our fav clients & getting ready again for the awesome Bowerbird Bazaar in Radelaide (the countdown is on!!), we are yet again neglecting you, our wonderful blog readers.. know that we love you all dearly & hopefully this'll tide you over until we have a spare second to sit in front of a computer again!

We think it's totally rad & surely - surely! - there must be hope for us as a species/caretakers of the planet if this can exist?? Spread the word, friends!

xx Teegs

Bowerbird Bazaar

We can't believe this is only three weeks away. Eeep! So much to do! But so excited. Originally it was just going to be Teegs and I heading to the lovely city of Adelaide (AKA Radelaide), but now Dana is coming too, and Georgie our occasional intern... and we're all staying in a little apartment hotel in the city with the lovely Miranda of Bride and Wolfe.

And at the end of the show we're going to the Barossa to visit Maggie Beer's farm.

I reckon the market should be pretty darn awesome too ;)

xx

Lara.

Open Studio this Saturday!

Yay, it's come around again!

Who's up for some lollies, tea, a chat, some fabric stuff & a printing demo??

You know you wanna...

Come to our studio!

206/10 Elizabeth St

Kensington

Demo at 11am sharp...ish.

xx Teegs

Finders Keepers March '11

Hello friends!

Gosh, I feel like I haven't written a proper post in FOREVER.. so much stuff has been happening in our world for the last ohhhhh.. 12 months, it hasn't left much time to devote to lengthy & hilarious blog writing.

Anyways. Finders Keepers!

Photograph by Sean Fennessy

What a totally rad weekend. Usually when we do a big design market it's an epic production. Eg: up at a chilly 5 or 6am, bump in/build stall, talk & smile constantly (you get a sore face, guys) um... (ok, the talking constantly we can do, but the smiling for 7 hours straight? Hard work), trying to not hit the wall at 3pm, having waaaaay too much coffee/lollies/chocolate, escaping from the stall for a moment of quietude/shopping, pack down & bump out, not forgetting anything, drive back to the studio & unload all our stuff...

See what I mean? Epic production. Not that I'm complaining, it's just a lot of energy to expel in one 18hr stint.

Photograph by Pip

Hey looky! It's us. Sneaky shot, Pip. Veeeeeeery sneaky.. ;)

So, FK was great! Bumped in on Friday, rocked up at a VERY civilised 9:15am on Saturday, met a bunch of ace people (thank you if you were one of the ones who introduced yourself!), saw/hung out with a heap of old friends/familiar faces from Indy Design Land, shopped (my how we shopped), ate Mr Nice Guy cupcakes & Taco Truck taco's, had visits from heaps of lovely friends, sold out of stuff, repeated it all on Sunday, then did a lovely quick pack down & bump out on Sunday!

It was most pleasing & almost (almost!) relaxed. It was definitely the least stressful one we've ever done. Thanks Finders Keepers!!

Photograph by Sean Fennessy

Lara says "yaysies!"

One thing we didn't do was take photo's. (Well, except for the iphone ones we posted on our FB page) So instead I'm stealing some pics from FK, Lucy, Pip & Dawn :)

Photograph by Sean Fennessy

Nat from Rebound & I making friends IRL! #veganpride

Photograph by Dawn Tan

Random small-Melbs-world fact: Emily is the partner of one of my colleagues from back in my high school teacher days! Great to see their lovely faces again :)

Photograph by Dawn Tan

We love you Anna!

Photograph by Lucy

Rebound <3!

Photograph by Dawn Tan

Omg, Mr Nice Guy Cupcakes! Only my fav thing at the entire market. Zombie BRAINZ! *drool!*

Photograph by Pip

TACOS! So, so, SO good.

xx Teegs

Finders Keepers! March 26-27th!

Yay! The Finders Keepers market is on again and we'll be there!

The Market is on in two weeks (not next weekend but the one after) and if the last one is anything to go by it's going to be amazing!

Make sure you read up on how to get there before you leave home so you don't get lost!

xx

Lara.

Leslie's vintage stool

The lovely Leslie has done it again. Check out this gorgeous vintage Parker stool that she just reupholstered with our Kangaroo Paw fabric!! The stool was an Ebay find that she sanded and varnished and reupholstered (before shot here). Niiiiice work.

Leslie's vintage Parker stool

Leslie's vintage Parker stool, with piping AND buttons! Skills - she has them.

xx

New organic cotton/hemp cuteness

We literally squealed when these colourways materialised on our printing table. How seriously cute are they! And they're printed on our woven organic cotton/hemp basecloth for those non-jersey sewing folk out there.

Pirates & Sea Creatures in Saffron

Can totally imagine either of these as a lamp or cushion or blinds in a kids room!

Pirates & Sea Creatures in Sage

And on a slightly different tack, we're just loving this tres Melbourne-esque colourway of Trams & Bicycles. Appealing for Melbourne lovers big and small alike. We're imagining cushions or diary covers or little purses. Eeee!

Trams & Bicycles in Deep Red

Hope your week is off to a good start!

xx Lara & Teegs