Reflection

About this time of year it's good to look back and take stock of accomplishments and milestones and - wow! What a crazy year it's been for us.

Lara, B and I were having this conversation last evening, over a bottle of bubbly- we thought back 12 months when we were all in (and heading to) really different places (for example, Lara and I hadn't even met!) and now, here we are, totally connected and cheers-ing to our first Christmas at I&S!!

I guess you just never quite know which direction life will take you. I really thought I was going to be an art teacher forever, and over the last couple of weeks I have had to say goodbye to all my gorgeous students (I miss you SASC guys already!) - which has been the only downside to starting up this business, and sadly I couldn't do both jobs and stay sane.

Ok, I've been told to keep my posts short, so moving on.

• On behalf of us all, a massive 'Thank You!' to everyone who has read, commented, emailed, bought, visited and encouraged us. Trust us, we loved it :)
  

• Keep your eyes out early in the new year for some new designs... here's a sneak peak at (so far) my fav one, called Antique Keys:
  

(sorry about the terrible phone camera pic, but you get the idea!)

Finally, from the three of us, wishing you all happy and most importantly, safe holidays - we'll see you in the new year! Cheers!

xx Bianca, Lara and Teegs

Come and visit us...

Our studio will be open on Tuesday 23rd December from 6pm to 8.30pm and we'll have some yummie goodies for you to buy. Most of them are not in our shop... so it's a very special event.

We'd love to see you on Tuesday, even if you have already finished all your Christmas shopping. We'll have drinks & nibbles :)

An open studio event

To make sure that you all receive your orders well before Christmas Day we will be posting the last of our local orders out on Friday 19th December.

All postal orders placed after this date can be collected from our - last minute - open studio evening on:

Tuesday 23rd December - 6pm to 8.30pm

Ink & Spindle Studio
Younghusband Wool store
Suite 206
10 Elizabeth Street
Kensington VIC 3031

This will be the last opportunity to pick up your order or shop for some a last minute gifts before we close for Christmas.

There will be drinks and nibbles to celebrate the festive season and our first open studio night. Merry Christmas everyone!

Please note that we don’t have eftpos facilities (yet) so you will need to bring real money! (or pre-pay with your Paypal account)

We'd love to know if you're coming, so we can plan our drinks and nibbles :)
Please leave us a comment to RSVP.

Wet & Windy

That pretty much described our day at the Yarraville Christmas market.
We still had a good day though, it's fun to spend a day at the markets together... chatting, laughing and eating deli goods :)

Visit us in Yarraville today

Just a quick reminder that we're going to be at the Yarraville Christmas market today. And of course it's raining ... again. Luckily we're indoors again (the Masonic Hall, corner of Canterbury and Willis streets) which is in the Yarraville village centre, so only a quick dash for all those breakfast and coffee goers who flood the village centre on weekends.

Hope to see you there! Please say hello if you do come for a visit, we love putting faces to names.

City Love

You probably already know that we at Ink & Spindle love our city of Melbourne.

And it looks like the City of Melbourne loves us back.

We just found out on Monday that we are one of the proud recipients of the City of Melbourne Small Business Grant!!! We were hopeful, but never too hopeful - you never know what sort of businesses you're up against. The news is still sinking in, but needless to say we are stoked. It allows us to get productive a lot quicker. New screens for customer print jobs (we'll be ready for you in the new year we promise!) and more importantly an in house oven so we can heat-set fabric ourselves and take a week off our turn around time.

Yay. It really takes a load off our shoulders, and it's nice to be validated by your own city :)

Thanks Melbourne!

MDM, skirts and a masterpiece

So it's post Melbourne Design Market, as you know, and we're all still spinning a bit, exhausted and achy.
Seriously, my right leg hurts like crazy! The left one is fine tho..? Weird, but hey, I've never claimed to have grown from the normal tree ;)
There was a lot of midnight oil burning in the lead up to the MDM - including on market eve. The studio witnessed much last minute packaging, pricing, packing and even sewing! I think I finished lovely Lara's luscious 'Ginkgo' wrap skirt (see previous post) just after 12pm! Bianca's 'Bloem' wrap and mine were finished a bit earlier that evening. Totally worth it though, so many people commented on them to each of us, and is was great wearing our own designs, too!

(On that note, the Wrap Skirt sewing pattern will be available in the shop tomorrow, so help yourself if you're feeling inspired!)

Now, it's really fabulous to 'meet' so many lovely people through this crazy medium, and it even becomes more fabulous (fabulouser?) when they make our fabrics into fantastic things and email us their awesome handiwork!

Here is Heids' latest masterpiece, made for Miss Grace's 3rd Birthday Party! We hope you both had a great day!!

Miss Grace modeling her blue 'Briar' party dress - too cute for words!

Melbourne Design Market

Here are some pictures of our stall at the Melbourne Design Market.

A big thanks to all of you who came to visit us, it was lovely to meet you! Please keep an eye on our blog, there will be more exciting news from us soon...

We're off to bed.

Final preparations for the Design Market

We're in the studio today, putting the final pieces together for our big day tomorrow.
It's going to be a fun day and we hope you'll come visit us and our lovely stall :)


Fabrics for our stall backdrop


Some lovely fabric frames


Bianca pressing fabric


Lara making a tote bag

Market 3031

Yesterday's weather was like winter all over again. It was probably one of the coldest, rainiest November days on record. We all huddled together with our hot water bottles and we were all wearing scarves, gloves, boots, winter jackets and tights. Pretty strange when the minimum temperature is supposed to be over 20 degrees.

Despite the cold weather the market went really well, and we'd like to say thanks to those who braved the weather and came to say hello and bought some of our stuff.

We'd like to share some pictures of our stall with you...













Bianca, Lara & Tegan at our market stall... can you see how cold we were?

Living and breathing craft

We've been crafting like crazy ladies these last few weeks preparing for our upcoming markets - the Kensington 3031 market (this Saturday!!) and the Melbourne Design Market (Sunday 30th).

Here's the Kensi market flyer:



Here's some of what we've been making:


Lamps of all shapes and sizes.


Stacks of cushions


And heaps of fabric packs and kits for our fellow crafty folk out there - yay!

Please come down and say hello. If you don't catch us this Saturday maybe we'll see you the following Sunday at the Melbourne Design Market.

me too...

I've also updated the shop... with Bloem in Charcoal and Burnt Orange and Seeds in Charcoal and Green Tea.

Finally!

So my fabric is now heat set! Yay!

Briar in: Tattoo Blue, Sunset, Deep Red, Soft Moss and Grey on Black

Check out our brand spanking new shop! Where you can get your hands on some of the pictured fabrics, plus some other scrumptious goodies... :)

Apologies to those who have so patiently waited for it! I know its been a long process!!

Rainy days...

Bloem in white by Hollabee




Bloem in Deep Red by Hollabee

Fresh from the table...

Lara's Acacia in Charcoal


Teegs' Briar in Deep Red



Teegs, we hope this is the red you like... It was great printing this one... flawless! Enjoy your time in Perth!

An orange day...

Todays theme is orange... at least that's what came off the table in our studio today.

Firstly, Teegs' Briar in Sunset.





and secondly, Bianca's Bloem in Burnt Orange.

Blue and green should always be seen

Sunday was another super productive day in the studio. We can't lament the loss of our weekends too much given this is really quite a lot of fun:




Bianca's new Seeds print, in a lovely 'green tea' colour.


Tegan's Briar print in a really lovely soft green colour which she will be making into shirts! (and also selling in her shop in a couple of weeks)




A calico toile of Teegs' new wrap skirt design