Blogtoberfest 6th

We're only 6 days into Blogtoberfest and already struggeling for words ;)

Whilst Teegs is at home -in pain, the poor girl, I hope she feels better soon- and Lara is having a creative outburst with her new *totally awesome* sewing machine, I've been keeping myself busy working at my other job and with watching movies. I've seen the September Issue and Valentino lately, which are great movies and the last one made me appreciate the world of Haute Couture -and the pricetag that comes with it- a lot more. The dresses are beautiful, the dogs are cute and funny and the relationship between Valentino and his partner Giancarlo Giametti is amazing!



I was lucky enough to win 3 double passes to see Valentino, after receiving a newsletter from Living Creatively in which it said that Hopscotch was giving away tickets on Facebook. Yay for free tickets!

Talking about movies... tonight we're off to see 'Fame'. Not sure what to expect but I'm sure it'll be a fun night out.

I can't leave this post without any Ink & Spindle-ness, so here's what we finally got to see last night.





Lara's Birch trees at the Precint Hotel in Richmond, how exciting to finally see it for real! We met up with the Living Creatively team and Jenny and had a great evening out.

Blogtoberfest 5th - Lara's quilt!

This blogtoberfest thing is going to be quite a challenge! Where are we going to find 30 posts worth of interesting vaguely craft related content from when we already struggle to post once a week?!

Luckily I just got a shiny new Janome for my birthday and have a backlog of crafty projects to work on. If I get cracking I can post about them here as suitable blog fodder!

So it's extra good timing that I just finished making the quilt that I started 16 months ago and had to abandon for lack of a Walking Foot (and they didn't make any for my old Elna Lotus).

A lot of the fabrics used in this quilt are old discontinued ones from my old range, but I suppose if enough people ask super nicely we may reprint them ;)


My finished quilt!


My finished quilt - zoomy close-up shot

I tried to take some pretty, stylised shots of the quilt and realised taking photos of quilts is hard. But I persisted:


Draped all pretty like on the couch...


... and with Jhoanna's Peg Bear on my new old 1960's armchair. Hmm I think this is definitely it's home to stay.

Blogtoberfest 4th

Another day draws to an end - already?!

Today consisted of me mostly just sleeping and whispering, preeeetty boring to do, then to read about, I know.

However I was able to have a Twitter conversation with Felix (no, not the cat) who suggested I might delay my bedridden boredom by watching Deadwood! Not to everyone's tastes, he said, but whatev's. So Brendan was sent off to the video store to hire me some DVD's and came back with Season 2... but I shouldn't have told Felix this because he made me promise that I under no circumstances was to watch them out of sequence. Ooh. The passion.

Deadwood

I may have sneaked a look at the first episode tho and here are my first impressions:

- Damn hard to understand their ye olde, goldrushy times, American accents!

- Seriously awesome costumes! I love anything with a corset. Anyone else feel like they were born in the wrong century..?

- The detail is amazing! Not just on the clothing, but the sets, backgrounds, everything!

- They have terrible potty mouths

Luckily for me, dear friend Louise came to the rescue and Bren is over at her house right now fetching me Season's 1 -3! Hooray!

That's my day - what are the other two doing? Well Luz has disappeared for her b'day - no doubt we'll hear all about it whence she returns!

.. and Bee, well, I think she should write about her very first weekend as an Aussie herself!

Ooh - Bren's back! Time for dinner and DVD's ;)

See ya! xx T

Blogtoberfest 3rd

OMG! Bee got her permanent residency!! Hooray! Hooray!

I know she already said so, but seriously peeps, we've all been quietly (or not so quietly) wishing for it to come through for months, so Thursday was rather a big day for all three of us!

Congrats, Bee, we are indeed very pleased to have you, permanently! ;) Yay! Ink & Spindle shall live.

We'll now only refer to you as 'Aussie'. No more 'Dutchy'. Well til the novelty wears off anyhoo - ha ha.

So we've signed up for Blogtoberfest, the dealio is we're blogging every day - good for me as I have little else to do for the next little while! Bad for you coz as I have little else to do, the reading may not be up to it's usual (dare I say, hilarious?) level ;)

...er... right...

...moving on...

Have a look at my latest fav colourway - how good does Sumor look in olive green??

I love the translucency of this ink of the natural linen, and how you can see the variations of the fabric through the ink, it's just beautiful. I hope we'll be printing some more green as soon as I'm back at work!

xx T

Blogtoberfest

Yesterday I received this message from - a probably still heavily drugged - Teegs: "Ooh! Can you sign us up for tinniegirl's blogtoberfest? and blog for today? I'll do the rest if you like! It'll be fun :)"

Well, we're one day late, but here we go. I have absolutely no idea how we're going to do this with Teegs all tonsil-less and sick at home and Lara off to celebrate her birthday and some well deserved days off... but we're joining Blogtoberfest 2009! Hopefully it won't involve as much beer as Oktoberfest, we're more the type for tea, biscuits and blogs. (jelly & icecream for Teegs)

There's one bit news, worthy to share with you all... I am now an Australian Permanent Resident, whoo! I'm staying ;)

The rest of the month you'll probably be reading about birthdays... because we have lots of them, all exactly 1 year and 20 days apart. Except for Ink & Spindle, that's somewhere in between mine & Lara's. So put your party hat on to celebrate Blogtoberfest and lots of birthdays! Cheers!

xx Bee

Absent!

Hey everybody just a quick FYI:

We're gonna be closed down for a week as of today, coz as you know, it's Lara's Birthday (HAPPY B'DAY LUZ!!) plus I am going in to hospital tomoz for a tonsillectomy, so will be out of action for a while.

It was the best birthday present I could think to give her - a silent Teegs! Ha ha.

See y'all when I'm better!

xx Teegs

our first birthday!

Guess what?? Ink & Spindle is turning 1!!! It feels like we've been printing for a gazillion times longer than that which goes to show just what a full on, action packed year it's been.

So we're having a birthday party, and we'd love for you to join us! Details below :)

Introducing: Selvedge House

You gotta see this, if you haven't already! Check out Selvedge House a brand spankin' new business by Brissy blogger's Ellie & Danielle!


I love the concept behind Selvedge House, here's an excerpt of what Ellie had to say about it:

Selvedge House is our idea of the perfect modern crafting shop.

We dream of a place where people can visit and feel inspired as soon as they enter the door. A place of warmth and sharing, of inspiration and installations, of fabric and texture and laughing.

Where beginners to the contemporary crafting world can feel welcome, and the experienced can enhance their skills, while renewing their crafty love.

How awesome does that sound?? About a ten, I reckon!!

By the way, I just have to mention that I think Ellie is quite possibly the Dave Grohl of the Aussie craft world - he's the nicest guy in rock, she's the nicest gal in craft! And that's saying something coz there are a hell of a lot of nice gals in craft out there!

We love you, Selvedge House!

xx Teegs

Demo Print Run Tomorrow!

That pretty much says it all!

If you're free & can get to Kensington tomorrow morning, please do come by! We're opening the doors from 10am til 1pm, and the demo print run will be starting at 11am sharp!

Come one, come all... there might even be cupcakes...

... but that's a big 'might'. ;)

See you there!

xx Teegs

improvements!

One of the best things about running a small business like Ink & Spindle (and there are many) is that we can basically change and improve things at the drop of a hat. It feels like we're constantly improving and finding better & more efficient ways of doing things. And we still have a long way to go!

Anyway our old packaging for cut fabric pieces has been bothering me for some time now (bio-degradable cello + header card) so we came up with a much simpler and more natural approach:



I love the way these look now! I can just see these standing up in little rows ordered by colour, like we do our fat quarters. Now off to pester Jem about making us some new market display boxes to put them in!

The Rest of the Venturesome Weekend!

So we leave Trentham just after 11am, and head in to Daylesford to the Acqua Viva Day Spa where Luz & I indulged in a spot of pampering! We each had a spectacular massage and then an extra long soak in the super-special mineral spring water spa! Omg, it was thoroughly divine! Thank you, Acqua Viva!

Feeling very sleepy, relaxed & zen, we headed back to Daylesford and cruised around, checking out all the lovely old buildings (we love a good bit of old architecture!), then headed down to the Lake. It had rained quite heavily while we were at the spa, but had stopped before we emerged, and everything was glistening & still and had that delicious, fresh, gum tree scent you only get in the bush. We strolled around the lake, quietly watching for blue wrens in the undergrowth, and ducks & dabchicks on the lake.

We also admired this beautiful rundown property sitting right on Lake Daylesford and daydreamed of owning it... sigh!

You get the drift. Zen.

By this stage Sandy had finished up at the market, so we headed back to Trentham to unload our goodies and chill out at Sandy's ace cottage! She and Murray are only mid reno's but already it is so, so lovely! Sandy has got to be one of the most welcoming and warm people I have ever had the pleasure to spend time with, and she made us feel right at home - not to mention her totally lovable dogs: Bree, Keegan & Chocolate! Bree spent the evening sleeping on me. I adore her, wish I had a pic to show!!

Instead, have a sqiz at Sandy's gorgous home:

Here are some of Blumin's bouquets! (Anyone else hearing Hyacinth Bucket right now? "It's Bou-quet, dear!")

So on Sunday morning, after googling real estate in the area (we wish!), Sandy took us to meet & have morning tea with a friend of hers - none other than Queen of Craft, Tonia Todman!

Well, did we have a ball! Tonia is so genuinely lovely and her husband Michael is hilarious! We had a very civilised morning tea, which before long became wine & crackers, such fun!

Of course, we couldn't go to the Queen of Craft's home without bringing a small token of appreciation for the audience, :) so we put together a little gift package of fabrics! Tonia seemed a little taken aback and very pleased indeed! She was full of praise and encouraging words, and truly thrilled!! :) Thanks, Tonia!

*edit: love Claire from Matching Pegs' comment - "Tonia Todman is the McGuyver of Craft" - SO TRUE!!

Upon receiving her fabrics, Tonia asked if we'd seen the t-shirt that said "She who dies with the most fabric, wins"? "No," grins I, "I'm in contention, haha!" says she!
I thought I must remember that one, as I know quiiiiite a few fabric hoarders...

Her home was full of surprising and beautiful things - too many to go in to detail - but this is one set of interesting things. Hand carved woodblocks!

After finally leaving Tonia & Micheal's, we went to the little town of Kyneton and had a wander around admiring more lovely old buildings before heading homeward.

All in all, a truly wonderful weekend, all thanks to the lovely Sandy!

xx Teegs

A Venturesome Weekend - Trentham Farmer's Market

Lara & I headed off last weekend (as those of you who follow us on Twitter will be well aware of - we were a tad excited) for a weekend of respite to Trentham/Daylesford/Kyneton!

We took up the gorgeous Sandy's (see below!) wonderfully generous offer of a bed in her beaut-i-ful home in Trentham with the intention of having a bit of an explore around the district!

We arose early on Saturday morning and headed off toward the Macedon Ranges! Huzzah!

We arrived at the Trentham Farmer's Market, where we found Sandy at her lovely stall...

The gorgeous bouquets and ladies of Blumin, Helen and Sandy!


Fresh from the ladies' gardens...


Completely organic and (quite literally) hand picked flowers & herb bouquets - exquisite!!

So after admiring our wonderful host's stall, and moaning a little about the early morning we had all had, Luz & I wandered off to check out the rest of the cute little Market... and promptly spent our entire weekend's allowance :( But so worth it! :)

Here's what we ended up with:

...mmmmmm...

Here's where we got it:

Pud For All Seasons - the makers of Traditional Christmas Pudding! And they had a couple of variety's of Dairy Free pud, so we totally bought some for desert - and yep, delish!

We all know Luz is a lip balm addict, so she partook of a gorgeous Shea Butter Balm from Cleopatra Soaps

OMG. The best stuff eva. Nut Butters by Goodfoods of Castlemaine.
There were about 15 varieties, all more delicious than the last!
We gorged on the Lemon Dukkah for lunch - I can't recommend it highly enough.. *drool*
Someone needs to stock these here in Melbs! Preferably in Kensington...

I'm sure quite a few of you will know Wildings - such a gorgeous range of delicious, locally made Pantry Essentials!

A packet of delicious organic Peppermint & Green Tea from Bliss Blend, for the studio!

Then a bottle of gorgeous Lotus Chai concentrate- not syrup! - 30mls + soy milk + microwave = happy screen printers!

Then when we thought we were all shopped out, we found Davo's Worm Farm!
I was very excited.
I had mass worm death in the 47 degree heat wave of last summer and so seeing Davo was all the encouragement I needed to get my A in to G and get my farm back in to action! One step closer to sustainable living - I love it!

Entry to the Trentham Farmers Market!

Local musician's playing a jaunty tune in the gazebo!

What a great day! And it's only 11am!

xx T

Open-tastic!

Yep! It's almost time for our bi-monthly event - The Open Studio!

This time it's super-extra special as we are going to FIN-ally be doing what sooo many people have been bugging, er, asking us to do ever since we began all these shenanigans!

... a demo print run, starting at 11am sharp!

See below!

Check out the fan-tab-ulous poster that the Sixto from Too Yeah Media' made for us! What a guy! This is the second time he has donated his time and skillz (yes, that's skillz with a 'z') to making us an Open Studio thingy - so big up's to Mr Sixto - check out his stuff! He's so great!

Oh, and come watch us print! Hooray!

(Warning: if you're in to that kind of thing - and obviously we're not - turns out it's on grand final day, so don't double book!)

xx Teegs

We're not dead!

I promise!!

We have still not caught up on everything we needed to, since Sydney, hence the extreme quiet on the blogfront!

So what have we been doing? Well, these big fat bolts for one!

HOLY BOLTS!

Aren't they pretty?

That's 150m's of Natural Cotton/Linen all ready to fly off to Lena & Zasa in Antwerp, Belgium!

Phew!

We've also just sent another similarly big batch off to Brooklyn General Store in New York, plus a whole bunch of printing was completed for a secret (and exciting) new client who we're sure you already know & love... but we can't reveal anything just yet, so more on that at a later date ;)

In the meantime, please enjoy this bouquet! (The visual equivalent of elevator music.)

This weeks pretty flowers! Much the same as last weeks, but y'know. Fresher.

So, in short, we have spent the last few weeks doing basically nothing but printing (if you've emailed us and I haven't responded yet - sorry! It's on my to-do list!).

But, things are going to be a little more exciting in the upcoming weeks! For starters there'll be 4 (that's right - FOUR!) birthday's in forty days!

But there's only three people, I hear you say! Very observant of you, says I, but the fourth birthday belongs not to a person, but to Ink & Spindle itself!

That's right we'll be celebrating our Very First Birthday on Sat Oct 17th! And hells yes, we're havin' a shindig to celebrate!! So save the date, peeps! We'll make up a pretty invite & blog about it sooooon...

xx Teegs

An insert from the Ink and Spindle Intern...!!!

Hello, My name is Bec and I am 'the first ever intern' at Ink and Spindle.. YAY!!
I am now up to my 4th day with only one more to go and the girls have trusted
me to update the blog for them.... hmmmm, could be interesting as I have
never blogged before...



'This is me... before my haircut...!! mixing inks (above) and cleaning (below)'



'Tada... here are samples of my first ever screen printing effort...
fun fun or as Teeg's would say 'funsies'...









And there you have it... I have learned so much from the lovely Ink and Spindle
family.. although I did not get to meet Bee :0(
Thank you so much Lara and Teeg's for teaching me the many parts of your exciting
business... mixing inks, screen printing (I even got to use the big screens today) and best of all.. to blog, I can't wait to get home and do my own blog so I can be part of the fabulous little world of blogging that is out there... keep and eye out for me!!!
And I will be back, even if just for a visit and a quick nip down to Elevenses to get some Beans and Eggs.. thanks Tom and Shanny xx

Goodbye Winter, hello Spring!

Oooh we are huge fans of spring time around here. And to celebrate I decided to decorate our lounge/meeting area with some native flowers. There's a lovely little corner flower shop around here that specialises in natives so I asked the owner to put together this bunch for us - lovely.



Okay back to all that printing...

We're Back!

Yay for Sydney!

Here's Lara in her new t-shirt from Surface Art - oh and our stall of course!

It was so great to see all our ol' travellin' Craft Carny mates (tell you what, we are definitely feeling the travel this week) and to meet a whole bunch of new ones! There seemed to be at least double the amount of Indies as there were at Brissy - win. We loved it.

The best bit was, for the first time, we managed to actually go shopping amongst our wonderful neighbours stalls! I have in my hot little hands some of K Diddy's fabric to make a funky lil shirt, plus an awesome hat pattern from Nikki (hat = scary!!) - btw, have a look at her post, lots of pics - two cute baby t's from Juicy Roo (ginger's unite!), t-shirts from Surface Art, hand-printed tights from Body Parts, and the list goes on and on...

Anyhoo I'm not going to write a big long post this time, Lara's writing all about the show over at Kirin so I'm just going to link to her last two posts: here & here. Go, read, be merry

Ok, there is a backlog of emails to respond to and fabric that is desperate need of printing.

Adios!

We're OUT!

See y'all in Sydney at S&C!

We CAN'T WAIT to see all our fav indie, Incubatorians tomorrow!

Not to mention the super-supportive Stitches & Craft peeps - big ups to Angela & Ross for including us this year! We have had (and are still having) the best time at the Shows and I personally can't wait to hang out in Sydney for a bit... I'm ashamed to admit I've never spent any time there as a (semi) grown up - outside the airport, that is! And I'm even from NSW originally!! Poor form, I know.

Aaaaaaanyhoo, Larz & I are flying up tomorrow morning first thing (thanks to Yong, our bestest neighbour ever who's taking us to the airport - what a guy!) and are being reunited with the lovely Miss Bianca van M. on Wednesday night - Yay!

We've got a big ol' apartment booked and are staying with Sandra (Winterwood), Bek (One Small Room) & Kate (Little Bird), too! It's gonna be great!

The best thing is, that I put my hand up to be chef, so everyone's lucky enough to be a delicious vegan for a week! I'm hoping for 5 new converts by the end of it all ;)

K, time to go! See you there!!

xx Teegs

P.S. Wow! 4 posts in 3 days - think that's a record for us!!

Just had to show you!

Will you have a look at what the über talented Amber from Fresh Fabrics has made with Bee's ever-awesome Sumor!

The bag is called the Margaret Sling Bag and there's a free tutorial which can be found on the blog Oh, Fransson!

Nice work to Elizabeth for the design & tute and to Amber for her exceptional sewing skills!


P.S. Don't forget to come visit us at the Sydney Stitches & Craft Show this week - we fly out tomorrow!!

xx Teegs

A gift for us?! You shouldn't have...

So, as you can imagine, this last week or so has been pretty full on with all our preps for the ever exciting Sydney Stitches & Craft Show!

But amidst all the busy-last-minutey-type-stuff, we received an exciting surprise in the mail from one of our fabric suppliers, as a thank you for recommending them!

Made especially for us! This gives you an idea of what they look like the whole way around.

We thought a) how utterly lovely b) how did they know we (Lara) were lip balm addicts and c) that's a bit random!

Needless to say, it made our day! Who doesn't love a little pressie now and then?

Check out the Birch background & the little inverse Blue Wrens on the lid! Someone obviously went to a lot of trouble to make us these!

They came in Sweet Orange, Strawberry & Lemongrass flavours - and are made of all sorts of yummy ingredients. They were so close to being vegan too, (which would have been just too much excitement) but unfortunately for me they have beeswax in them, so Bee & Larz get to share the three between them :)

I'm still rather impressed by the whole thing though! Yay for custom made lip balms!

xx T