Sneak Peak for Stiches and Craft Show!

Just a short one to say we've been printing madly, doing our very best to get a whole bunch of fabrics ready for the awesome new Stitches & Craft Show beginning on the 11th of March!

We decided to print some very short runs of brand-spankin'-never-seen-before colourways to be launched as Show Specials! We're not sure which, if any, we'll reprint post-S&C Show so you'll just have to come along to our stand in the Incubator section, to be sure of getting your hot little hands on some! :)


The camera was on some kinda weird setting, and the fabrics seem all speckly - but they're not really :) We'll replace it with a proper pic when the fabrics come back, next week.
Pictured are: Bloem in Dusty Pink, Blue Wrens in Chocolate, Ginkgo in Plum & Chocolate

There are going to be heaps and heaps of other ace fabric-related folk there too and we're really excited to be a part of it! Particularly as it's under new management, and is all keen to support indy desgners and small labels!! Yay for Living Creatively!

Ooh, I nearly forgot to mention the most exciting bit - all three of us will be running daily workshops and seminars in the Craft Labs! We'll post some more about the workshops and seminars next week...

An unexpected guest

GUESS what!?

Lara found a little dead bat at the back of our building yesterday, and asked me to come and check it out, so we went to have a closer look and it was a cute little native Australian Goulds Wattled Bat (we Googled it) almost the size of my finger. It had obviously got in over the weekend and hadn't been able to find it's way out again, and I was sad we hadn't found it sooner. So I went to get some paper towel to pick it up.

Then Larz said "I think it's breathing!" and lo, it was! Though he (once we discovered it was alive, it ceased being 'it' and became 'he') wasn't in a very good way. Who knew how long he'd been stuck inside with no water!!

I picked him up (Larz followed at a bit of a distance) and took him to the studio where I very carefully gave him a drink from a plastic lid. He was so thirsty and drank what seemed to be heaps for a tiny bat.

We found a wildlife rescue number online and gave them a call but they just said to take it to the nearest Vet. I'd done this for an injured bird once before and they put it to sleep, so I wasn't very keen on that idea. That didn't matter because very shortly after this, he perked right up and started looking around and blinking at us! Hooray!


He had the cutest lil face

We thought we should get a pic for the blog, Larz got the camera and I uncovered him a little and - duh! - he took off flying around the office!! Poor Larz squealed and hit the deck, I told her to get under her desk while we waited for him to land, but he flew out the office door and in to the printing room and did laps around and around while I opened windows and waited for him to fly away or land.

He did finally land, so I picked him up and put him in a box with some fabric to hide in and some more water - they poor little guy was terrified. We were going to let him outside, but it was the middle of the day, so we ended up leaving him safe and sound in the box until evening. They're nocturnal, after all.


And the sharpest lil teeth!

By six, we were wanting to go home and so I took our little friend out to the balcony so he could fly away, but he must have decided he liked it at I&S and wouldn't go! I ended up leaving him snuggled into his bit of fabric, so he could head off when he felt like it - and he was gone the next morning :)

I love a happy ending. And Larz loves having a bat-free environment again. It's just lucky Bee wasn't there - both girls are scared of moths, imagine them with a bat loose in the studio!!

Clutchy Skills

We are so totally impressed. And I am thrilled to bits!

Penny of Pocket Carnival has made a cute little clutch from some of my Charcoal Antique Keys, what amazing skills!



Thanks Penny! :)

Talented customers

We thought it would be great to share some of the awesome products our customers have made with the textiles we've printed for them:


Knuffle Kid reversible dress in red.
Pattern designed by Emma Strybosch.


Knuffle Kid reversible dress - in blue!
Pattern designed by Emma Strybosch.


Keec small leather hOP-scotch bag
Feature panel designed by Melbourne duo Pandarosa.

Gorgeous stuff - nice work and it was a pleasure working with you :)

Next Batch

Our latest batch of fabric has arrived back at I&S studio's - woots!

We're currently in the process of putting it all up in the shop - tho there's a whole bunch of it this time, so please be a little patient with us :)

This batch includes the reappearance of Birch in Chocolate and Robin's Egg:


Wrens in the new (controversially named) Nathan's Blue and the very popular Charcoal:


And Sumor in a whole bunch of new colours!!

Lights, Camera, Action

At the weekend we did a professional photoshoot for an interview we had last week, and for our website. We had heaps of fun, lots of giggles, and a suitable lunch including yummy things from the local deli.

We think the photos turned out fantastic! Thanks to Marcel for his camera skills and Brendan for his flash holding skills!


The prettiest corner!


Teegs mixing Pale Charcoal ink.


Lara putting the aforementioned ink on the screen.


Bianca mid-print.


Teegs, B and Larz upstairs in the funky loft.

For more photos, visit our flickr page.

Copyright Marcel Lee 2009
Please do not copy or use these photos without written permission from Ink & Spindle.

Yay for new stuff!

Lara and I just popped a few spanky, new mix packs in the shop AND there's some new (much awaited!) tote kits, AND we printed a very limited, offset edition of Briar in two colourways! Oooh, it's fun to have your own printing studio - you should totally get one! Or at least share in ours ;) As always check the new stuff out in our shop.





So on to the latest news - we have just sent off a big ol' sack of fabric to be heat set so you will be seeing some new colourways (and some old favourites, back by popular demand) mid to late next week. Woots! No pics tho, soz.

We had a day of visits today - Caroline, a.k.a Poppy's Mum (and friend Trude) came to chat about an awesome idea she has for some hanging fabric lampshades for her new kitchen... and then a lovely Cintia from My Poppet dropped by with - get this - homemade banana muffiny-cakey goodness that-was-still-warm-from-the-oven!!!!



omg. Talk about delicious...

And then we vacuumed. Oh, the glamourous life of I&S!




The boy's girl-dog, being cute & helpful. We love having her in the studio & I think she prefer's it to staying in Ry's backyard all day.. she just loves being around people so much!

xxT

Naming colours? Too hard.

You may imagine, as we are three headstrong women running a business together, we'd encounter frequent butting of heads, however this just isn't the case! We get on extremely well, have heaps of fun and rarely disagree on anything... that is until it comes to the naming of our colour's - geez, what a headache!!

At times we seem almost incapable of agreeing on appropriate names, (though some are much easier than others) and have spent stupidly large amounts of time trying to convince each other that our idea for a name is the better one for this, this and this reason!

Lara is the romantic one, she likes names that sound pretty but aren't too abstract; Bee is the prudent one, wanting non fussy names that explain the exact colour (the most recent in-house controversy has been over a greenish yellowy gold kind of colour - which could end up being named after the plant, "honeysuckle" but the jury is still out); and me the kooky one, I like names that are accurate but descriptive and easy enough to remember!!

So when my dear friend Nathan came up to visit us just before Chrissy, and we of course headed up to the studio to play with some inks! We printed some t-shirts for funs (and no, we're not going to do this commercially) and he chose to mix a rather beautiful colour, referred to around the studio as Nathan's Blue, and made this:

Love the print, Nay!

but of course once we decided to print with it, the unavoidable colour naming 'discussions' ensued...

Anyway, so here's a couple of this weeks latest prints - Wrens and Sumor in Nathan's Blue /Deep Sea/..? on cotton/linen blendWill be up in the shop in a week or so!

Stitches & Craft Show

We're back in the studio (after the hot weather last week)... and we're printing... a lot.

Ink & Spindle will be at the stitches & craft show from the 11th till the 15th of March and we have two stalls to fill :) We'll have some new colour ways for the show together with lots of fabric packs, fabric by the metre, sewing kits and other bits and bobs.

We hope you'll come and visit us and perhaps enrol in one of the classes and seminars we'll be presenting. Looking forward to meeting you!

a new look for I&S

Ink & Spindle has a new website! And not only that - a matching blog and shop to complete the ensemble!

This is how the new design looks, for you feed readers out there:



Simple, clean, friendly & modern (we hope).

I had to force the web designer in me to make a reappearance to get this baby off the ground, so I'm very glad it's done and dusted and looking a lot more like 'us' than the previous design. Yay!

Great news!

The website is very close to launching!!

This means we're ready to start taking external clients on board. The reason this is such great news is, that before we do launch properly and advertise and whatnot, we want to give you guys (our fabulous blog readers) the first opportunity to get your artwork on to fabric, as seen below!


If this sounds like something you'd like to do, please email us!!! info(at)inkandspindle(dot)com

We will send you our price list and some easy to use and understand Illustrator CS3 (and up) templates! (basic Illustrator skills kinda required)

Yay!

New Fabrics Up!

Yay! We have some shiny new fabrics up in our shop! I have two new designs: Antique Keys, seen in two colour prints and a half print, and Wrens.

We'd love to get some feedback from you! Let us know if there are any colourways you would really love to see in either print, and we'll try to accomodate :)

Hope you like!

Antique Keys in Two Tone Charcoal

Antique Keys in Cupcake

Antique Keys in Edward

Antique Keys Half Print in Black

Wrens in Charcoal

Wrens in Teal

A Little Something

It is my sort-of-cousin's (mum's brother's wife's sister's daughter.. confusing I know) 1st birthday today! Yay for Lana! She had a lovely party last Saturday with lots of friends and family, and most importantly as Lana will agree, chocolate cake! :)
So I though I'd post a couple of pics of the little dress I made for her. Watcha think?

Lana's Sundress:
Made from Bianca's Bloem, in Plum on cream organic cotton/hemp blend,
with lace trim and ties.
(note the drawstring bag, made from some scrap Antique Keys fabric. More envirofriendly than wrapping paper - and reusable too!)

And one more - just coz Lara takes a great photo, and has lots of cute things hanging on her wall! Also for scale :)

Me retying the bows to make them pretty for the pictures...

Liz (Lana's mum) has promised a visit to the studio soon with Lana, so when that happens I'll post a pic of the little cutie, possibly in said dress!

A week of printing

Birch in Chocolate - Lara Cameron


Wrens in Charcoal - Tegan Rose


Antique keys in Cupcake - Tegan Rose


Bloem in Teal - Hollabee


Seeds in Orange Gold - Hollabee


Bloem in Olive - Hollabee

Hello 2009!

Happy 2009! We hope you had a lovely, restful non-denominational politically correct holiday break.

We certainly did. As much as we love the studio we had some much needed time away. We've come back feeling (somewhat) refreshed and are right back into it:


Printing Teegs' gorgeous new Antique Keys print in a new 'cupcake' colourway. OMG this turned out so delicious looking - it'll be up in the shop in week or so :)


Closeup of Antique Keys in cupcake - dusty pink and white on a cream organic basecloth. Yumm.



We've also spent much of this week working our way through a large order for Kelani which will be available in their shop in a week or so also:


Birch in red orange (Kelani exclusive).

What's that you say? The Birch looks smaller? Why indeed it is!! It's a new small scale Birch more suitable for 'craft' applications :)

It'll also be available in our shop in a few other colourways. Excitement.

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 :)