Orlando and Ivy

Check out the gorgeousness of the new Orlando and Ivy shop in North Melbourne!! The very awesome owner, Ming-Zhu contacted us a few weeks ago looking to stock some of our wares in her gorgeous store. Teegs and I took the opportunity to deliver them by hand so we could check it out the shop in person!

The Orlando & Ivy Shop - note the three missing pantone mugs *chuckle*

The shop is just beautiful, and kitted out with a lot of unique wares of the likes that I haven't seen everywhere else around Melbourne. Ming-Zhu definitely has a knack for sourcing something a bit different.

The Orlando & Ivy Shop

The Orlando & Ivy Shop -gorgeous front window

The Orlando & Ivy Shop - Ming-Zhu packing our purchases

The Orlando & Ivy Shop

Pantone mugs! Have always wanted some of these and MZ had a great selection of colours

ORLANDO AND IVY
424 VICTORIA STREET
NORTH MELBOURNE, VICTORIA

11am ~ 6.30pm
Monday ~ Friday
10am ~ 4pm Saturday

Martha Stewart's Craft Department!

How honoured were we to be asked by the lovely Steph to guest post on Martha's website?! Umm, about a 10!

(er... Martha probably has no idea who we are, but I'm claiming first name basis privileges anyway ;-D )

(We're not worthy! We're not worthy!!)

Anyhoo, after much hilarious, cross-cultural, Vegemite-related shenanigans with Steph, we put together Our Favourite Apron as a tutorial with a kit you can buy from our online shop!

Head on over to Martha's Craft Department to make your very own!

xx Teegs

p.s. side note - OMG there's a picture on me on Martha Stewart's website, people!!! :-D

It's sale time again!

Hey guess what?? It's time for another little sale!



Over at the Ink & Spindle HQ we're busy trying to consolidate our range so we've got space in our heads and on our shelves for some NEW stuff. And as a result, we're discontinuing a few more colourways (not the designs! just the colourways!) and focussing on printing just the ones we love most.

So hop over to the sale part of our shop and grab something before it's gone foreeeeeeever!

xx

Some pics from our inbox!

We do love seeing our textiles actually used (yes, I'm talking to all you naughty stashers out there)! Check out some of the amazing things that people have been making :)

Lookin' awesome, ladies!

A really beautiful quilt made by Kathryn of Maggie & Sparrow

This amazing Ottoman made by Andi - check out the cushions too

Ginkgo blinds made by Diana

The kiddies corner at the wonderful Shelf / Life store

And finally, Annabel's creations from the Stitches & Craft Stencil Printing class

xx Teegs

Younghusband Love - Photoshoot!!

As I'm sure you are well aware by now, we're more than just a little in love with the magnificent old Younghusband Wool Store building that houses our little studio. We only take up a little corner & lucky for us we have lots of fabulous, genius neighbours to collaborate with!

This installment of Younghusband Love, is dedicated to the delightful, amazing, photographer-extraordinaire, Chris Middleton of Thirty Thirtyone.

Check out his skillz:

Lara & Teegs

Studio through to office

Bolts of fabric

Dirty work, but someone's gotta do it...

Ginkgo screen

Lara, Teegs & our lovely assistant, Lou!

How amazing is he?! You can see more photo's by the talented man on our flickr page, you can get in touch with him here.

Thank you, Chris!! You're so awesome :)

xx Teegs

Dusty Pink Birch chair

Lisa's Dusty Pink Birch chair

Oooooh, look at this piece of gorgeousness that Lisa from Duckcloth had reupholstered! Take one $3.50 ebay chair plus some Dusty Pink Birch and voila. A chair for her baby daughter's room.


Lisa's Dusty Pink Birch chair

I looooove seeing our fabrics used for upholstery purposes. Which is why we're working on a new upholstery/heavy weight range. Oooooooh!

The Dusty Pink Birch fabric is currently available exclusively from Duckcloth.

:)

Open Studio this Saturday 5th!

I know, I know. We fail at blogging about our Open Studio events more than a couple of days before they happen. But we have a sexy new poster, so are we forgiven?

We have the very lovely Chris Middleton from Studio Thirty Thirtyone to thank for this photo along with whole bunch of other shots he took for us last week (more on that soon!). Our building is definitely filled with the most generous and talented peeps.

Hope to see you this Saturday!!

The North Melbourne Market

Hey everyone! If you're in the 'hood, why not come check out Thread Den's North Melbourne Market?

There's always a bunch of amazing makers at these markets! Plus it's such a lovely, local market to support - and the Thread Den ladies are so hilarious :)

Can't wait to see who's at this one!!

xx Teegs

Creative Women's Circle - update

Wow! What a response! Tess has informed me that we have already reached capacity for our Creative Women's Circle talk.

However if you would like to attend, then still email her to RSVP & she will place you on a waiting list in case of cancellations.

Thanks to everyone who has booked in - we're really looking forward to some public speaking... no really... we can't wait... *gulp!*

xx Teegs

Creative Women's Circle

The lovely Tess of the Creative Women's Circle has asked us to be guest speakers at the next event!

If you would like to come along, then please email her to RSVP. Places are strictly limited & it will be a closed door talk.

I must say, we are feeling very chuffed to have been asked to do this - have a look at the list of past speakers! Very illustrious, indeed :)

Thanks Tess!

xx Teegs

Sew It Together!

We had a whirlwind visit on Friday last, from Sew it Together!

Organised by the super lovely Sheridan, a crew of wonderful, mostly interstate ladies descended on our studio for an hour. We did a little print demo for the gang, or rather, Lara & Lou did the print demo, I did the talking- oh, I mean explaining.

Here's some pics from the aforementioned lovely Sheridan:

See? Explaining... Everybody has their polite listening faces on ;)

Lou & Lara do the uber important First Print. Look at them concentrate. No pressure, ladies!! It's not like you've got 20 pairs of eyes watching your every move, or anything...

Now they smile! In relief, as the print run worked as it was meant to. Not that we were worried... Ahem! Aren't they pretty when they smile?

Chocolate Birch! And no, before you email me, we're not selling it anymore, sorry everyone!! It was a custom job.

Me & Luz. Dazed, much? We're not used to so much stimulus, particularly not last thing on a Friday arvo!! (After everyone left, we sat down, had a cup of tea & went home.)

Umm... one other thing I have to mention. They were all bloggers. Bloggers with cameras. Cameras that had flashes. In a confined space. Taking 5 thousand photo's of us as we talked/printed. IT.WAS.WEIRD. And distracting. And weird.

But more than anything, it was ace to meet a bunch of rad, crafty ladies & put faces to names, etc! Hope you all come back to visit soon!!

xx Teegs

Stitches & Craft Melbs

We LOVE going to Stitches! It was so awesome!!

The Stitches & Craft Show is overflowing with the most lovely, amazing & inspirational women and we feel very lucky & thankful to be able to spend such fun times hanging out with them! LOVE!!

And the other aspect of Stitches we love is getting to meet heaps of you guys! Thanks to everyone who came and introduced yourselves, you make our day!!

Check out some pics we snapped of just some of the talent!

Our lovely, big, corner stall! Note the little projected screen on which we ran our video.

Also note the Tamarillo Quilt!! We launched the quilt kit at the show and it was well received - stay tuned for when we release it in our shop!

The view from our stall.. in one direction at least! If you look closely Blue Ginger (#gingerpride!), Banshee & Edwina are all knitting in a row (they did this for the entire show)

Kristen Doran Design, with the lovely lady herself & Lisa from The Red Thread - we love you K.Diddy!! (Kristen implemented an imaginary swear jar for Lara while she was down) (I lol)

BANSHEEEEEEEEE! Kate has hand dyed some silk/wool skeins using walnuts - from her backyard, people!! She's so amazing. I made her pose like this for the photo. Didn't take much encouragement ;)

Edwina was opposite us and we had half yelled conversations at each other, over our knitting, for the duration of the show. It was hilarious! We did get the odd weird look from the occasional patron tho...

Dearest, lovely Nic of Yardage Girl (#gingerpride!!) Lara bought one of Nic's framed Tram Roll Menu panels which now graces the wall of her little kitchen!

The Ric Rac-ians... a likely looking trio!

And of course, Winterwood! Check out those dragons!!

There were tons of other awesome peeps at the show, but we were remiss in getting pictures! A couple of noteworthy lovelies that I haven't got pics of this time round: the very divine Julie (#gingerpride!!), the lady behind Juicy Roo (plus Juicy's wonderful mum, Mazzy!).

The sweet Holly (who is so close to being a ginger, I'm claiming her. #gingerpride). She made Lara & I a little felt Mario 'shroom keyring each, as a present, just coz she's so brill! I asked for the 1up (that's the green one), & Holly made Luz the traditional red Toad! Now every time we get our keys out we start singing the theme song! THANK YOU, HOLLYYYYYYYYY! LOVE!!

Oh, surprise, I got a little off topic.. ahem!

The hilarious & beautiful Caitlin of Pippijoe was there! Liesl of Hoppo Bumpo was helping Pippi out & running some classes AND she totally made me a shower cap coz I really wanted one, but complained about having to make it myself (I know, how lazy am I?) - IT'S RAD. You should buy a kit. LOVE!!

A new friend, Jacqui of Reissued, you'll be seeing some more of her amazing work soooon! Perhaps even in collaboration with us...

The wonderful & full-of-life Michelle aka Crayon Chick WHO IS SO FREAKING COOL! She let's me steal her letter badges to spell hilarious/naughty acronyms on my exhibitors tag - we changed it every day, to suit the mood. We went from CBF (day after set up. I was tired.), to HRH (Michelle's suggestion, bless her, and very fitting due to my princess-y nature) for the last two days :) K.Diddy suggested OCD. We didn't think it was appropriate.

Here were so many other rad peeps there, but this post is probably long enough.

xx Teegs

P.S. there you are, Luz, I do as you command ;P

Megan the Welsh Intern! [looking for work!]

Okay so I've been meaning to blog this for ages but Stitches got in the way (which Teegs will blog about SOON - I even put a sticky note on her monitor this morning commanding her to do so!).

Let me introduce you to Megan, our intern all the way from Wales who came and helped us out in the lead up to the Stitches Show!

Megan our intern - she's looking for work!

Well granted she didn't come all the way from Wales just to work for us, but she's here for a year, is actually half Australian (so can legally work here) and she's LOOKING FOR WORK!

During the time she was here, Megan was fantastic. Super capable & hard working, had initiative, learned quickly, produced great work, and didn't need me hovering over here telling her what to do all the time.

Megan's basically looking for some paid work doing anything hands on or creative. She has a background in textiles & print making (studied Contemporary Textile Practice in Wales) but is open to anything. So if you need an extra pair of hands around your studio (even just one or two days a week) drop Megan an email :) meganaliceengland[at]hotmail.com

Yay :)

We are in awe of Studio Limo, again!

You remember this video?! Created by the graphic design genius we just happen to have next door? Well, he's done it again.

Let me set the scene: last week, the day before the Stitches Show, we casually ask our dear friend, Yong of Studio Limo, if he'd perhaps, maybe, possibly be able to put together a little slide show for us to project on our wall for the duration of the show. Y'know, nothing fancy. Just so people can make the connection that we do the actual printing of the fabric as well as the design.

WELL! He decided that a boring old slideshow just wasn't going to cut it, so (using inferior filming equipment & half a day's notice, I might add) Yong creates this film for/of us.

Isn't he just absolutely amazing??

Thank you, Yong! You're brilliant & we are so lucky to have you next door :)

xx Teegs

Harvest Textiles Screen Printed Softies class

Hey everyone! Just a quick note to let you know that The Harvest Textiles "Make Softies with your own Screen Printed Fabric" class is on at our studio this Saturday! There's a few free spots left in the class so if you want to make a last minute booking you can have a spot for half price!!

Here's some examples of the gorgeousness you can make:


Harvest textiles screen printed softies workshop


Harvest textiles screen printed softies workshop


Harvest textiles screen printed softies workshop

Just email the girls at Harvest if you're keen - harvesttextilesmelbourne[at]gmail.com

xx :)

Stitches & Craft Show Melbourne!

We're definitely gearing up for the Stitches Show, which starts next Wednesday 5th May over at Caufield Racecourse :)

Things have been busy, busy, busy over here at I&S HQ!!

Luckily we have had the invaluable help of one lovely (and very newly arrived from Wales) intern, Megan!! Who has happily completed multitudes of cutting, folding & wrapping.

(Side note, yes things are getting confusing with Lara, Tegan, Lara.D & Megan!)

So if you're heading on over to the Show, do make sure you COME SAY HI :) we'd love to meet you!

The Stitches Shows are always such fun - we totally love doing them! Seriously, what's cooler than getting to hang out with a whole bunch of awesome crafty peeps all day long, for five days?

Ok there's one thing cooler - and that's doing a little 2hr class with us! We're gonna be running an intro to stencil printing & you should totally book in & do it! You get to design & then print your VERY OWN organic cotton/hemp tea towel! Just email us to make a booking :)

See y'all there!

xx Teegs

Giveaway Results!

Thanks so much to you all! Your contributions & suggestions were all received with much interest :) and you have helped us to decide on a few directions we're going to head in.

Far & away, your #1 request was for printed knits/jerseys, so we have tracked down & ordered some organic cotton & hemp knits to experiment with! YAY! We're a bit excited ;)

Quite a lot of you requested bamboo but our research has showed that while the bamboo plant itself is quite sustainable, the process that the plant fibres are put through to be turned in to a lovely soft fabric is definitely not, so we will not be using it.

The #2 request was for ready made tote bags! Ok, we're looking in to organising the equipment needed to print on to small sized things.. give us a bit of time with that one!

Your #3 request was for a lighter weight woven (*hi-five* to my fellow sewists out there, I've been wanting to do this one for a while!) to be used for dressmaking & quilting!

GREAT NEWS: Just yesterday, we received a really lovely sample of a lightweight 142gsm GOTS CERTIFIED (ie, Organic & Fairtrade!!) cotton sateen. IT'S REALLY NICE, PEOPLE.

Stay tuned! ;D

Finally, your #4 request was for tablewear: tea towels, placemats, napkins & table runners. Your wish is our command! Keep an eye out for something like this sooon...

Ok, now saying all that we did get a lot of you requesting all kinds of haberdashery items, but we just don't think we're quite ready to branch out in to general sewing supplies :)

xx Teegs

Nothing Sketchy

OMG look what landed in our inbox today?? These gorgeous handmade journals by Jaclyn of Nothing Sketchy. They are gorgeous:


Handmade journal by Nothing Sketchy - Birch


Handmade journal by Nothing Sketchy - Birch


Handmade journal by Nothing Sketchy -Rooftops


Handmade journal by Nothing Sketchy -Rooftops