Open Studio September 18th!

Oh my gosh. A miracle has happened. We are letting you know about our open studio a whole 2+ weeks in advance! I know, you're very impressed with our organisational skills.



I really have Fiona from Onabee to thank, because she requested a poster for her shop window. So we had to get our ass into gear and make one.

Anyway, hope to see you there!!!!

Bundles!!!!!

Despite having a list as long as my arm of other things to blog about, I have to tell you about these now now NOW because it's just so darn exciting.

We just put some three fabric bundles in the shop!!!


Three fabric bundle - Red Orange

How did it take us so long to get around to doing this? Good question! It's not exactly rocket science.


Three fabric bundle - Green

They're all cute and colour co-ordinated and everything. Each piece measures 47cm x 47cm - perfect for cushion covers, small craft projects or even quilts. Go snap one up :)


Three fabric bundle - Blue

Yay :)

xx

Updated Open Studio

Hey lovelies!

Just in case you were planning to pop in to the next Open Studio, we've had a change of date!

In a fit of absent-minded-ness, we had it booked in for Oct 2nd, BUT that's a) Lara's birthday weekend (woots) & b) Parklife party weekend! So we've decided to bring the Open Studio forward a couple of weeks.

New date is September 18th (first weekend of the school hols, I believe) at the usual time of 10am -1pm, at our lovely premises at 10 Elizabeth St, Kensington!

You should totally come :)

xx Teegs

Youse got talent

I love love love it when people email us sexy photos of things they've made with our fabric. Especially when they've taken time to do some styling. I'd love to post pics from all the things people send us but I'm just going to post the prettiest photos today:

Birch Curtain in Dylan's Woodland Nursery

Baby bag by the expecting Ainslie Heffernan

Upholstered copper chair by Floery Mahoney

Lamp shade and Canvas by Studio Eco, one of our stockists in Adelaide :)

Canvasses by Studio Eco, one of our stockists in Adelaide :)

Keep the photo's coming guys - we love seeing your creations. Makes it all worthwhile :)

Photoshoot, Article & Design Market!

Hello all! I'm not officially back from my holidays yet, but I thought I should pop in & let you know a couple of neat-o things that have been going on around ol' I&S HQ!

A little while back we were nominated for the Energise Enterprise Small Business Heroes - The Designers exhibition & we were lucky enough to be among the chosen few! Hooray!

As finalists, part of the prize was a pro photoshoot:

Lara, Teegs & Lou

Lara & Teegs - with the honorary I&S member relaxing on the sofa..

Teegs, Lara & Lou

The exhibition is currently on in the Atruim at Fed Square, for those of you who are Melbs-based & is on until the 14th August. (I know, I really should have told y'all about it earlier.. but I am on holidays...)

It's pretty cool, there are 18 businesses profiled, with lots of photo's of each of us in our work spaces! It opened last Friday by the Minister for Small Business Joe Helper, with a luncheon & ribbon cutting ceremony. It was all a bit fancypants! ...a little tooooo fancypants for us, we kept giggling to each other "Are you sure they meant to invite us to this..?" and trying to keep straight, professional, businesslike faces on.

It was great seeing some of our friends there too, we got to hang out with Emily of Nancybird, Tina & Glenistair of Saltmarsh and I just happened to sit next to Jamie from Keep Cup over lunch! He was really lovely :) we do love our Keep Cups!

Anyhoo, as part of the exhibition there is going to be the Business by Design Market held in the Atrium THIS FRIDAY from 10-4, where all the finalists (and some extra lovelies!) will exhibit their wares. You should totally come along & say hi to us!!

And as part of the promo for the exhibition the Herald Sun put us in their paper:

August 5th, 2010.

That was pretty cool!

xx Teegs

P.S. Umm, the photographer made me climb on the table, btw - it's not common practice. And it certainly wasn't our idea! xt

New fabrics!!!

Possibly the most exciting reason to return from holidays - we've printed some new fabrics!!

It's so exciting to see something from your head turn into something real, which is particularly the case with this new two colour version of our Kangaroo Paw print. Being a print of such a large scale, I wanted to come up with a texture to print in the background so it would work well in smaller pieces. And then Harvest came along, with Lara Davies' gorgeous dashes print, and we worked together to adapt it for yardage. Yay!

Here's the first couple of colourways we've done, each with the Dashes print available on it's own as a complimentary. All available in the shop right now :)




Kangaroo Paw in Red Orange and Snow


'Dashes' in Snow


Kangaroo Paw in Charcoal and Teal


'Dashes' in Teal

And then last but not least... we recently got some of our GOTS certified organic cotton dyed in a gorgeous charcoal colour, and so we present Rooftops in Black on Charcoal. Yay! We love how this turned out, and figure maybe it might even be deemed suitable for the man in your life ;)


Rooftops in Black on Charcoal

We'd love to hear what you think, and if there's any other colourways you'd like to see :)

xx

We're back!!!

...well kinda. I'm back, Teegs is still away for another week (we did a bit of tag-teaming).

Lots of new stuff to share, but I'll get onto that soon! Meanwhile, you should see the amazing stuff that the Harvest girls (our studio buddies) have been doing the last month. Making gorgeous softies kits and kids clothing and teatowels and all sorts of awesome things. Here's some pics!


Harvest Textiles teatowels


Harvest Textiles softies kit


Harvest Textiles at the Melbourne Design Market - screen printing demo!


Harvest Textiles yardage printing classes at the Ink & Spindle studio


Harvest Textiles yardage printing classes at the Ink & Spindle studio

And, super excitingly, check out this video that our studio neighbour Gus from Lettuce made about one of their yardage screen printing classes!! Is there a shortage of talent in this building?? Methinks not.

The Harvest Class from Angus Booker on Vimeo.

We're on holidays!

Good news!! We're closing our studio doors for a couple of weeks for a little rest & recuperation! Yay!!

In fact, Lara is already off, lying on a tropical, warm, sunny beach somewhere in Malaysia... *jealous!* :)

In case you are wanting to place an order in our online shop while we are away, don't worry you won't have to wait to receive your goodies, as our lovely assistant Lou will make sure they get packaged up & posted off to you while we are away.

Both Luz & I will be back at actions stations in the second week of August.

See ya then!

xx Teegs

Wilkins & Kent - Lampshade Collaboration!

Oh. My. God. This has got to be one of our most exciting collaborations ever. With one of our most favouritest shops ever.

We've released a range of lamp shades with Wilkins & Kent!!

Rooftops & Birch table lamps

Gold Birch drum shade

Acacia drum shade

Acacia, Delft and Birch drum shades

We've also supplied each of their stores with a waterfall swatch set so that people can place custom lampshade orders.

We're sooooo happy with how these turned out. My favourite is the Gold Birch drum shade. I so want that in my home!!!

xx

Lara.

Open Studio - July!

Hi everyone!

It's open studio time again! Please come along to our next open studio, THIS SATURDAY!!

We'll be doing a printing demo at 11:00, and there'll be fabric for sale as usual :)

Oh, and help us celebrate our new instant water boiling unit (hot water in the studio, finally!) by joining us for a cup of tea. Mmmmmm, tea.

Hope to see you there!

xx Lara & Teegs.

New & exciting [...and maybe a little bit scary]

Birch in Almond on cream organic cotton/hemp

Hey guess what? There's some new stuff in our online shop! That hasn't happened in quite some time! We've released a gorgeous new colourway called almond, and also some new prints on Canvas/Upholstery weight basecloths. Yay!

And it's just the beginning. Over at the Ink & Spindle HQ we're clearing our slate to make time for new things. New designs, new colourways. It won't happen straight away, but we'll get there!

One somewhat momentous decision that's facilitating this ambition is to cease offering yardage printing as a service to other designers. So we'll still be printing for our existing customers (like Nancy Bird and Knuffle Kid!) but we won't be taking on any new print jobs.

It's a kind of scary decision because it essentially means saying 'no' to work. We're going to be investing more creative time into the business whilst still scraping together an income for ourselves as self sufficient women. Note: just because we're on the Martha Stewart blog doesn't mean we've "hit the big time" and have orders coming out the wazoo! ;)

So yes, that's what's on the cards over here and we hope you love what's to come.

Kangaroo Paw on Tamarillo GOTS certified organic cotton canvas

Hey look - it's a new print!! We'll be releasing new colourways in this print soon, but here's the first of many!

Lace Fans in Almond on cream organic cotton/hemp

Acacia in Persimmon on 100% Hemp Canvas

We're very excited to start printing more designs on upholstery weight fabrics, and we've just sourced a really gorgeous, soft 100% hemp canvas to add to our range. We love it!

Chalk on Tamarillo GOTS certified organic cotton canvas

Chalk in Snow on 100% Hemp Canvas

xx Lara.

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