Little Tokyo Shops zine

How great - a wee zine dedicated to sweet shops discovered on a recent trip to Japan. Now I really want to go! You can buy the zine for a mere US$5 via Angela's Etsy store. And while you're out and about, don't forget to visit her lovely blog about Melbourne shops - Open (*love it*)

Inspiration Thursday

It's funny how you can walk past something a million times and not think it interesting, then suddenly realise it is. I did this recently, when walking up some stairs near the studio. Paint splatters / polka dots = pretty. Happy Thursday.

Open and now closed

Although I forgot to take a single photo of the event, the Open Studio has been and gone and was a speedy (2 hour) and exhausting and fun day. It was lovely to see some familiar faces in the crowd (hi Bianca and Tess and Shannon) and put some faces to the name/blog (lovely to meet you Yardage Girl and Pippi Creates and Sewhum). And hello to all the others who came along, including some lovely locals and, seemingly, my entire family! The place scrubbed up pretty well, too, although it's already a mess again now. Oh, and no more beer in the afternoon for me - I don't think it agrees with me and certainly made the cycling home a little more difficult than usual!

Fabric is in the shop!

I've put some of the new fabric in my Etsy shop, woot! The shop's been a bit neglected lately, so have put a few other goodies in there - hello fabric covered buttons, in a range of colours. So go crazy and make something - you know you want to :)

*UPDATE* Have also put some new Elephants & limited edition tea towels in the shop, which is neglected no more. In fact, it's probably never been so full and even goes to more than one page - wow!



Speaking of shops, how gorgeous is this one?


Photo courtesy of The Design Files

I saw the postcard for Ramona Tienda, a new shop in North Melbourne, at a cafe in Kensington and just knew I'd love it. And I do - it's so sweet, with a select range of lovely items. And thanks to Lucy's post on The Design Files, I now know part of the reason why - as well as being super talented in her own right, Ramona used to work at Wilkins and Kent (lovely furniture and gifty things *swoon*) and the parallels in style between the shops certainly shines through. It seems like there are more and more great shops being set up around town, I love it.

Holy moley, it's ready!

This morning I went and picked up the first run of fabric from the girls, so exciting! The first thing I did was cut and pack some of it up, so I could see how the new packaging would look. Fun! Only got two snaps in before my camera's battery died, but you get the idea.

Next: red. Can't wait for that, hopefully I'll have some snaps soon!

New stockist: Mattt

How great is this shop, complete with beautiful flowers! So happy that some of my elephants and 'T' Towels get to hang out there now, as it's my newest stockist - Mattt on Gertrude St, Fitzroy.

You'll probably know the bags even if you don't remember the name - they're everywhere (around Melbourne and the world), often featuring a panel of gorgeous hand printed fabric such as these beauties from Lara & Teegs from Ink & Spindle. And yep, that's him in the corner of the photo above, dutifully rearranging the product!

Although Matt's been making bags since 2000 and has been selling them at markets around town for probably about that long, the shop/studio only came to be earlier this year (the studio part is in the right hand side of the room, but for some reason I didn't take snaps of the excellent industrial sewing machines). Stock consists mainly of the bags, of which there's a great range of sizes and patterns, but Matt's also doing his bit to support local makers of things, so there's a wee range of other goodies (including some great hand embroidered hot water bottles.(

It must be so great spending all day in this a lovely, sun filled space, watching folk wandering past.



Mattt Studio & Shop
13 Gertrude Street
Fitzroy, 3065, Australia
www.mattt.com.au
11am–6pm Tuesday to Saturday

More Open Studio

As promised, here's a wee poster advertising the Open Studio event that's coming up this Sunday, 20th September, 1-3pm at my home-away-from-home, Ironside Studios. It's our first and possibly only open day, so don't miss out. Fingers crossed I'll have some of my newly printed fabric, along with other bits and pieces to show and maybe to sell.



And did I mention other highlights, including being able to see Jem & Laura's amazing spaces (count:three, one of which you can see here - amazing!), Volker's amazing lights, Heather's buttons (handmade!), Ben's bags, Sixto's illustrations and more.

Sunday Stash

All photos by Summersville.

After many months of putting off the purchase of some Summersville fabric, I recently decided I could no longer live without some. In fact, now that I look back, two of her things featured in my "If I had an Etsy Treasury" post of yonks ago. And no, still haven't got one!) Anyway, sooo happy when these arrived in the post, all the way from Suffolk in the UK. They're hand printed in great colours, lovely base cloth and cute coz they're little panels. I even got some magnets too, which look soo good on my fridge. Thanks Lucie :) Now what to do with them... argh, don't make me cut them up!

Happy Sunday, happy Sunday Stash.

Rose St Market Neighbours

As promised (I think?) here are some snaps of my neighbours from the last Rose St Market I was at a couple of Sundays ago. I think you'll agree they're all wonderful :)

Next-door neighbours Shadow Theatre, great decals and what a set-up, super stylish.

Shadow Theatre

The gorgeous Sharon Margaret - what knitting skills she has! So cute, I want it all.

Photo courtesy of Sharon (my photos were totally crap!)

My neighbour from a previous market, Two Layers of Cells. I love the simplicity & stylishness of these lampshades, which come pre-designed with a great outline drawing, or get some textas and you can design your own. So great!


Two Layers of Cells - design your own lampshade!

Monica McNabb's lovely badges are also a fave, but she makes so much more, including a whole range of cards - check out that handmade card display rack below. Genius.


Monica McNab

Of course, the wonderful Pocket Carnival. Need I say more? So cute and you can't have too many bunny shots, I say (he's there in the left hand corner).

Pocket Carnival

Printspace = ace. So much talent, so many lovely illustrations that it's hard to know where to look. What a lovely shot of Nick and Mara, such proud stall holders they are! And the badges below just kill me, so much sweetness.

Nick and Mara, cute!


Printspace badge joy

And for good measure, here's just the one snap of my last stall, complete with new signage! It still takes me forever to set up, moving things this way and each week it looks completely different, partly just to keep me entertained. And I'll be there again Sunday, along with most of these guys.

A simple equation

This:



Plus this:


Equals this!



My first yardage run is done!

Forgot to mention the actual design details in my other post, but one half is a variation of the Akzidenz print I've used previously (if you've seen it), only smaller scale. The other half is the old fave of polka dots, bigger than I've used before and I love them!

Not only did the lovely Ink & Spindle girls offer a heap of advice / support for the yardage novice, but they even suggested I mix the ink (fun! scientific, almost!) and help print the fabric (well, drag the squeegee along one half of the massive screen). It's quite a thrill to see it all laid out on the table, meter after meter.

So one colour down (not a baby blue but lovely none the less - this blue's got more depth and really lovely on the creamy hemp/organic cotton base cloth) red to go. And the plans for more colours (mustard yellow, then charcoal on a more natural-coloured base cloth to start with) are well and truly decided on. Can't wait until it's all ready :)

Inspiration Thursday: Moody Lighting

My favourite time of day to take photos is in the afternoon, where the light is golden and forgiving (and hopefully the sky isn't too full of clouds blocking out the sun). I don't often see this time of day as I'm locked away somewhere, working, but lately I've managed to capture some fleeting moments of interesting light at other times of the day and how lighting can change the mood and feeling of a day - in these examples, a grey morning in the park, just before sun sets and just before a storm breaks. And that inspired a colour palette which seems kind of right for Melbourne at the moment, where it's supposed to be spring but mainly feels like autumn.

Happy Thursday!

Ironside Studios Open Day

It's hard to believe that it's been nine-ish months since I moved into my work studio at Ironside Studios - time flies when you're having fun and all that. And now, finally, it's time for our first open day and you're invited. Come and see our workspaces, have a chat, see work in progress and have a drink and a general fun time. Oh, and there's a great range of work to see, from button makers, illustrators, screen printers, sculptors, photographers, bag makers and more.

Ironside Studios Open Day
4 Chelmsford St, Kensington
Sunday 20th September
1pm to 3pm

I'm sure we'll have some sort of poster and map (the studios are the YoungHusband Woolstores building near Kensington Station, in case that helps) but the above will have to do, for now. Put it in the calendar!

New stockist

Photo courtesy of the Upholstery Gallery

On the way back from out-of-town I managed to drop by the lovely Upholstery Gallery in Ballarat, a gorgeous little shop that's also my newest stockist. The shop's currently undergoing a renovation, which is great as that means they'll be able to fit more lovely things (current stock includes a range of Orla Kiely papergoods, Cloth cushions and about a million other things.) I was kicking myself that I'd forgotten to take photos while I was there, but have just discovered a gallery worth of snaps on their website. Swoon.

Upholstery Gallery
528 Mair St, Ballarat
(03) 5331 4192
http://www.theupholsterygallery.com.au






All photos courtesy of the Upholstery Gallery

Away and back again

Managed to get out of town for most of last week and it was great as a nearing-the-end-of-the-year getaway and refresher. Can't complain about sitting around all day reading, sipping tea/beer/wine and eating lots of great food. It was kind of difficult adjusting to having no computer / mobile phone access / TV or radio but I got over that pretty quickly. Here are some highlights.


Tiny little mushrooms, so cute!

Mount Sturgeon, one mountain that makes up the Grampians.


Beautiful tree, discovered on a wander around Dunkeld.


Bushfire-recovering trees, on the way to Halls Gap.



And I was pretty excited to get back to town, as this screen (and newly arrived lovely hemp/organic cotton fabric) are soon to be turned to into my first run of yardage printing, yay! Screens this size are too big for my weeny studio, so have entrusted the crafty Ink & Spindle girls with this task. Now have to settle on the colours (two to begin with, I'm thinking red and baby blue). Can't wait, shouldn't be far off!