Keeping me company this week...

..is Sailor. He doesn't say much but he is the best company. He was a gift from the lovely Sandra when I met up with her in Sweden (& is designed made by her equally lovely husband Johan) and is much treasured.

**UPDATE** Looks like Johan's just put some sailors in his shop, yay! And here's Sandra's post about Johan and Sailors from today!

It was great being surrounded by amazing people when I was working from my old studio, and I surely miss them all a lot, but it's also kind of nice working from home. Especially when you're trying to fit a bunch of different work-type things together, as I tend to prefer, and have random amounts of time to work on whatever project before running out the door to go somewhere else. Lucky for me Sailor is the strong, silent type who listens to my woes and is a general good guy, otherwise I'd be in trouble.

OK, we're going to go and have a beer now. It's the weekend :)

Fully organised & inspired

Yay, my revitalised studio is now fully shelved and getting a bit organised! Very exciting to see shelves that aren't jam-packed full of stuff and so great to be able to get to stuff easily.


And here's an inspiration shot for you (today's Thursday already - sheesh, the weeks zip by so quickly) - old photo sleeves that form part of an exhibition at the Town Hall in Melbourne at the moment. They look so great!

Happy Thursday :)

Getting organised

Well, it's not quite complete as the other batch of shelves required painting and are still drying (three coats later) but here is the first lot, set up and installed in my studio! They look better in my head than in this photo (bad light combined with piles of junk everywhere and just out of shot) but you get the idea. On the top shelf are my screens (yay, they have a home that's not the floor) and under that, inks and emulsion and assorted printy stuff. And all conveniently located right next to my printing/work bench. Can't wait to test it out next week.

Also out of shot is a massive amount of lavender, some of which comes from a recently visited lavender farm in the country. We stumbled upon the farm on the way to a far-away beach, during some time out of town last week. Yay for refreshing mini breaks that involve lavender, other people's cute houses and visiting old petrol stations.





And yay for random crafty stuff spotted around town. Below is a crocheted fence (or is it knitted?), spotted whilst walking to dinner tonight.

Summer cleaning

Found this photo from last year - a new-ish studio that's sparce and clean!



It's my inspiration to get the once-waterlogged-now-dry(ish) space back on track in that department, and also do some handy things like put up more shelves. Fun! Expect some updated photos next week (fingers crossed!) Yep, I'm hoping that the commitment I've just made here will make it happen in real life :)

Happy Monday.

Crazy times

OK, so with my grand ambitions of markets and parties and general Christmas craziness, things did get missed along the way...like a couple of those festive events I mentioned previously. Yep, I missed out on the party that ended up in a hot tub spa-y thing - jibbed (or not?!) And what was I doing instead? Swimming in the lake that our studios became late on Friday night, woo! Yes, a water main valve burst (or something like that) and water gushed through the building for hours (or at least an hour and a half). Not fun. Here's proof.


That's my floor as the water creeped in, slowly at first then it was a frenzy of flooding. Nice reflections of the furniture, you'll notice.


This is the hallway/kitchen and no, we don't have polished concrete floors.

I guess I was lucky to be there, else I'd not have been able to get everything off the floor. And I feel sorry for the peeps who weren't so lucky - the studio space has just doubled in size and a heap of people have only just moved in, poor things.

Anyway, after what turned into a quite late night, I wasn't too enthusiastic about getting up on Saturday morning to head to Market 3031. But as things go, it turned out to be the best day - we were right outside Kensington Station and soooo many people came past and were sooo friendly and it was a great day. Here's my stall, although this photo hardly captures the frenzy of the market, just a quiet moment!



Now just one market to go - Rose Street this Sunday - and then everything stops (well, almost). Phew for that! Now I'd better get some gift shopping in while I have a moment...

Lazy Friday afternoon

Got lots to finish off this afternoon, but instead I find myself taking photos of random things around the studio. Of course, it's Friday afternoon so that's kind of OK. Above is a wiggly peg man and my new Printspace print (waiting to be framed) and below is the number above my door and the (very dusty) buttons of my ancient and much-loved heater.

Lino cuts and rain drops

Have been playing with tiny lino offcuts, and occasionally cutting myself - ouch. But otherwise fun. Am also remembering that lino's not that easy to cut and that I need to get myself some rubber stamp-making supplies (much easier to cut, apparently, and so there'd be less of the pain and more of the fun).


Also working on another idea that involves rain drops. These are digitally coloured from an ink drawing, but is this the rain I want? Not sure yet.



Oh, and v. excited that the goods purchased on my latest trip to the hardware store have turned into wall shelves! I've been painting and drilling for the last few days and now I've got some shelves to store my wares, which makes me a little too happy.

Happy weekend :)

 ***UPDATE - APRIL 2011*** 
It's a long time coming, but my new raindrops fabric is now available on Etsy in two colours - burnt pink and blue!

Work in Progress

Today I finally got to begin work on something I've wanted to make for aaages - a quilt. And because I've never made one before, I decided to start small - a baby quilt! Crazily I thought I could start and finish it in one sitting, which didn't happen, but I'm pretty sure it's more than halfway done. I'm also sure it looks better in real life that it does in this picture.



I spent most of the time picking the fabric combinations and then measuring and stitching, followed by some more measuring and more stitching. And so far so good. Now I've just got to do the actual quilting part (which will be free form and random and hopefully won't look crap) and then stitch on the edges and back.

In other news, I've finally started the 4-step task that is sealing the concrete floor in the studio. No more concrete dust (soon) - yay! Of course that also means everything's out of action, due to being piled up in the corner while I work my way around the floor. The studio looks all sad and empty again - perhaps soon I'll be able to get a rug or something to warm up that cold floor (and not have it end up coated in white concrete dust - ick.)

How does your coffee grow?

When I got to the studio the other day I was rather impressed to see that we had a garden - wow! Now the coffee plants have a home and look rather happy. Thanks Jem and Laura :)



I also discovered the "self raising department" at the flour mill around the corner.



And this was the sky yesterday evening - lovely and blue and the temperature was very mild. Now it's pouring with rain and there's flash flood warnings. I love you Melbourne.

Studio update

I finally got around to taking some more studio shots - here's how it's looking now:


My work desk, aka the kitchen table my dad bought 40 years ago.


Work desk vs sewing desk.


Storage-o-rama, except that metal cabinet is almost full of stuff already. And the fan is another dad donation - his from a lot more than 40 years ago and still working perfectly.

Summer's definitely over now and I'm going to have to look into some heating options - brr, it's gonna get cold. But it is cosy, so that might make up for it just a little bit.

In other news, I've set up a wee Madeit shop in case anyone wants to buy goodies in Aussie dollars. For now I've put some tea towels in there with more coming soon.

Happy Friday afternoon :)

More studio shots

I've well and truly moved into my studio now and am in work mode - so much so that I've almost forgotten what blogs are (there's no studio internet access yet - very good for productivity, with only coffee-getting from a great place nearby to distract me.)

So here are some random studio shots. There's not many from in my actual space yet - will have to get onto that next time.


The main door, which you need to duck to get through


The view from just inside the front door - at the end is the kitchen which is super cute and needs its own photo at some stage


The view from the street


My new clock and some fabric


A bunch of elephants in production on my work bench

And hopefully I'll have some new tea towel designs in production soon!

Views on a black day

I took these photos of the outside of my studio building in the heat of last Saturday morning, not knowing just how bad the day would get - not only would it be the hottest day on record for Melbourne (hello 46.4 degrees celsius/116 degrees farenheit) but it also saw the worst bushfires on record for Victoria.

It's not hard to imagine how it happened - the horrible northerly winds were so strong they nearly blew my screens away as I was trying to clean them up outside (no, I didn't take our Premier's advice to stay home) and just going outside was like walking into a fan-forced oven - hideous.

And don't forget, there are little ways of helping out - the Red Cross are taking donations, Pip of Meet Me At Mike's has compiled a bunch of helpful options which you can read about here and if you're in the inner north, RRR are collecting toiletries and sanitary items *up until the end of today* which will then be dropped off at base camp, direct to those affected.

Ta-de-da

This is my new little studio :)



And I love it. It's been six months in the making, but it certainly feels worth the wait now that it's all ready to go.

Here's the spiel: Early/mid-last year I decided I needed a proper space - rather than corners of my not-very-big home - to work (ie: do screen printing & sewing and have somewhere to store all my equipment and not worry too much about getting everything messy). And so started the hunt. It was on Lara's blog that I originally heard about a new group of studios being set up in the delightful Kensington, and they sounded perfect.

So after six months of lease negotiations and studio-building, here we are, and me and all my new studio mates are moving in. We each have our own room to work in and there's a great communal area - it's all perfect. And I'm now ready to take on the year and get new things happening. Like, uh, actually get my new tea towel in the shop! Soon, soon...