A bit tardy

There's always a really good excuse for not having paid any attention to the blog for a while, but apart from the usual excuses about too much work and not enough time, I don't have anything spectacular to share... I suppose I could make something up?

Last weekend was another three day haul - Wollongong, Manly and Frenchs Forest markets. Sooo glad I finally tried out Manly market, as not only was it a great day, the vibe was lovely, the stallholders around me were charming and there was excellent coffee available close by! Will definitely be heading back to Manly regularly from now on.

Once again I'm down south at the in-laws enjoying a few days of respite and celebrating a few birthdays. This has also given me a chance to work on some new designs - watch this space for the prints over the coming couple of weeks! I was approached by a couple of local boutique owners who were interested in stocking my goodies last Friday, so will be interested to see how this pans out. I wasn't planning on stocking any retail outlets until next year, so this will be a great learning experience, and will give me some ideas about the sort of issues I may have to face if the wholesale line comes to fruition.

Anyway, ciao for now as I'm off to the Candelo markets to ruffle through the junk in search of treasure! Speaking of which, most recent acquisition from a wonderful country market was an old Singer sewing machine in the cabinet for... (sit down please ladies) $15! Can you believe it? I still have to touch it occasionally to check that it is indeed real.

Summer Rush

My big t-shirt shipment arrived late last week - beautiful organic cotton - so it has been dye central here for quite a few days now. And I'm wondering how some of my friends organise their time. I have only one 2 year old, but still don't manage to get anywhere near as much done as a certain dear friend of mine with two kiddies, a market stall, a drama school and more. In fact, I think she should do a little less just to make the rest of us feel at least slightly productive.

Some bibs and and little bucket hats also made their way into my possession, and I'm having fun dying them in the brighter colours I tend to use - personally I always dreamed of having a stack of darker coloured bibs when Mika was still using them, as they all tended to look like a swarm of insects had a come a cropper on them at great speed after about two uses. These sold like hotcakes at Bondi on the weekend, so maybe some other mums thought the same!

I spent an enormous amount of time cutting this new print this week. I did manage to trial a few different cutting methods, which was a lot of fun, but the finer lines are almost impossible to get just right sometimes - I almost never turn out a print that I'm expecting! Three days straight of markets this weekend and I am the walking dead today, which is why I'm typing and not printing!

And speaking of markets, Balmain was very quiet, but there are some beautiful art and crafts being sold there. If you have a chance to make it one Saturday, drop in and see some of the best handmade prints, children's clothing and jewellery at any market in Sydney.

Softies for Mirabel

If you haven't already seen this, Softies for Mirabel is a Crafting for Charity project organised by the wonderful people from Meet Me At Mikes. There's still a month or so until the softies are displayed in their Brunswick St shopfront, and then distributed to the kids that need them the most. Not having any talent in the softie department myself, a bag of singlets sent themselves off to Meet Me At Mikes last week, and will hopefully come in handy on some of those withering Melbourne summer days.

All the info can be found on the Meet Me At Mikes blog - and if you haven't already seen their book, check it out also, it's full of fantastic little projects that I'm going to do... one day...

Mushrooms and a Tea Set

Back to the grind at last, and I'm very conscious that the blog has been somewhat neglected whilst we've been gallivanting around the countryside. All the beautiful pictures I took in and around my mother in law's garden have unfortunately stayed on the camera at her house instead of coming home with me, (very inconsiderate)!

Nevertheless, the images I took inspiration from have followed me back in the form of a couple of new stencils... Not sure what I'm going to do with these yet, but tea towels immediately sprung to mind after the test print! Though I've recently had to admit to myself that I'm shamelessly addicted to city life, whenever we visit the in laws down south I feel a great sense of relief at the simplicity of the country existence. Lots of tea, a bit of pottering around, and three meals to plan and enjoy slowly.

This week it's back to work for me. The Bondi stall on Sunday was an absolute joy, but now I've run out of plenty of stock and it's time to get busy. I also found a fantastic old wooden ladder on the side of the road this afternoon, and it's sitting in the shed begging me to fix and paint it in time for the next market... watch this space!