littlechook loves brixton

Didn't manage a post yesterday out of sheer exhaustion! The day started at 4 am when the little lady woke up early. I left for the market at 6.30 am getting horribly lost on the way (those AA road maps are rubbish!) I managed to get to the Elephant & Castle and muddled my there from there!

The market was great. It was on the famous Electric Avenue. Brixton totally rocks! It has such a fantastic atmosphere. I saw so many ladies wearing the traditional nigerian wax prints made into beautiful dresses and loads of folk just rocking their own look.

I managed to sell a fair amount of littlechook handmade goodies (mainly cards but also two cushions) but I am not sure the organisers publicised the event enough. One of my last customers of the day was the chair of the local residents association and she said she didn't know the market was happening and it was something she would have sent details of to her mailing list.

There were some other really talented folk selling crafts there and I will hopefully blog about them this week.

Hubby and the little lady joined me after lunch and they both had a great time. My daughter just seems to take everything in her stride and she was walking round the market charming all the shopkeepers!

We got home in time to watch the Euro 2008 final but I slept through most of it only waking up to see Spain lifting the trophy. Yay!

Today was catch up on sleep and housework day. Hubby is kindly making me spag bol tonight and I am enjoying a glass of red wine.

the calm before the storm

I am sitting here surprisingly calmly the night before the Brixton Craft Market and drinking fruit cider. We had a brilliant day today with lots of sunshine and just general family happiness. I put together a trial layout of my stall for tomorrow and I have a fair idea of what I will do tomorrow.

I am really on my own though tomorrow with my sister at Glastonbury and hubby looking after the little lady. We decided it wouldn't be fair to get her up early and then have her spend all day at the fair so I am driving there and setting up on my own. To unload by my stall I need to arrive between 6 and 7 am. I'm hoping there's somewhere around to have some breakfast!

I'm actually looking forward to the whole thing as it will be a good chance to get feedback on my work and to chat to other artists and designers. Still bit gutted that I have no t shirts though as I felt they would sell well at an event like this. Instead I have vintage fabric cushions, badges, cards and tea towels. I am looking forward to seeing all the handmade goodies on sale.

Wish me luck!

getting steamy with tea towels

I feel like I've spent the day in a Glasgow Steamie! I have slaved over a hot iron pressing the tea towels a couple of times each so they look their best for sunday's market in Brixton.

Sadly my heat press isn't working so I have no new children's t shirt's and in fact I have so few made up already that I've had to abandon this until the little blighter is fixed. Hubby has promised to see what he can do to help me out. I am so hoping he can fix it rather than have to send it away to the manufacturer.

I am happy though with my tea towels! They are a bit of a mixture of colours but all laid out together they look good. I especially like my butterfly ones.

home grown food

Ok we are not quite self sufficient yet but we ate our first home grown strawberry today and it was delicious. I was a bit worried though that the birds would beat us to it and apparently the squirrels were having a little bit of a sniff round them this morning!

Tea towel production continued but alot of the colour bleached out of the green prints. Not sure why this keeps happening but it's a pest. The butterfly prints though came out well so happy with that.

I am starting on the t shirts tomorrow and am beginning to wonder whether a second etsy shop is needed for the kids t's? Maybe it is too much of a mix with the cushions? Need to think this over but need to get sunday's market over and done with first. Ali very kindly bought me a 'bumbag' from american apparel for my takings and change. I wasn't keen on having a cash box since I will be on my own behind my stall for most of the day as Ali is off to the Glastonbury Festival tomorrow.

the nightowl

Insomnia struck again last night. Damm those steroids! It felt even worse this time round. I sat downstairs and cut out flock shapes for t shirts hoping the repetitive task would help me got sleepy. It didn't! I then sorted through the tea towels and found a rabbits one I had forgotten about. I have one in my etsy shop already.

I eventually slept at about 6am an hubby stayed off work this morning to look after the little lady so I got some sleep. Then went off to Stevenage to have lunch with my friend Karen which was lovely but the big pasta portion I had exhausted me. Katherine really enjoyed the train journey and loved it when other trains went past and enjoyed flipping the little seat tray thing up and down over and over again.

Went to yoga tonight and am hoping that will help me sleep. Julie worked us hard tonight so I think my abdominals will be achey tomorrow.

i want vintage!

This super cool newish website was featured in Grazia a few weeks back and I had a wee look at it and decided to take up the free trial for some ads.

Lots of the usual suspects are on there: clarissa hulse, jan constantine, ulrika may with their vintage goodies and now littlechook is muscling in.

They have a newletter for customers which this week is on the very important subject of cushions and they featured me me me! My 60s floral cushion is hanging out with the cool crowd. I can't post the feature as it's a pdf thingy and I can't figure it out!

http://www.iwantvintage.co.uk/

Apart from this excitement I did do some work today printing tea towels and cutting flock shapes for the t shirts in preparation for saturday's craft market. My lovely sister looked after Katherine. The little lady was made up to have her Auntie Ali with her all day. Thanks sis!

I love summer

Today was a lovely summer day here and we managed to pack loads into our sunday. Hubby went to the park with the little lady to run off her energy and she then slept for almost three hours.

While she was slumbering peacefully we got stuck into the jungle aka our garden. Out went half a tree, an old woody lavendar and many many weeds. The grass has been shorn and the bush trimmed.

We then decided to have a bbq. The lovely John and Anna who we bought our house from left us a fab kettle type bbq so we cleaned it up and lit it. Unfortunately the charcoal had been in our cellar and I think to be honest it was a bit damp. I tried to light the bbq and failed then hubby took over (man fire and all that) and with much fanning and sweating he did get things going.

By this time though we had already had to cook the food in the oven as Katherine was starving hungry!

My sis though made the most fab veggie food. The receipe roughly is:

Cut chunks of red pepper, courgette and shallots. Add whole mushrooms and halloumi cheese and marindae with rosemary, basil, chilli sauce, soy sauce and partida agave syrup. Wrap mixture is foil and bake for 30 mins or till the veg is cooked.

Delicious with our burgers. Thanks sis!

Tonight got down to sorting through the kids tshirts and tea towels for next saturday's craft fair in Brixton and I have quite a bit of printing, washing, ironing and packing to do before then but I am feeling confident about it and raring to go. Etsy is great but it will be nice to chat face to face with customers and get their feedback on my designs.

And Spain went into the semi finals of euro 2008 - yay!

Vintage Fabric Button Badges

I finally got around to uploading these to my etsy shop. They are made from vintage fabrics using my lovely badge machine. It seems like a fun way to use up off cuts of the fabrics from my cushion covers. I hate wasting lovely vintage fabrics! My photos of the badges are not very good! I think it is because of the plastic film that goes over the badge to protect it. The fabrics do look much nicer without the film but they'd get marked or might not handle rain too well.

I have also added some badges to some of my handmade cards but I am keeping these for craft fairs rather than etsy for now.

Next weekend is the brixton craft market so I am busy preparing for this event. Tomorrow I am going to practice setting up my stall so off to check out the flickr group for craft shows to get some inspiration!

And finally our purses from peppermint designs arrived and they are gorgeous. They even come in a linen bag to protect and store them. Just lovely!

insomnia and creativity!

I didn't get to sleep last night until about 5am. Hubby bless him let me lie in till 7.30am. I had hours of fun on the etsy forums and had a chat with my lovely web designer Jen about her baby bump.

I am cursing these steroids I am taking. Side affects include insomnia (thanks) and weight gain (and I worked so damm hard to shift the baby weight) and hungers pangs (hence the bowl of rice crispies and a glass of port at 3am).

But have managed to get myself working today while Katherine is at nursery. A grand total on a cushion cover made from some screen printed fabric with rabbits and squirrels in flock popped onto the cover. I'm not sure about it to be honest.....

Secondly finished one of my flower circle designs and am pretty happy with that one so hopefully can get a screen made up soon to start printing some of my lovely organic fabrics.

Think I will be napping with the little lady when she gets back from nursery. In fact got to pick her up now!

My latest etsy purchase

Is from Peppermint Designs. She is a fairly new etsy seller and I am her first etsy customer. Yay! I am sure though she will have many more sales as her purses are just lovely. http://www.peppermintdesigns.etsy.com/

I have bought a black one with an appliqued dove for myself (naughty, naughty). For my sis I went for a brown purse with an appliqued horse's head, horseshoe and star . She is starting her own PR company, Neon, and I wanted to buy her something nice to mark the occasion. My purse is lined with a floral liberty fabric. I haven't seen a picture of the fabric and I kind of like the idea of opening it and getting a nice surprise when I see which gorgeous fabric she has used.

They are made from leather too so should stand the test of time.

So I am staying true to my handmade pledge for this year! Oh apart from the bloomin' Nintendo DS Lite that I bought hubby for his birthday. Sadly I am becoming addicted to the blocks game which is a bit tetris like. Somehow I have managed to get the top score tee hee.

vintage fabric from the states book

I bought a book called 'Vintage Fabric From The States" in the Tate Modern bookshop on sunday but only had some time to have a look at it properly today and it is gorgeous. The range of fabrics is really good with lots of sweet little florals, polka dots and some really fab children's prints. It is split into rooms to with fabrics for the kitchen, bedroom etc. Somehow though I have managed to buy the japanese version rather than the english one I was reading in the bookshop! Not fussed though as the images are great.

I really like the style pages in it too especially the pic with the cotton reels. I am for some strange reason quite into cotton reels at the moment. I have some proper vintage ones too in my sewing box inherited from my gran and I remember playing with them quite vividly from when I was little. She had a great button collection too and that was always great fun so I am keeping some for Katherine to play with when she is a bit older.

I actually used some of my 'vintage' thread on monday night as I was making two box seat cushions for my sister's companies stand at The Bar Show at Earl's Court. I felt quite apprehensive about making them as the fabric was a beautiful silk from the Gainsborough Weaving Company and I was worried I'd mess up and waste the fabric but it all turned out fine. (littlechook breathes huge sigh of relief!)

Exploring London - Clissold Park

Another nice sunny day in London today so we went out exploring to Clissold Park. It's only 10 minutes on the bus from our house and I am ashamed to say we have never been before because it is a really gorgeous park. Katherine loved seeing the animals especially the deer. I loved them too. They just look so gentle. We took lots of photos of them as I want to use some images in my circle flower designs and also on the kids tshirt's.

I've used a stag before but want to have the deer in different poses. It would have been nice to take a sketchbook and draw them but not fair to the little lady who was in the mood to play in the sandpit and discover the see saw!

The park has a really nice cafe too run by some friendly ladies and we sat outside and had orange juice and muffins in the sun.

Baby Banksy at the Tate Modern

Nice relaxed day today with lunch at Wagamama's on the south bank followed by a walk to the Tate Modern. My cousin was with us and needed to get a train back to Edinburgh so we didn't have time to visit any of the exhibitions. Instead Katherine ran around the turbine hall with her Daddy while I had a look in the bookshop resulting in a couple of purchases for me but I also bought Katherine an Eric Carle book "brown bear brown bear what do you see". It is almost as fab as The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I love kids books and their illustrations particularily anything by Eric Carle.

The Tate is adorned with large scale "street art" from various street artists from around the world at the moment. It's ok I suppose. I did like the American Indian/Horse one but wasn't convinced by the others. They were ok. I was surprised though given the UK street art talent (Hush, Prefab etc) that no one was chosen although apparently Banksy declined their offer to take part.

However I think I spotted the new banksy working on the posters by the entrance!

organic cotton kids tshirts

My samples arrived! They are 100% organic cotton t shirts and are also fairtrade. The only drawback is the sizes only seem to go up to 18 months. Colourwise they do white, unbleached and red. Somehow I have managed to forget to order the red ones! They feel lovely and soft. No chemicals or pesticides are used on the cotton. I am interested to find out more on their fairtrade aspect though and how this works. I am really aware that I don't want to be printing tshirts for kids that are made by kids. Not right in my book.

The manufacturer is Mantis World and their website is http://www.matisworld.com/ The website on the label though is http://www.tenderlovingclothing.com/ but it doesn't seem to be working???

No chance to add any printing as yet. I have decided to stick with the littlechook name but go for FlockStars by Littlechook. I am thinking of having a second etsy shop for the vintage cushions and using the littlechook on for all the printed, organic cotton cushions, t shirts and tea towels. So far my designs have rabbits, squirrels and deer. I am about to add pigeons, woodpeckers and foxes.

That's it for now, off to eat chicken fajitas an drink pear cider for dinner.

Like mother, like daughter

Haven't had a chance to photograph my latest street find which is destined for the seven dials/carnaby street pop up shop but here it is.

I am developing a slight obsession with vintage suitcases and luggage. I already have a lovely silver steamer trunk which is being used to store all my vintage fabric cushion covers. I rescued this little beauty with Katherine's help. The outside is a lovely coloured tweed fabric but when we looked inside and saw the paisley patterned lining fabric we both said 'ooohh' and she was coming home with us.

My long suffering husband says I am corrupting a toddler with my magpie habits. I think it's all in the genes...

Katherine made a little bed for herself inside the suitcase this afternoon. She's been a bit off colour these past few days and possibly has chicken pox. We just have to wait to see whether her rash turns into the actual pox. I have calamine lotion ready.

So no nursery for her today and hence no new designs for littlechook. Hopefully I'll catch up on my new flower circle designs over the weekend.

littlechook in the Schmap Guide

One of my flickr photos was chosen to appear in the London Schmap Guide. It's an online guide and covers loads of cities/countries aswell as London.

It's a picture from the first artichokeltd gallery of Hush's work in Carnaby Street. His work is now selling for big money and he was asked by Banksy to appear in a recent show of street art - the 'Cans Festival' which took over a disused tunnel near Waterloo.

http://www.schmap.com/ Seems like a good idea but I find the site is very very slow to load.

Tonight I am trying to do some work on my neglected etsy shop but finding other design blogs far more interesting.

back home from edinburgh

Edinburgh was as gorgeous as ever. We had a fabulous time and managed to pack in visits to all family members both east and west coast.

We went for a walk round the city on saturday night finished by a drink in the lovely cafe royal. I had forgotten what a beautiful interior it has with all the old tiles and the leather seats in the little half moon 'booths'. We stayed in a really swanky top floor flat on Thistle Street a couple of doors away from my old flat which was a very strange coincidence. The flat looks as if it is up for sale too.

We didn't shop much unfortunately but I did get some pictures on penhaligons window on george street. their current display uses a backdrop of photographic wallpaper with old vintage books. They have some lovely old glass bottles too and bowler hats.

My Dad's 60th was a blast too. Great meal in Iglu then lots of family chat and general catch up. My cousins were nearly all there so we had a good blether.

We had lovely weather too and took Katherine to Princes Street Gardens to play on the swings and then walked through the gardens and saw the flower clock under construction. I used to go and see the flower clock as a wee girl so it was nice to show it to my wee girl (even though it wasn't quite completed). Edinburgh Castle looked really imposing in the sunlight and the set up for the Edinburgh Millitary Tatoo was well underway too.

It was lovely to be back in Scotland and it's inspired us to try to get there more often.

going to edinburgh

Off to edinburgh this weekend for my dad's 60th birthday party (happy birthday dad!)and on my list of things to do are:

buy vintage from armstrongs (I love this shop! Todays pics are my best ever vintage purchase naturally from armstrongs!)
have a pint of IPA in the Black Bull
visit the museum of scotland
see the new scottish parliment
eat lots of cakes, scones, tablet etc

Back to blog about edinburgh's general fabness next week.

Pulse 2008 day 3

Visited again today (with Katherine in tow poor mite) to have another look at the show. I thought the launchpad (supported by Liberty) was the best bit of the show and the designers showed fantastic creativity and talent. All these designers have studios or are members of organisations like Hidden Art, Craft Central and Cockpit Arts. Today's pic shows some of the work available from the hidden art online shop www.hiddenart.com

I am having a look at my fav's websites and will blog 'em all over the next few days.

After lunch I took the little lady to the park as a thank you for being so good at Pulse and we got soaked to the skin in the rain and Katherine fell in a puddle but she took it all in her stride as usual.

And I had a sale in my etsy shop too yay! I am not sure if I never noticed the gallery layout feature before or it is new but I much prefer how the shop looks in this layout. I am sure though that the ability to list items in terms of price, date added is new and it is a great addition to the site.

Pulse 2008

Spent the day at Earls Court at the Pulse 2008 trade show. It has exhibitors covering jewellry, gifts, home furnishings, bath and body, cards etc. It also has a launchpad section for new designers. It was intersting wandering round and seeing the types of products on offer from a variety of companies. My particular favourites were thornback and peel and snowden flood. There were alot of real 'cutesy' stuff which is not me at all and I did think it would be more 'design' led.

Afterwards we zipped up to Kensington High Street and went to Wholefoods Market which is just unbeliveable. Floors and floors of organic, fairtrade, fresh - you name it they have got it. So tonight we feasted on loive bread, manchego cheese and quince paste and I have hidden away some white chocolate with poppy seeds. Mmmmm