etsy front page!

My lovely friend Ariane of Peppermint Twist Designs emailed me to say I'd been on the front page of etsy. Well my little lady modelling the deer and star tshirt had been!

I also discovered craftcult as a way to find expired treasuries, hearts, views etc so I could see how it looked. I can't for the life of me take a screenshot though.

I also found that the butterflies tshirt is in a gift guide and the rabbits and star tshirt was on the front page back in march.

Yay for etsy!

Handmade Oxford

My blog laziness knows no bounds but I have been busy concentrating on designing and making a whole bunch of new baby and toddler tshirts. My hands are curled into small claws after cutting large batches of flock into many lovely deer, squirrels, rabbits, stars and other forest creatures!

On Sunday though I was part of the Handmade Oxford Craft Show and what a day! It was so well organised by Becci and her team and the town hall is a stunning building making such a nice change from mouldy old church halls that are the usual location for craft fairs.

And everything there was handmade! No re sellers , no sweatshopped in china crap! There was so much lovely stuff and I met some nice folk like cloudhopping, snap dragon beads and poor robin whose etsy shops and blogs I have read and admired so it was lovely to meet and chat.

crafters rock!

Stylish T Shirts for curvy girls

Thankfully the heat press is fully functioning so I cracked on with making a couple of baby tees today. The organic cotton tshirts worked really well and they feel so lovely and soft.

I also noticed a while back on the etsy forums that lots of etsy ladies were saying how they couldn't find any tshirts to fit them. They were looking for the type of cool, funky prints that many etsy sellers have in their shops but they weren't keen on the usual American Apparel fit. Presonally I find AA really teeny tiny even the XL size! The cut is not particularily generous for a proper bosom....

So I've been trying to source wholesale 'plus size' (I hate that term) tshirts but it's been really hard to find anything half decent. I have been shocked though at the negativity towards so called 'larger' (e.g. normal!) sizes even from companies selling plus size clothing. ("our cuddlier customers" as one put it).

So I'm trying to create something stylish, fun and beautiful for us curvy girls. I used some flock shapes today as I think the deer and birds work well and I just love stars!

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.

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.

kids tshirts

My new littlechook line is going to be t shirts for kids. I'm working on designs at the moment. Finding it easy to think up girls designs but not so sure about for boys. I have a couple of little models to test them out for me though namely two dudey little guys - oliver and william.

I want to use images of british wildlife - rabbits, foxes, deer, squirrels and birds and to use flock to make some textured shapes as I have noticed how kids love textures -look at how much they love taggie blankets!

My little girl is already a bit of a supermodel and is refusing to get out of her cot for less the $10,000 a day!

littlechook on cuteable.com

the littlechook green rabbit and flowers tea towel has been featured by the lovely Lyndsey on cuteable .com

it's in my etsy shop along with some other designs. I'm working on more at the moment with deer and squirrels. I have also been using the brand new heat press and my new flock sheets to put deer, squirrels and rabbits onto some kids t shirts.

This is my attempt to get ahead of the game for the summer season of craft markets!