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!

babygros aka 'onesies'

I really liked my singing bluebird from the Howies/Folksy comp entry so I re cut the flock shapes again and used them on a babygro (onesies as the US etsyians call them) and also tried the rabbit and love heart designs on other babygros and they are just cute as a button!

I've been thinking about other garmets that I can use my designs on as t shirts will be more seasonal and just now everyone is thinking about keeping their little ones warm. So I am trying long and short sleeved babygros and long sleeved toddler t shirts. It's been hard to find organic cotton ones so I think I will have to go with the american apparel long sleeved t. It's not organic but at least I can be sure it hasn't come from a sweatshop or been made by children....

Inside the pop up shop

here's a little preview of whats in store for you when you come to the pop up shop!

Flower image is by Ryokan Art on canvas. Tea towel is a lovely new flower circle design by littlechook (me!) on a 50% linen , 50% cotton tea towel. The bag is by the lovely urbanknit and is my favourite one of all her bags and purses in the shop. The little kids treasure bag is a mini tote with a flock print - this one is called Tweet. The cards are by Bombus and use recycled maps and magazines.

The shelf and the elk came from my house which is looking bare with all the furniture now in the shop.

We worked hard on saturday to get all the stock uploaded onto big cartel so we can now take crdedit and debit card payments too.

New Kids Tshirt Design

made this one quite girly with a red heart and one of the pigeons is singing away. The little lady has taken to rubbing her nose against the flock shapes! I used the moo cards as the washing instructions label as the flock needs ironed on the back (although who the heck irons kids clothes!!!)

The tshirt itself is organic cotton and I was surprised at how soft it is. It is so different to the fruit of the loom t shirts that I think it does justify the higher price tag. I got some new t shirt samples today including some red organic ones from Mantis and some long sleeved unbleached ones.

I also got some Fruit of the loom v necks and I ordered a Large and X Large and I cannot believe how small they are! I can barely fit into the XL - it is sooo tight accross the chest I looked like I should be headed to the Playboy mansion. So I have scratched them as the tees for the 'plus size' collection.

I'm having more luck with tshirts from the supermarkets but the low price does make me worry about the conditions of the workers who make them.

Ideally I will buy two overlockers on ebay this weekend and will make my own t shirts eventually. My mum will be helping so we will be a two women sweatshop!

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!

Happy Heat Press

It's back and it is hopefully fixed this time. I haven't had a chance to try it out yet. Just relieved it wasn't away for ages as I am going to the Broadway Market 'show and tell' next weds to try and get a 'casual trader' card to allow me to have the occasional stall at this market. The market is in Hackney beside London Fields and has a great variety of crafters, artists, food and vintage clothing.

I'm hoping to take my tea towels and kids tshirts along on the night. I'm not sure the cushion covers are the best thing for a market stall, think they are better off in my etsy shop!

I've been busy cutting flock shapes for the new t shirts. My hands are aching as the flock is fairly thick to cut through. Oh for a vinyl cutter!

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!

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!

butterfly prints

Just a short post tonight as I am knackered! Hopefully soon I will be able to put some of my new prints up for sale in my etsy shop in the form of cushion covers and tea towels. For my designs I am using alot of tiny flowers with line drawn butterflies. I'm using alot of muted greens and turquoise with brighter accent colours like fuschia.

I need a new print table though because my current set up is too low and my back is really sore today.

Tomorrow I am going to use my new flock which is done by printing a layer of texiflock glue onto the fabric then heat pressing on the flock layer. Can't wait to see what it looks like!

littlechook at home

I've been in the studio all day today working on layouts for new screens. I am going to the East London Print Studio on Thursday to use their equipment to expose the screens so I need to have four designs ready.

Also worked on more t shirt designs last night and washed them today. The flock is even more fluffy once washed and looks great. The colours are really bright.

Having bought Living etc, Elle Decoration and Real Homes recently I have been thinking about our house and how we should decorate it. My plan was to paint everything white for starters but I am actually really liking the wallpaper even though it is quite old fashioned and 'country cottagey' which isn't me at all usually. I think the living room paper is Laura Ashley.

The carpets are all a bit old and scabby but instead of replacing them I am thinking a good steam clean would help them look nicer.

The fact that we have no money after our move is also curbing my design enthusiasm!

The house though does have some beautiful orignal victorian features like cornicing and ceiling roses. Alot of the 'ladder' houses got the 70's treatment but ours didn't thankfully! The Harringay ladder houses are row of victorian houses on a set of roads all running parallel (hence the name 'ladder') and they all have unusual names. I'd love to know more about why these names were chosen but google hasn't yielded any results.

The community noticeboard though does refer to a 'seafaring theme'. Would like to know more about this!

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!

my heat press is here!

I'm very excited and have bought some flock on ebay to make the sample kids tshirts. Hopefully the flock will arrive tomorrow or saturday.

I haven't unpacked it yet cos it is so heavy.

Also discovered another potential craft market. The eco baby and children fair in on 26th april in Muswell Hill. The company, futurefriendly fairs has another in Islington in May which I am going to look into. Would be a fab place to see what customers think of my kids tees. www.futurefriendlyfairs.com

My etsy shop is filling up too. I have 61 items for sale now and the vintage fabric cushions seem to be getting a good number of views. Will add this blog address to my shop announcement tonight too.

Off to bed now, am knackered from all the fresh air at the park.