discovering folksy

My blog discipline has faded a little recently due to being so exhausted by the last week of the carnaby street pop up shop. The clear up and clear out ended up being really stressful due to one man and van cancelling and the other ending up being late and going to the wrong address - nightmare!

So I've been taking it easy today and spending some time with the little lady. I have also discovered the new 'uk etsy' in the form of folksy.com and have managed to list a couple of things so far, one kids tshirt and one vintage fabric cushion cover.

It looks great and so good to be able to buy and sell in £ and not have to pay the paypal conversion charges (dick turpin wore a mask!). However I'll be interested to see how they spread the word about folksy beyond the crafting community or will they fall into the etsy trap of marketing to sellers?

I asked loads of people who came to the shop if they had heard of etsy and very few had. These were the sort of folk who were happy to spend their cash on our handmade goodies. Hmmmm

Kim Parker Textiles

I've seen bits and pieces of Kim's work in the past but until looking at her website I didn't realise how lovely it is. http://www.kimparker.tv/ She is on the back page of this months living etc (finally got myself a copy) and I think her style is very individual and beautiful. I love that she is self taught too. She uses colour so beautifully and talks about painting flowers how she feels them rather than how she sees them.

"A designer with an exuberant style, Parker combines her own fantastic floral prints with unconventional flea market finds, fashionable antiques, and unique modern pieces to create a vibrant, colorful look"

To me she is the opposite of the blonde wood, neutral and sterile strangehold that masquerades as some kind of minimalism. Homes are meant to be lived in!

Her cushions really caught my eye and I'd love a couple for my sofa. I have just found some amazon vouchers so I may order her book Kim Parker Home although I am not sure I can get both this and Soule Mama's book. I find her blog very calming in the swirling madness of parenthood but that's another post!

Life in the pop up shop continues with a really busy day today with some great sales including one from a lovely american couple. Plus yesterday someone bought one of my kids tshirts! I was beginning to think no one liked them except me and the little lady!

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!

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.

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!

a long day of sunshine

the beautiful sunny weather continued today and it is still hot tonight.

had a family day today with a visit from my mum which is lovely. we had a takeaway from jai krishna veggie restaraunt. It's on stroud green road, N4 and the food is the best indian food ever. Katherine had a lovely time with her gran and got new playdoh with an upsy daisy stamp.

only littlechook related activity today was having another look at the t shirt designs and seeing what I like and what I'd like to do next. Have alot of ideas at the moment but so little time, the usual story!

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!