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!

Treasure bags for little 'uns

I'm working hard on new images for my littlechook website and managed to get some great shots in finsbury park with the little lady modelling the bags. She had a great time helping me stuff them with paper bags to make them more photogenic then we hung them in the trees. They looked really sweet and the squirrels and loads of passer bys were intrigued!

Hopefully I'll be able to get this internet problem fixed and get the new images of the mini toe bags onto etsy and folksy soon. They sold really well in the pop up shop so I have high hopes for them at all the christmas fairs this year.....

finsbury park life

My blog discipline is all over the place at the moment and my posting is a bit erratic but I am still struggling with a crappy internet connection which is making me lose the will to live.

Still had a nice day today with the little lady. We took some of the little treasure tote bags up to finsbury park and I hung them in the trees and took some pictures. The park looked lovely today in the autumn sunshine but it felt alot colder today. We also made friends with some squirrels including one who tried to climb in the buggy. The little lady was ready to fight him for the raisins!

baby tshirt photography

Another attempt at photographing the tshirts today as the sun was out this morning. I tried to keep thing simple by laying them on the grass. It did seem to highlight the colours especially with the red tshirt with the rabbit and squirrel. Cropped them tonight and may add them to my big cartel and etsy shops if I am able to stay awake!

Good day in the pop up shop today aswell with plenty of sales.

Hoping for some rest and relaxation tomorrow and a trip to hampstead heath for some fresh air after the stale air of the tube today.

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.

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!

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!