New Fabric Just Arrived from Japan

I'm working overtime in production for great new stock, and here's a sneak peek at just a small sample of the new fabric that just arrived on my front door step from Japan. There's more expected in the next few weeks, so check back to see what's going to be on my stall in the lead up to Christmas!

Kirribili Art & Design

What a great atmosphere Kirribilli Art & Design Market had!

I'm looking forward to doing more stalls there. A great range of

beautiful jewellery, organic beauty products (Wild Nature Australia),

clothes, artwork, home wares, kids ware and much more.

It now includes a huge new Fashion Market of pre-loved and

new clothes. Wish i'd had the chance to go shopping!

2009 International Year of Natural Fibres

I'm new to blogging, but i can now see how people spend hours reading other people's blogs. I did a pretty simple search for "Felt" and came up with this amazing blog about Wool Felt and Textiles, which have been a growing passion for me over the past few years.

http://wool-felt.blogspot.com/

Check it out to see some of the most amazing felt creations from necklaces, hats, rugs to amazing wall art which is functional as well as beautiful, possessing acoustic and sound proofing qualities.

http://www.annekyyroquinn.com/

This london based designer anne kyyro quinn, makes me want to experiment with felt and create some sculptural pieces for my own home.

2009 has been declared the Year of Natural Fibres and to help celebrate, in May there was a Felt Festival in Felletin (where else could you have it?!), France which was to demonstrate the beauty and versatility of felt with lots of workshops, displays and some serious felt networking for industry types from all over europe.

I first fell in love with felt on a visit to Munich in 2006, where i stumbled upon the amazing Daimer Filze shop. Wall to wall felt like a rainbow. I bought some beautiful animal shapes and flowers which went into my first lampshade creation for my daughter Remi.

I like to hand stitch the felt shapes on to avoid unnecessary glueing.

This adds to the hand made design and gives me great creative satisfaction too. To top it off the fabric i covered the shade in is a blend of Yak Hair and Hemp, so soft and great texture.

These shades are from the range i sell at the markets, and even just little details like the small dots; only 8mm in diameter, create a great effect! They are so cute, and i love to utilise the small details in the fabric too, the natural edging often goes unseen. But why not make it into a feature?

The fabric on this forest shade is great, when the light is off it's a subtle shade of yellow/cream but once it's illuminated the colour totally changes to a fantastic celery colour creating a magical green backdrop for a flowery forest.

These sweet ducks get a lot of attention. Love mixing the textures of rough cotton and soft wool felt. I enjoy a lot of colour, but sometimes you just can't go past simple white on white.

First Time At Fox Markets

My first time at Fox Studios was a lovely sunny day with a great space to set up in. I'm finding each market a different experience with the best product sales of the day being different every time. Cushions and dolls have always been popular, but selling my first lampshade was definitely a thrill - beautiful japanese print of french style Alice in Wonderland, a favourite of mine.

Fox best product of the day was my new range of felt cards with hand stitching details.

Doody St Market, Alexandria

My first time at Doody St was a good learning experience. The weather didn't bring too many people out, but i met a lot of lovely stall holders who had great advice for me. Lots of interest and more names for my mailing list.

Apologies to anyone who feels they have been left off the mailing list, there were a couple of email addresses that were a little difficult to read and didn't make it through, sorry.

Vintage Find in Binda

On a relaxing weekend in the country i found a hidden treasure at a garage sale in Binda, which is near Crookwell, which is half an hour from Goulburn NSW. Great cotton Bias Binding from the 60's, 70's and 80's if i had to guess. Made in Australia too! Can't wait to use these, probably on lampshades.

Fell in love with the cotton Ric Rac too, made in Japan and was labelled at the bargain price of 12cents. Originally bought at Downes Department store.

Most of it was still in it's original wrapping!

Mathilda's Market a Success

Sunday 5th July at Mathilda's Market in Lane Cove was a great first market experience. It was very reassuring to have some other first timers around me. Once the doors opened it wasn't long before i made my first sale of a Softy Toy Owl and it kept steadily going from there.

The Softy Toys were a big success. I'll definitely need more for next time

The old wooden ladder i found worked out perfectly for displaying the quilts