8 years!

Yesterday was my 8 year blogaversary! Can you believe it? I can't.

Eight years ago I wrote my first posts. I remember it was a sunny Sunday afternoon in November, and I sent them off into the world wondering if anyone would ever read them!

Since then my Flower Press business and blog, both of which I started on a whim, have become a big part of my life.

A huge defining part.

The online world was very different eight years ago, its changed a lot in that time. Nowadays everyone is a part of it, we are all on instagram, everyone is microblogging. Its great, I love it! People understand immediately when I say I'm a blogger, those blank looks are gone. Lots of us have little handmade businesses, people are making their own all over the place! Being creative is much more common.

It wasn't like that back then, we were pioneers in many ways looking to find other makers online and so happy when we found this likeminded community. I miss those lovely early days a little, when the craft blogging community was like a small secret society, sharing and inspiring each other in our creative pursuits. Secret crafters! Those other bloggers shaped my life, my work, my art. If you are reading this, and you were one of that gang back then, thank you a million times my friends. If you are still blogging, and there are less of us these days, then your blog is probably over there on the right and I'm still reading it.

Thank you too to all the lovelies that have come along in the meantime. You are constantly making me think and grow. I make my own soap, jam, pickles, sew my own clothes, grow my own vegies, make my own pots, print my own fabric, buy art, cook food, watch shows, raise my kids, live my life inspired by you!

I've had so many amazing opportunites come my way through my blog and shop, I've had the most amazing emails turn up in my inbox every year of its life. Thank you thank you thank you for reading and responding!

Connecting online is fun and rewarding in a million ways. I was shy to put myself out there at first. I didn't tell anyone in my real world about my blog for a while and then when I slowly did I only got positive feedback, and now my real and virtual communities understand, support and cheer on my creative life. That's such a gift.

My Flower Press Etsy shop turns eight years old in a few of days too. I'm going to celebrate!! I'm going to get my act together and have a sale. I've been a bit distracted this year, I haven't looked after the poor old shop, it has its own life though and looking today I see my recorded sales are up to 970! Time to go for the thousand I think!

Thanks for reading, Susie xxxx

p.s. The images above link to some of my most popular posts, just click on them to go there. Many of the tutorials have been viewed thousands of times, and I love to think of all the makers out there making, inspired and guided by my words!

new and Bizarre!

Hey guess what, I'm having a stall at the Sydney Etsy team's night markets on Friday night as part of The Rocks Village Bizarre!

I'm very excited about it, I love that part of Sydney don't you, I always think its a bit magical even without a festival.

For those of you that don't know it The Rocks is the oldest settled part of Sydney, full of narrow streets and old sandstone buildings. Its right next to Circular Quay where the Museum of Contemporary Art is, where the big cruise ships park side by side with the tiny ferries gliding back and forth between the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House. Magic!

I have been scrambling this month to get ready for the market, the Flower Press shop has been a bit neglected so it was nice to spend time sorting things out and fast tracking some long planned products to the range.

Please meet the new and improved Teapot tea towel! I've always loved this image which in an early incarnation was one of the first designs in the Flower Press family. Here it is new and revamped and on a tea towel! I love these ones and they go beautifully with the rest of my designs.

Perfect for a tea party, these come in deep Ocean Blue (can't go past blue and white crockery!) and a vibrant Rose pink for all those garden parties you are planning. More colours later as I get time, suggestions welcome.

As well as that I'll have new Flower Press greeting cards, some Lego block pencil cases, some cushions and well... you'll have to come and see!

One thing I'm really excited about is finally sharing my ceramic work - selected pieces will be for sale for the first time on Friday night. I've been teasing you for long enough on Instagram! These are mostly one of a kind too so its first in best dressed.

Do you remember the little ceramic milk bottles I made back here? Well they are back fired and glazed and looking even prettier than before, I love them! I will have just a few on Friday (though I'm hoping to keep at least one for me!) but I'm hoping these lovelies will become a standard item after Xmas when my kiln is set up.

I got some more exciting news today about some fun things happening next month. I can't wait to share that with you as soon as I'm allowed. So stay tuned to hear more about that!!

tool kit print

If you are a long time reader you may remember this design which I first made as a t-shirt design.

Its always been a favourite of mine, I love the bright primary colours, and I'm not too sure why it has taken so long for me to make it into a print. Here it is at last, and I'm so pleased with how beautifully it has printed on the wonderful specialised thick matte card I use for my prints.

The primary colour scheme of blue and red and yellow would look great on a little boy's wall, or girl's. Especially those junior Bob the Builders amongst us!

As you can see I'm also offering personalisation of the print for a special custom gift, some special nursery art for a new baby perhaps?! I think they would make a lovely birthday or christmas gift too. Contact me if you have any requests for that wrench toting youngster in your life.

In the shop now!

I've also uploaded this design to my Flower Press shop on Society 6. You may remember last year I ordered a range of products and I was so pleased and impressed with the quality. Even better I ordered with one of their regular free shipping offers, so the prices were great!
So if you want a tool kit phone case, tote, cushion or canvas head over there.

away with friends

Its taken some organisation to get seven lovely, busy friends away at the same time, its been way too long since our last big trip to Melbourne.

This weekend though saw us finally all away together at this great big house I found in the Southern Highlands, tucked away on land at the end of the road, bordered on three sides by the stunning Mount Gibralter Nature Reserve.

The house booked online turned out to be a great find. It boasts lots of bedrooms with crisp white sheets and big fluffy towels, two sitting rooms, one cosy with big stuffed couches and a wood fireplace, another light filled space with floor to ceiling picture windows looking out on the beautiful view. There was even a piano room, though we didn't get round to a singalong, this time!

On Saturday we lunched at the great Berkelouw Book Barn out of Berrima. My friend Jane comes here often and it didn't disappoint. The big light dining space is surrounded by shelves and shelves of books and bordered by a 15 foot sandstone fireplace. Sadly my phone battery died before I could take any good photos, but I did manage to immortalise my lunch of Blue Swimmer crab linguine with chilli and lemon zest, the important stuff! We had a long slow lunch tucked away out of the rain and cold catching up on our busy lives.

Yesterday after a slow breakfast at home we hit Bowral for coffee at the cosy Elephant Boy cafe in main street Bowral. We then spent a couple of hours of shopping, including  a browse at the lovely shop Three Wise Monkeys, and an inspiring visit to the Dirty Jane's antique market, a great find of lots of vintage sellers together under one roof. Both kept us distracted and happy for a good while.  We finished our time away with a very late lunch of potato and leek soup back at Elephant Boy, surrounded again with beautiful old books, before packing up and heading home.

I love these girls, and it was inspiring and relaxing to spend good long hours together, having time to catch up properly and talk about work, family, life and love. We fitted in a long walk one day before the rain started, and stayed up late into the night laughing in our pyjamas round the flickering fire.

I came back with few physical souvenirs, but lots of lovely memories and conversations to ponder, and another rich layer to each of these precious friendships. And plans for another trip, much sooner this time!

basecloth

Did I tell you my ambition this year is to make more fabric!!

I want to design and produce more Flower Press fabric designs. In particular I want to screenprint more designs, and if I've been a bit absent, a bit distracted that's why. I've been working behind the scenes to make this happen.

As you know from my recent Sewing with Flower Press post I get a big kick out of seeing what people make with my fabric. Up till now that has mostly meant digital quilting cottons. I love the way with digital I can create multicolour quilting fabrics like my Bricks and Marble prints and print them on quality Kona cotton. What fun! With digital design you can do anything - if you want to combine a hundred colours into one design you can. Swatch or yardage? No problem. Its a designer's dream.

Screenprinted fabric comes with more design limitations. There's more preparation in producing it. But handprinted fabric has its own quality which make us love it. Personally I love the vibrancy and texture and the graphic quality of screenprinting. I love the feel of it, the strong printed designs and the way they sit on the basecloth.

To me basecloth is all important to screenprinted textiles so part of my journey towards producing more has been finding the perfect basecloths. 

I'm always on the lookout for good fabric, and over the years have amassed samples from all over the place. My first criteria is they must be natural fibres which narrows the search to linen, cotton and hemp.

I love 100% linen for tea towels, its hard wearing qualities and substantial feel make this sustainable fibre a star.

For fabric panels that are going to be sewn I prefer linen/cotton blends to straight linen. I think they combine the great strength and character of linen with the better drape and usability of cotton. I find them easier to iron and a finer texture.

Cotton in all its guises is another favourite. There's something about the feel of freshly laundered cotton, its strength and durability and ease of care that make this versatile fabric so very popular. No wonder that quilts are made almost exclusively with cotton.

I was so happy when I sourced the perfect white cotton fabric recently. I love the weight and drape and feel of it. I also found some fabulous coloured cottons to play around with. I can't wait to print some of these neutrals.

And lastly, hemp is a new fibre to me. While I've seen this fabric around I hadn't had much to do with it up close until recently when I got some unused yardage when buying some secondhand screens. 

Wow, I was really impressed. Its a really nice fibre and it has a real radiance to it. It sort of glows. Its also smooth and strong and has great eco credentials. I snapped up a big batch of different weight hemp fabrics a couple of months ago when a local wholesaler had a sale, some of it a hemp/organic cotton mix. This will be fun to print on too.

As for the printing, I'm getting there. It is taking a while to get my setup perfect. The good news is that with my such a great range of fabrics bought I am a few steps closer to my goal. Expect some scrap packs made up of test prints to go up soon. I'm a big fan of the scrap pack myself (remind me to show you my collection some time!) so it will be fun to share some of my own.

p.s. yes, I know, I've messed up my blog template recently experimenting with tabs! I need to restore my saved template but life has been too busy. Time for a complete overhaul methinks!

thrift

 

Back to school today for my three and I'm missing them already.

They were all very excited though and ready to go back, looking forward to the new year beginning and to catching up with friends.

It is very quiet here now, which is nice as I have much to do and real life to get back to. Its time to embrace the new year and make some plans, write lists, send orders, sort out stock, make some new things...

I've been meaning to blog these holiday treasures, the souvenirs I picked up round and about on our travels this summer. I love a bit of thrifting and just lately with the kids bigger and (slightly) more patient we've been detouring via country op shops on our road trips to see what we can find.

I love the small town thrift shops, country Vinnies, Salvos or those funny little independent stores you find. Country stores often have more vintage finds than the big inner city shops and there's a lovely old time feel to them.

We hid from the heat in a huge shopping mall on that very hot day that came while we were camping, we'd gone there to watch  a movie and spent a couple of hours browsing. Even with all those shops though we didn't buy a thing. I don't know about you but I'm always so over shopping and consumption by Christmas that I can't seem to raise any enthusiasm, even with sales all around. On the other hand we didn't leave one oppie empty-handed and I felt much happier in the idea that I would be reusing something that still has life, something made to last.

There were some secondhand clothes bought along the way as well, especially by Miss A, an op shopping convert, we both found some tops and dresses, all in great condition and some still with tags.

Did you score any out of town thrift treasures while you were away. Do you like to travel thrift like us? Do you have any recommendations. We had fun scouring the Central Coast this time, Woy Woy has some great shops and there are some around Green Point too.

handmade christmas giveaway

Like most of you I try to avoid cheap, badly made junk at Christmas, things that will be enjoyed for a day and then discarded. Its harder with kids and so I was really happy this year to see my kids' christmas lists get shorter and more thoughtful.

Instead I love giving useful, beautiful and carefully made gifts that will be used and loved for a long time. I love to see my tea towels in people's kitchens, a print of mine framed in a child's room or my cushions resting on someone's couch. I love friends eating jam I made, cutting a plant I grew for them or (in the future!) washing with my handmade soap (and thank you for all the enthusiasm for my soap making, I think I may have inspired a few batches!).

I love to get handmade and I love to give it.

Another person who loves and promotes handmade is Christina Lowry. Christina made a rickrack ring which I wear every day, one of many handmade pieces around my house made by friends and makers around the world which I cherish.

Christina is running a lovely giveaway series on her blog this Christmas promoting Handmade giving - called the 12 Days of Christmas. Each day for 12 days she is featuring Handmade crafters and offering a chance to win some of their makings.

Today is Day Nine and its time to give away some Flower Press wares!! To win one unbleached 100% linen teatowel, screenprinted with my Filigree design in Tomato red and one of my A4 Ruby Slippers prints, on archival quality Epson paper, ready to slip into a frame for an original gift (or to keep for yourself!) head over to Christina's A Little Bird Told Me blog and leave a comment. Easy.

Let's promote handmade giving this Christmas.