big week

Wow, that was a big week! How was it at your place?

Mine started last Friday afternoon bumping in for the Etsy Markets that are part of the Village Bizarre at the Rocks. Turns out we were in a great spot next to the the crazy German performance artist and the Love caravan, and around the corner from the Gin Mill Social bar and assorted food stalls. Lauren and I were also just next to the Etsy photobooth where people queued all night to have their photos taken and a KPop flash mob dropped in to entertain.

The Bizarre and different Sydney Etsy Team sellers will be there for the next six weeks so if you get a chance, its really worth a visit.

We both had lots of lovely customers and it was really nice to meet the people buying Flower Press wares in person for a change. I loved debuting my ceramics and was so pleased when pieces went home with really nice people where I know they'll be loved!

I was also lucky enough to be instagrammed on the night by Inside Out magazine and I was interviewed for the Herald's mystery shopper column online and in tomorrow's Spectrum liftout!! I was especially tickled that the reporter liked my 'delicately hand spun ceramics'! There will be more of those next year and I will be selling online, that's a promise for 2015.

On Sunday I got to teach another workshop at SewMakeCreate. I enjoy these so much, its so interesting to see the designs people dream up and the layouts they print. I love helping people find their creative side, I believe everyone has creativity, but some people don't know it yet! And making really is good for the soul!

If you want to come and learn this easy and adaptable skill I have one more workshop for the year, on the 28th November. Which means its not too late to make those handmade Xmas gifts you've been meaning to! Everyone prints a tea towel, a tote and some fabric at each class and you get to go home with some rubber and a carver to keep printing more!

The rest of the week was catching up with a big stack of orders, paying bills and sorting stuff for my other day job, with a bit of brick cleaning for our little renovation thrown in for good measure. I've been taking some progress pics of the work at our house which I'm going to share next week. Its very exciting!

You know we've actually been dreaming of putting this big new deck on our little house since the very first day we bought it - which in a strange coincidence was exactly ten years ago yesterday!

Hard to believe it was ten years ago we stood biting our fingernails under the big tree out the front before making one last bid, the limit of our funds. We couldn't believe it when everyone else was suddenly silent, the auctioneer banged his gavel and it was ours!

Mr Flowerpress and I finally got to sneak in a long planned and overdue lunch date to celebrate that milestone yesterday. We had dumplings together at the White Rabbit Gallery teahouse and then squeezed in a bit of Daiso shopping action at the nearby Central Park.

An old favourite

I've been running around in circles this week!

I have some new fabrics I'm hoping to share but wanted to finish a little sewing project before I do.

So I got the fabrics cut out, found all the notions, pinned it together, but then... I couldn't find the zipper feet for my sewing machine, anywhere!

Hmm, it slowly came back to me, I put both my zipper feet somewhere 'safe' after taking them over to a friend's house. They were in my pocket and I distinctly remember taking them out and stashing them. Somewhere safe!

I'll spare you the two days of looking everywhere. The frustration of searching and not finding. Two days which turned into a long overdue reorganisation of all my many boxes of craft and make and stash.

After a while I started to enjoy the process of getting things organised. It felt good to be sorting the piles I'd made rushing through other projects. I've been meaning to sort them for a long time and it gave me time to think, to slow down and appreciate all I have previously done.

At one point I had a pile on the table of all my old and new fabrics together, and it made me very happy to see them together. It gave me a sense of achievement I'd been lacking.

And just as I settled to the task and gave up on those feet, they turned up.

My big reorganisation turned up some stock of this favourite tea towel, the Chalk filigree design. Folding and packaging led to an improptu photography session, and grabbing some simple props turned up those wayward feet - sitting innocently in a bowl on the sideboard!

Isn't it always the way that when you stop looking you find what you're searching for, when you stop stressing about what you haven't done you have time to see what you have.

Filigree tea towels in the Etsy shop.