to market, to market!

One market down, one to go! Thanks to those that visited and purchased my wares on Saturday at the Winter Design Market :: what a wonderful day it was! Such a beautifully curated little market, full of talented makers. This was my first experience at a Brisbane market, and I was not disappointed. Lovely customers, neighbours and a great atmosphere. This was a quick snap of my table before the crowds converged!

The market coincided with the opening week of the Quilts 1700-1945 exhibition at the nearby Queensland Museum, so there were lots of inspired people keen to buy fabric. I cut up some charm packs  the day before the market, and these sold out in just a couple of hours, as did most of my fabric and tea towels. For those that missed out on a charm pack, I will be cutting some more and will do a few extra for the Yardage Design online shop.

I will be printing, printing, printing over the next week and a half in preparation for the Finders Keepers market :: hope to see you there!

Finders Keepers Market Brisbane
Saturday and Sunday 6 & 7 July
10am - 4pm both days
The Old Museum, Herston, Brisbane

Have a great week!

travel bug :: my trip to china

Those of you who follow me on Instagram (@yardagedesign) may have noticed my feed was decidedly RED last week. That's because I was actually in China, mainly Beijing. Here's a peek at some of the amazingly inspiring things I saw ...

What an amazing place :: an assault on the senses (for sure!), but utterly amazing. The architecture, history and colour blew me away. The biggest highlight for me was The Great Wall :: a major tick on my bucket list and turned out to be more impressive than I imagined (which is surprising because I had very high expectations to start with!). The Forbidden City was also beautiful and so huge that we actually visited twice and still didn't see everything. We like to wander and immerse ourselves in new places, so we spent a lot of time walking and exploring off the tourist track. We found many beautiful buildings, landmarks and parks. I also really enjoyed watching artisans make and decorate beautiful cloisonne vases at a factory we visited (it turns out that they use Australian copper to make these) ...

Beijing itself was everything I thought it would be :: an eastern city trying to be a western city. The old parts (the hutongs) were my favourite areas (see pic below), and I hope they resist the urge to remove these old streets and courtyard houses. The pollution is just as you've read about :: a brown smog blankets the city almost every day. We ate some amazing food, mostly chinese (including several Peking ducks, as you do!) but we also had one of the best Italian meals ever at a restaurant opened by an Italian a few months ago just north of the CBD (Eatalia, incase you ever go) :: unexpectedly superb!

It was 6 days of total departure from everything we know about Australia/Europe/North America. It is unlike any place I've visited, even within Asia. I thought I knew a bit about Chinese culture, but it turns out that I had no idea. If you have the chance, I highly recommend visiting.

For now, it's back to work for me. I have two markets in the next few weeks, so it's busy, busy!

GOMA Winter Design Market
Saturday 22 June 2013
9am - 4pm
GOMA Forecourt, Southbank, Brisbane

Finders Keepers Market Brisbane
Saturday and Sunday 6 & 7 July
10am - 4pm both days
The Old Museum, Herston, Brisbane

Have a wonderful week!

my day :: custom printing :: suzy bags

A few of you may already have seen these market bags around the place :: they are a collaboration between Yardage Design and Suzy Hausfrau Yarn Store. The design is based on my tram roll menu, but with knitter words and abreviations I know nothing about! Anyway, today I printed the second run of these for Renae, and thought I would snap some pics along the way ...

Each printing job is different :: it is changed by the climate, the screen, the squeegee and the ink. In this particular case, the combination of the design (lots of block colour as well as fine details) and the consistency of the ink make it a little tricky. This one needs two very swift passes at just the right pressure to get it right.

It also takes time to change the bags over between printing, so the screen must be flooded every time to avoid drying out or clogging, and misprints. I hate misprints (even though they are inevitable some days)!

This job has also been interesting as I had to make the ink match a particular Pantone colour ~ 246 to be exact. I tend to mix by eye normally, but this colour (a purpley pink) was tricky and the pantone formula didn't quite do it, so we ended up with a 246 "tweek" which is so pretty and works really well with the design (hard to see in this pic due to the light).

So there you have it ~ a sea of drying bags, ready to be heatset and posted to Renae; and, a peek into my day. If you like these, they are available to buy here!

weekend :: making

We've just had a lovely weekend. Nothing special at all, just a good, homey weekend. It's been a very busy and sometimes stressful month, and we all needed to recharge and get our equilibriums back. There was baking and roasting, playing tennis, cafe and market visiting but really just a whole lot of relax time. I wanted to make some things for some special people too, and Little Mister Yardage was my willing assistant ...

We made some beads together using some oven dry clay (Sculpey). It was so much fun mixing colours together and making some very "on trend" necklaces to be gifted. I can see why so many people like making these! Great kid craft too.

I also printed some little tops to go with the beads. We chose my "kissing birds" design, which for those in the know is actually my fabric 'stash design, but who cares ~ they can be kissing birds or pretty moustaches! Today these little goodies go in the post.

The week ahead is also a busy one, but at least we feel rested and ready for it. Wishing you all a productive and fun week!

new :: windows market bag

My new design, windows, is making its debut this week as a super handy market bag ...

This design was inspired by pretty simple leadlight window I saw a while ago that featured ovals. I started with some simple shapes, and kept adding! Red ink was the obvious choice!

I'm seriously thinking of also printing this as fabric panels ... yes? In the mean time, you can snap up a Windows Market Bag in the Yardage Design online shop.

Happy Monday everyone!

{first quilt of the year} isla

If you follow Yardage Design on instagram or facebook, you will know that over the past week I have been making a quilt for a new baby girl, Isla, who was born on my birthday a couple of weeks ago. I raided the stash and printed a few of my designs in custom colours to match, and ended up with a bright, fun, interesting quilt for tummy time ...

My starting point was the Juicy Jungle print (by Alexander Henry) that I've had for ages ~ I used the colours in these cute little animals to guide the other fabric choices, including: red ABC panel by Aunty Cookie; green Laundry Birds by Pippijoe; olive Elephants by Umbrella Prints; grape Fan by Yardage Design (this colourway is not in my shop, but email me if you would like me to print it for you) along with some custom printed gold Circa and Freckle; and finally, a few spotty fabrics and a floral from (where else) Spotlight!

I ended up quilting and binding in hot pink, to add a bit of girlyness, and I also backed it with some pink polka dots ...

A most enjoyable project, and I hope the new parents (and baby Isla) like it.

Have a great weekend!