Floral Lampshades

I am assuming that my missing blog post about my Vintage Lamps will return but will redo it if it doesn't. (Done, see next post).

While we are waiting, here are more pretty lampshades for your bedroom. This version of our 'Marguerite' fabric is limited-edition as I can no longer source the beautiful organic linen that it was hand-printed onto.

We have a few cushions available in the same fabric. Fill it with our corn fibre inserts and you have a completely eco-friendly pillow.

This lampshade also features a limited edition fabric. 'Cottage Garden' printed on an organic cotton/hemp jacquard. The cushions that I gave my mum were the same fabric. Of course, we can custom-make lampshades in any of our fabrics.

Are you doing anything special this weekend? I will be in the studio today so pop in if you're around. I have decided that I will be painting our fabric shelves after all as our studio will be used for a magazine photo shoot next week. Exciting but nerve wracking!

More Organic Goodness

We're so nice that we've decided to share our lovely new Jacquard fabric with you - unprinted! You can sew to your heart's content. Now available on-line in 3 colours, this beautiful fabric is a blend of 87% organic cotton and 13% hemp. As with all our fabrics you are can order swatches first just to be sure, to be sure. Free shipping of fabric in Australia is always a bonus!

This is the same fabric we have been loving and printing our Cottage Garden designs on. Please note that these fabrics are all limited-edition.

I See Red

Am I the only one who is seeing red? I seem to be using more red ink than any other colour lately. I have become obsessed with screen-printing red designs.

What joy! After having these 2 vintage armchairs in my studio for almost two years, I have finally fulfilled my dream of having them covered with Thea & Sami fabric. Emily Tappenden did a wonderful job of cutting and sewing the covers.



You may remember the original chair from a previous post. Lovely bones but really needing a face-lift. Ha, that reminds me of that old Aussie song "Nice legs, shame about the face". Am I the only one old enough to remember that?



Don't you love before and after shots?


This is the close-up of our fretwork print on hemp/organic cotton. Is anybody else loving the red because I really want to add this to our collection of eco-interior design fabrics?

Yay! Tomorrow, I am expecting our shipment of 100% organic cotton twill and organic cotton canvas.

Mushrooms for Free

Blog giveaways are fun and a great way to promote new products. I love this new print so I am giving away one printed quantity, 50 x 70 cm (19.5 x 27.5 inches) to somebody to make a project with.



To enter, please leave a comment telling us what you would make with this fabric. You will receive an additional entry for linking this entry to your own blog (tell me that you have). The winner will choose which mushroom fabric they would like to use - the natural or white linen or the organic cotton jersey and the print colour (brown or red).



We would expect the winner to make their project and then we will reveal the finished result on the Thea & Sami blog. How exciting!  Entries close on Valentine's Day and the winner will be announced on February 15th.

Organic Mushrooms

For the first time since I set up my studio, I needed to have new large screens made. Ouch!  At $300 (AU) just for the screen and not including digitally-printed film positives, clamps and image exposure, setting up for screen-printing is not cheap; a fact that customers don't always appreciate.



This is our new mushrooms design - which I thought would be fun for small sewing projects.  I have printed it in the organic cotton jersey (below) as not many people offer hand-printed fabrics in jerseys.  This fabric is ideal for making t-shirts, sleepware and children's clothing.  The organic cotton is pesticide and chemical free making it ideal for senstive skins. The white is bleached with hydrogen peroxide and not chlorine which means it is better for the environment too.
 


The printed organic jersey is now available via the Thea & Sami shopping site  and is also offered  in the brown on natural linen or red on white linen (shown below).  Any other colour suggestions are welcome.  Please contact me with any wholesale enquiries.

Selling Your Products

Yesterday we drove to Peregian Beach near Noosa on Queensland's Sunshine Coast.  It wasn't a nice day, weather wise but it was a wonderful day regardless.  I showed a potential new stockist (more on that in the future) my new fabrics and she loved them.  

Professional presentation is very important so I cut the fabric swatches, overlocked them and put them together in this adorable fabric sample book.  Note the Thea & Sami label in the bottom corner of the Marguerite print.

 

There is no point in creating wonderful products if you aren't getting sales so you must find the right places to do that.  Craft markets are a good place to start and to get direct feed back.  Trade shows can be good for securing retailers but often expensive if you are starting out.

It's always best if you can personally visit potential outlets to determine if your products would fit into the esthetic of the store and if the quality and pricing of other items is similar to yours.  You certainly don't want your beautiful, locally crafted work competing with mass-produced, cheaper versions from Asia.

If you can't physically visit the stores yourself because of distance, the next best method of finding the right locations is to check where your competitors are selling theirs. Looking at their websites will usually reveal this information.

Call the store first and ask to speak to the owner or buyer. They will usually want to see examples of your work first through digital images.  This is where a website or blog comes in handy and will save your time and theirs if it is not what they are looking for.  Assuming that they like what they see, you can then can make an appointment or arrange to send swatches/samples to them.  Ensure that you include a wholesale price list, ordering information and your terms and conditions clearly set out. 



My final piece of advice is to not try and sell your wares to a store where the buyer is not excited about your products.  If they don't love them, they really won't be successful in selling them.  You really are better off moving on to somebody that does appreciate your craft.



Fabrics from top to bottom:  Marguerite print in Dusty Rose on Hemp/Organic Cotton,  Iron Flowers in Chocolate Brown on Natural Linen, Fretwork in Cactus Green also on Hemp/Organic Cotton.

Designing a Floral Fabric - Part 2

I finally picked my new floral fabric screen on Friday so had to quickly print up a couple of colour samples as I was visiting a new design gallery on Sunday, interested in hand-printed fabrics.



I decided to call the new print "Marguerite", French for 'daisy' as the name sounded a little more sophisiticated, don't you think?

I can't show you the whole print yet as I haven't had a chance to register the screens yet to print it as a repeat. That that will demonstrated in 'Floral Fabric -Part 3' so stayed tuned. Marguerite will feature in our upcoming eco-fashion range but will also be available for sale as a fabric for all you clever creative types.

I'm not sure about the colours yet.  I have the classic black on (off) white and the sweeter dusty pink that I am naming "Desert Rose".  Any feedback is greatly appreciated.  The fabric used is a lovely all-purpose hemp/organic cotton.

Printed Organic Cotton Towels

Organic Cotton Towels are so much softer than conventional cotton towels that once you try one, you will never want to go back to the pesticide, chemical-ridden alternatives. However, what is out there is quite plain so we decided to add a pretty hand-printed border to ours.  The fabric we have chosen for this is hemp/organic cotton and we have used Permaset Aqua solvent-free inks to print our Blossom Design.  

This towel is the "Pistachio" version but is also offered in "Stone".  More designs and colours will shortly follow.  I have machine-washed mine to ensure that the border doesn't shrink in relation to the cotton towel and it passed with flying colours.

To celebrate our new on-line shopping site we are offering free shipping within Australia.  In addition, our blog competition continues until December 10th.  I really appreciate any feedback on any of these new eco-products so anyone who leaves a comment will go into the draw to win one of the cute Door Mice (see previous entries).

These hand-towels are easy to post and make great Christmas gifts.