Lottie Loves.....

Oooh I'm very excited today to be featured on the fabulous Lottie Loves blog! 

Lottie Loves is written by the very talented Charlotte Rivers - you may not think you've heard of her, but I'm sure most people will know the book 'Reinventing Letterpress' which was written by Charlotte, and was enormously popular!  Charlotte has also written a number of other books from magazine design and packaging, to logo and poster design.

Each week Lottie Loves profiles and interviews various creative people - and this week it's me!  You can head over to read about my creative background, workspace and daily inspiration etc.  Please excuse the not-so-hot pictures of me working..... must remember to brush my hair in future for photographs!!  See the interview here:

A big thank you to Charlotte for including me and my work in her interview series, I'm very flattered indeed :)

Charlotte also has a website, and another very cute blog called Little Lottie Loves charting her own pregnancy and journey into motherhood, as well as featuring some very cute design orientated products for little people!

Ink & Spindle - open studio

I had the pleasure of visiting local print studio Ink & Spindle at the weekend, run by the very talented duo Lara Cameron and Tegan Rose.  I went as part of the Creative Women's Group which brings together women working in creative industries and establishing small businesses to share information - and best of all be inspired and learn from other women setting up or running businesses within the creative field.

Working from home and trying to develop a small business can be isolating and a little lonely at times, so it's great to have the opportunity to get together with other creative peeps and learn how they have set up a design business.

After the talk Lara and Tegan had an open studio session where they gave a yardage screen printing demonstration - you can find details of open studio dates on their blog!

Exposed screens ready for printing, and above the fabulous Young Husband building
Ink & Spindle set up their boutique screen printing studio in 2008, with the aim of specialising in high quality and environmentally-friendly textile printing for designers and independent labels. They work from the fabulous Young Husband Wool building in Kensington, hand screen-printing their designs and creating ethical as well as a sustainable range of textiles.

Lara and Tegan hand printing on their 10m print table - but hand screen printing also means hand cleaning screens!

Some of the cushions and fabrics designed and hand printed at Ink & Spindle.
Images courtesy of the Ink & Spindle website

It was a great experience seeing Lara and Tegan hand print their designs in their fabulous studio (very jealous of their studio environment!!) and to hear about how they set up Ink & Spindle, including their great environmental commitment which is very inspiring.

I can highly recommend visiting one of their open studio sessions - dates and details on the Ink & Spindle blog and also check out the Creative Womens Group blog for future meetings.

Delilah Devine

I thought I'd profile a friend of mine who is a very talented illustrator, designer and most recently creator of her own product range under the title 'Delilah Devine'

I met Linda a few years ago when we worked together, before she ran away to Italy with a rather nice Italian man (ahhh - isn't this everyone's dream!) She is now back in Australia, married (to the Italian man) and has set up her own business hand-making gorgeous brooches and framed children's pictures. On top of this she is also a new mum - phew!

She crafts these delightful wares using found vintage wallpapers, so each one is a little bit different to the other - and exceptionally cute!

I bought the Kookaburra brooch - I loved him because he was green :-)

Delilah Devine has a website, etsy store and a blog

Linda you are an inspiration - love your work x