Sunflowers

A happy mix of occurances made this lovliness in my living room possible. My mother bought be a new table runner in a fabulous turquoise. She also brought me a bunch of sunflowers which I adore. They lived for about a day in a large Ballygowen bottle until John went into town today to buy this sexy-licious vase.

Thanks Mam

Thanks John

....they make me smile

Mother of the Bride

I was quite organised this morning and I took lots of pictures, here is the mother of the bride dress that I was talking about. I really should have gotten a picture of the original.It used to have a high necked frilly collar, and a zipper in the back. I've also taken it up quite a lot, and anything that looks fancy.

Ennis Order

I't been a pretty busy few weeks, but I finished the Ennis order(not the mamoth Kilkenny order, that's still on the boil), here are a couple of pictures of a dress and a coat that I did. Hopefully I'll have time to take more photos tomorrow before I pack them away for delivery. I also finished the mother of the bride dress I was making. I was one of the most difficult pieces I've ever worked on but I'm delighted with it and I think the customer is going to be really pleased. It's great to meet a client first because then I have some idea of how far I can go with something. In this case the lady is beautifully eccentric, so I knew I could go really mad with it. It's quite Helena Bonham-Carter and I love it.

Ps: Are all you lovely Irish folk enjoying the disgustingly muggy weather at the moment? I thought I was going to die of the heat today in work.

I'm Puzzled

I'm rather baffled by something...

As you know I listen to lots of audiobooks while I'm sewing. At present I'm nearly finished a Ben Elton book called Blast From the Past (which is only OK). It's from the library and must be a few years old because it's on casette tape.

Here is the strange thing. Whenever I have to go onto the next tape I have to rewind to the start. All 8 tapes are like this. That means that somebody listened to one side of all the tapes, or weirdly rewound the B-side to annoy the next listener(me!).

Can any of you think of another reason for this??

Update: Don't bother reading or listening to this book, ok maybe listen to it if you are really bored, but on the whole I wished I had chosen any other book than this one. What a truely dreadful ending.

Wii-tastic

We had a really lovely evening last night, although I did work a little later than I meant to. We went for a beautiful meal in the Cornstore, if anyone reading this is in Limerick I would highly recommend it. I've been there a few times at this stage and the food and service has always been excellent. I would specifically recommend the crab claws. The only disappointment is that they have a very unappealing dessert menue, it's my favourite part of the meal and I didn't order any. We followed this with a few quiet drinks in the local, it was a perfectly low key birthday, exactly what I wanted.
I got a deadly present offf John...a Wii Fit! I've been thiking about getting one of these for ages, more so to make the Wii fun again as I had gotten a bit bored with it. It was quite funny when I told my mother what he got me, I don't think she really understands what they are and she got the impression it was akin to an ab-roller( a rather insulting birthday present in my opinion). Sadly I don't look like the beautifully poised lady on the box yet, but maybe soon, just without the verdant glow.

Go Me! It's My Birthday

I'm up bright an early on this sparkly morning ready to do lots of work, but I'm taking a half day as it's my birthday, I figure we'll go to dinner and then for a few pints, nothing crazy. Una, my lovely helper, was over yesterday and we got loads of work done. I got dug into an order for a mother of the bride dress that I got a commission for. Quite a daunting task but I'm really happy with how it's going, and Una was a great help fixing the neckline(which I was finding a bit terrifying). I'll try to get time to take photos before I deliver it next week. We also got working on this great blue velvet vintage dress that I found ages ago in a charity shop for only a fiver! I'm totally in love it it, but as it's a Size 6(US size 4) it would maybe just fit on my arm.

In other news I got this fantastic book on Vintage Fashion as a present from a friend of mine for my birthday, it was such a surprise when the postman arrived with it...it totally made my week!

Update: Una Just arrived with a present of lovely sewing bits on bobs, such a surprise!

Oh Goody Supplies

Just a quick post today, as you may suspect from my last post, I'm very busy at the moment. Lots of sewing, but also lots of shopping....supplies shopping, my favorite kind! On the bad end of the scale I went to Hickey yesterday and paid their extortionate prices for some lace and material, unfortunately I had to buy some very specific colours so I had nochoice but to hand over the money. As you can tell I try to avoid that place as much as possible: long queues and huge markups. Instead, when I was on a trip at home last week I popped into The Woolen Mills in Dublin and got some great trimmings, and a great deal on thread-10 large spools for only 20 euro! And just down the quay is The Yellow Brick Road where I got a great deal on brooch pins, 200 for only 30 euro.

I've also been a bit trigger happy with some online shopping. I got some great stuff off Lupin, beautil felt and trimming and really good prices too.

I also bought a handmade pouch for my cash at the market. I was really sick of wearing a really ugly bag, so I looked online and found this great belt/bag which is just perfect for holding my float.

I have at last sunmitted to the ebay bug, and I went mad buying buttons(and a few dvds too!)

Great News

As my regular readers may have noticed I have been distinctly off the radar as of late. Well the reason is some very good news. Do you remember me saying that there was a shop interested in my stuff but things were all up in the air so I wasn't getting excited yet...well I'm in the middle of making a large order for said shop. I hope to finish this mamoth tast within a month, fingers crossed I don't lose my sanity before then. The shop is in Kilkenny which is great because I'll be reaching a whole different catchment area of people and it's quite the tourist spot too. I'm equally daunted and excited by this new venture, it's a big step to take on supplying another shop, but it could be just the thing I need. The woman who owns the shop couldn't be nicer, and I feel this could be really great for the business.
So I'll be more than a little sporadic in my posting over the next while... but it's all in the name of art man!

The Winner

And the Winner is

Niamh

Congratulations!
Commiserations to everyone else, and best of luck next time.

Full List of entrants

Thanks to everyone for the fantastic response to the prize draw, this is the full list of entrants, with as many links as I could find, some great blogs and shops so do have a browse through them. I'll be picking the winner now in a few minutes with a random number generator.
Best of Luck!

1.Modnaros
2.Doe Studio
3. Nick Carswell
4. Vannie
5. Laura O'Mahoney
6. Declan Shalvey
7. Red Lemonade
8. Balanced
9. Magatha-May
10.Killer
11.Hippie Dippy Designs
12. sMac Thoughts
13. Made Marian
14. No Nonsense blog
15. The Fresh Prince of Kildare
16. The Biologista
17. Fustar
18. Lette
19. Orla's Art
20. L.A.S Pottery
21. Lorcan
22. Tilt
23. Janil
24. Cabootique
25. Julie Cornewell
26. Gretchen
27. Niamh
28. Lucy
29.Vulgar Moon
30. MJ
31. Mj-Note to Self
32. The Anti-Room
33. Kevin
34. Applied Signs and Displays
35. Cherry Blossoms
36. TsTreasures
37. Nina
38. Modern Lunacy
39. Heidi V.
40. Hana
41. Joby
42. Trashy Knitting
43. Suanne
44. Jen
45. Lydia & Pugs
46. Love and Lust
47. Amanda Oaks
48. Aik
49.Cyclona 66
50. Lubica Kotmanikova
51. Custardbydesign
52. Elissa Minor Rust
53. Lubasa
54.Windy Cindy
55. Kaycee Williams
56. Samadhya
57. Gerard
58. Donna
59. Michelle McMahon
60. John Galvin
61. Di
62. Cathy Horner
63. Lilly
64. Crystal
65. Mini Shoes
66.Crystal
67. Zoe
67. Elisabet
68. Neloo:3
69. Ladytink_534
70. Celtic Crossing
71. Top Hat
72. Naomi
73. Sarasophia
74. Raelana Pavey
75. Chewiewanabe
76. Tickleworm
77. Nelsby
78. Danielle A.k.A
79. Mia
80. Celeste
81. SherryGo
82. Gillian
83. Kee
84. Bex
85. Jen
86. Raceal Poston
87. Mr.Bean
88. Puffpastryshop
89. Amber
90. Denise
91. Sarsosari

Market Marketing

I had a great day yesterday at the market yesterday, even though it was very quiet footfall-wise I still did good business. With Elton John playing in Thomond park the previous night it brought in a few new people(and customers) to the city. One of these said customers owns a cafe and craft shop call Kraft Kaffee in Co.Meath, and she took a few of my brooches and mirrors to sell in her shop. It's very handy to sell smaller items to shops as they don't take as much time to make but they can be a good little cash crop, so to speak. There is another possible lead on selling to another shop, but it's all very vague at the moment, so hopefully I'll have more news on that later.

Pics of Old Prize Draw

Here are a few pics I have of a t-shirt I make for prize draw winner Modern Lunacy from a couple of months ago.

Prize Draw Time

It prize draw time again! You can either choose a bunch of goodies from my shop( a brooch, a mirror, badges,and handmade cards) or you can get a custom made top/t-shirt. Don't worry if you are a male reader, I have guys t-shirts too!

And what do you have to do to be in with a chance to win some Nice Day lovliness?

Either start following this blog, or write about my blog on yours( but let me know that you do this or I can't enter youinto the draw).

The draw will be on the 15th of June, so get following you guys!

Super Helper Elf

I'm back and I have recovered from my holidays, magically we got the most beautiful weather that Ireland has seen in years. Unfortunately I got horribly burnt on my hands so I was unable to do anything for a few days when I got back, but all is back to near normal now, just a few stubbourn blisters left.

I just finished my first day with my new apprentice/helper Una, she is great, we got loads done. I decided it was high time I updated my Etsy shop, so we spent the day taking photos, measuring garments, and writing out descriptions. Unfortunately my internet connection decided to have a hormonal fit and it's only working in fits and spurts. So here are some photos of the things I'll be listing in the shop over the next few days. It is such a relief that we got my whole collection ocumented, I never would have been able to get it done by myself.