I'll Show You Mine:Purls of Colour

Today, Brigitte from Purls of Colour, Belfast, opens up her outside studio.

I knit and create my designs everywhere – in buses, on trains, in cafés, waiting in a queue…, but of course, I do have my home base in an old red-brick Belfast house. If the weather is not good (ie most of the time), I work from my living room/office. Sadly, however, the room is like the neverending story of never-being-tidy, so you really don’t want to see that. Well, I can show you some of my wool stash, which is far more organised than the rest of me: A much tidier and rather pretty work space is my outside studio in the garden. As soon as the sun appears from behind the clouds, I unfold my folding table and folding chair, get a huge mug of Fair Trade coffee, and knit in the sun (properly covered, of course).

A historian by training, one of my most important work tools is my archive, aka a thick folder with samples of all the wool I use for my designs.

Once a historian, always a historian, and I know I will never get away from archiving and footnoting! Each supplier and craft fair I buy from gets a page (or more) in my folder, if I am in another country and buy lots of yarn, the country has its own pages, and I add any information I deem important to it, such as what type of fibre (wool, cotton, banana fibre, etc), colour/s, where is it from, is it Fair Trade, organic, hand dyed, and anything unusual.

I often look through the pages, think about which yarns I want to use together, and which ones I want to re-order (if possible, because a lot of them are one-off buys, especially the hand spun and hand dyed ones).

Another of my tools is a thin booklet where I write down patterns I use a lot. This is the one I carry with me on my travels. I’m actually already on my second booklet, and more will surely follow, because I also have a stack of old envelopes full of design notes, which I need to add to the booklet. I love my outside office – sometimes our neighbours’ cats walk by, or a big grey squirrel does acrobatics at the bird feeder, and today, a massive magpie walked towards my table, looked at me curiously and then disappeared again. And I thought if I only could get yarn in those magnificent magpie colours of blue-black and white…

I'll show you mine...

Hello everyone! I'm Jagienka from KnitSpinFelt (former lysulka.etsy.com) and it's my pleasure to welcome you in my little crafting world.
 

 

As some of you already know, I hand knit lacy scarves, shawls and stoles, spin yarn on my antique spinning wheel, and recently started to felt and dye wool. There's nothing like a healthy fibre addiction!

So where do you do all that? I hear you ask.
Mostly at home. I transformed a spare bedroom, in the loft of my rented house, into a crafting corner, albeit I am known to knit in all sorts of places: in the garden, visiting friends, on a bus, car etc. Dying and felting, however, require a proper work space, such as house kitchen, with easy to clean surfaces, sink and a good waterproof apron! 

 

Thank goodness that my workspace organizes itself ;) I do not require a large workspace for knitting and spinning. I just grab my needles and yarn and sit on any vacant sit at home, or in the garden on a sunny day. (feel so spoiled this year!) Same with a spinning wheel. I just park it next to a comfortable chair with a good back support and spin along! 

With felting it's a totally different story. I need a water damage resistant worktop, a sink and a washing machine. In other words, I need a kitchen. I try to divide the work surface into DRY and WET area. I keep the fibre rovings and yarn in the dry area (usually the floor) and work on the design on my kitchen work surface, which can easily be wiped out when it gets too wet. I try to cover the rest of the kitchen units with a waterproof fabric before I flood everything around and serve lunch with a big woolly fluff as an aperitif ;)

I was trying to think of something in my craft space that inspires me most. And I think I am most inspired by the colours and textures of yarn and/or roving waiting to be turned into a yarn (or felt). I love my silk braids and I have them on display in a bowl. Whenever I struggle for inspiration I find it in my craft books and zines. I love flicking through them, studying photos, charts and material used. There's also the internet, with millions of blogs, videos and tutorials. And of course, for each knitter, crocheter, Ravelry is a place to be. It's like a bottomless treasure chest!

As for my favourite material and it's storage, I love working with fibre. All and any type of it. It can be a raw wool fleece, straight from the back of sheep, or combed and ready-to-go natural fibre. I also work with all sorts of commercial yarn, of which I love trying out new ones.

My favourite spinning material is natural wool (BFL, merino, corriedalle, alpaca). But I also use silk fibres, tencel, bamboo, cotton or seacell. I store them either in plastic boxes or in a laundry basket. Dyes and felting needles live in another box underneath the double bed in my craft room/guest bedroom.

For knitting I use yarn, of which I have a huge stash, albeit I have seen bigger ones! I keep the skeins and small balls of yarn on shelves, cones lives in a wooden box and scraps are stored in a plastic box. Knitting needles of all sorts, spinning spindles, beads, ribbons, buttons and a small selection of crochet hooks, have recently moved to plastic drawers and empty crisps’ tubes.

Word of advice for all you struggling to keep your workplace tidy:  

• Empty crisp boxes/tubes make a great storage place for knitting needles, pens, brushes etc.
• Keep the tools you use most often in easy to reach, always on site position.
• Rearrange your craft space as often as required, until you find an arrangement that works best for you. Then, try to keep it clutter free and spend few minutes every day tidying your work space.

My favourite item in the craftroom, at the moment the big bowl of silk standing on the wooden box. And the recently felted flowers I am slowly becoming addicted to. However, if I could I would gladly get rid of the double bed and replace it with a proper desk and workbench with a sink. Not sure our guests would approve on my modifications to their bedroom though!

Thanks for having me!

Jagienka of KnitSpinFelt

I'll show you mine...

Hello everyone! I am Odette of the swann&smerlin shop and I am so thrilled to contribute for the Etsy Ireland blog. Many thanks to Ruth of Nice Day Designs for the invitation!

Something about me: I've been living here in Dublin with my husband for about two years only but I'm in love with this country already. As an immigrant, it is important for me to feel that I somehow "belong" and being part of the Etsy Ireland team is one of the many reasons why I feel "home" here. It is amazing how crafting can bring people together and through this blog, even without seeing each other face to face, you can still feel some sort of kinship with one another.

So...welcome to my craft room!

I had to re-arrange this room recently because we had guests coming, and i had to make some space so they can at least move around our only spare bedroom. It is quite a challenge to tidy up when you have hoarded loads of stuff crap and you only have half a small bedroom to manage along with. I like to work with my supplies right close at hand, and seeing them is a source of inspiration for me.

1. tissue paper for wrapping shop orders
2. packing area - holds my thank you cards, adhesive tapes, scissors & a roll of baker's twine
3. chest of drawers holding stocks of glassine bags, cello bags and rolls of baker's twines
4. tins and boxes holding ribbons and sewing notions
5. stocks of deco tapes and paper washi tapes for my supplies shop
6.  more shop inventories, some WIPs waiting patiently for their final packaging
7.  baskets of yarn and fresh lavender for a new project
8.  my sewing/daydreaming/writing table. also holds my basket of outgoing posts and more craft supplies.

This window lets in a flood of natural light, so it's perfect for working with my sewing machine, or writing thank you notes, or for sitting around with my cup of coffee in the afternoon. My husband joins me here sometimes when i need help rolling twines! ^-^

This bookcase used to sit in our bedroom and i dragged it in my craft room because it can hold so much and yet take up so little space. I pimped it up a bit using wallpaper which i snagged on a sale at Laura Ashley. The table next to it is my packing area, my favorite part in every sale i make.

I used a wooden cutlery holder from Ikea to hold my Thank You cards, calling cards, postage stamps, stickers and tags. A set of tin buckets holds my baker's twine and scissors and cutters. This table has shelves under it which conveniently holds my bubble mailers and mailing envelopes.

The closet on the far right holds my sewing machine, fabrics and boxes of collected scraps and bits and pieces of everything with crafting potentials.

And this concludes our mini-tour of my mini-craft room. Before you make any conclusion though that everything looks neat and organized, i'd like to let you know that it wouldn't be anymore in the next 24 hours. It just so happened that when i took these photos, my guests (my mother-in-law and her childhood friend) have just left for the Netherlands and therefore I haven't been in this room in the last few days to mess it up. ^-^

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for Etsy Ireland members and readers, grab a special discount from my new website, swannandsmerlin.com!
Use the code ETSYIRELAND before checking out and get 15% off your purchase.

Code valid until the end of May 2010.
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Happy Wednesday! ♥

I'll show you mine...

Hello and welcome to the studio of Little White Dog. I'm Suzie and that ball of white fluff trying to charm the socks off you is my dog, Milo, who keeps me company while I work.

I'm still pretty excited about my studio because I've only moved in recently. I live in a tiny cottage where space is pretty tight, and I used to work at one end of a desk (The Messy End) while my husband, Gareth, worked on his computer at the other end (The Tidy End). All my crafty bits and pieces were in boxes on top of the wardrobe and I was spending a lot of time standing on a chair rummaging for ribbons and paper etc. I won't even go into the details of the War of the Cardboard which involved me squirreling away cardboard & packing boxes behind/under/in the wardrobe and Gareth subtly relocating it to the recycling bin when I wasn't looking!

So when my parents suggested I use their spare room as a studio I jumped at the chance, and before I knew it Gareth was enthusiastically helping me pack my boxes into the car. A trip to IKEA for some desks, shelves and boxes, and a day or two of assembly later my studio was ready to go. A throw and some nice cushions made a bed into a daybed - perfect for sitting and sewing, for visitors to sit and chat, or for Milo to snooze on (mostly for Milo to snooze on, in fact!).

I'm a bit of a magpie so I have lots of boxes filled with pieces of material, ribbons, different kinds of paper, cut outs from magazines and some things that defy classification that end up in a box with “bits & pieces” on the label. I can't resist pretty paper and at the moment I'm experimenting with lots of different types of vintage and scrapbook papers for making my 3D letters & boxes.

My ideas for the things I make often begin as gift ideas for my friends and family, and they usually occur to me at about 2am. They tend to start out really simple and snowball into something hideously complicated before ending up relatively simple and a little bit different. If I ever have an inspiration drought I'll have notebooks full of scribbles to fall back on! I think my training as an architect leads me to design things that are functional as well as looking attractive: my iPhone cases may be made of pretty ribbon but the ribbon is also a handstrap, and my 3D letters can also be used as little boxes. I like surprises, secret compartments and things that have to be figured out, so that tends to come out in my designs too.

I work at two desks and I tend to switch between them a lot during the day. One has all the computer equipment where I draw and print templates for a lot of my designs, and the other is for the more hands on work like cutting out and assembling.

My window looks out over the park behind the house, where Milo takes me for walks, and beyond that I have a pretty spectacular view over Dublin City. I feel unbelievably lucky to have such a great space to work in. If I'm dreaming please don't wake me up, I like it here! I think Milo would like to bring you out to the garden for a game of fetch now, but if you'd like to see more of my work you can visit my website www.littlewhitedog.ie Thanks for visiting!

I'll Show You Mine

Hi guys,
We are absolutely chuffed to be contributing to the Etsy Ireland Blog, it's a really exciting development having sold on etsy for a couple of years now to see the Irish Etsy community growing. My name is Yvonne and my Aunties name is Ger and together we make up the etsy design duo "bonzie". We came upon the Irish Team recently and jumped at the chance to join in the fun, we are looking forward to meeting you guys at one of the next meet ups and hopefully contributing in whatever way we can to help the team! We are excited to begin with a studio tour on the blog, and hope that you enjoy our creative space.

Above is a recent book cover in the US by Jo Packham and Jenny Doh where our wee Irish studio was featured, we were contributing artists in the book and have been over the moon to reach the cover too!

Here's Ger at work on one of our "coquette" scarves, I'm a little camera shy so poor Ger ends up in most of the pics! lol

The walls of the studio are adorned with antiquated bits and bobs, I like to collect trinkets and flippery and create a nice environment to work in, we feel a bit more inspired if the area is full of interesting bits and bobs.

Here's the shelved area for all of the fabric storage, truth be known its never quite this tidy and I'm not sure it will ever be that tidy again! I also collect vintage sewing machines, I think they look really pretty and you can see a couple here amongst the shelving.

Here's a picture of the cutting table. My father made this from scratch and it's by far my most treasured studio item. I love that we are creating with our hands on something that my father created for us by hand!

The studio itself is a large wooden cabin style shed, we gave it a wee makeover to take the shed look off it. Flooring, some cosmetic work, insulation the works. However, that been said its still a little chilly in our Irish Winters as you all well know!!

I love to find objects or pieces of furniture and do them up to suit the space. Both of the french looking dressers here were finds that have been shabby chic'd up to suit the studio decor. The taller dresser is covered in vintage pattern paper to give it an antique look. I really enjoy the freedom in the studio to do whatever one wants! Not sure I would get away with that kind of tom foolery in my house aswell! lol

It's been a pleasure showing you all our studio, we are looking forward to getting to know you guys and also seeing into your creative spaces too. :)

Thanks to Ruth and Alex for introducing us to the blog and helping us set up our membership, we are truly proud to be Irish Etsy Team Members now and look forward to our future together. ( insert olé, olé, olé here! lol)

All our Love

Yvonne and Ger

http://www.bonzie.etsy.com/

I’ll show you mine

Hi everyone, my name is Laura of Laura Cassidy Design. It was so great to meet so many fellow etsy members at Saturday's meeting in Dublin. When the lovely Ruth of Nice Day Designs and Alex of Propeller asked for volunteers to write on this blog I agreed to do a piece for I'll show you mine.

Welcome to my studio!

I did a little tidy but I thought it best to be realistic about the space I work in!!

Before I go on I will give you a little info about where I am at the moment. I recently moved back from London after living there for ten years. I was working full time and making jewellery in my spare time. I decided it was time for me to move back home to Dublin, so I started to look at jobs and renting a place to live. My sister had recently bought a spanking new gorgeous apartment and she kindly said I could move in and base my studio there! How lucky am I?! So I took the plunge, sold a lot of my belongings at a car boot sale and drove home with my little red corsa full of my possessions (I did have some stuff shipped too!).

So, back to my studio! I love my big table where I do most of my work. When I'm making I like to have everything I need to hand, so I fill the drawers, cupboard and sliding keyboard shelf with the items I use most frequently.

I also have a smaller desk by the window where I like to reflect and get inspired! Some of the time this table gets buried under materials, files, boxes etc but I like working at it when it is tidy!

Storage!!

We crafty people have so much stuff ... but where to put it all? I like knowing where everything is so I hunt for storage ideas, I do love a pretty box!!

I have been known to spend 'quality time' sorting my resources by item and sometimes colour, here are some examples:

I love Swarovski Crystals, so many sparkly colours to choose from!!

I am always on the lookout for beautiful semi precious stones.

My millinery resources, I do like my cases!!

I also have been known for typing and printing labels for my boxes and folders, very anal I know!

At the moment my sister is away on holidays in Australia for three weeks, yes I am jealous but I have taken the opportunity to turn the sitting/dining room into a temporary photography studio! I am desperately trying to improve my photographs so thank you to Ruth for the wonderful and very useful article about photography. Below is a photo of my work waiting to be papped:

And finally, I enjoy relaxing with a cup of tea and browsing this blog and the wonderful etsy.com where there are so many fantastic things to see, buy, read and learn from!!!

Thanks for dropping in, have fun ;-)

Laura ♥
♥
♥ ♥

I'll Show you Mine Wednesday

Hi this is Ruth from Nice Day Designs, today is a slight deviation on the 'I'll show you mine Wednesday' of photos of our studios, as it is a look into a retail space I sell in. This week I went down to Kilkenny and dressed and organised a new shop that is selling my customised clothes and accessories. It's called Roisins Beauty Salon (as there is a salon upstairs) and it's in the picturesque village of Inistioge. So here is a wee peek at the shop and what I did with the window dressing.

The key was to try and get a bright and colourful boutique feel on a small budget. I used lots of material and netting, and some inexpensive hat boxes which I covered with nice brightly coloured paper. Luckily the shop had a great purple door and window before I arrived, and a good blank canvas of white wall on the interior. I used netting and some wicker baskets on the fireplace to add a splash of colour. I got the baskets in a pound shop, and added to the blue polka dot fabric afterwards to make them a little funkier. They are great for displaying accessories, and I think they would work just as well for displaying knick knacks on a market stall-for all of you market people out there.

I added the faux curtain to the back of the shop by thumtacking the material in place, I love how it brings more colour into the back of the shop. Ideally I would like to paint the doors either white or the same purple as the front door, but there just wasn't time. Eventually I would like to add a painting on canvas over the firplace, based on photographs of one of my models. I will also be sending Roisin some more fashion illustration to decorate the shop. I think it adds to the look of the place, and if someone wants to buy them even better! So fingers crossed all the hard work pays off! If you are in the area of Kilkenny I would recommend a visit, it's a beautiful little village and it's only a 20 minute drive from the city.

I'll Show You Mine...Nice Day Designs

Hi this is Ruth from Nice day Designs and Nice Day Supplies, and here is a peek into my studio. I was really lucky when we moved into this house last April, the recession was good to us in the fact that rent prices came down. So we were able to afford a second bedroom that I could use as a studio. Cheekily I took the large master bedroom, that uses up the whole top floor of our house. I really love the high ceilings and exposed beams, and all that great storage was already here when we moved in.
As you can see I have A LOT of stuff, I work in many different disciplines, so this means I need tonnes of supplies. I try to keep it somewhat tidy, but it's a contstant struggle to control the chaos. Since I've started selling supplies I now have loads of extra boxes in the space that I really haven't found a proper place for yet. But I'm hoping to take a trip to Ikea soon, and all my troubles will be over then.... hopefully!
I attempted to make the place look a bit tidier for the photos, but I realised I will never have one of those pristine spaces. It think this room looks a little like the inside of my head, lots of things/ideas going on, lots of colour, and a bit scatty, but with a strange kind of logic. Having said that it looks a lot better than during the start of January, which had the left over carnage from the Christmas madness. I also hung up a few extra drawings/paintings that I had lying around, left over from exhibitions. It's nice to have pretty things to look at, I must also get myself a notice board so I can make some cool collages....oh another thing for the list!!
I feel really lucky that I have loads of space to let the business grow, it's heaven working there all day. Most of the time I'm squirrelled behind my desk sewing and listening to my audiobook. I also have a second work desk set up, because over the past year I've had a few people come in and do work experince, which is nice to have a bit of extra company.
Hope you liked my little tour!
Nice Day Designs
Nice Day Supplies
Nice Day Blog