Townmouse

Doing the laundry

I'm building up stock of a few Laundry Bags.

I like making up these bag panels as it gives me a chance to play with all my favourite fabric scraps.  My seamstress will whip them up into bags on Monday.  I get to do the fun part.

New tools

I felt it was high time I invested in a new cutting mat.

I had worn such deep grooves in my old mat from cutting out too many creche bag panels.  I use the mat and a rotary cutter to cut out all my sample garments and sewing.  There were certain measurements on the mat I had to avoid if I wanted a clean cut.

It's not until I compare to a shiny new mat that I realise how dire my equipment was.  So with a new blade in my rotary cutter, it was on to cutting out new creche bag panels.  As the orders pick up towards Christmas I want to get some of the fabric bolts off the floor and into the drawers in the form of cut pieces.

 

A new dilemma

I have collected new season's stock from my manufacturer - winter girl's tops.  These are my favourite Townmouse tops for winter to date. I love the fabrics and colours - let's hope my customers do too.

 

I'm tempted to keep so many of them for bub-to-be.  This is a new dilemma.  In the past I've kept one or two favourite girl's pieces from the entire 7 years of Townmouse for sentimental reasons.  Now that I will soon have someone to put them in, I'm tempted to squirrel away too many items from the range.

I'm busy building the website with new content, ready to switch over in a week or so.  So it's back to cropping photos, scanning fabric swatches and writing product descriptions.  It's a good thing I have all that Easter chocolate to sustain me because I'm rapidly losing momentum as my belly grows.

Raspberry and ice blue

My favourite colour combination is raspberry and ice blue.  That's what I'm going with for my upcoming winter range.

 

I had great plans to achieve a lot today.  But after staying up late to watch the Oscars, I am incredibly tired.  The most I can aim for is a sample top, ready for one of the unsuspecting boys to try on after school.  I am looking forward to having a female house model in the years to come.  Henri just looks odd in floral tops or sundresses - which is probably a good thing.

Back to reality

There is one more week of school before the boys break up for summer.  Which means one more week in which to get as much work done as possible before Christmas.

 

I'm feeling a little unmotivated after a week away.  I'd rather be trying my hand at a pair of these, than finalising and packing orders.

 

But the orders take precedence, so the shoes and other crafty projects will have to wait until the summer holidays.

 

Images are from this book; one of only three craft books I picked up in Tokyo.  Whereas previously these lovely craft books were the price of a magazine, the big shift in the exchange rate has made them as pricey as a book.  They are now a more considered purchase.

Tracking the years

After reading Fiona's post a while back about losing her precious photographs I took her kind advice and sorted my photo situation.  This also involved putting all the images from Townmouse shoots into albums.  Since 2003 I have had a professional photographer take photos of children in Townmouse clothes each year.

 

The best thing about this is that I now have a beautiful collection of photos of our three boys.

 

Many of these have gone into frames and are dotted around our house.

 

I have borrowed little girls for the shoot - pretty little family friends.  All have been happy to play dress-up for a day. 

Miss A (on the right) made an appearance in 2003 - the first shoot. 

Beautiful Miss E below, whose father went to school with Will, helped out at age 3, 5 and 7. 

 

My muse - Miss S.  With her beautiful blue eyes, she always looks so pretty against the blue backdrop of the website.  I often design clothes and choose fabric with her in mind.

 

The ever so cute Miss H, who has helped out the last two years.

 

Gorgeous little Miss C, who has the sweetest nature to match her beautiful face.

 

Multi-tasking

I like having my laptop right next to my sewing machines in the studio.

 

I can catch up on episodes of Project Runway on You Tube while finishing off customer orders.  Today I'm adding the Liberty trim to wrap skirts, and preparing piles of creche bag pieces for my Wednesday seamstress.

Design evolution

Yesterday I picked up my stock of Beach Tops from the manufacturer.

It's hard to believe that the initial inspiration for the Beach Top was this Michael Kors outfit.

I was sitting at the hairdresser at the beginning of the year flicking through a Vogue magazine and came across this.  It was the contrast bands of colour at the neck, hem and sleeves that caught my eye and I wanted to replicate.  Because I used cotton voile for the body of the top, I couldn't finish the neckline in a similar way without the seam of the contrast colour showing through the fabric.  If I'd done it in a more complicated way the manufacturing would cost too much and would risk being too complicated to guarantee a quality finish.

So I shelved the idea of a neck finished this way (until maybe next winter when I use a heavier weight fabric) and adapted a pattern from a few summers back.

  

I find it curious how a design idea evolves into the finished product.  There's no connection between the initial inspiration and the end design, but that's what sparked the idea.

Perfectionist patternmaker

I find patternmaking can be an exhausting process because by nature I'm a perfectionist.  This makes developing a new style for the range a long, drawn out exercise as I go through multiple revisions, metres of patternmaking card and many samples.

On the bright side, by the time a pattern is production ready I am very confident that it fits well and looks good on.  Having three fit models in the house is very handy.  The boys each have a few pairs of new Short Longs to wear this coming summer.

I'm glad I have the (limited) pattern and garment making skills myself, as outsourcing this many revisions would be an expensive process.

I was a bit stumped last week because I really needed to see the shorts on one and two year olds.  Our youngest is nearly four and my friends' children are now older too.  Then I struck on a bright idea and called up the creche that Tom and Henri went to.  Fortuitously, it's 20 metres from our front door.  So I headed over to the creche with sample garments in hand to find two willing fit models and a helpful carer.

I'm pleased and relieved to say the Short Longs went into production last week and will be ready soon.

New range

Hands up who wants to see the new Townmouse summer range?

After many hours of cropping images, writing product descriptions, uploading content and proof-reading, I'm happy to say the new range is now online.  Yay!  Head on over to the website to have a look.

I've been sitting at my desk for about 12 of the last 24 hours working on the website.  Although this afternoon I did  take a few hours out to do something totally different.  I had the best, best afternoon.  I will tell you about that tomorrow.