Production!

Last Saturday I shared a booth at the local bazaar with my multi-talented friend Lynn. My first ever! I planned to sell some pouches but first I had to make some! 

I started by cutting up and ironing interfacing onto the fabric. That's my stack of cotton and cotton linen all prepped and ready to be sewn. Very ambitious indeed!

Next, I needed to get the felt birds ready. So, I used a template made of thick art paper and tailor's chalk to trace out the birds. And then cut them out. Not the easiest thing to do. At all. You need super sharp scissors, steady hands and good eyesight. None of which I have. Yikes!

My stash of colourful felt for more colourful birds.

About a week before the bazaar, we had to make an emergency trip back to The Man's hometown in Taiping. With all the embroidery needed to be done, I was already behind on my bird pouches and I really wanted to do some silkscreened ones but I was running out of time. The new screens we were burning were not making the grade and it quickly dawned on us that we probably just had a lucky run with our first perfect few. 

That's The Man doing a test print. It all looks pretty good from afar but there's actually quite a bit of smudging and detail missing from the designs. The new design with the three girls between the trees has been particularly difficult. We have tried about half a dozen times to get it right but we still haven't! Some parts are always missing :(

Pouch #28 & #29 with Oi! guy on the back

The Man went straight to work the night we came back from Taiping and pulled through with a couple of perfect screens. By the morning of the bazaar, I managed to make 8 pouches - 4 birds and 4 Oi!s. Not much but it's a start :)

I love how the silkscreened pouches turned out. And, yes, I am still painting on the red bits!