Presents for babies

I love doing applique ... so I knocked this up as a present for friends who have an 8 week old. They had a little girl, but are not pink people and since I have a love of teal, I thought I would use it as inspiration ...

Using some Japanese Matryoshka doll print fabric, I cut out and appliquéd the doll onto a white bib and some flowers onto some face washers. Check out etsy for Matryoshka or Babushka Doll fabric, it is everywhere ...

Paired up with a toysaver, it made a nice neat little package. Material was backed with interfacing, then some double sided interfacing to stabilise the shape before sewing it around with zig zag.

Photo's taken using my new Toy from Think Geek ...

Grandparents

I love to capture moments like this with Tori and her grandparents ...

She has just learnt how to sing the nursery rhyme "ring a ring a rosie". So she comes up to you, does it around the palm of your hand and then gets excited, impatient and then tickles your elbow ...

Fortunately her Grandparents are indulgent with their giggles and laughs ...

Buy Australian Made ...

Celebrate Australia Day on the 26th January by supporting one of our local textile designers.

Here is a list I have been compiling for a while now, if I have forgotten anyone, let me know!!

• Bird Textiles (NSW)
• Danielle Stewart Design (WA)
  
• Flowerpress (NSW)
  
• Ink and Spindle (VIC)
• Kristen Doran (NSW)
  
• Melbomba (NSW)
  
• PippiJoe (VIC)
• Prints Charming (NSW)
• Saffron Craig (NSW)
• Shannon Lamden aka Aunty Cookie (VIC)
• Sprout Designs
• Thea and Sami (QLD)
• Umbrella Designs (SA)

Flipping through their web sites and shops there are some lovely fresh designs in there. I tried to search for some indigenous designers, but did not have any luck :(

I often have difficulty buying these fabrics from my local stores so I often resort to just buying online. But keep an eye out at the various stitches/craft/quilt fairs that occur in Melbourne, as they are often sold there.

Creating a digital footprint

One of the "other" hats that I wear is that I am an Information Technology teacher at an independent school in Melbourne. I work there part time and I have taught IT at Year 12 for eons!

Memories of a favourite hat via Craft Elf

While preparing for my Year 12 class, I was lamenting over whether I would utilise Moodle again as a content management system for my class in addition to the regular paper based materials. I know that there are other similar programs out there, probably better ... but I am familiar with Moodle, and time is of the essence. A content management system allows me to manage the distribution and collection of work from students and more importantly it gives me diagnostic information on whether they are looking at the work, discussions and handouts I am providing them. An extra level of accountability. With Moodle uploaded to an independent web site, I can have full control over my classroom environment, for teachers this is an important aspect of teaching. You don't want an IT department closing down your web site half way through a course, especially if it is a Year 12 subject!

So I thought I would document the process I took to create a digital footprint for my Year 12 class. I know that there are others out there in the crafty world are in the process of setting this up for your businesses, hopefully you will find some use from it.

via Sharon's Blog - ICT & ECE

I had previously done searches for names and had decided on www.zincwhiskers.com as web site name for my Year 12 class, but by the time I got around to registering it, it was gone! So after a bit of brainstorming with a friend, we ended up with www.virtualwhiskers.com (If you are in IT, you probably know what a zinc whisker is ...).

Names are important when creating a business. The process of coming up with a name is quite complex, it isn't just about making sure the domain name is available. I also checked gmail, twitter, blogger and other social networking tools to see if 'virtualwhiskers' was taken. Once I started to use this identity, it is good if every social networking tool had the same name, easier to track and use.

There are lots of articles about how to choose a domain name. I have a few tips that I use:

• The shorter the better
• Two parts to a name easier to remember. eg. Konstant Kaos
• Try not to choose a word that will be mis-spelt. It might have looked cute on the business logo ... but people will mistype it.
  
• Consider similar domain names, will one spelling mistake send customers off to an undesirable web site?
• If you are branding your business, you need to have a clear idea of colours and logo's before you register. Once you start stepping all over the internet is is harder to change later on.

So, you have chosen your name. Check availability using tools such as Ajax Whois to see if it is available. It is also important to do a few searches on Google. When your customers or students search for your name, what will they find? So long as the answer to the search isn't something offensive, you should be right. Once you start blogging and twittering, your digital footprint should start to appear in the search engines.

There are lots of theories on what type of name you should choose for your web site. Of course it would be good if you could register a name that was exactly your business name. But if you take the case of my blog name, Konstant Kaos was already taken in blogland, so I had to come up with something a bit different. Thus, alittlebitofkaos was born ...

So once you have a digital footprint name all sussed out, what do you do?

1. You can register your domain name with companies such as Go Daddy, Then you can bring your name across to a web site hosting service such as dreamhost ($10 USD a month), Weebly (mostly free) or Hostgator ($4.95 USD a month). Depending on your needs. For virtual whiskers, I wanted a one touch Moodle install with online help, so we went with dreamhost and signed up for a year. Most of these guys have a help service you can use if you get stuck. But basically they will give you at least two names of servers that you can "point" your registered domain name to. Once that is done, you can upload your web site to your hosting site.
   
   
2. If all you want to do is use blogger as your web site, you can register your blog with blogger, and then buy the domain name through them. For example, this is what we did with Northside Makers. Made sure that northsidemakers.blogspot.com was available and that www.northsidemakers.com was available and then used bloggers interface to buy and set up the web site. Then we used a blogger template to set up the site.

Once you have your domain, register your other social networking tools. Even if you don't think you will use them right away, register them that way you know they are locked in. A few of the main ones might be ...

• Blogger to maintain a blog
• twitter for 140 character bites of what you are doing
• gmail for managing mail
• flickr for photo's

via Startup Blog

There are so many social networking tools out there, you could go mad registering all of them ... the idea is to be strategic and see how others are using them, and choose wisely.

• List of social media and social networking sites
• Web 2.0 tools and applications
• Mashables: 350+ social networking sites
• Wikipedia's list of social networking sites
• The Best Social Networking tools

For my purposes, I am going to use twitter for quick article or "check out this web site" updates. Flickr for pictures of classroom diagrams on the board, gmail to handle any site traffic. And I will probably look at a social bookmarking site that the kids can contribute to if they find something online. What is important is that I can use my web site to suck all this information in using Web 2.0 and RSS feeds and I can use it as a hub for what I am doing. Hopefully the kids will learn something along the way and so will I.

So I have registered all the things for virtual whiskers, now I need to set up the web site and the Moodle courses for my kids ... T - 2 weeks for the first day of school!

Space Invaders Quilt inspirations

I stumbled across this web site where someone had done a space invaders quilt ... definitely a project that I would enjoy doing!

via by metanoia_cw

I have tracked the development of this quilt through her blog and it is going to look absolutely great! The last post saw The Quilted Hen doing the stippling ... eep! Most sites talk about stippling, but there is a good picture of the set up on her blog.

A bit more searching and look what I found! A Tetris quilt ... and another one!

by leanne_david2004

And I even found a tutorial on how to make one! Too many possibilities!

Vintage Ad Browser

Flipping through Seth's Blog, (yes I know I should be writing) I came across Vintage Ad Browser.

I wish I had a sewing machine that does this!

Take a look at some of the old beauty ads, they are priceless.

Prints Charming

Doing a bit of a search to see how many Australian hand screen printed textile designers are out there, and I came across Prints Charming.

Ohh! some very nice bold prints (I love bold) that I would love to quilt with! They also have some lovely quilting kits which include material, batting and instructions.

Check out their blog and check out their web site and shop! nice stuff!

Collingwood Children's Farm

Last week we headed off to the Collingwood Children's Farm with Tori and my hubby.

Things to consider when attending "The Farm" ...

• Family admitance is only $16 .. bargain
  
• 10am is when things start to happen ... eg. milking the cow
  
• Family Day is Saturday 9th January which involves free Pony rides between 10.30 and 2pm and lots of other things. Get there early to get parking.

Andreas and I are tickled pink that they also do Children's parties and other special things .. right here in the city!

Paintbox Quilt-a-long

The daughters new "big girl" bed has been ordered, so I should hurry up and finish that quilt that I started ages ago.

Timing being what it is, Oh Fransson is having another paint box quilt along. Make 8 quilt blocks a week, which turns out to be 4 colours a week and upload what you are doing to the flickr site.

For this quilt the goal is to use the quilt fat quarter stash that she got given for her first birthday and then some of the materials that I use for Konstant Kaos. Between the two stashes, I shouldn't have to go out and buy much until I get to the blocking and sashing part of the quilt.

On the topic of originality in the craft world

I stumbled across this article on a great new web site, Make and Meaning. Sister Dianne from CraftyPod Podcast writes some articles and so does Melbournian Pip from Meet me at Mikes. There are lots of interesting short and sharp articles, some of which are quite thought provoking.

new ideas?

I was reading this article "On the care and feeding of ideas" and it got me thinking. I generally keep a notebook with me where ever I go. I write down lyrics, ideas, to do lists and I tend to sketch a lot of ideas about what I want to make.

At the moment I am going through the design process for a new bag. I was rather pleased with the design of my market bag and so I want to try something a bit different. New features, new shapes. Something uniquely Konstant Kaos rather than someone else's idea with some ric rac sewn across the front of it. Being a practical person, I spent hours thinking about the "practical edge" that I am going to give this bag. Perhaps I should be doing some more random planning, as Emma Greenwood puts it.

stash

For me, it is quite important that I produce unique products. I keep a box with all my prototypes. I use and test every product I design and generally try to get someone else to also road test everything before hand. But sometimes at markets I take a look around and I think that perhaps I should hop on the bandwagon that I see so many others on. Find something hip and "now", buy the McCalls pattern and then mass produce it ...

inspiration

Pip writes an excellent article called "All my own work" where she talks about the grey line in crafting. Just because you can make it, doesn't mean you have the rights to sell it. Just because you buy the pattern, doesn't mean that you have the rights to mass produce it and on-sell it into shops. Just because you own the book, doesn't mean you can mass produce the images in it, and so on!

So where does this leave you? If you feel that someone has crossed that grey line copying a design of yours for profit, I would first familiarise yourself with IP Australia. Talk to the guys at Craft Victoria, become a member, support what they do, talk to one of their business development managers. If you are going down the path of challenging the IP of a product someone has produced, then a lawyer (yes a lawyer) will most likely ask you to "prove it". So keeping sketchbooks, blogs and prototypes is essential. And perhaps if your design so unique, trademark it, put a patent on it, protect it.

ready to be sewn

Someone at some point said that there is no new ideas in this world. But as a crafty community, we should be mindful that there is enough business to go around. So what, you had this idea to make a product and another crafter got there first ... respect that they got there first and use it as an opportunity to re-invent what you were working on.

Something I generally do when I am about to go "live" with a new product is I do a quick search just to make sure it isn't too much like someone else's product (etsy, madeit, general blog search). Even though I might have developed it myself, we are of the same crafty generation and sometimes ideas just collide.