Street Dancing and Sewing Designs...Not A Sentence I thought I would Type!

"What are you doing here?" I hear you ask in a shocked voice!

Well, you know I'm all inspired when I write another entry on the Funky Sprogs blog so soon after my last one!

As a busy mum (aren't we all) of two sprogs I find that life takes over my time that I allocate for writing my blog...I have pages and pages of notes of things I want to write about but those notes lay unpublished as suddenly my mind goes into overdrive and wanders in another direction...or my children want their dinner!

So, here we are at Street Dancing...I know, a strange subject for a mum who has set up a business making children's clothes but my son loves to dance...he is 6 and his idols are Ashley Banjo and Sean. The former is from Diversity and the latter helps to teach Boyz Breakdance at Belinda's Dance Academy in Southampton! This has meant that my world has changed from the background noise of Ben 10 and Spongebob Squarepants to a continuous stream of music, tutting*, the three step, the frog freeze, the baby freeze and various other mind boggling ways to move and contort the human body!

When I get an idea for designing something it is fascinating to draw the idea I have and then recreate that, working out which fabrics work best and how I can manipulate my ideas into fabric form. I take my ideas from my everyday life, living in New Zealand influenced me hugely especially with my T-Shirt designs, my love of all things vintage influences the fabrics I use and also has helped to develop the Dress I make into a more sixties, mod look and my Slip Through Scarves were influenced by a 4 and 6 year old who kept trying to strangle themselves in the morning!
And now I am totally inspired by Streetdance...which is making my son very happy!

So I am spending my days searching through the internet for images of street dancers in various poses...most of whom I hasten to add are male (and rather muscular!)...it's a hard life!

It will be interesting to see, from a business point of view, how this niche market design will work and whether it will be successful.  What I do know is that I am loving recreating it in to designs on T-shirts and more importantly my son thinks that I am the 'best mum ever' for putting his love of dance on to his clothing!

*After commenting to a number of friends about my son tutting their response was along the lines of "I know...my kids have developed such an attitude". In actual fact the tutting I was referring to was the dancing style where you move fingers, hands or arms in a synchronised, robotic manner to the sound of the beat...awkward!

Resolutions Out The Window...It's Market Time Again!

On December 18th Funky Sprogs did it's final market of 2011.  I love doing this market, it's a real buzz, the stall holders, the customers, even the place epitomises the perfect market but I have to say Christmas had been more full on than I had ever imagined and I couldn't wait to get home, unpack my stock from the car and enjoy Christmas with my family.  Having the time just to sit and play around with designs and fabric until March just seemed wonderful and an age ahead.

It's March...bugger...is anyone else wondering where the time went since Christmas? Don't get me wrong, February seemed like the longest month EVER but where have those 72 days (as of today) gone since that last market? I am utterly flummoxed.

What about those New Years Resolutions I hear you ask...well for those of you asking I am blowing raspberries at you...my daughter taught me...she is very good at them!

My excuse is that I have wallowed in my life...my sprogs, LSH, my friends and my garden. I have made up orders, I have played around with new ideas, new designs and discovered the most inspiring of blogs and facebook pages by my favourite designers like Lotta Jansdotter and Riley Blake.  What I have also done is neglected to build up my stock in preparation for the first Winchester Art & Design market of 2012!

Fortunately I work well under pressure and I have wonderful friends who listen to me panic in a high pitched voice while reassuring me that I will get it all done in time...and then pour more coffee down my neck.

All in all I can't wait to get back to the market, there are the most fantastic stalls there (and my sprogs always manage to find something that they must have!), the people visiting the market are great and it is a joy to stand there discussing fabrics and designers with them. But most of all it's the other stallholders for me, to be able to meet other people who are running a small, British business and, like me, hand making their items is phenomenal.  We support each other, give advice, give our opinions and look after each others stalls while we go the loo!

So in less than two weeks I will be loading up the car with my new dresses, gorgeous new baby booties and my fantastic new t-shirt designs...Tutting Tees...and for those of you not enlightened on the subject of tutting (and I don't mean the sound of irritation) then I will soon explain all!

Right...I'm off...can't sit around all evening writing blogs!

Sewing Resolutions for 2012!

Hello!

So...it's been a while...lol!

All I can say is that 2011 for Funky Sprogs has been the biggest learning curve, I thought having a baby was hard and the first year harder but it was nothing on a new business, Long Suffering Husband (LSH) and I even considered adoption...lol!

In May when the business started it was quiet, through the summer months it became busy and leading up to Christmas I was a headless chicken, praying regularly to a higher being for more hours!  I really had no concept of how busy Christmas was going to be and how quickly I would sell out of stock.  Fortunately I also discovered that I was not the only one in that position. One of my fellow stallholders at the Winchester Art and Design market was, like me, considering whether they were able to do the final market of the year as they, like me,  had sold out of stock with only a week to make up new stock.

It's amazing though what you can achieve when you put your mind to it!

I also pulled off an amazing birthday party for my daughter...actually that's not strictly true but the girls from Funky Kids Party did the most amazing Fairy and Pirate party, I would recommend them 100%! I didn't send out quite all of the Christmas cards that I intended to and I didn't write the ones that went out either LSH did that. I did manage to drive on my own to the Southampton Uni Christmas fair (I would like to add I had just passed my test!) but had difficulty peeling my gripped fingers off the steering wheel once I'd arrived.

So here we are in 2012, now I don't make New Years resolutions, never have done and am not about to start now. However for the sake of my sanity I have made some Sewing Resolutions.

Don't think 'there is enough stock for the next fair or market' and take a sewing break...you can never have too much stock!

Don't just book a fair because it fits into your schedule...you could be stood selling nothing because it's not your niche market and then results in going home to drink too much wine to drown your sorrows!

Remember to balance the marketing of the business and the sewing...too much of the first results in not enough of the latter! Too much of the latter results in...too much of the latter!

Remember to write your blog!!!

Last but not least I have to say thank you to some fabulous friends and family who got me through 2011 by the skin of my teeth. Claire (for helping me on my last Christmas market at Winchester and for making me cry with laughter), Najada (for looking after the sprogs and ferrying sprog 1 to birthday parties), Ray (my mentor who allows me to bounce off ideas and annoy him with my new creations), my Mum and Peter who have given up whole weekends when LSH is away to look after the sprogs while I am doing fairs and of course LSH who 100% supports me while I drive him insane by taking over our house and weekends with Funky Sprogs!