the Piccadilly Market, and why I look forward to it every time

Even before I started being a smallholder at markets, I loved going to markets.  I loved seeing the handmade things that clever people created, often knowing that they couldn't be found anywhere else.
I loved buying bags of fresh produce, cutesy little kitsch that was a 'must' by then and there, and often little gifts and presents for loved ones that they couldn't find anywhere else.

Now that I get to play on the other side of the stall table, I still love going to markets as a shopper and a maker.

The Piccadilly market has at least 80 stalls each time - sometimes more - and whilst there are the old favourites and returners, there are always new things to see on their stands or with the brand new businesses who are represented.

The advantage of early set up and organisation, is that you get a chance to have a sneaky walk around and admire your neighbour's work.  I try and go for a wander further afield before we open, as I'm often at a stand by myself and a quick trip to bathroom/coffee is all I want to do - there's never time for wandering and shopping unless I have relief stall assistance from someone!  However, it's entirely a different matter when you find yourself admiring your neighbouring tables for hours at a time.  It's quite easy to talk yourself into something that you have been admiring for hours... I may or may not have made some late afternoon impulse purchases from fellow stallholders that way ;)

I have been playing around with display ideas, and created a replacement for my swing tags that use individually typed information on my Mum's vintage typewriter.  Two fingered typing at its best, on an old reel of tape - definitely a unique feature to the books!

Hope to see you on Sunday :)

Christmas Bunting and Card Sets

After the weekend's market adventure, I have listed in etsy the remaining Christmas bunting and card packs.

Black ribbon, printed onto vintage book pages

Packs of 4 cards

Red ribbon option, printed onto parchment paper

There are four different options with the bunting - following any of the links above to the individual listings.  I also have multiple card packs available, with an option for a custom print job.  I only ask that you are mindful of delivery times and options.

Have fun with your December preparations everyone, it's a big part of the fun of the festive season!

photographing some old and new work

It's nice to finally have a permanent little set up where I can take photos of work as soon as I am able to.
In the past, I've spent a lot of time putting together a whole scene, usually on the dining table or nearby where the light is good.  Of course that means set up, shooting and packing up and it becomes very tedious.  Everything is stored at the other end of the house, I make a huge mess and it seems very much like hard work.  The photos make it all worthwhile, but it's been two years since I set up a 'big shoot' and I needed something more immediate.

 I use shots like this for promo opportunities, such as supplying for markets 

applications and social media use.  It looks a little messier than I would normally 

like as the books all have their tags hanging from the

 - that's the light cotton you see on their spines.

I've created a little scene on top of a dresser in the spare room, which has a store of jars with vintage sewing pieces in them, as well as some of my other sewing collection.  I had wanted to put some form of backdrop behind it though, and browsed wallpaper samples and even a curtain.  I settled on using a piece of Tilda fabric, padded and in a large frame that I've painted white.  It just sits on top of the dressed, and whilst it's not always seen or even in focus, its purpose is to simply add another layer of colour and texture to the background.

The photo above gives you a sense of the scene I set up

(and I played around with lighting after this was taken, 

and this will be cropped before being used).

The dresser is about chest high, so it's a perfect height for shooting and working with - even though I sometimes find that I hold the camera up very high for overhead shots!
The fabric on top of the dresser is a quilted table runner that I bought from Ici et la in Sydney quite a number of years ago.
The jar to the right holds some ric rac cards, lace and offcuts that were mainly from my nanna's old sewing boxes.
To the left you can just see a smaller jar at the front, which holds vintage french cotton spools, and the larger jar behind it holds an assortment of vintage sewing notions.  Some I had, some from my nanna, and I've purchased a couple of collections online.
The back of this shot you can clearly see the white frame, as well as the fabric inside it which creates a background.

A different perspective - a book in the centre of the display being photographed, the trio of lights from my study which I moved to help with lighting today.  None are directed at the scene itself to prevent shadowing, the diffused light above really helped to get rid of the shadows from the window too (which is to the far right of where this is, out of shot).  The room's overhead light is also on.
When summer moves a little closer, the light coming through the window is terrific, and no artificial light will be needed for a few hours each day.

I had been using a tripod but the piece that connects the camera to the tripod is very dodgy, and I kept working it loose as I was moving the camera around too much.  I gave up and went back to holding the camera.

I had dug out a lot of books which are normally just packed up between markets, so I took advantage of them being out and took a few other promo shots.  This stamp is what I put on my products, and I took a few photos with my business card too in the same set up.

clearing out for a fresh beginning

I am super excited to have some time in January to be able to devote to luciandjoe bookbinding.
What that means is that I have a chance to go through all the ideas that I've stored away, mostly on pinterest, and make some prototypes and see what I will put into the shop and market stand during 2013.

I've got a few things in mind and am very keen to explore a few new designs and products themselves. I like to trial a few ways of making things, which inevitably means a trail of half-finished or abandoned ideas as I go.  If something is too tricky or too time consuming it doesn't auotmatically mean it's discarded.  I'm all about the final product - if it looks as best as it can be, then the tricky factor or time allowed isn't really a consideration.  Which is probably why I will never be a big corporate business mogel!!

Some sneaky hints at things to come include some glorious thick felt, more sewing lines and fixtures, as well some pretty cool new ways of highlighting the gorgeous vintage book pages which are a prominent feature in what we do.  Keep an eye out for some sneaky peeks and requests for feedback!

Until then, I'd like to clear out some shop stock and make room for some new products.
Head on over to our etsy shop to pick up a bargain - some of the books are HALF PRICE...

Xmas Bunting clearout

'Merry Xmas' Bunting clearout - now all $20.
I have a dozen ten bunting packs left from this year's markets and am keen to see them hanging in homes this season.
Each one was originally priced at $30, but are now down to $20.

Please contact via email or leave a comment if you'd like to purchase one - I can list it on etsy, d

eliver in person if you're local (local as in Portland, Victoria, Australia!), or see what's easiest for you.

If you'd like to see a photo of the specific bunting that's listed, please just ask.

The options left are:
‘Merry Xmas’ Bunting – now $20
Vintage Book Pages
1. Black satin ribbon
2. Black grosgrain ribbon
3. Red satin ribbon
4. Black grosgrain ribbon
5. Black grosgrain ribbon
6. Black grosgrain ribbon
Parchment Paper with embellishment
7. White paper with red twill ribbon
8. Light taupe paper with black grosgrain ribbon
9. White paper with red ribbon with white stitching detail
10. White paper with red twill ribbon
11. Light taupe paper with black grosgrain ribbon
12. Light taupe paper with black grosgrain ribbon

Wednesday = sewing, sewing, sewing

Let's not mention Tuesday...  and go straight to the good night and discuss Wednesday.
I have the sewing machine out:

I discovered that I had somehow forgotten to print any 'X' pages, which is an oversight for my 'Merry Xmas' bunting sets that couldn't be ignored.  So I set up the printing and got that done first.

I'm a speedy sewer, so I like to have the pieces in piles ready to sew in order so that they can all zip through the machine as it whirs along.  Which sometimes means that when the bobbin runs empty, I might not realise until I get to the end - oh well!

When I set up the photo above it was like the pages were zipping through as I snapped.

I found a spool of this wide red grosgrain ribbon which has turned out really nicely on these pages too. I like the red ribbon combination, but not everyone uses red in their Christmas colour scheme, so the black ribbon can be just as popular.

The zoomed in version of the photo above showed be (with some horror) how dusty and in dire need of  a good clean the machine is.  It reminded me to enquire about whether servicing is available next month, or whether I'll need to do my own version.

After sewing up all of these bunting sets, my next stage is to knot and end the threads, trim the ribbon and then package them up.  More things ready for Sunday  :)

the getting ready phase

I am fascinated by markets and the whole market experience.  Even before I fulfilled a dream of being a stallholder myself, I would stop in at any markets I saw and even plan trips around being able to visit them.

Any time that I see blog posts about markets, I zoom straight in and soak up every detail.  I want to know how they displayed their product, what tools and equipment I could see hiding on the other side of the stall, and of course, I wanted to be amazed by every detail of their products themselves.  I definitely have market love.

So in order to put back into the blogosphere what I love to take in, I'm going to do a daily post for the next seven days giving some insights into what I'm up to in the lead-up to what might be the biggest market of the year for me.  I said "might" because in true market fashion, I have no idea of which markets will be filled with buyers, or which products will be popular from one day to the next.  It's hit and miss, but that's what makes it a bit fun too.

So tonight it's Sunday, and I didn't have high hopes for spending much time on my products this weekend.  I did manage to fix my printer problem and was able to finish off a print run I began a couple of weeks ago.

In this first photo, it gives you a very good idea of the state of my desk.  There are lots of piles, some needed for Sunday but others that will need to be moved away.  I try and keep most of this space empty and just my working projects on there so that I don't get too swamped.  That ideal doesn't always work and it becomes a dumping ground.  First job will be to move most of this stuff away.

The notebook that you can see at the front (it's upside-down), is my latest attempt at a proper inventory system.  This information will get transferred to a database, but I need written info when selling at the market.

This is just inside the door (and in front of a large noticeboard that I don't see half of at the moment).  

The shelves were part of my market display for a little while, but they're just too big for my car so I've gone back to using my vintage suitcases instead.  This suits me better not just for the car space, but also because I store a lot of things in the cases and have cut down the amount of boxes that I actually take with me.  This is a huge consideration when I go to markets alone.

I've got a framed canvas sitting on the top shelf there which is going to be a new display board for my 2D items - the garlands and bunting which are hard to display to good effect sometimes.  You don't often have a wall or backdrop behind you that you can string them from, and signage is hard for that too.  I hope that this canvas will help to display these more effectively.

This is the table from the other side and there's a pile of printed pages at the very front which are ready for sewing.  Putting those bunting pieces together is what I'm going to do over the course of this week, as well as trying to create a more effective packaging for them - high hopes!

These are a lot of the books that I'll re-box up for Sunday.  I spent some time a couple of weekends ago retagging everything.  My old labels were not wearing up to the challenge, and I wanted to add some more information onto them.  I also sorted out what cards were left and remade some of the more popular styles.

I won't get a chance to do anything much else tonight, but am aiming to get the sewing machine out tomorrow night - let's see if that happens!

Piccadilly's Winter Market, July 2011

If you didn't make it to come and visit luciandjoe bookbinding in person in Geelong on the weekend just gone, here are some of the products that you missed.

Here you can see both the fully handmade fabric covered journals on the left,

as well as an example of the upcycled books to the right of them (green cover).  It made a beautiful and truly unique [new] book.

six words produce these stunning felt and jewel necklaces.

The old schoolcase is a great way to display this mix of books, from upcycled covers,

fully new journals and some with a mixture of both.

You can get an idea here of the other products in stock at markets as well: cards, little notebooks and at the back you can spy the beautiful paper flowers and globes made by Suzanne.

Another line up of upcycled and new journals

And that's what it's all about: books.