Paying it forward

I'm struggling with my 6-year-old knowing everything there is to know about sewing and not needing any help.  Apparently that's the way it is and I have to just butt out and take my pesky sewing-teacher habits elsewhere.  

Softly, softly... when the girl wondered why her very Japanese-designer-looking wrap-around dolls outfit didn't look quite like the High St Fashion she'd envisaged, I offered the Enid Gildchrist "Teen Dolls" book that I used at her age (it was my eldest sister's before I had it). 

I bit my tongue about technique, and remembered how much free rein I was given as a kid.  I remembered how this book taught me what garment patterns look like, and gave me the basics to start designing and drafting my own Barbie Doll fashions. 

I was shown how to use a sewing machine when I was 5 or 6, given lots of fabric scraps and access to craft and sewing books and magazines. I consulted the odd pattern for guidance when I needed it, but mostly did my own thing, learning from my own mistakes.  While Enid Gildchrist taught me about garments, soft toy books showed me what soft toy patterns looked like.  And then I free-formed it and made my own up.

The turtle, above, is one of the few surviving pieces from my childhood of sewing (regular readers will have seen this before).  I made it when I was 8.  Members of my family can still remember the original garments from which every patch of the shell was made.  My fabrics were my big sister's offcuts, and she sewed for all of us.

The peg dolls and cloth dolls I made (aged 11-13) reveal an early fascination for historical costume.  Some things never change.....

By mid-high school, all my art projects were textile-based and I'd learned the value in using resources for technique (the motifs on this Australian-themed garment were an exploration of applique, machine quilting and embroidery, fabric paint, print, pastel and 3-d fabric sculpture).  As the only Art student in my year at my school,  I was studying the theory by correspondence and working on the practical assignments on my own.  I had no teacher to show me what to do, but my mother and my school made sure I had access to books and materials to use.  I free-formed it and did my own thing, and earned myself top grades.

 I didn't make the parrot.... that was some other kid's art project.

My clothing design in high school was nothing, if not original..... I didn't slavishly follow fashion, I just thought of stuff to make. 

...And yes, I wore this sort of get-up around the small country towns of the Goulburn Valley when I was 14  and 15.  Heaven only knows what she thought, but my mother let me make and wear whatever I wanted to.  She let me out in public in it.

I didn't know it at the time, but she was letting me become the designer - and the individual - that I wanted to be.  She gave me the tools, the space and the confidence to know that I could make whatever I imagined.   She knew I'd sort it out eventually.

Here I am being a fashion designer, somewhere around 1992 in Brighton, UK (note the lack of balloon dresses and leg-warmers).

I have no idea if my mum has any concept of what I do now or the dedication I wrote in my book.  The best that I can do to thank her, is to pass on what she gave to me.  I hope that my girl will pass it on to her children. 

I'm reminded to take a step back, to praise every attempt at making anything, to provide materials and resources .....but never insist upon them being used in a particular way.  (Note the book on the floor - closed and not consulted - as the girl free-form cuts out a "dress" for herself).  She'll find her own way.

Yesterday, I had a wonderful reminder of the other things we leave behind.  One of the lovely gals in my Purse Frame class went to the same tiny country primary school as I (briefly) did.  She went through with my elder siblings.  I was utterly heart-warmed when she talked about her memories of my Mum bringing birthday parties to the school. 

We lived  "next door" (across a paddock) from the school, and rather than inviting a few kids to a party at the house, my Mum would load up the VW Combi with cake and party food and drive over to the school, to share with all 20 or 30 kids.  Not only did she give her own children great memories to carry through life, but that feel-good childhood memory from our family has gone beyond us all. 



Food for thought, indeed.

You might have noticed...

I've been somewhat absent from the social media scene (and any other scene you care to mention) for a few weeks.  I have also been somewhat absent minded. 

I've been busy... very, VERY busy. 

You might have also noticed a new look about this little bloggy space.  Around about the real-life place, there is similar evidence of a very talented graphic designer/art-director type having had a hand in things. 

Yes.  New logo.  A proper grown-up one.  (Clever girl, that graphic designer).  And I'm rebranding the whole bizzo.  Goodbye "Nicole Mallalieu Design" (as if anyone could ever say it, anyway*...) and hello "You SEW Girl!"

What you may not have noticed is that a new layout on ALL of my pattern instructions and covers is underway, to rebrand, streamline the printing process and bring early work up-to-date.   While I'm about it, I'm also improving instructions, making bag samples, taking photos and drawing diagrams.  A complete overhaul.  An ENORMOUS. CAN. OF. WORMS.  I'm trying to remember why I thought that I could do it all in the given timeframe.

"Timeframe?" (I hear you ask).

I've booked a stand at the Australian Quilt Market - the WHOLESALE show - in a couple of weeks (trying not to think too much about the number of days).  I've also made the decision to wind down the retail side of my business and focus on design and wholesale.

To suceed in a niche retail business requires a pro-active, interactive approach.  While I've been busy, pro-actively interacting, I've managed to keep my little business going.  BUT.... it's seen me working six days (and nights) a week with no time to work on new patterns.  And I've got to thinking....

What is it that I actually DO...?  
Am I a craft retailer or a designer-patternmaker-teacher-thingamie?  (I still haven't worked out the job description, but I like the second option best). 

Oh, and wasn't there a home, child and bloke to think about...?  Perhaps spend some time with...?

So far, there's no timeframe for the end of the online store, but that is indeed the plan.  We'll continue to sell my patterns, interfacings and a selected range of hardware WHOLESALE while winding down retail.

We'll keep the showroom-shop going at the studio. If you're in the neighbourhood, you'll still be able to drop in and stock up. If you're doing classes with me, you'll be able to buy all the bits you need. But the online shop is not going to be the focus of the business anymore, at it appears to have become over the last few years.

If you want access to my patterns, hardware and interfacings, perhaps you could have a brief word to your favourite local or online fabric/craft store and suggest they stock "You SEW Girl!" products. (And please don't just ask them to get the goodies in  - you need to actually BUY them!).  

• You'll be happy to be able to get the new and improved patterns and bits when you need them - with no postage or handling.
• The stores will be happy to have another stream of income that also helps to sell more fabric. 
• I'll be happy, because I can focus on finishing  a few of the kazillion pattern ideas I have.
• ...which will also make you happy (again) because you'll have more patterns to play with and more new tricks to learn from them.

It's win, win...errr...win, win, win, win.....  in theory, at least.  Who knows how it'll all pan out, but sometimes we have to take big jumps in order to evolve, non?  I've never shied away from radical leaps into the unknown and my crisis-management and survival skills are finely honed from a lifetime of doing just that.

If you're a retail store or a producer of  handcrafted goods, you'll be able to buy from us at a wholesale level.  If you haven't contacted us before about this, feel free to drop us a line at sales@nicolemdesign.com.au .

When I get through the next few weeks, I'll be able to think about a class schedule for next year. I love teaching and will continue to do that as often as I can.

Phew.  It feels better to just put it out there.  I'm not sure what the future holds, but I hope that you'll stay with me.  I need all the support I can get.

xxxnikki

PS. I'm still trying to figure my way through the blog-button and HTML jungle, and can't seem to get the buttons to display clearly on a sidebar.  If anyone is expert-ish in the area (or even if you have half a clue), I'd appreciate your help.

*To get the flat Australian tongue around the name "Mallalieu", try saying this three times, quickly...
"Mal - al - yoo"  (the "al's" rhyming with "pal").

Boxes and sewing machines and turtles.... it's off to Northcote we go!

The studio in Brunswick is nearly all packed up. The new place is still empty. Tomorrow is the big Three-Men-and-Truck day.
Having spent eight and a half hours (!!!) waiting for the electricity guy to read the meter yesterday, with no electricity or furniture (but WITH the company of a 5-year-old!!), I've had a good look around the new digs. (Although slightly traumatised from the entrapment episode) I like it.....

I especially like the air conditioning and the dishwasher, but I'm also pretty happy with the amount of space and light and storage space. And I love that it's my very own place with my own front door.

It's a great improvement on the Brunswick studio.... but there are still lots of stairs. At least they're prettier.

This is my 3rd floor workroom, where I'll do my sewing and product development, and have the occasional sit-and-stitch on the balcony.

The office and showroom will have their very own (first) floor... (no balconies, but at least there are less stairs). You'll be able to come and shop during office hours there when we're settled in.

Until the new office is set up and functional, we'll still be operating the shop from the Brunswick office. The girls are doing a mighty job, working around the chaos.

While packing, I found an old friend. A blast from 1977 (I made her when I was 8 years old).

She's lost her goggly eyes but she's still kind-of cute.

Every patch brings back a memory of a garment made by my eldest sister who taught me to sew (and gave me all her scraps).

Her neck represents a turning point in my understanding of patternmaking.

I remember stitching the neck into the seam of the body and then realising that it was too floppy. I handstitched around the base of the neck to hold it into place and looked at the shapes of the individual pattern shapes. Something clicked in my brain....

So.... those lovely empty rooms up there will be full of boxes, dismantled furniture and sewing machines tomorrow. I haven't worked out where to put the turtle, but she'll be coming with me.

Nothing to see here, folks...

Just a lot of photos you've seen before. Around these-here parts, it's all about the Show, the book, the new pattern...


...the champagne swilling shindig for Sew it Together... (must stop calling it that and start calling it a soiree or something)

...thoughts about what I can possibly take to Sewjourn that will help me meet my book deadline... (without taking my computer?)

...sick parents and a new baby niece and a 4-year-old who continues to love and need me (despite my apparent loss of parenting skills) and a man I occasionally meet in the kitchen to discuss the local primary schools we should have sussed by now to have said-4-year-old enrolled for next year and oh-my-goodness I forgot to pay the car registration and the kindergarten fees and I haven't seen the inside of a supermarket for weeks.....

...and I'm thinking about a holiday in June while refusing to think about laundry or dusting.

When this is all over ("this" meaning "the month of May"... and the holiday) I have plans for some fresh new patterns. What would you like to see in my pattern range...?

Frightfully busy!

It's head down, bustle up around here....

I've been sewing....
But I can't talk about it.


I've been playing with Kanzashi...

(Edited to add: The Kanzashi book link is in my Amazon sidebar widget).


And I'm looking forward to having time to make myself the cap-sleeve version of this lovely blouse pattern I won on Little Munchkins' recent giveaway. Bundled into the parcel was this Patty Young (Andalucia range) ribbon. Candy sweet.


Things might be a little quiet around here for a while. Serious deadlines are looming large.

I'll get back to you on the skirt when I'm completely happy with the design and/or worked out a way to photograph myself in it without tying myself in knots.

My Creative Space

Hacking into new (and old) fabrics. Burning midnight oil.

Nearly finished the new purse kit. Getting samples ready for a new stockist in the UK.... (watch this creative space for that one!).

To watch other creative spaces, pop over to Kirsty's...

My Creative Space

Twenty years ago....

I was sent home from my parents' house last weekend with an ENORMOUS folio (which I'd quite conveniently left in my childhood bedroom for 20 years. Apparently it's no longer required there). Opening it up was like stepping back to 1989. Mountains of design roughs from fashion college, storyboards, life drawings.... random bits of paper that I wonder why I kept...

...And I'm back in a flat in St Kilda with a sack of Yoken marker pens and an overwhelming project ahead: my final range for the graduate show at RMIT. Watching The Scarlet Pimpernel on television. Reading about the Regency period.

Drawing and drawing and drawing.... working through design ideas.

Coming up with a few ideas I decide to follow through...

Patternmaking, toilling, finding fabrics...

(I know I've posted these photos before, but they're in context here too!).Making hats, fake fob watches. Organising my brother to make twisted walking sticks from apple-tree roots...
Illustrations, storyboards, folios. Mountains of Letraset. Typewriters.
And a week before final assessment realising that I was yet to actually MAKE the garments!

That week.... passing in a blur of tears, coffee, no-doz and a real fear that there was absolutely NO WAY I was going to get it all done. Roping in my sister for a few all-night artwork-mounting sessions. My mother on the day of my assessment -following me around with Lucozade and fruit salad ("You need to EAT something!"). ...Right down to the last 15 minutes before my presentation to a panel of lecturers and industry heads (when I - normally meek and mild but presently caffeine and panic fuelled - snapped at a senior member of RMIT staff that it was too bad that they were ready to see me - my appointment time was in 15 minutes and I would see them then. I had photocopying to do!). It's a recurring nightmare I've had ever since - the anxiety dream I have when there's too much to do in too little time. The difference is that now, twenty years on, I know that I'll survive it. I'll get it all done and get the result that I want.

Oh... and I'll see you in Sydney, folks! (Believe me - I'll get there!).

See more creative spaces over at Kirsty's.

Friday Night Blues... and reds...

It's been a LONG week...

I came home and cracked open the last of the Christmas wine (I only drink red occasionally - if I'd been given half a case of white it would've been lucky to see in the New Year!). My sister works at the vinyard where they make these gorgeous wines and we all look forward to seeing it... I mean HER ...each Xmas.

Ok, so I've had a glass and a half of red wine.... time to change the tone of this happy blog for a minute and spill the beans on what's been eating away at me. I'll get it off my chest, clear the air (and any other cliche that involves having a good whinge) and then get back to being happy.

It's been a tough week of personal grief (with a hefty dose of three-year-old tantrums thrown in). On top of that, it's been a week where I've seen how vulnerable my business is to people abusing my intellectual property. I feel completely used - and not very much like writing the next tutorial or designing the next pattern.

I know this doesn't apply to most people - but can I please ask anyone who may be contemplating it - PLEASE think about it before you share a sewing pattern with friends, copy instructions or patterns in any way, copy designs (ie a bag style) without actually BUYING the pattern, publish online tutorials showing the methods that I've developed or blog the construction processes....

Just realise that you might be killing the goose that lays the golden egg.



Phew! I feel like I've lanced a boil or something. Sorry about the mess of pent-up emotional goo everywhere.... Can we go back to being happy now?

Gone to print

Yay! We're DAYS away from having this baby on the road! If you'd like to pre-order a Fedora pattern we'll give you free shipping if you're in Australia (or knock $2 off the cost of international shipping). This offer is only for the next few days - until we get the patterns back from the printer and packaged. I hope to have them in the post by Friday. Get in early!

Edited to add - If you'd like to order, just email Leah at sales@nicolemdesign.com.au .

The pattern is for advanced sewists - people who really know their way around a sewing machine and have a bit of dressmaking, hat-making or bag-making experience. It's a step up from your average hat pattern because it combines a few millinery techniques (steaming and shaping). Make this hat a few times and you'll find your hat-making (and sewing) skills will have jumped up a notch or two! As always, my instructions don't just tell you what to do, they tell you HOW to do it!

I didn't have any new images of the Fedora - so instead of repeating the same-old, I decided to photograph the hat I wore today. Problem was, daylight had faded by the time I had a chance to get the camera out and.... well.. have you ever tried to photograph yourself wearing a hat..?
Hmmm.... now you know what my world looks like when I'm not wearing glasses or contacts!

The old "lift the camera over your head and hope for the best" trick.... resulted in a lot of wasted shots. The ones that worked were dark and in need of Photoshopping. I quite liked the way that upping the levels in Photoshop turned my skin yellow (!?) ...and I hated the way it didn't disguise toddler mess in the mirror reflection!

But I really liked the way this grainy spiral rose came out... kind of like the stone-carved celtic spirals that inspired it.

I made this hat in 2003 - my first Winter after returning from living in Ireland. I think I was still heavily influenced by my time there. Since then, this hat has seen a bit of rough treatment (squashed into bags etc) and bears a few scars. I'm glad I finally recorded its existence before it's completely wrecked.

For some reason in the coldest weather we've had for a long time, I cut my hair super-short on the weekend. I think I'll be wearing my hat a lot over the next few months!

Once upon a time I could sew....

I've made cute and kooky tea cosies....

I've made classic leathergoods....

Once I even sewed together the largest inflatable float in the world (at the time, at least). It lead the St Patricks Day parade in Dublin in the Millenium year.

NOTE: I didn't DESIGN it - I only did the stitching. However - there was QUITE a lot of stitching in it - those are MEN standing in front of it and there's a truck underneath it...

..and four trailers behind it.

Today I couldn't seem to sew TWO little hats.

Seams cracked, interfacing bubbled, three-year-olds interrupted.... but I perservered. Finally (LONG after the three-year-old should have been home and eating her not-yet-overcooked lasagne for dinner) I finished. I'd double-stitched and topstitched and pressed....

Then I looked..... at the brim that was sewn on back-to-front.

Help Wanted!

We're looking hard to find the right person to help out Leah in the office. Blogging it might be the answer!

We are looking for a sales and admin whizz (that means highly efficient...preferably with MYOB and sewing experience) to work a couple of days per week. The position is casual with a view to being permanent part-time.

The successful candidate will have great written and spoken communication skills, be highly organised, will learn systems quickly and value excellent customer service.

If you fit this description please EMAIL your CV to info@nicolemdesign.com.au .

PS. Of course, this only applies if you can get to work in Brunswick, Melbourne, AUSTRALIA.... Apologies to international hopefuls!! :)

Edited to add: Sewing skills are only so you'll have an understanding of the products and have some background information for customer service. There's no actual sewing involved in the job!

My Creative Space

My multi-tasking station today... A bit late for Kirsty's Thursday's meme again.

Instruction-writing and pattern-tweaking on one computer, online (answering emails and ...ummmm reading Bloglines) on the other, mobile phone, memory-card reader for the camera, remote control for the wee girl's dvd player, and a City Bag that I managed to finish in dribs and drabs betwen computer boot-ups, pdf writing and software crashes over the last few days.

Oh - and I also had a three-year old hanging off my neck (when she wasn't being fobbed off on Charlie and Lola) and managed a few small projects with her. We made a small pillow and stuffed a few of Poppy's puppies (an Audrey and Maude pattern started about last September!!). She also built several houses for her toys from cardboard boxes and bits of furniture and fabric.

SO... all in all it was quite creative. Not sure how much was achieved (?) but the main thing is that we survived another STIFLING hot day in the studio.

Scraping off the rust

Many years ago I could do some pretty tricky things with clothing...

Clothing-as-sculpture was my thing. I wasn't interested in conventional garment shapes. It was more about "What DOESN'T a jacket look like?". I was obsessed with exploring the potential of patternmaking.
(BTW - These jackets were designed before Montana did his away-from-the-shoulder numbers... I'd been watching The Scarlet Pimpernel on telly and this was my 1980's interpretation of 18th century dandyism).

I also worked as a designer-patternmaker for businesses that wanted their skirts to look like skirts and their jackets to look like jackets. I could do that, too. I also used to make LOTS of clothes for myself, and put thought into them.

And then....

...I stopped. Having a small business (and then a small business and baby) meant that I had no time for anything but absolute simplicity - tried and true patterns that I knew would fit, stretch sewing that could be whipped up on an overlocker in no time, kids clothes from commercial patterns.... No fiddling. No thought. No play. All my patternmaking time has been on hat and bag patterns for work.

...And then....

I bought this book a year or so ago, and have been poring over its lovely matt pages ...feeling my old patternmaking fingers beginning to itch.... and twitch...

Until now there's been no time to play with it.

Today I MADE TIME for it!

I scraped off the rust, oiled the joints and started working on this bodice. It took all afternoon and I only made it to toile (rough sample) stage. It's holidays and I'm learning to slow down, re-work things, and enjoy the process. No quick-fix t-shirts today.

There are a few issues, (like "This looks lovely but how do I stop it un-weaving itself...?") that have to be worked out, but I'M SO HAPPY that my fashion-designer's brain has come alive again...

I'm loving the fact that I can't stop thinking of new design solutions, different fabrics, the range of garments that could be made from it (so far I have summer top, winter top, dress.... various knotting arrangements.... and I doubt I'll sleep tonight, thinking out more ideas!). Stay tuned for more Pattern Magic!

I don't want my sewing holiday to end!!!