Looking Forward

Happy belated Christmas to all from A Home For Tandy! I hope the season brought much joy, togetherness and some satisfying creative activity that often follows the urge to bake, deck the halls and make the season bright! It's usually at this time, between Christmas and New Year that rather than reflecting on the past twelve months, I get an excited, restless feeling about the year ahead.

I'll be starting a new day job early in the year. It will involve learning new skills, working longer hours in a completely new location and a different commute everyday. My main concern with all that is "how will I manage my textile work schedule around my new lifestyle?" It will all remain to be seen, however I can't stop my mind thinking forward to possible solutions... Perhaps I could do research and answer emails on the train? Perhaps I might design a range of products that is portable enough to work on the train? Maybe a few days a week I'll travel directly to the studio rather than come home only to muster the energy to venture out again? Maybe I should try to get to bed before midnight so I won't be too exhausted by the time I get to the studio? The ideas keep coming....I'll post about the actual solutions as they manifest...

In the meantime, some exciting projects are already in the pipeline for the coming month!

I have three textile artworks hanging in the Brunswick Street Gallery 40x40 exhibition which runs until 14 January. Here's one of them...

And I'll be exhibiting my wares at RAW: Melbourne on 31 January. This is an exciting one night event showcasing the work of 40 artists across different disciplines. Check out their website of more info...
http://www.rawartists.org/

Best wishes to you all for an inspired and creative 2014!

Lift-off!

The day I'd dreamed of for many months finally arrived and surrounded by an intimate gathering of family, friends and admirers in my little suburban studio we declared A Home For Tandy open for business! Reflecting on the evening, I was surprised to realise that it went precisely as I had visualised. Often a much anticipated event will look and feel different in reality but this was almost identical to my mental images, from the product displays to the weather, the number of guests and the conversations I had with them... Perhaps it is testament to the dreaming and detailed planning I had done in the lead up! So with the help of a few amazing people, A Home For Tandy was successfully launched! The images below were taken by the very talented Pete Bell.

A large part of what I wanted to achieve in time for the launch was my online presence and I'm now "out there" on the following sites:

Website www.ahomefortandy.com

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ahomefortandy?ref=hl

Etsy Shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/AHomeForTandy

Pinterest http://www.pinterest.com/ahomefortandy/

Twitter https://twitter.com/AHomeForTandy

Feel free to check them out and "Share" and if you have any comments, feedback or suggestions, I'd love to hear from you!

So that goal was ticked off at the end of a very busy year and with holidays and Christmas approaching it would be easy to rest on my laurels and forget it all until the new year. However I'm determined to keep up the momentum. My new-found business head knows that consistency is the key to running a successful business and even if I do just one thing very day, no matter how small, I'm still moving it forward. So I'm resolved to maintain focus over the holidays. Luckily I have special orders to fulfil before Christmas so there is a deadline to work to and I'll be back in the studio tomorrow dyeing some more of my increasingly popular silk scarves.....

The studio entrance 

Baby quilts

Our name-sake story book on display

New swing tags out for the first time

Heart-felt thankyous

Me and my lovely daughter/studio assistant

The scarves sold like hot cakes!