To Market we go....................

 

So its coming up to that busy market time of year.

This year I am either being brave or foolish!

I have booked myself in for four markets.

Only time will tell.

 

 

Scandinavian Market

Sunday 2 November

10am to 4pm

The Danish House

6 Rockridge Road

Penrose

Auckland 

 

 

Michael Park School Fair

Saturday 7 November

9.30am to 3pm

55 Amy Street

Ellerslie

Auckland 

 

General Collective Market

Saturday 14 November

9.00am to 3pm

C3, 20 Cawley Street

Ellerslie 

Auckland

 

 

Auckland Fair

Sunday 6 December

10am - 4pm

Shed 10

Queens Wharf

Auckland

So if  you are free on one of these dates please do come along to one of these markets.

Please do say "Hello" I love meeting the people that take the time to read my blog, facebook page

or buy my designs. 

Without you all there would be no Adventures of Alex O & Co.

Fabric Rep

Recently I saw a beautiful fabric online that had Rabbits and Mushrooms on it.

Two of my favourite things on beautiful Linen Cotton.

I managed to find out who brings the fabric into New Zealand.

I emailed the company and they called me to ask if I would like there rep to visit me.

I explained that I am only a small business.

They assured me that I was not too small.

So the lovely Vivienne from "Nutex" came out to see me.

We spent half an hour or so looking at all the beautiful fabrics that will be coming to NZ in 

future months and she even had some end of lines for sale.

I had a wonderful time and I felt most special.

 So I placed a yummy order.

My Rabbits and Mushroom fabric is coming in October (which I will share with you then).

In the meantime I bought a gorgeous end of line fabric that I can use on my Animal Cushions and purses.

Here is a peak of it backing a couple of my "Mr FOX" cushions.

 

 

 

 

You can find the "MR FOX"  cushion in my online store

here

Right Now

 

 

 

 

 It has been a busy seven weeks since I last did a post.

I have been busy stocking stores with my designs and

some great things have happened along the way.

 

One of my "Mr Fox" Hotwater Bottle Covers was given as a gift on 

National Television on a programme called "STORY".

This was most exciting for me. 

A big Thank you to all the people that ordered covers off of me after seeing Mr Fox on TV.

 

Master O is now in his 3rd week at a small Steiner Home school of seven children.

He is absolutely loving it and wakes up every morning singing.

This is a bit of a change for us as two days a week he finishes at 1pm 

and another two days he finishes at 2pm. 

So I have made a work space for him in my studio where he sits and does

 homework while I sew away.

I am really enjoying this afternoon time with him.

New designs have been happening.

Little Kiwi's are popping up on Hotwater Bottle Covers, Ipad Cases and Purses.

All year my wonderful mother and I have been sewing Pixies for Christmas.

The first 20 Pixies went out to a store today and another 20 are off to Wellington tomorrow.

The silly season is about to start.

 

So even though I have not been blogging so much of late, I am here in the studio working away.

I leave you with this lovely quote that I read the other day.

 

Mooses

Behind the scenes alot has been happening the last few weeks.

I live in a bungalow built in the 1920's that over the past 10  years we have been slowly doing up.

Just last week we had painters and plasters in to plaster and paint my studio and our bedroom.

Our lounge looked like "Hoarders are us" with all the stuff from my studio and our bedroom stored in there.

Master O and I left Mr O and the tradesmen too it and took off to the Bay of Plenty for 6 days to visit with family. 

We took Lucca our lovely puppy with us and introduced him to the beach.

He is so our dog, he just loves the beach.

I am now home, I spent yesterday moving everything back into my studio space. 

I still have boxes to unpack but it is so lovely.

Before I went away I had a baby shower to attend for a dear friend who is having a little boy in September.

I wanted to make a new design on my large nappy case (or it can be used as an Ipad case)

My friend loves Turtles and I sat down with this in mind.

But I came up with something completely different!

A Moose Head with a little bird.

I blame it all on the fabric that I found to line the case with.

It has Turtles and Moose in the design and the Moose won out!

I was so inspired that I made a few more designs and they are now loaded in my online store.

More is happening but thats a blog for another day as those boxes are needing unpacking.

I leave you with this lovely note I found the other day.

Right Now I am Grateful for

The last few months have been busy to say the least so I thought I would do a right now post to give you a peak at life at Alex O:

* MR O was overseas for 3 weeks in April then back for a week then away for 3 weeks in May then back for a week then away for a week. He is now home for a while and its great to be a whole family again.
I am grateful for being together.

* In a crazy moment I agreed to get a puppy! Who is an absolute joy and he has now been a  part of our family for 6 weeks. But in those early days he had me up 3 times a night.  The last 6 weeks I have lived on 5-6 hours sleep a night. I will confess that I was very naive about all involved with having a puppy.
But for all the drama he is so worth it and he now sleeps through the night.
Right now I am so grateful for more than 6 hours sleep a night and this beautiful fellow in my life.

Here is Lucca

* I finally after years of being asked do you have a logo had a lovely logo designed to go on the bottom of my pixie bases. I am so grateful to have this off of my to do list.

* I was mad busy sewing in May. My sales were up 33% on the previous May so thank you to all my wonderful customers I am so grateful for you. Here are some designs that I worked on in the last few weeks.

* I am grateful for customer orders as they often get me sewing things that I had not thought of sewing
and they stretch and grow my creative process. Just like this order I did for a client who provided me with this orange and brown blanket which to be honest is not one I would usually choose but I love how the Hottie Covers have turned out.

* I am so grateful for my Happiness Project group, the ladies are all so supportive and encouraging and we are all getting so much out of the group.
Some things that have changed in my life:
I exercise more and because of it I feel great.
I am taking the time to appreciate people more and this is so fulfilling for all involved.
I have in the last few months managed to declutter my house (this is still a work in progress)
I am achieving 1 or 2 things a month on my to do list of things that I am forever putting off such as cleaning the oven, mulching the garden. I feel great when I achieve one of these things.
The list goes on of things I have tried, some successful and some not but it is a great process to think about "What makes you happy? and What does not make you happy?" and either bring these things into your life or getting rid of these things.
If you want to know more refer to Gretin Rubin here.

* I designed a new range of purses that I am loving making

So life is good and I am grateful for so many things.

What are you grateful for right now?

Behind the scenes

When the cats away the mice will play.

And play we have.

Mr O has been away for a number of weeks with work so I have had 

Master O all to myself.

Master O is now twelve and he is such fun to hang out with.

We have had adventures together and done things we would normally never do.

The other night we played cards all through dinner and had a great laugh.

We have played numerous board games, cricket games, 

shot hoops, made pancakes and the list goes on.

Master O has even started making me smoothies for breakfast each day

(some a bit yummier than others)

They are all simple things but it has been so fun to have these few weeks on a 

constant mother, son date.

I have also been sewing.

Some of my regular popular designs and some new.

 "Foxes"

"Scottie Dogs"

The " Leaf  " purses are a new design.

Some of the designs have already gone out to stockists,

but I will try over the next few days to load 

any of the above designs that I have in stock in my online store.

Aooh!

This is quiet a hard blog post to write but I will do my best.

I started University

 I was up every morning at 6m organising my life, Master O's life and my house.

I would drop Master O at school and go straight to University.

I would study and attend lectures till it was time to collect Master O and then we would go to 

maths tuition, swimming, basketball, cricket practise.

Rush home to do dinner, homework,  the night time routine 

and I would then study again till 10.30pm.

I found myself talking about getting a house cleaner, 

I was looking at school holiday programmes for Master O, 

I was thinking of ways to get out of weekend family events so I could study.

My wonderful husband was helping as much as he could but he was also away with work

on some occasion's.

I found myself withdrawing from my family.

When I was home I was not really present as I was all in my head. 

Thinking about all the things I had learnt and all the things I needed to learn.

In 3 weeks of University I had 3 migraines , which is an all time record for me.

I sat down one night and had a family meeting with my boys.

Master O said "I did not seem as happy as I normally was".

Mr O who has been nothing but supportive when I asked him to be honest with me said 

"That he felt the University had stolen me and he wanted me back".

I realised that I wanted my family life back too.

So I withdrew from University as I realised that now is not the time for me to do this.

I may go back next semester and do a paper or two at a time if that is do able with

our life style.

So suddenly I am plan less but I am okay with that as I know it was the right decision for now.

The day after I withdrew I had two new shops email asking me if they could stock my designs.

So for now I am back in my sewing room and I must confess after weeks of not sewing 

I am happy to be back amongst all my felt.

I am leaving you with a quote from Gretchen Rubin that resonated with me.

To be happy:

"I need to know myself, accept myself and build a life on the foundation of my nature"

New Beginnings

Its been so long but I am still here.

Thank you if you are still following me.

Last year was a crazy busy year.

I don't think I have ever had such a crazy year.

I was working 20 hours a week as a vision therapist from 8am to 12pm daily.

Then I was rushing home and sewing till Master O came home.

Then sewing again once he went to bed.

We knew at the start of 2014 that Mr O would be made redundant at the end of 2014.

He does quiet a specialised job so we had to look at many options.

Moving overseas, moving to another part of New Zealand, maybe downsizing and doing some

retraining or more in depth training for one or both of us.
It made us really look at what we wanted to do with our life's.

The uncertainty of the future meant that I decided not to actively grow my sewing business.

But each month I had more shops approaching me wanting to stock my designs.

So Adventures of Alex O grew and grew.

My retired parents started working for me and they were amazing.

But I came to the realisation that as much as I loved sewing I did not want to be at home alone sewing all day every day.

I also handed in my notice as a vision therapist as I felt after
 two and half years it was time to move on.

It was a scary thing to do when I had no idea if Mr  O would have a job in 2015.

Mr O went out of his comfort zone and approached a company that he wanted to work for
 that are not even based here in NZ.

They snapped him up (Yippee!) and he is now working for them from home and commuting to the States every 6-8 weeks when needed.

With all this going on I read an amazing book called

"The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin.

And I realised I needed to start my own happiness journey.

 So I decided to fulfill one of my dreams by applying to go to 

University to study to become a pediatric occupational therapist.
Great news they accepted me and I start in March.

I have also formed a "Happiness Project group" with seven other lovely ladies and we have

our first meeting next week. 

Which I am very excited about.

So some big new beginnings in 2015 for Mr O and I.

What does this mean for Alex O & Co?

I will still be sewing as it is such a part of me and it brings me much joy.
But I will have to down scale how much I produce.

Wednesday was my first day back in the studio after 6 weeks holiday.

I now have a month before I start University so I plan do design some new designs

and get my creative juices flowing.
I also have to finish some orders that came in over my break period.
Here is one of them that I just finished today.
It is on a larger cushion than normal
the cushion is a size 16 (41 x 41 cm) I think it came out looking great.

 

Life is changing for me and I am very excited and nervous at the same time
bit like this little Panda cushion that I made for a friend just before Christmas.

My aim for 2015 is to blog at least once a month.
So please don't give up on me I am still here.