Happy Festive Season!

With the last print of the year, the last pillowcase and the last cushion all done, we bid adieu to the studio and Florence for the holiday period. Thank you everyone for all of your support this year, what an amazing year!

We have lots planned for next year, and it all kicks off in February. A collaborative project at the NGV, the 2012 Food and Wine Festival, our shop opening, it’s a massive start to the year and we can’t wait to get started.

We’ll be back on board Wed 18th Jan. See you on the flip side!

{cushion by Opik Oort}

Three Thousand

Thanks to the team at Three Thousand for the fabulous write up!

Today is the day…

With 2011 coming to a close, our attentions are looking to 2012 with excitement and vigour. There are many projects and collaborations in the planning. But as for right now? SEIZE THE DAY! We just put the Frankie and Swiss website up. We look forward to working with everyone and thank all those who have been with us on the set up journey so far!

{Below is a little sneak peak of a project in 2012, a collaboration with Dawn Tan and Shelley Panton for the 2012 Melbourne Food and Wine Festival. If you look closely, you can see the weave of this 100% linen, it’s really beautiful}

'Bird and Bush' Teepee by Leila Sanderson

We're just a little bit excited about Leila Sanderson's new teepee for Greg Hatton! Leila is such a talented lady, her original hand drawn sketches form the basis of the teepee printed panels. A few months ago, Leila popped into the studio with a bevy of beautiful hand drawn motif's.

There was all types of flavours, from deco all the way to whimsical. After the motif to form the basis of the design was chosen, it was transformed into this amazing decorated panel based around Leila's idea of the design fading upwards.

The teepee is made from a beautiful organic canvas with printed panels on both sides and a little printed pocket inside.

Greg Hatton is having an open day up at the Newstead Butter Factory from where he and Leila work THIS SATURDAY AND SUNDAY!  There will be teepee's, willow chairs, and all sorts of other assortments of furniture.

Dawn's Funny Meaty Pillowcases

Fancy a sausage, bacon, and other various cuts pillowcase to sleep on? Dawn Tan does!

 I first met Dawn a few years back now, when this crazy digital printing idea popped into my head. And ever since, she's been so enthusiastic about experimenting with her artwork and textiles. She's pretty much a superwoman - painting, blogging, running kids and adults art workshops and art birthday parties, running her shop, whizzing off to Singapore, Finders Keepers markets, Markit markets and on and on.

Wall Painting at Obus

And we're all very excited as there's a very secret squirrel project that we're working on at the moment. All will be revealed soon!

Visit Dawn's shop to get yourself a meaty pillowcase and beautiful prints (and burger plates and french fries cups)!

The Ultimate Geek Quilt

Quilter extraordinaire Andi from PatchAndi came into the studio the other day and we printed up a huge periodic table! All the elements from Ununtrium to Ruthenium and back.

Her son had asked for a periodic table quilt and with a little help from that talented Cindy , we were ready to go. It's turned out amazingly!

Betty’s Wall

Have you heard about Betty? She’s opening a shop in Elsternwick in November. We’re pretty excited over here as that’s our neck of the woods! We can see we’ll be spending quite a bit of time at Betty’s! Especially….because of a very special wall, decoupaged entirely with vintage newspaper and other ephemera. Now, when Flo heard about this, she got very excited – imagine cushions made from a photo of Betty’s wall! She got printing – and cushions are on the way, to take their place right there in front of Betty’s wall.

Go visit Betty here and you’ll find other handmade cushions fashioned out of vintage tea towels, unique jewellery, vintage clothes, framed illustrations and prints, vintage fabrics, craft and DIY books, one-off vintage treasures and interesting bric a brac.
Can’t wait to meet her!

A Week of Epic Efforts

Dress made by Cindy from Bug and Pop. Design based on ‘Lemon Spaghetti’ by Dawn Tan. Printed by Frankie and Swiss.

I know someone who stayed up until 1 o’clock in the morning to finish off sewing a little girls dress, and some monkey pants and a bib (more on this later). This was after a full days work. In the evenings prior to this (again after a full days work), she sewed up a beautiful dress. This is Cindy from Bug and Pop. I also know a very talented artist, Dawn Tan, an amazing person in general, who has been super enthusiastic about experimenting with her artwork in textile format. The result of our little 3 leaf clover collaboration is this wonderful dress. That mannequin will not be wearing it for long, Cindy, Dawn and I are going to have to draw straws!

In other news, our new ebay vintage couch fell apart :(

Creative Womens Circle

Frankie and Swiss hosted the Creative Womens Circle on the weekend. There were 50 ladies present listening intently to Shelley Panton as she spoke about her background, creative processes and plans. As usual, the CWC event provided wonderful insights into the trials and tribulations of being successful creative women. Inspirational lady.

Beautiful wares from Shelley’s shop in Middle Park.

Some lovely ladies volunteered baked goods for offer at the end of Shelley’s talk, a big thanks to Clare from Victor Fox, Bianca from Miki.o and Jen from Love JK and Jac’s mother in law!



And a big thanks to Alex Parker who took these wonderful photos of the morning. Thanks Alex!

Thursday night

We held a little Thursday night sewing session last week. Mary whipped up the colour chart cushions - they’re actually the fabric colour charts that assist in choosing colours for colouring designs, a great fabric in themselves!

Colour book cushions made by Mary from  Chicken Flower Tots. cmyk colour book fabric from Frankie and Swiss.

And then there was Magdalena from The Craft Revival who made the cutest coasters I’ve ever seen. The looked so beautiful on the morning tea table at the Creative Womens Circle event. Magdalena has THE most exciting project underway, I can’t wait for the big reveal. It’s going to be so fantastic – and I got a sneak peak the other day. Lucky me!

Coasters made by Magdalena from The Craft Revival. Design by Clare from Victor Fox. Printed by Frankie and Swiss

And Cindy gets another mention as she also sewed pants and matching bib (complete with yellow button to match the yellow hanger, LOVE her attention to detail!) and a little dress. Adorable, so adorable! The lovely lady who designed the fabric is Jen Henderson, another fellow Southside Brown Owl.

Little people things made by Cindy from Bug and Pop. Design by Jen Henderson.

Unusual dress prints

We're hosting a sewing bee this Thursday night as the prelude to hosting the Creative Womens Circle on Saturday. Cindy from Bugandpop will be sewing this little number. The design in the top dress is a reworked repeat based on the lovely Dawn Tan's Lemon Spaghetti illustration. It's a very very unusual print, unique and one of a kind.

This design didn't make it to the print room. Maybe another time...

Instant mosaic!

A screen shot of the iphone camera roll!

Rowena Martinich

So, it's no secret that we love Rowena's work. Not only is she a super talented artist, but she's also a really lovely person as well. So we are so very excited to announce the launch of our textile company with an opening exhibition and textile collaberation with Rowena! I am so excited about collaberating with her to create a a series of textile prints and cushions. “Colour Storm” will be available through our shopfront very soon and also selected bricks and mortor shops like Hut 13 in Armadale.

Design Made Trade - Rowena setting up

Granny Squares!

I’ve known Cam from Curlypops since around 2008 and I believe she is one of the most inspiration people I know. She has a mighty spirit and in situations where others might give up or lack determination, Cam goes the other way!

Cam has been super supportive and enthusiastic about this little printing business idea right from the beginning. And she was our very first customer:) Thanks Cam, you’re the best.

Good Girl Flo!

Quickly checking in to say Flo did a great job today – an amazing print on a beautiful creamy organic cotton/hemp blend. Good girl, Flo!

Sneak Peak

This is a sneak peak of an upcoming collab with public artist Rowena Martinich. We had such a ball running around the studio taking about a million photos! Rowena is quite an amazing gal – she’s showing at Design Made Trade over the next 4 days and has a solo exhibition starting next Friday. Get along to either if you can!

Flo, our textile printer, is behaving herself nicely and I nearly have the businessy back office type stuff under control. And after being Facebook challenged for a very long time, I even managed to set up a Frankie and Swiss page!

The Arrival of Florence

The past few days have flown by in a whirlwind of activity, organising, nail biting and excitement. Flo arrived on Wednesday, I was there at 630am to meet her. There was a truck, there was a crane, there was 4 men and me, there was 2 locksmiths to remove the plate glass door and there was lots of coffee.
There was a few tense situations, like the talk of the entire glass frontage of the building shattering when Florence leaned a little too much to the left. A few false starts and with 2.5cm each side to clear, she made it through the door opening and into the studio.
So she’s here! But not yet ready for her debut. She’s in hair and makeup at the moment. Jac and I are itching to begin our first project. And of course, we cant wait to see the designs coming through from all the super talented peeps around town :) Hello (*waving arms*) to all the lovely gals who have already emailed me! We’re super excited to be working with you!
I'll get the website up and running soon which will detail how this little textile studio is going to work. You know, file specs required, sizes etc. That kind of thing. So, here’s Flo’s email if you want to email her : florence[at]frankieandswiss.com.au. Oh, and here’s her Twitter : https://twitter.com/#!/FrankieAndSwiss
And thats it for now.