New Applique Project

First off, I am very excited that Fishnoodles will be appearing in The Spotted Box in January 2008. (Whoa! 2008 already ?!?) This appearance will introduce something new....ta dum...no-sew appliques. I love making appliques! I will be creating some painted & silkscreened multi-color, multi-fabric appliques. Anyone can use these to decorate just about anything you can put a hot iron to--tee shirts (of course), pants, sweatshirts, hats, tote bags, placemats, even paper for scrapbooking, cards, or a little framed picture. The fabric is backed with an adhsive that attaches easily, permanently, and can go through the wash, no problemo. Here's a sneak peek of a little tester I made for my little one.

Influences

What influences me in dreaming up new designs?

 

• Art from all different eras and cultures...(I happen to have a master's in art history)
• The drawings of my six-year-old
• Customer requests and suggestions, like the Frog and the Rock Star (guitar)
• My husband (the Baby Pirate)
• My sister (She's So Koi)
• And my own childhood memories and loves...storybooks, fishing, dogs, horses, hippie symbols like peace signs and rainbows, gardening...

 

To be perfectly honest, sometimes a design is something I personally don't really groove with, but I think other people would like it. Ya gotta give the people what they want!

Thanks, Dad!

My Dad grew up fishing with his Dad and when he had us girls, he took us fishing too. We loved it--getting to eat chips and drink pop, sitting in the rowboat on a quiet lake as the sun went down, driving home listening to the radio in the dark. When we did get a nibble on the line, or even catch something, the fish were usually bluegill. The others I remember were sunfish, croppie, perhaps even a catfish or a bass, but mostly they were bluegill.

There was no such thing as catch and release; if the fish were big enough they were to eat. Dad would clean and fillet them, and pack them in onion slices. We would eat them breaded and fried and they were delicious. (Not once did we think about pesticides draining into those Indiana farm ponds.)

Every once in a while I take my kids fishing, but it's never the serious matter it was with Dad. We don't prepare to be out for hours, stop for worms on the way, or rent a rowboat from a farmer. I just throw a miniture tackle box and a couple of toy sized rods in the trunk and we go over to the park to see if we can get a nibble on corn. Any fish we do manage to catch is tiny; the kids quickly admire it and I toss it back. But even here, it is still, invariably, a bluegill.

For this most recent shirt I had wonderful success with a blue crystal wash dye job--it looks just like sparkling water. Some sort of fish was a natural addition...and thinking about that most friendly and familiar fish, I decided to start with the shape of a bluegill. Bluegill spend the winter under the frozen surface of ponds, so I gave these some plaid flannel coats.

I'm so lucky Dad continued his hobby after he had us kids and was willing to include us. Thanks, Dad!

My view on children's wear: A rant

Today I went shopping as my son needed some new shirts. I had made him several tye dies that he likes, and he has his prized Star Wars shirt, but he still needed a few more for fall. He likes bright colors, graphics, no stripes. Unfortunately the boys' 8-20 departments are full of grey, navy and camoflage; sports and vehicles reign surpreme. I found an orange shirt with an ironic saying that wasn't too obnoxious. A bright blue shirt with an athletic figure. They were the best of the bad. Overall, today's boys' wear is full of violent and sarcastic themes, and downright ugly.

Glancing over at the girls' department for some comparative research, a wall of cream, pink and red assaulted me. The themes were mainly of self-centeredness: princess, love to shop; and the usual girly hearts and flowers. One shirt made me laugh: "Dear Santa, GIMME" Seemly it captured toddler greed--or at least our stereotyped view of small children. In actuality, little ones who have been sensitively tended to are quite kind and generous.

All in all, children's wear has become gender-specfic to the extreme. I find the current store offerings horrible. Surely the pedulum must someday swing the other way, and I suppose I should stockpile some of my own creations for that happy day. I do notice that my more gender-specific tees sell much better than those that are more ambiguous. But I most enjoy designing items that seem to me to be more universal.

I just love this shirt, my most recent offering. It probably bothers some people that the child in this photo is not clearly visually designated as male or female. [Delicate arched eyebrows=female, short hair=male, blue pants=male, but such a bright blue, maybe female???] The shirt itself says "Peace" and shows a lamb and lion resting together--by current standards, clearly "feminine" themes--but on a "masculine" black shirt, and no pink to make that black shirt okay.

I guess this shirt is my counter-argument to what I see in the stores. A world of tolerance, not violence; people [and creatures] living in harmony; nature, not trucks (for boys) and trinkets (for girls); children getting to be children, not sexualized before their time; a spiritual theme over materialistic ones. Perhaps no one will want it, or just very few. Still, at least I have the one for my daughter, pictured above.

Danger Zone!

These diapers and covers featuring warning symbols are the brainchild of my in-house muse, my dear husband Ehren. He is great at coming up with fresh concepts and thinks these will really appeal to daddies. Or anyone with an offbeat sense of humor!

I think it's because he spends part of his day in a chemistry lab where there are all kinds of warning symbols on things. I also have to give special thanks to Leah of Whiffy Bean Bags for naming this collection "Danger Zone."

I have future plans for doing ones with the Flammable [Gas] symbol and the Explosive symbol.

Customs, Quantities, Confusion!

One of the most difficult things I have had to face as a micro-businessperson is how much to stock. I am not JC Penney--I cannot possibly have every design available in every size all the time. So lately, when I've started making a new design, I have been troubled by not knowing whether or how much interest there would be. What should I make?

I have tried to deal with this by making at least one of each type of item in each size for every new design. But now with pocket diapers, side snap covers, and pull on covers...plus shirts for sets or to wear alone...it has become increasingly difficult to make one in each size of everything. Or to guess which designs will be most popular in which sizes.

My stockings have gotten more boring too--for me and my customers, I'm sure. In an attempt to make one of each style/size, I end up painting the same thing over and over. My stockings are a huge batch of all the same thing. Not very interesting.

So, time for a new system. As always, it's DH to the rescue in helping me think this through. Why don't you just paint one, he says, and then take preorders? That way you can make just what those people want, instead of hoping for buyers for what you've already made. So right! That's what I'm going to do, starting this week's stocking on the 16th of November.

I'm hoping that this will also free me up to do more custom work. That has always been difficult because I've had so many (self-assigned) large quantity jobs to work on. Also, with a pre-order, if someone has a particular request, I can accommodate that. For instance, if I've put brown eyes but you'd rather have them blue, no problem! Or if your baby has huge thighs, I can sew the leg openings looser on your cover.

I'm looking forward to making this change that will, I hope, allow me to be much more interactive with all of the fantastic cloth diapering mamas out there who have made my little business such a pleasure.

Gingerbread Man and the Design Process

How do I take my designs from a concept in my head to the painted garment? Usually it all begins with a bunch of sketches on random scraps of paper, like the margins of papers the kids bring home from school. The one for this week that I had been mulling over for a long time is the running gingerbread man from the fairy tale. This would be good for November, when holiday themes like gingerbread would resonate well, but could be worn any time of year.

I re-read the story and sketched the gingerbread man being chased by the cow and the pig. But I wasn't sure I liked that concept, so I tapped one of my main resources--my six year old. I asked her to draw the story for me and she did a great job: she drew the start (house, man and woman), the gingerbread man, and the end (wolf , river). Perfect! So then I drew my version of her sketch.

Once I had a sketch I liked, I scanned it in to the computer so that I could make it the eventual size I wanted to paint. Then I printed that and put it on a light box to make a clean ink tracing. This becames my pattern for the painting.

Sometimes I know what colors I want to use, other times I color it a few different ways to try out color ideas. The best part is seeing the final design on fabric. It looks different wet and dry, when the paint meshes with the underlying fabric color. Even with all my preparation, the final result is always a surprise even to me.

Starting Out, And How I Got Here

It's been a year since I started my business venture, just shy of 40 and with a newborn in tow. Looking back now and reflecting, it's been quite fun to see how it has taken off. If you want the details, read on.

I had been cloth diapering for years - my first two kids and then a late entry third little darling. Somehow, in those final days of that last pregnancy, I got a wild hair and started sewing pocket diapers for the new baby-to-be. Not just a few, oh no. I sat on a hard lab stool sewing for hours, cutting fabric next to the basement washer and dryer, picking out stitches with the seam ripper in front of the TV...until I had about 30 pocket diapers ready to go. It really took my mind off early labor!

I remember making the first few diapers from fabric ordered online (none of this diaper making stuff is sold in b&m stores) and then desperately checking the UPS tracking site for the next fabric shipment, and then the next after that, hoping the fabric would arrive before the baby did.

Amazingly, it was all a success. The diapers worked! The baby was dry and happy and growing. When time came to make a new fleet of size mediums, I started contemplating opening my own diaper shop. I have always wanted to have my own business but never had a concrete idea for a product. So I started in with drafting my own patterns. I did at least 10 versions of size medium, probably more. Each day I would change the pattern, just to see what would happen, sew the diaper, and then pop it on when baby woke from her nap. (The final patterns were scaled up and down from the medium and then adjusted and tweaked over time.)

As I came closer to opening shop, I had a chat with my sister, who is not the least bit into cloth diapering, about my store idea. She has a great logical mind and of course asked the obvious question: "So nobody else is doing this [selling pocket diapers]?" Um, no, lots of people are. "So, what's going to make you different? Why should they buy from you?" Hmm...why indeed?

I realized then that a great pattern wasn't going to be enough. Lots of people have great patterns. And fresh color combos for the pocket inner and outer weren't going to be enough. Others were doing that, too. Bummer! I mediated on this for a few weeks. Started looking into whether fabric paint would really stick to the waterproof outer fabric. In addition to sewing, my other great love has been painting. It didn't immediately occur to me to combine the two, I was just pushed there.

This lead me to several months more experimentation and testing, calls to manufacturers, much frustration and a few critical sucesses. Eventually Painted Patootie was born, and opened shop on Hyena Cart. The photo above is one of my first diapers, made in fall 2006.

My goal was to sell 1 diaper the first month. I sold 12. I started having repeat customers. Getting friendly emails. What an amazing ego boost! Heck, who cares if the bathroom gets cleaned? I've got diapers to paint!

A few months later, customers were asking about matching shirts for their diapers. What a good idea! (Most of "my" best ideas actually come from my customers or my DH.) I'll just do it! I took orders. The paint bled, it smeared, and I ruined many $$ worth of tshirts. I sent back some sad emails and refunds. I found painting shirts to be very annoying at first--cotton takes paint entirely differently from polyester knit and there was a whole new learning curve to be had.

I started reading online shirt making forums and got a whole new education. In time, painting shirts became a nice change of pace--someone else already did the sewing, so after it is painted and cured, off it goes. Naturally I couldn't leave well enough alone and had to test shirts from every manufacturer of infant blanks on the market to find the best ones.

And hey, why just paint? How about dye? My family has quite a few *ahem* lovely, for home use only, shirts from my learning-to-tie-dye period. That part got better after a while, too. I've even gotten pretty decent at using color theory to mix my own dye shades to match diaper fabrics. Then, I could paint the dyed shirts. Or applique! Or paint fabric and then applique the painted fabric on to the shirt!

And why just pocket diapers? How about covers? Time to draft some new patterns, for pull on covers and side snap covers. More materials to source too--the best fold over elastics or bindings for the new lines of covers.

With the new items and especially with wanting to expand the shirt side of the business, it was time for a new name. Painted Patootie was still great for all things cloth diapering, but I had originally set it up legally as a "brand" of Fishnoodle Industries. (Fishnoodle because its a funny word, Industries because of Seinfeld's "Vandelay Industries"). So all the shirts became Fishnoodles. With the new, more versitile name, Fishnoodles is it, for all future growth and explorations.

And with that, I will close with a photo of my most recent Painted Patootie design and the coordinating Fishnoodles tee.