Welcome to the Indie Quarter!

So sorry for the gap between posts. I’ve been an Futuresonic / Social Technologies Summit. If you’re into techie stuff you can read my post here - www.vanillastorm.com/blog/2009/05/social-technologies-summit-futuresonic-09.

Posts to follow shortly.

Trompe l’oeil means to ‘trick the eye’ and is a theme that runs throughout the Showpony range. You’ll find hidden bugs in the folds of cushions and vintage images on modern shapes.

Items include shoppers, purses, wheat bags, tea towels and cushions. Where possible, organic and Fair Trade materials are used. This collection is inspired by honesty and poking fun at small details. Products are both functional and aesthetically pleasing.

To celebrate the launch of the new website Showpony is offering a 15% discount. Just enter ‘helloshowpony’ during the checkout process.

Go to www.showpony.co.uk.

Artist / illustrator Kerry Lemon paints her surroundings. She has a fondness for pattern and repetition, which is evident whether she’s capturing the scales of a lizard, the texture of a biscuit or tiles on a roof. She creates giclée prints from her hand drawn work, which are available to buy from galleries and her Etsy store.

And for more art chat, visit Kerry’s blog at http://kerrylemon.blogspot.com.

June 20 2009. Ancoats, Manchester. Be a part of the word’s first user generated event. Interested? Read on.

The Cutting Room Experiment is an afternoon of activities where every event has been created out of an idea from members of the public. Think mass participation. Think flash mobs.

An event will take place on the hour every hour and hundreds of people will be able take part. This could range from 100 people playing violins at once, to a mass poetry reading. People are invited to submit ideas under 10 different themes or categories that include art and craft, architecture and design, dance, literature, music, sport and science. Ideas are already flowing and suggestions range from ‘The Return of the Space Hopper’, to ‘Knitters Unite’ and ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies’.

The Cutting Room Experiment will be a completely unique event, where all activities programmed throughout the day are entirely up the audience. The website is set up so people can come up with their own ideas, vote for their favourite ideas and also post them to Twitter and Facebook to spread the word.

Friday, May 29 is the deadline for idea generation and voting, and the actual events will be announced the following week. The idea leader and Ear to the Ground then have a month to make it happen ready for the event on June 20.

Visit www.cuttingroomexperiment.com for more info and to submit your ideas.
Twitter: www.twitter.com/cuttingroomexp

Since graduating from Chelsea College of Art, Anita Quansah has been developing and promoting recycled textiles. Working within the fashion industry, she has collaborated with some of the leading design houses, including Christian Lacroix and DKNY.

If you look closely at her work you can see a number of influences - Monet, Gustav Klimt and Robert John Thornton. Recurring themes include florals, the garden and nature. Combining various techniques including appliqué and hand and machine embroidery, Anita creates unusual and unexpected effects - her floral designs appearing to float on the fabric.

To see more, visit www.anitaquansah.com.

Craft Candy is are proud to present Candyfloss - a superb summer craft fair!

Building on the success of our Spring Fling craft fair we are now taking bookings for Candyfloss which will feature over 30 stalls of art and craft, showcasing the best of Sheffield and beyond.

This time we are holding the fair in Sheffield’s gorgeous Millennium Gallery, the heart of art and craft in Sheffield.

All Craft Candy fairs sell only handmade items and feature a fantastic range of high quality contemporary craft from a variety of UK makers and artists.

Visit our website for further details and to book a stall online.

Candyfloss Summer Craft Fair
Saturday 18th July 09
10-4pm
Millennium Gallery, Sheffield

See you there!
Craft Candy xx

A fascinating day in the life of feature about Masao and Deanne from TokyoMade. If you’re not familiar with them already you should definitely check out their online shop. They sell a range of cool clothes, accessories and gifts all made by Tokyo based designers. And they have recently started a Flickr Group called TokyoMade Street Style.

Here’s their day.

We (Masao and Deanne) spend our days on Tokyo time which has a weird way of making life seem like there is only 5 hours in a day but 25 hours worth of excitement to get through, leaving very little time for sleep. Lucky for us we are both night owls, clicking away at the mouse until the very early hours of the morning.

Each day starts out quite early for Masao, he is usually up with his soy latte and a good book or fashion magazine sitting in the sun on our balcony well before I even entertain thoughts of the day. I usually spend a bit of bleary eyed time rolling around on the futon until I come to terms with what day it is and what a cool life I live here in this wild, illuminated city of Tokyo. Before long the day is underway for both of us and that usually means spending the morning glued to our Macs, checking in on orders, updates, emails, writing blogs and product descriptions etc.

Our office is designed so we sit side by side at a long white desk. Masao’s end looks neat, organised and efficient. Mine is none of those things but it is colorful and there is no end of things to look at and move around. We love the contrast and appreciate that we work in different ways, it is part of what keeps our spirits high while working, living and playing together. So while Masao clicks away in the admin area of TokyoMade checking orders, emails and site organisation at his neat and tidy work station I scribble blog ideas down on brightly colored paper and stare in wonder at the growing pile of gorgeous pieces I have to write product descriptions about.

The door bell rings most mornings, it is usually our delivery guy dropping off bits and pieces. The EMS postal system is superb here, super efficient. At any time between 9am and 7pm we call up the local post office and they come with their scales and pick up parcels to be sent around the world. All the weighing and paying gets done right in our genkan (the entrance to Japanese houses or apartments where the shoes are left). If we are not wrapped and packed by 7pm Masao usually jumps on his bike with TokyoMade packages and heads for the post office which is open 24 hours, the convenience of the system is extremely helpful.

After lunch is usually a good time for us to head out into the human traffic and have our meet ups in cafes and spaces around Tokyo. Masao spends a lot of his time connecting with Japanese designers and checking out interesting places around town. Most weeks he meets up with Guy Perryman, a Tokyo Radio DJ, together they interview TokyoMade designers and feature them on Guy’s radio program Tokyo Expresso.

Evenings are a mixture of events for us. I teach my Hoop Dance (www.hooplovers.com) classes or rehearse most nights while Masao checks out Tokyo’s events or comes home to work on both the English and Japanese versions of TokyoMade and whip up a mean veggie soup. The day comes full circle and we are usually back where it all started, glued to our Macs, by about 11pm every night. While it is usually time to put our bodies and computers to sleep by about 3am I don’t think we ever really switch off. You could say Masao is completely obsessed with TokyoMade, a healthy obsession! He definitely never switches off, I adore his passion and commitment. I have to admit I switch off while hoop dancing, my other love.

TokyoMade was a dream that we manifested together and now work endlessly on together. It is so exciting for us to watch it grow. We love working together on such a creative project and feel very lucky to be able to do so. The best thing about running a design hub is we get to meet so many talented designers here in Tokyo. The design events that we have to go to (it’s our job!) are pretty cool too. It feels great to know that we are sharing what we love here in Tokyo with the rest of the world. Setting our own schedule and being in charge of our own lives is definitely one of the perks of running an independent business.

There are some days when we spend so much time staring at our computer screens that we actually have to turn to each other and say, “Hi! Remember me?”. That is probably the least lovable thing about working on TokyoMade.

- - - - - -
Thank you Deanne and Masao.

Here are those links again:

TokyoMade - www.tokyomade.com
HoopLovers - www.hooplovers.com
TokyoMade Street Style Flickr Group - www.flickr.com/groups/tokyomade

Win tickets to the Clothes Show London with Connected Generation.

Over the past few weeks the Connected Generation trend spotters have noticed a re-emergence of the popular I heart t-shirts. This gave them the idea for a competition. They want you to put your own personal slant on this classic design and send it to Connected Generation via their website. The winning design will be put into production and sold on the Connected Generation website. In addition the winner will receive 3 tickets for The Clothes Show London at Excel on Friday 29th May, where they will also get to see their design go on sale!

For further details go to www.connectedgeneration.co.uk/blog/2009/05/i-heart-competitions.