Warm and Wooly Scarves

Helter Skelter Hand-knitted Scarves

These little beauties are lovely, warm, chunky knitted scarves,  They are made by me,  in front of the telly, with an enormous pair of knitting needles.

They are designed specifically for little girls and boys, aged 3 and beyond.  They're not too big, so as not to overwhelm those of smaller stature, but I've worn one myself and quite liked the dainty, mini-scarf look.

You can check them out at one of our upcoming craft fairs, where you might well get all your Christmas shopping done at once.  Wouldn't that be nice?

I'll be back to blog again in a little while about our Christmas plans and where you can find our stall in the near future.

xx Jane

Domino badges! Our new best seller

Although we loved the idea from the start, we weren't expecting these cute domino badges to be the star of our last market day.

They're bright and colourful and liven up a winter coat.  We discovered that badges are (still) all the rage with teenage girls.  We had scores of lasses fussing over our big jar of badges, picking out the right combination of their favourite colour and number.

Other customers included a doting aunt, who wanted to come away from the market with something for each of her nieces.  She selected a badge showing enough dots to represent each girl's age, which struck us as a great selling point.  Another shopper was a grandmother wanting a gift small enough to fit into an envelope.

Meanwhile, we are intending to wear them ourselves,  five or six at a time, down the front of a plain jacket, or pinned to a shopping tote.

They come in an array of number combinations, up to 12 and you can chose from one of six colours:

• classic black
• red
• yellow
• orange
• pea green
• cobolt blue

We haven't listed these on Etsy or Folksy yet, so if you'd like to purchase one for the tiny price of £2 (plus postage) contact us on helterskelterkids@gmail.com

We're working on more domino stuff, so watch this space if you love a bit of fun, retro-style jewellery.

xx Jane and Sliz

So Long Summer!

 As summer slips away, my garden wall turns this ravishing shade of red and signals that the chill is on its way.  Elsewhere in the world, blossoms are opening and rafts of people are looking forward to feeling their toes in the warm beach sand or an afternoon ice cream.  

While I'm a little bit envious of those folks, it seems that autumn is going to be a very busy time for our fledgling craft business.  The autumn months are the Christmas shopping months and we're trying to get prepared.  We've got to get ourselves signed up for local markets and get our pencils out to design Christmas gifts and decorations.  Then there is our clothing to think about.  Is it suitable for winter?  Our lovely apron dresses can be dressed up warm, but we'd love to add another dress with long sleeves in a cosy fabric for the colder months.  

And what about the new things we've been making that I haven't even mentioned to you yet?  We've got bags and brooches, cosy scarves and cushions.  Details about all of these will follow this week, as I'm making a pledge to you now, patient reader, to blog every night until we're all up to date.  That is assuming, of course, that my own Helter Skelter kids keep their little eyes closed in their beds during the evenings.  

So to those of you pulling on your jumpers and cardigans, enjoy these autumnal days and for those of you enduring spring showers (if you are), you lucky ducks!

xx Helter Skelter Jane

Sewing Mania and the Craft Fair

Before Sliz and I joined forces I'd been talking to friends and family, trying to gauge whether my sewing ambitions were sensible and if other people thought I might be able to make a living out of it.  One kind and supportive friend suggested I participate in the local fair she'd been helping to organise at our local toy library.  Preparations were underway at the time, but the fair was still months off and it seemed like a great motivator to kick start this little business.

And so our first deadline was set.

Teaming up with Sliz was great because it simultaneously gave the business focus, while broadening its horizons.  Now Sliz had other stuff to keep her busy, over and above caring for her family.  She was already sewing to supplement the household income, plus she was (and is still) managing a pile of duties for an exciting pop up restaurant at the Glastonbury Festival later in the summer.  So she offered to make a start to our partnership by helping out on the day of the market and manning the stall.  That didn't last for long because she was fabric shopping and assuming the sewing position behind her machine. 

Two weeks before the fair we were confident that we had enough time and stamina to get all our stock sewn and our stall looking good, but that's when the universe started throwing obstacles our way.

To begin with a nasty tummy bug hit Casa Sliz, leaving all of her family laid up in bed (including their visiting grandparents).  There were teething babies, explosive nappies and needy toddlers.  Both our husbands left town on pre-arranged business, while the volcanic ash from and Icelandic eruption threatened not to bring one back on time.  A great piece of marketing for the Glastonbury restaurant meant that Sliz' admin work mushroomed overnight.  Then the tummy bug came to my house.  Our fabric was delivered late.  My sewing machine broke down.  I cried.  All the while, our nights saw us sewing late, late into the night and our days were spent on short fuses for having gotten by on too little sleep.

The night before the craft fair we gathered around the kitchen table, amazed that we'd reached our goal of sewing 30 of our lovely little apron dresses (more about them in another post) and matching bloomers. 

The fair was a success!  We made a few sales, but more importantly, we'd been able to to talk directly to our customers and understand what they'd like from a label like ours.  So far, what we'd produced were pretty dresses for baby girls, which garnered lots of admiration.  What we found, though, were plenty of parents saying "What about something for boys?".  Then some said "I have an older daughter who would love to wear a dress like that" or "Do you have a website?".  Not so much food for thought, but more of a feast. 

After a week of intense sewing and stressing we decided to relax, or at least that was the intention.  We couldn't stop ourselves brains from whirring in fast forward though, so much to plan, so much to do!