Out with the old and in with the new.

Oooooh, I love a new year and this one has been off to such a great start!  On Sunday, I spent my first full day in the studio since early December. I changed the dropcloth for a fresh start, dreamed up a fun project for the old dropcloth (it won't be dropcloth art so if you're waiting for a new batch, I'll have some by the end of April for sure), made a start on my biggest ever wholesale order for amazing hat designer Little Noggi and wrapped up the flood of orders that have come in since Christmas. I'm super inspired to create new designs and finally retire some of my older ones, mix new colours, design some quilt kits and take some pretty photos along the way. I'm hoping to spend a few more evenings in the studio this week playing catch up (it's still school holidays here in Aus until the end of January, luckily my mom is here to help with the kids but I won't have a regular schedule until mid-February when kinder starts for my youngest) and then will be taking the 12th to the 19th off to hang with my family by the beach.

The shop will remain open but any orders placed from January 12th to the 19th will be shipped the following week.

I'll be taking my sketchbook with me and working on new designs - I really can't wait. I've also joined in on A Pattern A Day challenge for 2015 on Instagram, you can search the hashtag #2015apatternaday to see everyone's amazing entries (and you can find me at username mazeandvale on Instagram).

As for older designs, I've made the big decision to retire a few of them and a few more will follow throughout the year (to be decided). The ones which are not being reprinted are:

Gathering is one of my first designs and I'm just a little tired of it. It will still be available for custom/wholesale orders but I won't be reprinting it this year (unless I choose to use the print in a quilt kit but unlikely).

LoveHearts was actually just a bit of an experiment when I was playing with photo emulsion at home. The design was never really perfected but someone spotted it here on the blog and requested a custom printing of it and so I released it. It's been super popular, so much so that the screen is getting a bit stretched out, making misprints common (and annoying) I may redesign and rerelease it later this year but I have another hearts design in the works so, again, it's unlikely.

Stormy Weather has been one of my most popular prints and one of my first screens when I started screen printing in 2011. Unfortunately I dropped a metal ruler on this screen and ripped a big, irreparable, hole in it. The actual placement of the clouds could use a bit of work anyway so I'll redesign this one, change it up a bit, and get a new screen made. 

All of these discontinued designs are still available in limited quantities in the shop right now so snap them up if they are your favourites. Actually everything in the shop can be considered a limited edition as I hope to change the colours of most of the prints that exist there now. I've got over 2000 meters of certified organic cotton in offwhite and pale grey en route that should arrive next week and then will be having a massive printing marathon - yay!