Tag: Inexplicable Emporium

A bit more about the Emporium

bottles

I’ve been fiddling about with the idea behind Mr & Mrs Magpie’s Inexplicable Emporium for a couple of years now. It started off as a Steampunk Thing, then it was an Etsy shop… and now it’s something else.

vampire_blood

It’s a blog, written in the form of letters from Mr & Mrs Magpie to their friend Olaf. It also contains snippets of the lives of Mr & Mrs Magpie, and their friend Miss Mouse. (Other friends will follow, I’m sure.)

basilisk_venom

It’s also a shop, that will sell things that Mr & Mrs Magpie have brought back from their travels, as well as things that they’ve made. There won’t be products in the shop all the time – everything will be limited edition, and will have to wait for inspiration to strike.

venom_glow

My main focus, business-wise, is still going to be hats. I have a huge great list of different styles I want to make, and an accompanying list of hat blocks that I need to save up for. But having the Emporium around gives me more of a place to play.

fairy_dust

It’s more of an art project than anything else, really. The outcome can be just about anything I feel like, from little letters for the blog, to anything that the characters themselves might create. I’m making lots of notes, and imagining things about their everyday lives as well as the epic adventures they’ll no doubt undertake.

dragon_scales

I’m not in any great rush with this. In fact, by necessity it’ll have to be slow. Too much other stuff to do, as always. Work, hats, aromatherapy lessons, medical appointments, laundry. (Speaking of which…)

dust_scales

So all of this, really, is a very long-winded way of saying that Mr & Mrs Magpie’s (new-and-improved) Inexplicable Emporium is now open for business!

Oh, and there’s a new Facebook page too. Hope to see you there.

From my sick bed

14_10_toes

I’d only been back at work for about five minutes after my holiday when I came down with The Plague – otherwise known as the stinking cold that I catch every year when 3,500 new students arrive at the University. Usually my hyperactive immune system knocks me down flat for a couple of days, during which I stay in bed, and then I emerge feeling sorry for myself but generally well enough to go back to work. This time I was off work for a week, mostly because I had a cough but no voice, and was therefore pretty useless on a telephone and a reception desk. Once that week was over I assumed I’d be fine, but no. I went to see the doctor yesterday (about something unrelated, as it happened), and she immediately gave me a note for another week off work.

I’ve been spending a fair few nights awake, propped up on the sofa, to try and avoid keeping Paul awake with my terrible coughing. This has resulted in quite a lot of knitting being done, including learning a new technique. This nightmarish tangled mess, for which I do not currently have enough swear words, is two socks at the same time, on two circular needles. It only took me two goes to cast them both on the right way round, and I only knitted with the wrong needle (thereby finding myself trapped in an impossible loop) three or four times, so I think I’m getting the hang of it now. The toes are done, and I’m knitting my way slowly up the feet. (Very slowly, as these are for Paul, who has Very Big Feet.) I’m fairly certain I’m spending more time untangling the two balls of yarn than I am actually knitting, which is extremely frustrating, and makes the whole process seem very slow.

The yarn, by the way, is the “Sulley” colour way of Superwash sock from Woolly Wonders. It was supposed to be for me, but for the first time ever, Paul saw it in my knitting bag and quietly asked me whether it might turn into a pair of socks for him. Despite his size twelves, there was no way I could refuse… and I do have two other fantastically bright skeins (Carnival and Rainbow Sparkle) to knit socks for myself!

14_10_bottles

I’ve also been doing  a few bits and bobs for the new incarnation of Mr & Mrs Magpie’s Inexplicable Emporium. They’re explained (sort of) in the first blog post, and will be available in the shop as soon as the set is complete.

I have to confess to feeling horribly guilty about doing any kind of making while I’m off sick from my Proper Job. The thing is though, there are times when I’m genuinely not well enough to leave the house by 8am, speak to people all day, answer the telephone, concentrate on booking forms and looking after visitors… but I am well enough to sit at a table and quietly make something. (Well, I say quietly, but you haven’t heard this cough!) At home I can get up when I feel like it (except for Paul leaving to drive to a meeting at some ungodly hour this morning), I don’t have to speak to anyone, so my cough is slowly getting better, and if I want to pack everything away and go for a nap half way through the day, nobody will mind! If it was possible for me to do my Proper Job from home I’d be doing just that, but moving the museum’s reception desk to my house doesn’t seem terribly convenient. So, I’m mooching about, doing everything very slowly, and achieving what I can as I try to look after myself.

Desire To Fly from R&A Collaborations on Vimeo.

I’ve been reading a lot of blogs while I’ve been tucked up cosily on the sofa, looking in particular for artists who work with magic and fantasy and character. There are a whole bunch of people I could list (Mister Finch, The Pale Rook, and Amanda Louise Spayd, for a start), but I’ve been particularly enjoying the fairies of Samantha Bryan. I love the fact that she imagines a busy working life for her fairies – and then provides them with everything they might need to be successful. Absolutely wonderful!

There’s a bit of character-related work going on behind the scenes here, although it’s currently very firmly in the “thinking about it” stage. Lots of notes and lots of ideas, but absolutely nothing to show for it just yet. It’s related to the Emporium, in that I’m hoping to be able to bring Mr & Mrs Magpie to life a little bit… but it’s an ambitious project, so it’s sitting quietly in the background for now. We’ll see how it goes.

Making Changes

Right! Here we go. All of my sadly neglected Etsy listings have all now been moved into the Eternal Magpie Etsy Shop. It’s rather flooded with felt flower brooches and hair clips as the moment, which is emphasising the fact that I really need to take some new photos of those “in action”, so that people can get a better idea of what they’ll look like being worn.

I have some new hats drying on the blocks at the moment, so while I’m waiting for them to be ready I can have a good think about what kinds of trimmings I want to add to them. After several months off, it’ll be nice to have some new hats to work on!

I’ll also be getting rid of the sewing patterns and haberdashery altogether. Once their listings expire, that’s it, I’ll be taking them down to my local charity shop. They’re taking up space, they’re making the shop look untidy, and I’d rather they just went to a good home.

The Inexplicable Emporium on Etsy is now almost empty. I’m allowing the remaining listings to expire, and keeping up one post which explains where all the hats have gone! The reason for emptying this particular Etsy store is that I’ve started the process of moving it to its own domain. As a result, Mr & Mrs Magpie’s Inexplicable Emporium will have its own website, with a blog and a store, although it’s very much a work in progress at the moment. The purpose of moving this one away from Etsy was to allow us to have greater scope in the products that we’re able to offer. The ceramic oil burner, for example, goes perfectly with the soy wax tarts that I’m going to make. But because the burner isn’t hand made, I didn’t feel comfortable selling it on Etsy. (I know that I could probably have “got away with it”, under their new rules allowing third-party manufacture, but frankly I don’t think that’s what Etsy should be about. So there you go.)  There’s a lot of fiddling still to do (and a lot of blog posts and an entire back-story to write), but I will do a proper announcement when it’s all “officially” up and running.

It’s all slow progress, I know. But I am starting to feel as though it’s actual progress now, rather than just faffing about, so that must be good!

Fleecy Things

Fleece bolero

I had another mad day in the Etsy shop yesterday, this time listing three versions of this fleece bolero jacket, and three versions of the new top below. This afternoon I went out and bought some patterned fleece, so I can actually make and then take photos of the patterned versions that I’ve listed.

This is my own jacket, and it lives very firmly in my wardrobe. I love it, and it looks just as good with jeans and a t-shirt as it does with a smart dress. My friend Karen (whose wedding I made this outfit for) has the prototype, which is the same style but plain black. She says it “Makes me feel like some kind of thief/archer elf in a fantasy film!”, which is perfect because that’s exactly what it’s supposed to do!

The one change I’ve made to the design is to replace the hidden hooks and eyes with decorative frog fasteners – though I don’t have any pictures of those yet. The one problem with this jacket is the hooks and eyes slipping open as you move around, and the frogs won’t allow that to happen. Much better.

It’s now available to order in plain fleece, patterned fleece, and organic cotton sweatshirting.

Fleece drape top

This is a new top I made to wear to work, last week or the week before. It’s always cold on the reception desk, so I wanted it to have a high neck at the back to keep me warm. I also wanted to be able to wear layers underneath it without feeling constricted, so it’s longish, loose fitting, and has a draped cowl-style neckline at the front. The edges, like the jacket, are finished with bias binding which is hand-stitched into place on the inside. This top is so comfortable I’m going to have to prize it out of my own cold dead hands to put it in the washing machine… or of course I could always make another one! I’m quite a fan of having duplicates of clothing that you love.

Fleece drape top

This one’s available in the Etsy shop too, in the same incarnations as the jacket – plain fleece, patterned fleece, and organic cotton sweatshirting. I’ve got a piece of bright pink fleece with white spots to make another one of these, so if you’re a size UK 14-16 ish (size M), look out for that popping up on Etsy soon!

I’ve had a couple of requests for custom dressmaking projects lately, to which the answer I’m afraid is still no. I’m trying very hard to concentrate on sewing projects like these, from patterns that I’ve drafted myself, and also on the hats and felting. Because I’m also working part time, I simply can’t fit in anything else. I’m contemplating putting together printable PDF patterns for these items, so that you can go ahead and make your own, but I don’t even have the time to devote to that right now.

In fact, I shouldn’t really have spent two afternoons filling the Etsy shop with haberdashery and fleecy tops instead of working on the hats, but there’s only so much felting my poor arms can take. I’m at work-work for the next couple of days though, then it will be back to felting and hats at the weekend. I have so little free time before the craft fair I’m taking the hats to on Easter Sunday that I really don’t know when I’m going to get anything done!

Christmas Fair & New Year Plans

Christmas Fair

This is Paul making himself comfortable behind the Eternal Magpie stall at the Berkshire Autistic Society Christmas Fair last Saturday. We were in a brand new school designed especially for kids of all ages who are on the autistic spectrum, which was a really lovely space. The floor was both squashy and heated, so he was actually much more comfortable than you might expect!

From a stall point of view the day was fairly quiet, but it was the first event of its kind in this venue, so I expect next year’s will be a lot busier. We were lucky enough to have some local friends pop in and do some Christmas shopping with us, and we chatted to some other lovely stallholders. We also met lots of families, some of whom I knew from working at the Museum, and some from my previous job with the Family Resource Centre. Two little boys had a great time sorting through all my button badges (they loved the maps), and another was extremely honest with us about the scented candles. Thankfully he was complimentary, his Mum was a bit worried he was going to say something rude! Everyone at BAS had clearly put a lot of effort into the event, and it definitely deserves to be a lot better attended in future.

However, as it turned out, we came home with just the right amount of money to tip my savings over into being enough to buy the set of hat blocks I’ve been coveting all year! So, an email has been sent to Guy Morse-Brown about a set of interchangeable crown and brim blocks for making felt cloche hats. There’s going to be a steep learning curve involved, but there will be (hopefully lovely) hats coming this way in the New Year!

tealight stack

There will be a number of other changes too. I’ve just discovered that four out of five of the Airship Fresheners fragrances have been discontinued, so I’ll be choosing some new candle oils in the New Year. Lure of the Kraken will continue to be available, and Hot Tea & Crumpets (currently sold out) I can hopefully buy another batch of before it disappears – but Sweet English Rose, The Arabian Nights and Cherry Bakewell will be gone completely once these last few candles have been snapped up. Still, it’s a good excuse to look for some interesting new fragrances, and there are a few I have my eye on already. Sloe Gin, anyone?

I’ve also decided to discontinue the large candles in the glass jars, and only make tea light candles in the future. The jars make the candles heavy and fragile, which makes them difficult to ship. I think sticking to tea lights and offering some kind of “pick-and-mix” option with the different fragrances is going to be a better way forward. I’ve also had requests for wax tarts rather than candles, so I’m going to be investigating the possibilities for those too.

I have kept back one large candle in each fragrance though, so that the winner of the Facebook Giveaway (almost there!) can have their pick.

Anyway, the next couple of weeks will be free from Emporium work as I take a break to spend time with Paul and our families, and also to do a little bit of sewing for myself and my niece. It’s Christmas Dress time again, and I’ve got some really sweet fabric waiting for me. I hope she likes it!

Speakeasy

I can’t tell you how excited I am to see these fabrics! I’ve been waiting literally years for these types of prints to be available in the UK, on sustainable fabrics. Once again, the Organic Textile Company have outdone themselves!

The prints and colourways are closely based on designs from a book of 1920s textile patterns, and they’re printed onto a handwoven organic cotton and bamboo blend. I absolutely love their other cotton/bamboo fabrics, so I can’t wait to get my hands on some of these!

The hardest part is going to be deciding which of the prints and colourways to choose. I think the centre print, “Roaring Twenties” in purple, is my absolute favourite, and I think it will go very nicely with some plain purple that I have in the Shed already.

Now all I need is for everyone to head over to the Inexplicable Emporium and buy a few things, so I can afford to buy enough of this gorgeous fabric to make some dresses, which I can then put back into the Emporium!

(Don’t forget coupon code “LIFEBEGINS”, for your 40% discount  throughout September…)

Birthday Sale in the Emporium!

Candles in glass jars

BIRTHDAY SALE!
From now until my birthday (September 15th), you can get 40% DISCOUNT in the Inexplicable Emporium on Etsy.

Sewing Kit

Bearing in mind that I’m moving house and don’t know when I’ll be able to re-stock, if you’d been thinking about buying any of my goodies for Christmas presents, now’s probably as good a time as any!

Harris Tweed Cufflinks Packaging

The code you need is “LIFEBEGINS”…

Meet Mrs Magpie

Mrs Magpie

I can’t believe it’s taken me since May to get around to showing you this, but please say hello to Mrs Magpie!

As you know, she’s one half of Mr & Mrs Magpie’s Inexplicable Emporium – a Victorian-inspired but thoroughly anachronistic curiosity shop. She only makes a public appearance roughly once a year, so she likes to dress up for the occasion.

I made the costume, with the exception of the sonic screwdriver (made by Paul), and the birdcage necklace, which I bought from Atelier Fabry-Pérot. It’s part of a set of laser-cut decorations, but Mrs Magpie, being a lover of enormous shiny things, thought it would make a fantastically extravagant pendant.

I’m sure I’ve been going on a bit about all the changes that have been happening this year. My health’s gone out the window, my hours and role at work have changed, and now we’re in the middle of moving house. I’m also changing the things I make, and am trying to focus at the moment on the materials and the creation and the process, rather than the selling of an end product. I find it helps me to imagine who might buy or wear or use the things I make, and Mrs Magpie is most definitely in charge of all things bright and flambpyant and shiny! I think she might need a friend, who’s more interested in the soft and natural and comfy.

Busy Bank Holiday

EMPORIUM preparations

Spring Bank Holiday – and the sun’s shining! In England! Sadly I’m not outside enjoying it, I’m sweltering away in my Shed with the iron on. The thermometer on the wall says it’s 33 degrees in here, and it certainly feels like it!

But, there’s still lots to do before the Frome Steampunk Extravaganza, and I’m busy visiting family next weekend, so I need to grab every spare minute I can to work on my preparations for the stall. My own outfits are just about coming together, and if the weather stays like this I won’t have to worry about not having finished the velvet pinstriped cape in time. (I am starting to worry that all the candles might melt though!)

Hand made bias tape

My project for this weekend has been making lots and lots of bias tape – I now have more than 24 metres in total, divided into eight little packs. In the course of making it, I also put up a page with links to all the tutorials I regularly use. That way I don’t have to go digging through my bookmarks every time, and hopefully other people will find the links useful too.

In preparation for Life After Frome, I’ve treated myself to a handy little sketch book called a Fashionary. I’ve been wanting to keep some kind of a dress diary almost ever since I’ve been making the majority of my own clothes, but taking self-portraits is such a faff that I’ve never got around to it. Inspired by Rhinestone & Telephones’ lovely sketches, I decided that a Fashionary would be the ideal way of making a start. Over time, it would also show me which items from my ridiculously packed wardrobe I actually wear, and which ones almost never come out. Hopefully the sketchbook won’t just join all the others on the shelf – you know, the ones I bought with great enthusiasm and the found myself too afraid of “spoiling” to actually draw in. We all have those, don’t we?

I also want to treat myself to a packet or two of precious metal clay. I have all the tools I need for clay working and silversmithing, so I’m just reading through some of my reference books to see which type of clay would be best for the types of designs I want to make. I’m planning to start very simply, with flat pendants stamped with letters, possibly hung from the braided cords I’ve been weaving (and have apparently forgotten to tell you about). This would be a project just for myself, at least to begin with. After working so hard towards this stall, I really need to relax by spending a little bit of time making things for no good reason other than because I can.

More Marvellous Mittens

Purple organic pointelle gloves

I had grand plans for making lots more pairs of gloves today. Above, you can see the total sum of my glove-making endeavours.

Admittedly I got rather sidetracked this morning by a hat, and didn’t start making the gloves until after lunch. Unfortunately, it turns out that making gloves from organic cotton pointelle is the most enormous pain in the backside. It’s very thick and very stretchy. It’s difficult to mark, and it’s difficult to cut and sew accurately. All of this makes working with it very slow going indeed.

I’ve prepared the backs and the bias tape for two more purple pairs, and cut the contrast stripes for three more pairs. Those will be teamed with more pointelle but in brown.

However frustrated I might be by the length of time it’s taking me to sew these, I have to admit that I rather like them! The bias trim (which is also around the thumbs) is a pleasing finishing touch, and I’m happy that all of the fabric is organic cotton. Now I just need to get a move on, and finish making them!