Try Handmade

Shopping blog featuring products made by people not factories.

Interview with Helen Bonner, Storeyshop

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Meet Helen from Storeyshop. She made a dramatic change and moved up to rural Northumberland from living and working in London 2 years ago. She says the lifestyle change has taken some getting used, but she is loving the quieter country life. Helen is engaged to the lovely Dave, and is busy wedding planning at the moment. She lives with her elderly 18 year old chinchilla named Seb.

Helen describers herself as creative, indecisive, organized and a perfectionist. Favourite things include cups of tea, packets of crisps, egg cups and other vintage household finds. She finds herself always creating one thing or another like Storeyshop orders, new products, greeting cards or presents for friends.

Helen is a bit of a quote geek and one of her favourites is ‘Eagles may soar but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines’. From here on out, I’ll let Helen speak for herself –

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Gemma Correll

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As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a huge fan of Gemma Correll’s work. Gemma is a well-known freelance illustrator who also makes greetings cards, screenprinted tote bags and T shirts, pocket mirrors and art prints. Her Etsy shop is my go-to place for funny cards and gifts for my husband, who also loves Gemma’s work!

Gemma has been crafting her whole life, beginning with sewing, knitting and crochet, which she was taught by her grandmother. While at college, she started to make plush characters to accompany her illustration work, and she considers this to be her first ‘serious’ foray into crafting. At the same time, Gemma began to sell her plush characters and felt brooches at bi-monthly craft fairs, organised by Gemma and her friends.

When a friend told her about Etsy, which was not well-known in the UK at the time, Gemma decided to start selling online too. She’s since expanded her reach, selling in shops worldwide and online via her own fantastically illustrated website and Etsy shop, as well as the odd craft fair.

As well as selling handmade items, Gemma is a big fan of buying as many handmade products as possible and would much rather find something unique than buy items from large companies, as she feels there’s more of a personal touch. Unfortunately, Gemma has in the past had ideas stolen by large companies, which is a concern for many independent designer-makers and can put many people off sharing ideas with the wider handmade community.

“In five years’ time, I hope that I am still crafting for fun. As I spend more time working and outsourcing products, rather than making them myself – I simply do not have the time or the facilities to print 500 tote bags by hand, sadly – I hope that I can still enjoy making things just for myself. I hope that I’m still going to craft nights with my friends.”

If you’re interested in finding out more about Gemma’s work, take a look at this Design Week blog post about a mural she has recently completed for Chapter Arts Centre in Wales.

Papaver Vert

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Papaver Vert: Patty Benson started Papaver Vert in 2007 making her small apartment shared with her husband, into a small creative studio in Northern California. Based on form, function and bold color, Patty’s work utilizes the time consuming technique of crocheting and wet felting wool to create tactile pieces with a contemporary twist.

Learning how to crochet a few years ago, she immediately found a medium that combined her love of wool with her love of home decor. Feeling that home accessories shouldn’t just be limited to ceramic or glass, and that felted wool doesn’t have to mean something old-school, she loves the idea of taking the ancient technique of felting to design something entirely new.

Patty loves that wool is a renewable resource and she stands behind a non-mass produced sensibility. Each piece is lovingly handmade in her studio and she figures the more attention put into the craft, the better the quality, the longer it will last and the less need to buy more, more, more.

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Interview with Colette Palamar, Urban Baby Bonnets

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Colette lives in Yellow Springs, OH. She says, “It’s a really wonderful, progressive community with a strong arts emphasis and a dedication to being anti-sprawl and pro-diversity. It’s really a wonderful place to live! We’ve been here for almost 8 years. We love it!!”

Colette and her husband, Justin Metcalf, have a daughter, Sabine, who is the model for most of the photographs she uses in her store. “She’s so patient with me following her around with the camera,” Colette says, “She’s just learned to “pose” and has fun with that, too!” Rounding out the family are two dogs, Hayley and Una, and a cat, Mia. Colette says, “All three are rescues—they’re really awesome! We’re planning to add some chickens to the menagerie this spring.”

Colette describers herself as fierce, loyal, passionate, sensitive, driven and creative. She loves chocolate, chocolate, CHOCOLATE, fabric, color, fiction/literature books, soft pretzels, cats, her family, seasoned seaweed, sushi and kimchee.

Her secret? “I have a PhD in Applied Philosophy and used to be a Professor of environmental studies. It seems like such a long time ago! I worked for Antioch College until it closed about 2 years ago. I also have an MFA in ceramics!”

Don’t miss Colette’s wonderful bonnets at Urban Baby Bonnets.

How long have you been sewing?

My mother taught me how to sew when I was a little girl—I don’t remember learning. I know I sewed some of my clothes in high school (no patterns! Nothing ever worked right!), and I know that in middle school I made an apron… but I’ve only REALLY been sewing since I started with the bonnets in April, 2008.

Why did you start making bonnets?

My grandmother-in-law, Ada, comes down to our house to watch Sabine twice a week. One week, she brought a little baby bonnet with her that she’d sewn for Sabine. I was fanatical about NOT putting my little girl in pink and searched all over for simply black and brown clothing… and Ada knew this… and brought me a bonnet made from a vintage black floral fabric. Unfortunately (or fortunately) the bonnet didn’t fit Sabine… and my obsession was born!

I had been collecting fun, modern fabrics for another installation art project and I went into that stash and pulled some things to make hats out of. The very first hat I ever sewed was the Vines and Goldenrod bonnet that Sabine is wearing in the trademark UB2 picture. I fell in love with the hat right away, but had no plans to sell them. Over the next couple of weeks, every single time I took Sabine out in the bonnet (and I mean every single time—it started to get funny!) people were stopping me and asking where I got such an adorable hat. After that happened about 30 times, I figured I needed to make more.

Where do you get your materials?

I literally scour the catalogs of every single fabric manufacturer I can find, order samples, and then begin to match things up.

What craft/sewing materials do you have on hand most the time?

I have boxes with just about every craft supply I have ever used or ever might use. It’s a problem, really. We have no where to store all of these supplies, but I just cant get rid of them because some day I might need them! But mostly, now, I have fabric, fabric & more fabric! There are at least 40 bolts in my studio. And I have a whole cabinet full of short cuts that are samples or just fabrics I could not live without.

Can you tell us a little of your process?

I start by looking at fabrics online and in my local quilt shop (which is AMAZING! It’s called the Fabric Shack, but it’s anything but! I spend HOURS in there! They know me as “The Bonnet Lady”!), and I make folders of images of the fabrics I like. Then I start ordering samples. I can’t really create until I get everything here, so I TRY (it does not work) to wait until all the samples arrive, but when they do arrive I lay them all out and start putting things together. I very, very rarely combine two fabrics from the same line or designer—and that’s one of the things that makes what I do feel like ART. Once I get some potential combinations, I start sewing. I make one hat from each combination since I can’t really tell if I like the fabrics together until I see them in the bonnet, and even then, not until I see them on Sabine. And then I re-match and re-sew until I get combinations I like.

Then I move to the photography part, which usually involves Sabine and/or her friends, although I have worked with a couple of wonderful photographers including Eileen Molony who shot most of the images for the bonnets and dresses that are in my 2010-2011 wholesale line.

Do you have a dedicated work area/room?

Yes! I am lucky enough to have a whole bedroom to myself. We recently refinished the whole room. It’s painted orange, chartreuse, and deep purple and we put in some amazing bamboo floors. There are two big windows, lots of light. It’s a great place to be and I love working in there!

Is this your full-time job? Hobby? Fun?

All of the above! It’s a full time endeavor, but I would sew even if it was not for money. I love creating, and fabric is my medium of choice at the moment. I really love what I do and I am so happy to be able to work from home and make a living!

Where do you get your ideas for new ones?

From looking at fabrics. Sometimes I will have a stack of fabric that just randomly assembles and I’ll see two next to each other that I never considered putting together before and it just “clicks!” And I have a new bonnet!

How did you manage to get your bonnets to the front page of Amazon?

You know, I didn’t know they were there until people started emailing me! I met an Amazon buyer at a recent trade show and she invited me to sell my products to Amazon. I was amazed and SOOO happy. They place ads on their front page as part of how they support manufacturers of the products they purchase.

What is the UB2 installation art project?

Since I have a background in philosophy, I am always trying to make “sense” of why I am doing what I do. In thinking about why I want to make such colorful hats—and why I want to keep doing it, I realized that it was a way of “painting” the world. A lot of my scholarly work is on the concept of “place” and one of the things I studied is how “place” is disappearing in the face of the homogenization of stores, cities, houses, etc. It seems to me that the splash of color from my bonnets is one way to kind of push us into an awareness of where we are. Awareness is the first step to reclaiming a sense of place.

I keep records of all the places in the world where I’ve sold or sent UB2 bonnets and post as many customer photos as I can get my hands on! I love seeing babies in the world wearing my bonnets! Beyond that, I just LOVE color. I’ve written a formal artist statement, which you can see on my Etsy site. It explains all of this more eloquently.

I have dreams of staging photographs in NYC or another beautiful urban area with lots of babies on the street, all wearing colorful UB2 hats with the grown-ups grayed out and the hats in color. But I don’t really have the skills for that yet!

Do you have a best seller?

There’s not one single one that is best—but several that are most popular: retro birds, little brown birds, Henry’s birds, and vines & goldenrod.

What is your favorite?

My favorite changes, depending on which bonnet I am in love with at the moment. My new favorite is one that I am just about to release. It uses a rare import fabric that had to be shipped here from overseas. I don’t even have a name for it yet. Other than that, I love the vines & goldenrod one, since it was the first one.

Do you do other kinds of crafts?

I do just about everything, although not right now! I can just barely keep up with making bonnets and trying to grow my company.

What do you see yourself doing in 5 years?

I would like to have UB2 be big enough that I can have someone run the financial aspects of things while I do the creative end. I’d love to just work on making the fabric combinations and designing dresses.

Have any advice for people trying to start their own handcrafted business?

My advice for folks trying to start their own handcrafted business is “make it more of what it is.”

When I was in graduate school, I took a ceramics class with a professor who ended up being a really instrumental influence in my life. As I was working and trying to refine my own style as a ceramic sculptor (I did not make pottery), he stopped by my work area and said, “that looks great – try making it more of what it is.” I didn’t really understand at first, but eventually, I saw what he was saying. Individuality and authenticity come from finding your voice as an artist and then learning how to speak fluently in that voice. With the bonnets and with all of the other art I’ve done in the past, I have tried to find what it is that I love about what I do and do more of that. It’s a kind of intensification & even transformation that happens. And once you start on the path you can follow the idea of “making it more of what it is” all the way into the tiniest details.

And details—attention to details—are so important. It’s the little things that you think people won’t notice that they actually DO notice, even if they don’t notice that they notice.

Mid-century Redux

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My son remarked to me the other day that he felt that he had been born about 25 years too late, and should have grown up in the 80s. I laughed and told him that I thought the same thing about myself; I would’ve been right at home growing up in the mid-50s/early-60s. I have always been drawn to the architecture and design of the era and I can’t honestly remember a time that a good Formica counter top, a sunburst clock or an Eames chair didn’t make my heart beat a little faster. Eco-friendly tote, featuring an Eames chair silhouette (below), by Modist.

I don’t know if Atomic Age design ever really went away (not in my books, anyway), but it has really made quite a comeback over the past few years. I’m sure a big factor in that has been the popularity of the program Mad Men, but I like to think that it was just the world coming to its senses. After a couple of really questionable decades of design, we are once again appreciating the clean lines, bright colours and clever shapes of mid-century modernism.

Some creative craftspeople, like Mark and Jeff of Ypsilanti, MI are taking this appreciation one step further and incorporating the everyday items of this time into fresh, new objects of desire. Take this piece, for example – a simple container intended to store your leftovers has been taken off kitchen duty and transformed into an awesome table lamp (above). Check out the Boots n Gus shop for even more lamps in all sorts of shapes and sizes, like the pendant light at the top of this article; you’ll be seeing Tupperware in a whole new light!

Another ingenious example of retro kitchenware finding a home in the living room is this eggbeater clock, pictured above, by Kim aka The Sassy Crafter. Made from 12 recycled electric beaters (and a whole lotta cheek), these clocks are a brilliant reinterpretation of the classic mid-century sunburst design and can be purchased as-is from Kim’s shop, or custom ordered to match your decor.

When we’re talking about mid-century design, I can’t go without mentioning the advertising of the age. It was a time of rampant consumerism and the ads were a perfect reflection of that; shoppers scrambled to fill their homes with the optimistic, modern goods that would separate them from the stodgy belongings previous generations. To that end, ad agencies seized the opportunity and pushed the idea that new was best and the future was now, such as in this advertisement for Scripto Satellite pens, cleverly made into a durable coaster (below) by Jenn and Jenny of Robot Candy. Maybe it’s just me, but 50 years later it still makes me want to buy a pen (and a coaster, for that matter)!

Ironically, our nostalgia for this time has us channeling the Drapers and filling our homes with the relics of the atomic age. Even with the advances in science and technology since then, the many of the designs and fabrications still seem modern and relevant…perhaps the future is (still) now.

“Mad Men”-inspired print, above, by Yumalum.