Our next big event......

Things have been rather hectic around here of late, and it seems like forever ago that

 we had a big market or event in Melbourne.  I know there is a few of you out there that are waiting for us to be back in the big smoke to come and try some skirts on, so here it is.

We will be once again displaying our wares at Magnolia Square at St Kilda Town Hall from Friday the 11th to Sunday the 13th of November.  Click here for the full details.

Before all that excitement though, we've got our new shop to open this coming Friday (fingers crossed) followed by our lovely local Inverloch market this Saturday, and Foster market on Sunday.  Our sleepy little coastal town is about to be taken over again for the summer.....

Better late than never.....

Remember I told you about a little competition we were running at Magnolia Square at Ivanhoe last week?  Anyway, the gist of the story is that we offered for anyone who vistied us at the event to go on our mailing list and enter a draw to win a throw cushion of their choice from our online shop.

We received an overwhelming number of entries (amazing what we'll all do to try and win something) and last week we used a random selection technique to choose a winner.  That's right, Nicole closed her eyes with pen in hand, and the name that the pen landed on was the winner.  Pretty high tech stuff huh?

The name that was chosen using the high tech random selection technique was........Simone from Macleod!  I have already notified Simone of her win, and she has chosen this Leaves throw cushion in rust which I have popped off in the post to her today.  This will coordinate perfectly with the floor cushion Simone purchased from us at the event.

.  Thanks to all who visited us at the event and helped to make it the success that it was.

Ivanhoe here we come!

This weekend Magnolia Square has a brand new pop up event at The Centre in Ivanhoe, and Mookah will be there with bells on.  Well, maybe not bells, but we'll be there and we're excited!

There will be over 50 fabulous retailers taking part, offering something for everyone.  Drop in, say hello, and put your name on our mailing list and you will go in the draw to win one of our very own Mookah designed cushions.  



Cutting, sewing, printing......

We had a weekend of busy markets here where we braved the cold at Inverloch on Saturday and the rain at Foster on Sunday, but the big easter crowds also braved the elements to browse through the locally made wares. 

So much for a long weekend.  There is no time for rest and relaxation here, every spare minute is being spent cutting, sewing and screen printing in preparation for the first Magnolia Square at Malvern Town Hall for this year, to be held this coming Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

If you're in Melbourne or not too far away, drop in and say hello and browse through the quality, independant labels on show.  The next show in Malvern isn't until December!

Attention: Adelaide Folk!

Come one, come all!  If you live in Adelaide, or just passing through, make sure you drop into Magnolia Square and pick up a few xmas pressies to cross off that list.

Tomorrow is the last day at Norwood Concert Hall, from 10am to 4pm.

Sydney Wrap-up!

Apparently Nicole & I made it home safely from our Sydney road trip on Monday, but to be honest it all just feels like a bit of a blur!  Thanks to all those Sydneysiders who dropped in to Magnolia Square, it was certainly quite hectic at times.

Thought I'd share a few pics of the event with you, starting with some of our own goodies....

Quite a few of these items below never made it home to Inverloch.  Still trying to decide if that is a good thing or not.  Now we have to make more before we head to Adelaide next week.



As for these little Birdy Num Nums, they seem to be a hit wherever we take them.

This was a (very white) display set up by Mr Jason Grant at the entrance to the event. 

And this photo of these beautiful drawers ( with bracelets) was taken purely for me, as I am going to buy one from the very lovely JJ from "Have you met Miss Jones". 

What do you think?  Likey likey lots?

Giddyup!

Have a gander at the view I woke up to this morning.

Just a short canter for us across the road for the start of Magnolia Square this morning.  Giddyup!

Just a peek...

This is just a peek of what we will have on display at Magnolia Square in Randwick later this week.

Moose?  Did you say Moose?  Wasn't on the menu at the Gundagai RSL tonight, but this delectable dish definately will be come Friday at Randwick!

Oh, we know that she could melt the coldest of hearts.......



....... but unfortunately, due to previous interstate media enagagements, Lila will not be making an appearance at Randwick this week.  However, the fuschia bellbird kids beanbag will be.  If you're in the area we look forward to seeing you sometime between Friday and Sunday at Randwick Racecourse.

My Creative Space....

I sense another roadtrip coming up.....

Here at Mookah Headquarters this week it has all been about preparation for our roadtrip to Sydney next week for Magnolia Square at Randwick Racecourse.

Preparations, mmm, well what that really means for anyone who doesn't know, is heads down bum up making lots and lots of stuff!  Our quirky animal friends always make popular gifts for little ones for Christmas, and these Platypus were fresh off the sewing machine today.  All they need now is a little stuffing to bring them to life.

God I love a good road trip!  Perhaps another overnight stay in Gundagai?  More op shopping in Goulburn?  Brekky at Macca's?  Stay tuned for the update.

For more creative spaces, head over here.

New 'Mookah Moose' Fabric........

Since Mookah was created Nicole and I have had this hidden desire to screenprint our own fabric, although we never quite knew what, when, where or how. Like lots of things around here really. For months now we've been working on a few design ideas, as well as researching and sourcing basecloths, and finding someone to print them for us.

With so much going on we decided to just get one design printed for now just to get the ball rolling, so we went with our simplest design, the 'Mookah Moose'.

The Moose design was inspired by one of Nicole's trips to the US where she was staying with a friend at the Grand Teton National Park. They went to leave their room one morning only to find they were blocked in by a rather large Moose and it's cub!

Who knew there would be so many decisions to make along the way, with the 2 hardest ones being which basecloth we were going to use, and which colours to print. The original plan was to print in 3 colours, red, green and blue, but as we weren't able to get hold of enough of the basecloth we wanted when we needed it, we decided to just run with the red and green for now.

The fabric we chose in the end was an organic cotton/hemp, which is what we ideally always wanted, but it was oh so hard to find 'just the right one'.

I know one little man who thinks it's pretty funky and it matches in perfectly with his red and green bedroom.........

This fabric will be available in floor cushion and beanbag designs next week at Magnolia Square at Malvern Town Hall. Come and say g'day to the Mookah Chicks.

Less than 2 weeks to go......

We're on the countdown. It is now less than 2 weeks until Magnolia Square. It will be our first time at the home of Magnolia Square, Malvern Town Hall. So we are quite excited, but.....

....there is so little time to finish everything! Hope to see you there, it will be a fabulous event. Did I mention that we are next to the cafe?

My Creative Space....

Oopsy, I'm running a day late, but I wanted to join in with Kirsty's My Creative Space anyway, so please just pretend it's Thursday and read on.....

Much of the work here at Mookah Headquarters can be a little repetitive, but not today! We had an important lunch date planned (more of that in another post) that was bound to take up the rest of the afternoon, so we gave ourselves the morning some 'free' time to play with some new projects. Woohoo!

Above is a few of our older Birdy Num Num designs that are on the table for a revamp. A new face plate is being created, they are getting new 'super stretchy' legs, and some rainbow coloured head feathers. I promise to show you the finished design....as soon as it's finished.

And I bet you wonder what on earth 'that thing' on the bench is? No its not a skittle. Nicole got the real pleasure of playing with a completely new softie design that we've been wanting to work on for a while now, a Fairy Penguin. The one standing up is an unfinished prototype, and lying on the bench is the start of prototype 2. It's getting there folks, trust me. A little more tweaking and I'll be able to show you the finished result.

Creativity, ideas, new designs, yay! Off now to finish preparing for next week's road trip to Sydney for Magnolia Sqaure at Randwick Racecourse.

My Creative Space....

After being absent for a while, today I am joining in once again with My Creative Space. Pop over to Kirsty's for other crafty goodness.

Today wasn't about marking, cutting, pinning, sewing, overlocking or ironing for me. Today was a different kind of creativity at Mookah Headquarters. It was all about taking photographs of some of our products for our etsy shop, web banners, magnolia sqare website and, well, whatever else! Here are just a few that tickled our fancy....

Oh he's so cute isn't he? I am, I admit a slightly biased aunty.

Awww! Gotta love those special moments huh?

Magnolia Square......post event wrap up!

Finally home after spending 5 days in Melbourne town for our first Magnolia Square event at St Kilda Town Hall ......yeehah.

It's nice to visit the city lights, have time away from home, stay with old friends, have breakfast out in trendy St Kilda, indulge in Indian food, meet some fantastic crafters, bloggers and tweeters, but boy is it nice to come home to family and your own comfy bed! Here are a few pretty ordinary happy snaps (apolgies) from the week that was.

The Mookah stand.....

Me being, well......me.......

One of our floor cushions in 'Delft' and a couple of throw cushions in 'Bonsai' from Ink & Spindle........

A snapshot of some new Scandanavian fabrics in the 'Blomma' range.

Some of our hairy animal critters......

And last but not least, my sister and business partner Colli, or perhaps just Nicole to others. No more time to ponder the week that was as we now have to concentrate on preparing to head off on Wednesday for Bowerbird Bazaar in Adelaide. No rest for the wicked.

My Creative Space

So, yes Mookah is a little late with this week's My Creative Space, but better late than never. Our excuse is that there is so much happening we lost track of days. Today is Friday.....yep....not Thursday!

There is only 9 days left to Magnolia Square and we have soooooo much to do. This morning we decided to tackle one of those tasks we have been putting off for the last 4 weeks....... Calico bags. We have searched high and low trying to find an environmentally friendly bag that we can put our pods and floor cushions into. Plastic is not fantastic but has so far been our only option. We have spoken to many people about having bags made, but the minimum order is something in the thousands and by the way, at a price of at least a couple of dollars each.

After much research and frustration, yep you guessed it. We decided to make our own 'cos we don't have anything to do. Why can't we find anything you ask? Well, the bag needs to be 90cm x 90cm. Yes you read right and ...... it must have handles.



Mookah production the last few weeks has been a whole Mookah family affair, with Nan Nan Mookah on sewing machine, turning, stuffing, trimming threads and hand sewing and Pop Pop Mookah designing and making beautiful wooden shelves/ladders, until they decided they needed a break and took off to Sunny QLD. Well, maybe not so sunny QLD, and left us with a few things to do.

Mookah boy has been having great fun playing in and around calico bag handles.



Mookah lady has been busy sewing calico handles and cutting calico bags.

Mookah man has had a ball ironing calico bags (are you as excited as we are about a man that loves ironing?).

Mookah boy has been testing out calico bags to ensure that they hold succifient goods.

Mummy Mookah has been busy taking pictures of the family and writing up the to do list for the next 7 days!!!! Yep, only 7 days of production left to go and we still have on our production list 50 calico bags, 48 bean bags (that need zips), 12 Echidnas, 20 Woollybutts, and 30 cushion covers amongst a few other non sewing tasks!! Yikes, no sleep for this week.

We can't wait to see you all at Magnolia Square at St Kilda Town Hall and Bowerbird Bazaar in Adelaide. To all our friends, do you still want to be our friends after we have neglected you for so long?

Over and out,

Mummy Mookah (Nicole)

Watch out...the Elephants are coming!

A quick glimpse of today's fabric arrivals at Mookah Headquarters by Umbrella Prints. These are hand screen printed fabrics designed and made in Adelaide. You can also check out some of Amy's great work at Nest Studio.

Elephants & Heart Designs

These fabrics will be incorporated into some new Mookah designs to be launched at Magnolia Square in Melbourne and Bowerbird Bazaar in Adelaide later this month. Come along to check it out and say g'day!