We love the weekend

Actually we don't love it that much but I thought a 'we hate the weekend' title might be too grumpy. In particular Friday nights are a bit of a drag as we always end up working late. This is what we were up to last night; screen printing. Ed tends to do the printing and I do the running around placing printed items on all spare spaces to dry out.

It wasn't too bad though we were made a glass of mulled wine and had a break watching fireworks. Of particular note were the sparklers, you don't realise quite how much smoke a sparkler gives off until to avoid the rain you light 5 of them in a small marquee.

There was a Jolly Hunter

This is not exactly Stabo related but has taken precedence over everything else.

We have a rat problem. They were getting into the house so our landlady boarded up the probable entrance and exit holes. Unfortunately she trapped at least one inside under the floorboards in our part of the house.

We tried to trap them last night but they managed to steal all the bait and safely go back down under the floorboards. Ed has decided that an air rifle is the solution to all our problems. I'm not quite sure how this is going to play out in the confines of our kitchen but it keeps us entertained.

Fantastic Mr Wallet

We are trying to sort out new products and photos for our website.

In particular the photography is rather labour intensive. Clothing is especially difficult to make look good which is why we are taking photos of t shirts on clothes hangers rather than people.


I spent a few hours faffing about with the light cube moving card holders by a couple of millimetres at a time in order to fit them perfectly in the frame. Inspired and greatly entertained by Fantastic Mr Fox perhaps we'll take our new skills in moving things by infinitesimal amounts and create a wallet based stop frame animation. Probably not.

We're at Coventry Transport Museum

We will be taking a stall at Coventry Transport Museum for their craft fair on November 14 & 15. We've never visited before but it sounds like a fun event and we have a bit of a penchant for transport related imagery.

We did visit an amazing transport museum on the North Island of New Zealand, just in case you happen to be passing. It's the Southward Car Museum fairly near Wellington.


We called in and fell in love with it. A vehicle we that particularly stuck in the mind was this gangster vehicle (below), imported from the states with reinforced bullet proof glass (ie glass about an inch thick) and authentic bullet holes.

Ways to avoid working no.1

Chris our landlady (the shoemaker) has just got a new puppy, she is black and tiny and incredibly sweet. The as yet unnamed puppy always seems more fun than say an afternoon of sticking badges together.


The pup seems to like leather so perhaps she can be trained to stick leather badges together. Or is that illegal?

Lets do the Math (s)

This week we did some Grading; creating different sizes of the same pattern. We were standardising the Wax Cag patterns. The cag is really Ed's product but after five minutes trying to Grade he was crouched in the foetus position, rocking back and forth (metaphorically at least) so I offered to help and promptly created an extensive spreadsheet.

Traditional grading is to my mind a very inexact science but after a lot of me promoting the mathematical case and Ed looking rather unhappy we eventually sorted it out. Or at least we did in theory we're actually going to create the new patterns on Monday. So that's something to look forward to.

Woodbridge Vintage and Contemporary Fair

One of the fun things we do is visit different fairs around the country. Although a bit more hassle it's always a bit more exciting doing an extra curricular event.


The most recent event was the Woodbridge Vintage and Contemporary Fair in Suffolk. The organisers Sarah Hill and Richard Ginger also sell and consequently had a really good idea of the type of event they wanted and managed to get together an eclectic mix of stalls.

We were contacted to trade at the first event in June and came back again in September. The mix of stalls spans clothing and accessories, to homewares and the odd food stall, you'll need the posh pork pies and fresh coffee to keep you going.

It's a really charming location and a darn sight better organised than some of the more regular events. We've posted some pictures of the swarming crowds. Or you can read more on the Woodbridge Vintage and Contemporary Fair blog. The only downside is that as a trader it's almost impossible to find the time to have a really good look around the fair yourself.