Needlepoint

This was part of an entire spoonback chair set (top and seat) that was almost in perfect condition, having obviously been put away and never used. I LOVE it. We're working on ways in which it can be a flap now. close-up of the chair back. The grey areas are actually teeny weeny cross stitch done in dark brown over white gathered cotton. Don't even ask me how.

Last day or two to use the messenger bag coupon

Just a quick reminder. The coupon stops working at the end of the month.The bags have been incredibly popular so we are in the process of making more right now. We are also beginning on some flaps based Art Nouveau tapestry (the real thing, not a reproduction) and Victorian needlepoint. Photos when they are ready. I hauled the needlepoint back from the UK and I am totally in love with it. I love working with fabrics, I feel so lucky sometimes.

Featured in All Chic

How very nice! Do take a look - the whole blog is a good read.

Bohemian Gothic messenger bags

Finally we have most of the real bags photographed (though not all - some had to be posted out before Alex had a chance) so for now here are the Bohemian Gothic ones. It is GOOD to see these for real at last.Strength

The Penny Farthing

The Tarot ReadingThe Lovers Not yet on the Etsy shop but will be later this evening.

Burlesque in Prague???

Er. That's about all I can say. Click on this link, scroll down and run the video. It's harmless enough (nothing to scare the horses, in fact nothing even a little erotic, though God, how they try). However be warned, what they do with the Velvet Underground may upset some of you, ickitty. The girl (man?) dressed as a centurian is kind of sad and stiff, as is the lumpen ballet dancer - what is she doing there? - but oh well, it does have that slightly surreal Pragian touch that I quite like. Don't miss the very last few frames, in which we see the centurian attempt to dismount from a wooden horse. Ouch! http://czechoutchannel.blogspot.com/2008/02/la-fabrika-prague-burlesque.html Enjoy! Or, well, maybe just wince. With thanks to Czechoutchannel, which continues to be an unfailingly good read.

Our President speaks - loudly as I am drinking my coffee

Unfortunately. Right outside our window. I can't stand the man. Oh well, at least there is a rather good brass band alongside. Another day, another celebration of something (I think it's all in memory of Benes in fact http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edvard_Bene%C5%A1)

Moody Blues - Nights in White Satin Prague 1968

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdcDfnFsBFM
There are some great, unintentionally surreal moments in this.

Messenger bags are listed

Okay, I admit I didn't quite realise that there would be THIS much enthusiasm. It's brilliant - thank-you. So we won't wait, we have listed them. We will initially (mid this coming week) have about three of each colour, which hopefully will be enough for immediate orders. If we do have to make your bag to order (which might be true of some image/canvas combinations we don't expect) then there will be a two-week wait. But I doubt this will apply to many.http://baba-store.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=MRPASS&Category_Code=MessengersAs thanks for all the support on this very long project (I think we began planning these bags last April?) here is a coupon:MBAG001It will give you 10% off any of the messenger bags (only the messengers) from now until March 1st. You can use it more than once. Just type it in when you are prompted at checkout and bingo, 10% discount!Don't tell Alex, who thinks these are absurdly cheap as the print is HUGE and takes a lot of care and skill (we throw away about one in three). Well, anyway, it's my celebration for these finally becoming reality.Okay, I will keep refining the listings to show as much detail as possible, but basically I think everyone here knows these messengers pretty inside-out.Oh - one oddity. In a burst of something or other I decided to use a black zip under the flap of the taupe bags (the idea was to match the smart black lining, I do wonder if I was a bit raving or something). Anyway, it's quite nice in a slightly strange way - and as it's under the flap you won't see it in any case. But I thought I'd mention it.

Okay, messengers will be available soon on our current shop

I've decided not to try to do our shiny new messenger bags at the same time as our shiny new shop. My brain and adrenalin levels won't stand it (I am very excited about both). The shop is now in testing mode and this will take a while. I always forget that thoroughly testing something like this takes TIME and I realise that rushing it isn't sensible. Do I sound like I've just been talking to our new techie guy? Oh yes, you guessed it. Well, he's right. (small sigh) The messengers however ARE thoroughly tested - by me. I've carried mine every day for months now, and Banzai has also tested its dual-purpose cat-bed application and tells me it's most comfortable. So, a little bit of spit and polish on our current shop and I'll get the bags listed asap. It's amazing how long I sometimes take to reach a very obvious conclusion. Don't laugh!

john.he.is

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gwqEneBKUs
This is hysterical - literally. I mean, was he serious - a hundred years?!

Countdown to the messenger bags

Edited to add: Now on the shop - see post above for a spiffy money-off coupon until 1st March: http://baba-store.com/mm5/merchant.mvc?Screen=CTGY&Store_Code=MRPASS&Category_Code=Messengers _________________ Well, okay, I am over-dramatising, but they are nearly all printed now so we should have the first 20-30 next week, a few in each print I hope. They will all be available in black cotton canvas or a dark taupe (I chose the darkest we could find that is a taupe, NOT a brown or khaki - so that it gives a feeling of lightness but won't get dirty too easily). I've been asked to put the whole current selection up here, so - apart from the Gothic bags which are just below - here goes. I've put the ones previously posted under a cut, so you don't have to look at them twice if you've already seen them. By the way, the fairy and Alice ones are based on our own antique books, not on copyright-free CDs. We did try those but the quality was awful in a picture this large, so yes, we buy original (around 1900-1910) books, scan them and clean up the pictures - it gives far, far more detail and sharpness. The popular "Cakes" - we hope to do this in a second version soon. - also available in black but I won't post it. A couple based on prints of our vintage/antique fabrics - we love how these are turning out and aim to do more as we have a great collection now:

Bohemian Gothic - exit the Silver edition, enter the messenger bags...

Well, unbelievably enough the Silver edition is now sold out - and out of print. Hard to believe. If you are desperate for one there may in fact be three or four left. Basically there are eighteen in the studio, but there are also lots of orders not yet packed, so we think we'd better do that first and see if there's anything over. I think there will be, but very, very few and I don't want to put them on the shop in case I'm wrong and someone ends up pissed off because they think they have bought one and there's nothing to send them. However. We have now got the messenger flapsies done and printed (I have to stop calling them "the flapsies" it's a bad habit and shows no inherent fashion-speak sophistication). I LOVE them and have decided I want all four. Alex feels I can limit myself to one. Ah, 'twas ever thus. Why can't men grasp the fact that it's necessary to have a LOT of bags? I have to go to the UK next week and it will be difficult (family stuff, urk). Would it be too provocative to carry the Strength messenger? Or would it get me stopped at the airport as suspicious? I think I may just do it and find out.

Oh God No

This place is just round the corner from the studio. When Alex first pointed out the signs and construction work I felt it was the beginning of the end. I did go in when it opened, just to see if it was really, really real. It was. I walked out again without buying. What with this, a HUGE new shiny shiny shopping centre (I'll post on that when I can bring myself to) and the whole place starting to be awash with chain stores I do wonder if we should move out of the centre. Read this post (from a new Prague food review blog) if you don't mind being vaguely depressed: http://praguespoon.blogspot.com/2008/01/prague-opens-its-first-starbucks-but.html

Another Saturday, another procession

These are from this Saturday morning. I heard the sounds of music and drums and ran out of the door - phone camera in hand (sorry, the photos aren't great quality) - to find that once again people were out and partying. Amusingly I ran into our former neighbour dressed as a fairy. As she is bad-tempered, rude, short, stocky, and generally rather nasty, this struck me as very amusing. Oh well, maybe in her inner self eh?:

My Valentine Postbox

Oh okay, okay I'll do it. Feel absolutely free to ignore if you don't enjoy this kind of thing.

Valentine Postbox

leave baba-studio a valentine's message your message, (30 characters or less) get your own valentine postbox

Vampuss goes to Russia

It's really a bit late in the evening to be posting, but as Alex's daughter - with us this weekend - is watching videos, and Alex himself is designing what I have come to call "flapsies" (the flaps for the messenger bags) there's an opportunity. I've been meaning to "properly" post this small piece of news for some time.So, Shadow of the Vampuss was picked up by a Russian publisher - we were paid (even if very little) for the license - and they ran 20,000 copies. It's now out and friends keep saying that they see it in bookshops all over. Wooooooowooooo eh?So, here we are in Russian:http://www.labirint-shop.ru/books/157055/ http://books.shop.by/20612.html http://www.qpknigu.ru/showtov.asp?Cat_id=459002I've got to admit it - this gives me a huge buzz. Who would have thought that this would happen?

Meanwhile, back in Prague, another Presidential race...

Or should that be slow crawl? All day they have been debating on the method to use for voting. We watched for one hour but it was interminable. http://www.ceskenoviny.cz/news/index_view.php?id=295794 All I hope is that Klaus doesn't get it again. Here is one of his more lovely quotes: "Environmentalism should belong in the social sciences" along with other "isms" such as communism, feminism, and liberalism." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%A1clav_Klaus#Opinions_on_Global_Warming The embarrassment and insanity of a President who does not believe in global warming is too much for me. Especially on this mild and warmish (I kid you not) February evening. Please can someone tell Klaus to put his head out of the window and then tell this country why, for the second year running, we are having a warm winter? I mean, in Czech we can wander about in February without a coat??? This is a great country with totally inane politicians. Please don't let this idiot get in again.

Mitt Romney on Europe

"Europe is facing a demographic disaster. That is the inevitable product of weakened faith in the Creator, failed families, disrespect for the sanctity of human life and eroded morality..." Well, er, thanks Mitt. And let's be glad that he is out of it. I am very happy to be living in the most secular country in Europe. And, interestingly, the capital city with one of the lowest crime rates.

My hermit-like time is finishing

Alex is back tomorrow afternoon. All in all it hasn't been so bad and maybe it's even what I needed to get me over some of the horrors of last year. I've seen friends, enjoyed messing around with yarn (one jumper almost finished!) chatted to the rather bewildered cats and even gone shopping - not usually a favourite pass-time of mine but I did buy a great candle. It's reminded me how much I love seeing my one or two good female friends here. That's something I'm going to continue with. I've also been able to sit quietly and think about the programming of the new shop. All in all I realised that - even though a wonderful support person at Dreamhost saved my life by finally working out why I could not log in to our mailing list - some things at the server-end are beyond my capabilities. So I am seeing an experienced software engineer on Thursday in the hope that he will work a few days a month for us regularly. It would take a lot of the angsty stuff off me. I can do software, but when it gets to the edge of my knowledge it makes me very anxious, I'd much rather be working on the user-interface which is, after all, my real area of expertise (for anyone who hasn't gathered, I was a user-interface designer for years). The new shop software is genuinely well engineered - this much I DO have the experience to know. It's great, but means that there is a huge amount of back-end set up. For example, it can deal with separate shipping costs for every single country, so inputting and checking all the figures was in itself a day's work. It also has much better order tracking and more flexible capacity for rewards points and so on. It does brilliant meta-tagging, which ought to help people find the shop. Drawbacks? The look and feel is a touch hard to change, though as I quite like it that's not a huge issue. What else happened this ten days? Hmm, well I arranged finally to get Czech lessons - after all these years I now accept that no, I'm not going to pick it up my osmosis. I also at last began actively looking for a photographer to take professional shots for us. I'll probably say lots more about that as it's such an intense way of focusing on who we are, what we're doing and how to show it. So - after tomorrow I have the camera - and Alex - back. And hopefully three less neurotic cats. Or are the cats hoping that it's me who'll be less neurotic. Whatever, it'll be good to get back to normal, but all in all I'm not sorry this solitary ten days happened.

Yes We Can - Barack Obama Music Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY
Pass it on! Yes, I know it's a little slick, but I still quite like it. And if it gets the message across...

Boringly, life here is mostly about building the new shop now. It's coming on nicely, though I am a bit worried about the sheer number of products and whether the whole thing is navigable enough. Well, at least this shop has things like wishlists (and, by the way, reviews that WORK and DO NOT VANISH mysteriously into the cyber-ether) so that you can bookmark as you go along. I suppose whatever I do now, the sheer number of designs and style and variations means that navigation will be an issue. But I've tried to keep it simple and I think it works quite well. I want to do a poll of some description at some point as I really need to think about which products and designs are most wanted. But let's get the shop going and the new messenger and bucket bags on to it, and then you can all tell me that what you REALLY wanted was more Wirth images - or summat! So, for now, here is the World bucket bag. I like very much the way that the prints now go up into the handle, this makes me happy! I also love how we are now doing the back panels - this one is in old Bohemian brocade in brown/black, but we also have this bag in with sky blue brocade. Yum: