Texture Clothing Interview

Texture Clothing creates apparel and accessories with a conscious. Combining great natural fibers with edgy, fashionable patterns that keep our heads turning season after season. We are excited to welcome the Texture Clothing team to Urban Craft Uprising this Winter 2010 and see what fantastic clothing options for chilly wheater they have in store for us.



Teresa Anne Remple (TAR) is the proprietress of Texture Clothing. She resides in Bellingham, Washington and is the naturally caffeinated instigator and inspiration for Texture Clothing.

Website: http://store.textureclothing.com


UCU: What’s one thing you wish you had known at your first craft show?
(Or--If this is your first show, what are you most looking forward to?)
TAR: how to merchandise my clothing + accessories in a better, more appealing way.

UCU: If you have pets, introduce them and tell us a bit about them!
TAR: no pets.

UCU: What item are you most excited to be offering at UCU Winter 2010?
TAR: I have been dyeing special fabrics and screen printing on them before making them into clothing. So, I am excited about having new, and one of a kind items to offer customers who shop at the booth this year.

UCU: What day of show traditions are you bringing to UCU 2010?
TAR:going out for a nice dinner on Saturday night with fellow vendor friends.

UCU: What gift are you most excited to give this year?
TAR: I haven’t planned my gifts yet…

UCU: What are you nibbling on as the snow falls this winter?
TAR: Meat + Potatoes

UCU: Favorite handmade item you have? It could be made by you, gifted to you or something you picked up.
TAR: at the moment, it would have to be a waxed cotton rainjacket that I bought from rebe!

Texture Clothing has graciously provided you a chance to win a pair of KnitMitts to be picked out at UCU 2010 Dec. 4, 5! Leave a comment for your chance to be entered in the drawing.

R&L Goods Interview

A true collaboration in every sense of the word is R&L Goods. Housed in a shared duplex, founders Jean and Chika create accessories and wearables for the “right and left side of your brain.” They often collaborate with other artists to create their truly unique creations.
UCU: What’s one thing you wish you had known at your first craft show?

R&L Goods: Ha ha - I wish I had known how important my projected attitude is to customers and to myself. I used to just sit at my table and wait for the sales to come. Even if the sales came - I think the act of being so sedentary made me come off as a real sour-puss. Now I realize the importance of keeping energy up - when it's slow, get in the booth and re-merchandise. Whatever you do - don't just sit there and watch the clock. As a shopper, I find that that to be booth repellent - no matter how much cool stuff is in there. Teaming up with Jean opened my eyes to the reward for projecting friendly conversational energy.


UCU: What item are you most excited to be offering at UCU Winter 2010?
R&L Goods: Our new Piano Nobile prints on our notebooks and wallets! We love their work, we love working with them, and it's just so cool to get to make our goods from original hand screened textiles! We think their prints are gorgeous, and we're so proud of how handsome they look on a finished book or wallet.

UCU: What day of show traditions are you bringing to UCU Winter 2010?

R&L Goods: A good breakfast with lots of protein, a strong cup of coffee, and a beer at 3 o'clock :)

UCU: If you could sum up your work in one word, what would that be?

R&L Goods: Thoughtful.....so we hope.

UCU: What are you nibbling on as the snow falls this winter?

R&L Goods: Some leftover Halloween candy, and fistfuls of rice crackers. That might go beyond nibbling.


UCU: Favorite handmade item you have?

R&L Goods: We both have rings of very special significance made by Andy Cooperman - a fantastic Jewelry artist who lives and works just a few blocks from us in Ballard. Jean's engagement ring was a top secret surprise and was designed by Andy and her fiance at Andy's studio. My husband and I worked with Andy on our wedding rings - which involved a couple of studio visits, sketching, and lots of talking. We managed to reach a design that reflected our story and Andy's artistic influence - and though I don't expect to receive any envious stares from strangers - I think it's perfect. And it seems that Jean's ring is just as perfect for her.

R&L Goods is graciously offering a pocket sized refillable notebook (design of the winner's choosing) as a giveaway! Leave a comment on this post to be entered to win!

All Call for Artists: Alleycat Acres

Alleycat Acres is a farmer’s collective of volunteers who work with unused spots within the city to cultivate food which is delivered via bike to food banks and places of need around the area. Their organization is currently seeking artists to work together in collaborative projects creating limited runs of items that reflect the mission and values of Alleycat Acres. They can be any medium and would be sold online and at fund-raising events, splitting the proceeds between the artist and operation expenses for Alleycat Acres. If you are interested in this opportunity, please contact Christine at christine@alleycatacres.com for more information, or visit their website at www.alleycatacres.com.

Come craft with us on Sunday!

This year we thought it would be fun to have a craft party to get ready for our winter show. We want to bust out all kinds of fun signage and decorations for the show and if you come, it'll be awesome.

Bring craft supplies and we'll provide snacks, drinks, more supplies and the space. Not only will it be fun, but a great place to meet new friends from your crafty community!

Date: Sunday, November 07
Time: 12:00 PM to 7:00 PM (Open-house style... come and go as you please!)

Please email us for an Evite.

Craft-In

I just got a copy of the awesome box set, Craft-In, edited by Kathleen McCafferty. We hope that many of you that enjoy the show also enjoy making stuff. Whether you sell it or just do it as a hobby is besides the point, we all love to be creative! Craft-In has 12 project booklets inside. They are super cute and easy to throw in your bag to work on your during your lunch hour or bus ride.

Included inside are the following:

*Jar Lid
*Great Cupcake Makeover
*All the Hoopla
*Stupid Sock Creature Social
*Crochet Cactus
*Pet Portrait Embroidery
*Mint Tin Tiny World
*Strawberry Fields Forever
*Shrinkable Adornments
*Little Ireland
*Retro Paper Doll Party
*Culture Club Pocketbook Logs

You could get all your holiday gifts made using this handy box-set! We are giving away 2 copies to 2 lucky winners. Leave a comment here to win. We will draw names on Nov. 15th and you will be able to pick up your winning at the Urban Craft booth on either Dec. 4th or 5th!

Meylah: An Ecommerce Solution Built for Creative Entrepreneurs

Today we want to introduce you to Meylah, an ecommerce solution specifically built for creative entrepreneurs. Meylah is devoted to the creative community to provide the best solutions for individuals to learn, share and support each other’s business growth online and they have created an easy to use and integrated solution specifically built for creatives to launch and manage their online business through blog-powered storefronts.

While there are already millions of creative entrepreneurs online, there are still millions of others that are staying out of the online space because setting up, running, and managing current ecommerce solutions are difficult and intimidating. Meylah’s blog-powered storefronts are easy to use and offer a unique solution for creative professionals to connect, grow and support their customers allowing novice users the ability to launch their business online quickly and build it for long-term success.

Meylah believes in the relationship between community and sales and many people are growing their own substantial communities (and customer bases) online using social media tools like WordPress, Blogger, Tumblr, but have limited means to sell to these same communities that they are building. Even the easiest-to-use plugins for these platforms are difficult to setup and manage, and none of them offer an experience that integrates community building and selling as its core purpose. With Meylah, you are building a community and selling to them in one integrated experience.

Meylah’s extensive market research has shown that across any online venue or platform, people with good design and media skills sold their products way more frequently than the competition while people with very poor skills sink to the bottom quickly. Meylah feels that it shouldn’t be a strike against a great artist or crafter if they don’t have experience writing HTML or using Photoshop. Meylah’s templates are designed to enforce good design behavior, minimizing the competitive disadvantages and they make it easy to present everyone’s work in a beautiful, optimized format that puts the focus on their work, not on how well they can use software.

For more information about Meylah, please visit their blog, take their tour and check out some of sample storefronts of current members. And, Meylah is celebrating their 1-year anniversary this month so they are giving away 1-Year Premium Memberships for FREE (a $240 value) so use this promotion code (MEY1YF ) when you sign up to build your storefront and hurry, it won’t last long!

Want to play with UCU?

photo by toomuchcoffeegirl

We're looking for an intern for the Winter 2010 show and interviews are next week. If you're interested, email moxie@madebymoxie.com quickity fast.