Hello, and welcome!

Well, hi there! I'm Claire Manning, an illustrator and embroidery addict based out of Toronto. I am so happy to welcome you to my first blog! I have been meaning to start this for a long time, and am happy to finally have it up and running. I will be posting mostly the progress of me opening an etsy shop to sell my wares. Although I've had success with my illustration work, I have tried creating a side business in the past to sell my crafts with little success. This time, I am trying to do it right, and want to document my process. So far, I have decided on the first item to sell in my store. My first business attempt was had painted and embroidered baby bodysuits and tees. I wanted to make my second try an item that was fairly gender neutral and definitely one size fits all. I also wanted to be able to make the item myself. So, I'm making tea towels. Initially I was thinking a set of three, each with an embroidery on it. I started with a test one for myself. The embroidery took a little longer than I thought and through suggestions I've decided to make 2 of the three towels screen printed and just one hand embroidered. I made sizing changes and small embroidery and fabrication changes, and have now just finished four "phase 2" testers with the hand embroidery, that I'm passing to people through next week. Hopefully they'll have some good feedback and I can finally start production. I'm going to do the screening with my awesome print gocco, and am just waiting for the fabric ink to arrive in the mail to get going on that side of the project. Anyhow, I will continue writing about this frequently and keep you up to date on the developments.

Oh- and I will also keep you in the loop about any awesome illustration work I'm doing, and just about any neat-o stuff that I happen to run across that I fall in love with. This happens all the time so be prepared!

Here are some photos of the phase 1 tea towel (with the salt shaker) and the phase 2 tea towels- if you are curious about my work and are itching to see more right this minute, have a peek at my website- www.clairemanning.com.

Have a happy Thursday!!