The wild coast of Bohemia

If you're looking for us, I'm afraid we can't be found very often on Livejournal these days. Here are current sites where you can get in touch, see what we're doing and have a chat. See you there!

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Our shops -

Baba Store

Base currency is Euros but you can switch currency to USD or British pounds.

Amazon UK - large, expanding selection. (GB£)

Amazon France - great selection, slightly different from the Amazon.uk range (Euro)

Main shop on Etsy (USD$)

Laptop bag shop on Etsy  (USD$)

Bohemian Cats shop on Etsy (USD$)



Follow us -

Baba Studio on Facebook

Karen's Facebook

Twitter (we only tweet occasionally)

"The Wild Coast of Bohemia"  the studio blog

"Making Dreams Work" blog

Neither wraps nor corsets are available to buy yet, but will be soon. We're trying to find ways to get the costs down by making several of these at a time - done singly they are horribly expensive, but we think we can find a solution.

So for now - just showing them for fun.

You know, I'm just not sure I can manage to keep up two blogs, an LJ, my own Facebook and the studio Facebook. I think I need to do more automated feeds somehow - without just inanely twittering all day.

Anyway, for now, I will try! So here is a picture of the studio I just put on our FB page. It's just a snap that I took this morning when I and cat staggered out of bed. He sleeps beside me every night - for more than two years now - and gets up when I do mostly, though sometimes he decides to have a lie in.

It just looked pretty and interesting and I actually managed to get myself together enough, after the first cup of coffee, to grab the camera.



The white and pink bits on the ironing board are two amazing antique costumes that will be used for our upcoming Bohemian Cats project (upcoming meaning beginning in the late autumn realistically). I need to work out how to clean the white one - astounding Victorian wedding dress but I think it was in someone's attic for years.

The wrap on the model is one of our early tests - only half printed up but gives an idea. These wraps are becoming wonderful - I love them.

The three panels are our "sketch prints" of three new messenger and laptop panels that we're working on. Sometimes the only way to design them is to run off some actual sized prints on the real canvas and hang them over a bag. Still lots to do on these before they are ready to go - but again, you can get some idea of what we're playing with.

The drawers are how we organise the small bags. And the books are how I organise my mind.

We're very close to having the first of these completed now. Two designs done - one with an Arthur Rackham mermaids theme and the other our own Bohemian Gothic "Strength".

Both these first prints are now being changed considerably. The colours are being toned down a little - we want something a bit more misty and with a slightly antique feel. We are also, sadly in a way, changing the "shell baby" on the Mermaids wrap, as I think another nymph will be better.

We will be doing two more designs for the fashion shoot at the end of August (aaargh, I have to find models soon), and then hopefully these four designs - not the actual shoot ones, but others that are identical - plus one or two more, will be one sale in September. We still need to decide on the final 4-6. Perhaps one Alice in the mix, another fairies for sure and perhaps something a bit Russian in feel? I'm not sure yet.

Just a corner of this Strength one printed so far. We think the blue, although beautiful, is too intense, so it needs some work. There is never any way to tell how a colour will come out until we print it on fabric. So we're used to this phase of adjusting and readjusting.

Well, in the interests of getting more active again on LJ, I thought I'd mention that the laptop bags have finally arrived here. They are part-made bags without the top of the flap, which we will now print and sew.

And... as this is still more my personal journal than the studio one, I will also say that the arrival was a mix of catastrophe and comedy. We had not expected a container (!) and Alex had to unload it with the help of the driver, and a bit of cash changing hands, and then attempt to move all 120 cartons to our storage alone. Magda, above and beyond the call of duty really, set up across town to help him (our storage place is a bit out of town) and to pacify the neighbours who were wondering if all 120 cartons were going to be a permanent feature of their pavement.  It all got done - and we have learned a lesson about asking more questions about packing methods. This is not to blame our supplier - I think they had told us it was an entire container and somehow I had not understood that - probably didn't want to believe it. Anyway, after all this the bags look great - the quality is beautiful - and the sewing is correct.

So we went out to our favourite restaurant last night to celebrate. I insisted as sometimes I feel we don't celebrate achievements enough and honestly, getting all this done, from researching patterns to finding laptop bag makers to negotiating details of fabric etc with a somewhat difficult Chinese agent, really was a saga.

Oh - and a few more updates. All three blackbird chicks survived and flew away after one week. I am lost in admiration for the parents who achieved this by attacking anything - including me - that went anywhere near them. I'll cross-post this on Facebook too.

Now we have the greenfinch chicks about to leave the nest, so I suppose it's going to be another week of keeping a close eye on the cats. And printing laptop bag flaps :)

Oh dear. I never seem to post much here any more - it's all over on Facebook. I never, ever imagined I'd be saying that. I'll try to be a bit more active here soon.

This is quite funny. Although it ends with an ad.

The nauseating photo of our Prime Minister (now thankfully EX Prime Minister) prancing around naked and semi-erect at Berlusconi's villa really is the last straw. I mean, apart from the ethics (he has a new young wife and new young child) the sheer stupidity of putting yourself in the position to have compromising photos taken beggars belief:

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6440499.ece (the story, I haven't linked to the actual photo as it's too stomach-turning).

When is this country going to get itself some people in power who are not total dickheads?

God, what a day. Pure Five of Wands and I feel like sitting down somewhere with a cup of coffee and crying. Stupid, because it's just small, horrid little things going wrong. Odd how sometimes I am hopeless with this kind of situation, but much better in a real crisis.

The new place is going to be brilliant for the cats - terraced gardens below for them to look at, and birds, birds, birds everywhere. I just hope they don't learn to hunt, fortunately they've never been very talented at that.

This afternoon, we got all that was planned done by five - brilliant! - and when I opened the French doors once I finished unpacking the books (well the fraction of them that I felt I would tackle today) all I could hear was angelically beautiful singing. It was either someone playing arias on CD OR it could perhaps have been from the Benedictine convent, who will practically be neighbours. If so, then my goodness, they are pretty impressive. Apparently we are allowed to go to services there. I am sort of tempted as it's supposed to be wonderful. Whatever, at some point I have to go knock on the door and warn them that our cats may visit, as the roof connects with theirs and knowing our cats, a whole convent to explore will be just tooooooo tempting.