News / made in maine

brand-new, limited edition Organic Cotton Gold Rose Moth tees are here!

brand-new, limited edition Organic Cotton Gold Rose Moth tees are here!

Hooray for freshly printed fall tees! Here is a brand-new, limited edition organic cotton tee with a shimmery rose gold moth illustration. This is a design I started sketching at the beginning of the summer...

first moth sketches

I hand-painted the finished design with a fine paintbrush and black India ink on transparent film,

then used that film to create the silkscreen stencil, and hand-printed a limited edition of only twenty-five prints on these super-luxurious organic cotton tees.

Here's a fun time-lapse video of the set-up process, mixing and testing the ink color, marking out the t-shirts to make sure the print will be neatly centered, etc... Silkscreen printing takes a lot of careful set-up work!

And here's a time-lapse of me printing the tees! 

silkscreen printing the new moth tees

 

It's a really flattering scoop-neck style with beautiful, simple details, well-constructed from unbelievably soft Pima cotton. Because it's a different (and fancier) style of tee than I usually print on, I only made twenty-five of these for the Fall 2018 season, and will not be printing more this season, so they'll probably be selling out by the end of Common Ground Fair, if not sooner - if you want to catch one in your size, they are all up on the website now.

 

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Morris & Essex at LL Bean!

Morris & Essex at LL Bean!

Maine State Greeting Card

I am so excited about packing up a box of goodies bound for the one and only LL Bean today! Keep an eye out for Morris & Essex tea towels and greeting cards at the LL Bean Home store in Freeport! 

I have special feelings bout LL Bean - Growing up, my family shopped at Beans every year, even when it was just a little shop with creaky wood floors, on the second floor, upstairs from the Freeport post office. Every family expedition was entirely outfitted with well-worn, vintage LL Bean gear, from heavy waxed canvas backpacks to crinkly parkas and cross-country skis. It’s so cool to know that some of my own favorite designs will be for sale at this iconic Maine spot!! Thank you to LL Bean Home for supporting local artisans! ❤️

#morrisandessexdesign #mainemade#letterpresslove #mainedesign#madeinmaine #letterpressgreetingcards#greetingcarddesign #mainemakers#madeinusa #letterpresscards #mainelove

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Summer 2018 Craft Fair Schedule

Summer 2018 Craft Fair Schedule

I am feeling SO very spring-sunshine-y this week, it's glorious! And that's got me thinking about this coming summer craft fair season... yay! I've cut back on my craft fair commitments now that we've got TWO little running, climbing, wild, mischievous and delightful assistants on our little team. It was always a lot of work to pull off a big craft fair when it was just me, but now that we've got two little kids to look after, it's a HUGE undertaking! Someday the kids will be older and they'll be thrilled to spend the occasional weekend away from us and we'll get back to doing more fairs then, but for now, they're only little once and it's hard to do too many big weekend commitments. So, just a few great events lined up for this summer:

Yarmouth Clam Festival, crafts area: July 20 - 22, Yarmouth, Maine

Ossipee Valley Music Festival: July 26 - 29, Hiram, Maine

Common Ground Country Fair: September 21 - 23, Unity, Maine

Come out and see us - these are all FANTASTIC events filled with amazing handmade goods, and I'm looking forward to each of them!

Also, check out Picnic Craft Fair on August 4th in Portland - we LOVE this one and always participate, but have to miss it this year for a very special wedding in New York. And if you're in Portland, absolutely go check out the Portland Fine Craft Show on August 25th. We'll be out of town for this one too, but it was awesome last year and I'm sure it will be a great showing again this time around!

Common Ground Fair rainbow

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Packaging Design

Packaging Design

Did you know this week was national packaging design day? I know it’s a small detail, but I’ve always been really proud of my product packaging and the design thought I’ve put into it. Simple, minimal and practical (and eco-friendly)! My pattern design style is always pretty elaborate, which means the packaging needs to stay understated - I think it's a nice balance. And nice packaging makes it easier to give them as a gift - wrapping and presentation is always part of the joy of giving and receiving!

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Free Shipping code for email subscribers!

Free Shipping code for email subscribers!

Are you on the Morris & Essex email list? http://eepurl.com/czJaY I'd love to stay in touch by email, and I'm sending out a *FREE SHIPPING* code to my email list subscribers this week, so hop over and get on the list if you aren't there already! http://eepurl.com/czJaY I promise not to bug you too much, I don't send a whole lot of emails and when I do, it's usually good stuff - new product announcements, sneak peaks, sales, and the rare promo codes. Love to have you join us there! 

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Introducing our brand-new Natural Birch Wood Ornaments!

Introducing our brand-new Natural Birch Wood Ornaments!

Natural Birch Wood Christmas Ornaments

I'm so excited to share these brand-new ornaments! They're just finished this week and I think they came out beautifully! We already have them hanging up in our windows at home. They're made in Maine from natural, unfinished birch plywood, custom engraved with my original designs. The light, unfinished wood looks just right against the dark boughs of the pine tree. You can check them out on my website!

We also have lots of other beautiful goodies to keep in mind for the coming holiday season (gorgeous hand-printed scarves are so perfect for this time of year!), and will be adding more special new products soon... Stay tuned for some more new items on the way in the next few weeks!

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Big news - a new studio in the works!!

Big news - a new studio in the works!!

new print tables at the new studio

Morris & Essex is growing up and moving out of mom's house! With a growing business and a new baby on the way, I'm moving my silkscreen studio out of the house and into a new space. It's a great big space in the beautiful town of Cornish, Maine, just a few minutes away from home. Rumor has it that this building used to be the exhibit hall for the nearby fairgrounds. It's a gorgeous, antique building with tons of history, updated with solar panels and now with a beautiful big silkscreen studio coming together on the bottom floor. 

This weekend we finished building a printing table 20 FEET LONG(!) at the new studio. We have sinks, we have tables, we have shelves. Next, to build a bolt holder for all my fabric, and then a darkroom... So excited for this new chapter and for sharing a space with fellow screenprinter Ms. Sabrina of Think Greene. Onwards and upwards!

building new tables at the studio

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Morris & Essex featured in Portland Press Herald Holiday Gift Guide!

Portland Press Herald Source Gift Guide

I'm still blushing from this wonderfully flattering mention in Sunday's Portland Press Herald. The PPH Source section is focused on everything local and sustainable, and last year they featured Morris & Essex in the "Homegrown" column. This year they put together a short list of sustainable gift ideas, including Morris & Essex Hand-Printed Bamboo Scarves: Gift guide: 13 green ideas for friends, family – and maybe even you. We're in great company there, alongside Weft & Warp, Erin Flett, and Johnny's Seeds, among others. I will admit to being tickled by the Angela Adams comparison, though I'm not sure I deserve it! 

 

 

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Lacy Blue and Silver Scarf

Lacy Blue and Silver Scarf

I'm kind of proud and maybe a little bit embarrassed to admit that I've been working on this design for at least two years!! And it's finally done! 

I've always loved intricate, lacy designs and always find myself doodling these kind of starburst patterns, so it's hard to say exactly when this idea started. 

Lacy Inspiration

There was one very slow craft fair a few years ago, where I had lots of time for sketching and dreaming (that's the last time I sign up for a craft fair in May! I think it's just not the right season) and I started sketching up this idea for a scarf or bag pattern. 

Then it took months (or years?) before I had the time to start making the design for real - it's been always on my mind, and often in my sketchbook doodles, but it can be hard to find the time to sit down at the computer and translate sketches into reality. Finally I had a beautiful week of quiet in October, in between the hustle of late-summer craft shows and the start of holiday production rush, a moment of peace with no looming deadlines, when I could sit and start drawing. 

I use a pen tablet for drawing my designs on the computer. I have to wait for those quiet afternoons when the toddler is at her Nana's house for a few hours and I can sit down and plug in my laptop and tablet - otherwise the toddler can't resist grabbing cords and pounding on the keyboard. It was really meditative work, peaceful and satisfying, to sit and and draw out intricate patterns, one piece at a time, then link them together as if joining them by fine threads. It took weeks of work to do them all, sneaking in a few minutes here and there, or waiting til the toddler was asleep in bed to pour a glass of wine and sit down to work quietly. Sometimes it's hard to know when I'm done with a design, I just want to keep tweaking and adjusting it forever... I decided to try and finish it before this season's holiday craft fairs, so I had to rush to finish it up in the last few weeks of November. Once I've finished my designs, I print them out on transparent film which is used to create the stencil on the screen.

I was so excited to finally get it printed onto fabric, I had to take a picture before the ink was even dry! I had worried a bit that the details were too small and it would be difficult to print neatly, but the scale turned out just right - it looks beautifully intricate, but the lines are bold enough to print neatly. I'd gotten the blue fabric a few months earlier and wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it, just loved the color and wanted to work with it. Once I saw this design, it seemed like a perfect fit to print it in silver on the blue fabric. I tested out a few other combinations but the blue and silver was totally my favorite, no contest.

Super excited to have this finally complete! Out of my head and onto the fabric... and now it's up in the shop and out into the world!

http://www.morrisessex.com/collections/hand-printed-scarves/products/lacy-blue-and-silver-scarf

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Behind the Scenes: Mixing ink colors!

Behind the Scenes: Mixing ink colors!

You know what's one of my FAVORITE parts of this job? Mixing ink colors!! Most all of my colors are mixed by hand, by eye... I always start with big buckets of primary colors... Pour out some colors in a jar and add a few dollops of this and that... Magenta, Blue, Yellow, Black, White, Transparent, maybe a few drops of water... Usually it's a lot of this and a bit of that and at least three or four different ingredients that make the magic combination of hue and shade and saturation. Every drop of color added is a bit of a guess, as I have to mix it in to find out just how it will change my color. Mix, mix, mix... dab a smudge on a test swatch of fabric... adjust with a few more drops of this and that. Often the ink color changes a bit as the ink dries, so it can be a time-consuming project to get the colors adjusted just right. But it's always a labor of love! I might be a color mixing fanatic. Every jar of ink is a bright cup of potential, waiting to do something beautiful!

image: mixing ink colors for Hand printed Blue Flowers organic cotton canvas tote bag, $54.

image: matching colors for Grey bamboo scarf with Blue Waves pattern, $36.

image: mixing purple ink for Soft grey bamboo scarf with hand-printed purple Mayflowers pattern, $36.

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New Postcard

New Postcard

Here's a new postcard I made up for the New England Made wholesale show. It was nice to have these in the booth for visitors to grab as they wandered past. It's a big show with lots of wonderful things to see, and it felt good to give people a little something to remember me by. I've also found they're great to set out on my table when I do craft shows - people love to learn more about who made their gift and have something to tell about the business they are buying from. And lately I've started adding a card into each of my mail-order packages too. I'm happy to share these - let me know if you'd like one! If you are a wholesale buyer, let me know when you place an order and I will pop a stack of them into your package. I know some shops and galleries like to share a bit of information about the artists and craftspeople they are representing, and this makes a nice tidbit to include in the bag when someone purchases Morris & Essex goods.

It was a fun project for me to work on - cleaning off my work-table, setting up the photo and trying out different options for the front layout turned out to be a long afternoon's work, but it was a nice time and I loved the result! 

Here's the text from the back side:

MORRIS & ESSEX • hand printed in Maine

Morris & Essex produces colorful and original hand-printed paper and textile goods in a farmhouse studio in Limington, Maine. Our high-quality products are all designed by artist Eliza Jane Curtis, with a passion for color, pattern and function. Each one features colorful handmade patterns, textures and motifs inspired by a love of the natural world, geometric patterns, and vintage designs. Everything is hand-printed here in Maine. We use natural and sustainable materials and processes, and focus on positive, sustainable, business practices and supporting talented local artisans. We love what we do and we hope you will love it too!

www.morrisessex.com | eliza@morrisessex.com

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