New Blog Site

I have begun making most of my posts on tumblr. We have decided to use this site because the photos are better displayed and easier to upload. Check out the new blog at http://anniesclothesline.tumblr.com/.

Why does girls clothing have to look so....?

I was shopping over the weekend at one of my favorite big box stores. My husband and I split up to find what we needed and as he strolled through the girls department he heard two women comment to each other, "Why does girls clothing have to look so trashy?"

Yes, why does it? I have two daughters, ages 6 and 3 1/2 and when my first daughter was only an infant I asked the same question. The answer to my question was the birth of Annie's Clothesline. At the time I didn't think about it getting worse with the age of the girl, but of course it does. Now that my oldest daughter is wearing clothing from  the girls department and not the baby/toddler section I find that shopping for her is much harder. I don't want my daughters wearing short-shorts, cropped shirts, tight fitting pants, and clothing with inappropriate sayings or images of commercial characters on them. Alas, that's what we find available at those big box stores.

I'm thankful that I can sew and that I love to create and my business partner feels strongly about the same issues. Again, we'll resort to what we know best, our own skills of creating quality clothing that is age appropriate, does not overwhelm with gender specific colors, and is reminiscent of children's clothing styles from eras of the past. I think we may see a bigger push than I anticipated to expand Annie's Clothesline to sizes larger than 5. There is a need for clothing for girls that keeps them looking like a girl and not so....well you know...

Layette a New Annie's Clothesline Product

Expectant mothers of baby girls beware! You may love this!

I'm too excited about our new product idea to wait any longer to talk about it! A friend from college contacted me to make a dress for his soon-to-be-born daughter. He wanted her first outfit, the one she'll be leaving from the hospital in, to be made by someone he and his wife knew. What a nice sentiment! In response to his request my partner (my wonderful mother-Happy Mother's Day, mom!) and I created 2 hats and 2 dresses. One hat and dress in size 0-3 months and the other dress and hat matching in size 12 months. The idea is that her first outfit will coordinate with a dress for her to wear on her first birthday. As a result of this opportunity we were able to pilot a new hat design (it has a chin strap, is reversible, and a double ruffle) and create 0-3 month clothing. It was a success! I hope his wife agrees. If we make this again it will only be by request/special order. I love the idea, maybe someone else will want to purchase it too...

0-3 Month Hat and Dress

0-3 Month Hat and Dress with Hat Reversed

12 Month Hat and Dress

12 Month Hat and Dress with Hat Reversed

Custom Orders for New Customer

I have been pleased to make the acquittance of a lovely woman from Solsberry, Indiana. She has seven children, four boys and three girls and she loves Annie's Clothesline. As a result I have made 2 custom Washboard Girls Easter dresses for her twin daughters and plan to make 2 more within the next month. Her daughters are 7 so it was an opportunity to expand our Washboard Girls collection into size 7. The dresses turned out great and she and her daughters loved them! We don't plan to add size 7 to the Washboard Girls collection but I will continue to make them for her as long as she orders them from Annie's Clothesline. The moral of the story is, if you like it ask, maybe we can do it for you too! I love making things for people I know. It's much more fun than pushing out dresses for a rack in a store.

Size 7 Washboard Girls Custom Easter Dress

Size 7 Washboard Girls Custom Easter Dress

Fun at the Fashion Show

We had a great time at the fashion show. The girls (my daughters and models) enjoyed their walk but preferred the other activities more. They also got to play dress-up, have tea, and listen to a story. They agreed to do it again next year and I will probably have to listen to my 3 year old talk about it over and over for months.

Attendance was awesome at the O'Child Fashion Show and Tea at the Fountain Square Ballroom

Annie's Clothesline models on the right

We now have some more dresses in O'Child. There is a new Washboard Girls style and the 2 dresses featured at the fashion show.

New Washboard Girls style at O'Child

Our display at O'Child

Vintage-inspired Rue Bee dresses to appear at fashion show

My 2 beautiful girls have been invited to model Annie's Clothesline at the O'Child Spring Tea and Fashion Show on Sunday, March 27th. They will be modeling two new Rue Bee designs. The dresses are vintage-inspired and one (the shirt-waist dress) is modeled after a pattern from the 1950s. The other (princess dress) is modeled after our princess coats. Take a sneak peak at the shirt-waist dress. The fabric has a little girl walking French poodles on it. It's so adorable and we absolutely love it!

 

    

More Items at O'Child

 We finished a new set of Washboard Girls dresses and they are now available at O'Child. I really like the minty cool green of this dress and the pocket on the tee makes it playful.

New Items Available at O'Child

We have worked very hard over the last 3 weeks and completed 14 Rue Bee Princess coats and 6 Washboard Girls dresses for this spring. The items are available at O'Child in Bloomington. The coats look fantastic! They are in a great location in the store; at the front! They can be seen from the sidewalk outside the store on the Square. We love the Windsor blue most but we know many people will love the fuchsia more. The 6 Washboard Girls dresses are rose colored with flowers at the neck line. The flowers are darling and the colors make you anxious for spring.

Rue Bee Princess Coat, fuchsia

Rue Bee Princess Coat, Windsor blue

Washboard Girls, rose flower dress

Next up, more Washboard Girls dresses, Princess dresses (bias cut, button front with sleeves), and shirt-waist dresses. The fabrics are fantastic and the styles are a perfect match! We'll post pictures when they are done. Not to mention, you can view our models and clothing at the O'Child Boutique 2nd Annual Spring Tea and Fashion Show from 2-4 PM on March 27th!

Last project and the next

Side View

Fabric Lining

I may have plenty of work to do, what with 2 stores to fill this spring and 3 young children to raise but I still pushed through a project of my own. I'm totally in love with this bag so I felt the need to share. It was on my to-do list for 8 months and that makes me even more excited that I'm through with it. My love of the bag mostly comes from the love of the fabrics I choose (Moda!) but also for the functionality. It's meant to be a diaper bag for a while and then, if it's not too beat up, just a plain bag to carry. I'm getting pretty good at these and I'm already looking for a reason to make more, alas they don't fit into my business plan at the moment. 

 

So speaking of business I'm not moving on to making flowers for those cute Princess swing coats that sold so well in the fall-winter of 2010. We are making them in fuchsia and what we're calling Wedgwood blue. No doubt they will be showing up at O'Child soon. 

Business Expansion

I have a few unanticipated free minutes and I thought it might give me a chance to post a blog. We'll see how long those "free" minutes last...

Annie's Clothesline is still looking for a few possible new stores that will carry our products. We've investigated several stores in the state of Indiana and one or two out of state. We would like to add a new store or two but can't seem to make the ultimate decision until we know we can handle the increased work load. That means we need to hire one or two people to help us sew. Just a little help is needed for some piece working especially on our coats, since they are one of the most desirable items we make. We welcome any comments or interest.

I would also like to thank O'Child Boutique for the support over the last year. Selling our items in that store was one of the best decisions we made because it has opened a some doors for us. Thank you Nancy!

Spring/Summer 2011 Fabrics Purchased

On New Year's day we made a trip to our favorite fabric store, The Stitching Post in Washington, Indiana. We were able to select many fabrics for a great deal of what we will be making for our spring/summer collection. We love our new fabrics and feel they will represent the upcoming seasons well. You should see our new collections at O'Child Boutique in Bloomington and Ballerinas and Bruisers in Zionsville. We're disappointed that the 3rd store that carried our collections, Ragpickers in Jasper, is closing. It is motivating us to find 2 new stores to carry our products this spring.

Washboard Girls
We plan to make short sleeve t-shirt dresses as well as tank dresses with these fabrics-

 We also plan to introduce a new item to the Washboard Girls collection, skirts.

Kate and Izzy
Featuring the following fabrics paired with vintage barkcloths.

Rue Bee
More Princess Coats for spring out of fuchsia and a powdery-royal blue. We are also going to expand the Princess Coat design and make it into a dress with the following fabrics-

One more new design will be a shirt-waist dress with buttons down the front. We think this fabric below will be perfect for the introduction of the new design.

RJ Clark
Yes, we have a boys collection! We chose this fabric for RJ Clark. We will make boys overalls with shorts for spring and summer. I know we'll add more designs and fabrics for the boys collection, since now we have a few boys in the family to clothe.

Reflections on the Year

2010 was a big year! Annie's Clothesline had our best year ever. We began 2010 by developing our logo and identity with a graphic designer. As a result we have a cool new logo and great colors to go with it. Work with him is leading us toward even more professional looking products by adding logo designs for our collections, new tags and labels.

Next, we tackled the website. We hired a designer from etsy to create a splash page for our site. Then we began implementation of a web redesign to go with it. The redesign is a never ending process for which I have to thank my webmaster, my father, for working so hard. Our site now includes pictures of our products on the left. When you click on the product you can see additional images of that product in the center of your screen. Our obstacle is that the large images take time to load so he is working on that now. Nonetheless you can still see more of what we have to offer in all of our collections.

We're still awaiting final sales from O'Child but we already know that we have increased our sales by over 600%! We have sales in stores to thank for that. O'Child Boutique in Bloomington has been our top seller. We have had a presence in the store for a little over a year now. Second in sales in Ballerinas and Bruisers in Zionsville. The patrons of that store love our coats. Speaking of which. My mother and co-owner made these beautiful coats for my daughters. Every where we go people are noticing them. Someone said, "What are those coats?" I had to say, "They are Annie's Clothesline!" Yes, we're heading for name recognition. The woman continued to say, "You don't see that in Bloomington. They look like they are from Paris." I said, "Well, now you do. And they're on sale at O'Child Boutique on the square."

The third store that sells our clothing, Ragpickers in Jasper has also had success in selling our products. It's the cutest store in downtown Jasper and is a great destination for gift shopping.

A dress at Ragpickers

We also did a decent bit of selling to friends and acquaintances as well as attendance at the Plainfield Tri Kappa Gingerbread Christmas craft show. We enjoyed the show and hope to attend again next year. We learned a lot from attending the show and it will help us in achieving our goal of attending the Country Living Craft Show in Columbus, Ohio in a few years.

Booth at Gingerbread Christmas

Thanks to everyone who supports us. We love our business and we hope you do too. Expect to see more growth and visibility of Annie's Clothesline in the future! Happy New Year!

Sale!

We had a great experience at the Gingerbread Christmas craft show. We hope to attend again next year!

New news-we have lowered prices on some of our Washboard Girls and Kate and Izzy dresses. We're offering over 1/2 off on the dresses posted on our Etsy store. Take a look. You might find something for your favorite little girl! http://www.etsy.com/shop/anniesclothesline

Come Shop Annie's Clothesline Saturday, December 4th

They say we're going to get our first major snowfall this Saturday. There's noting better to gear us up for the holidays than snow and shopping! It's a perfect combination so come visit our booth at the Plainfield Tri Kappa Gingerbread Christmas craft fair on Saturday, December 4th from 9am-3pm. We'll have discounted items and new ones to share!

Shown on Fox 59 News in the morning!

Our dresses and coats were pictured on Fox 59 news last Friday morning. View our products when Sherman talks about O'Child Boutique! http://www.fox59.com/videobeta/?watchId=d6495d42-4fef-4e3f-a63b-41d3df57f55c

Making the Sale!

We are overjoyed that people out there like our product! We have been selling well in all three stores this month. Ragpickers in Jasper sold 3 Halloween Treat bags and a Kate and Izzy dress in 2 weeks! Now we know where the bags will sell. We'll have some for Easter that are very cute.

Easter Bag

Our fleece swing coats are selling great at O'Child in Bloomington and at Ballerinas and Bruisers in Zionsville. We like making these coats and can make them in sizes 12 months to 6 in any color, as long as we can find the fabric. We have made them in pink, fuchsia, navy blue, black, and cranberry this fall. The berets are now available in O'Child and are made in fabrics to match the coats. Ragpickers will also have coats in a week or two. We are making a brown and a red coat for them in 12 month sizes. They are both adorable!

Princess Swing Coat in navy with pink flowers

We are now starting to gear up for our next endeavor, the Tri Kappa Gingerbread Christmas in Plainfield, Indiana on December 4th. We are busy making new items for the show and will bring some of our past items for sale.

Finally, to my followers, if there is a children's store or boutique near you that you think our stuff will sell in please let us know. We are hoping to expand into another store in spring 2011. We are considering an out-of-state store, possibly in Michigan, Illinois, or Ohio. I know we don't have many followers yet but I'd love to hear any suggestions.

New Items Added to Etsy

We have been so busy getting our fall/winter collection out to the stores that we had neglected our Etsy site. As of this afternoon we now have 11 items posted at http://www.etsy.com/shop/anniesclothesline. Some of these I have already shared with you on a previous blog post. The one we are still working on is the hat. It's way too cute when paired with the coats!

Annie's Clothesline Custom

We made 4 custom pieces over the past few weeks, 2 Princess coats (one purple in size 18-24 months and one pink in size 3T) and 2 Washboard Girls dresses. It's such a pleasure to make items for a specific little person. We can put a little extra heart into it.

Made for Grace A.

Fall/Winter 2010 Preview

Here are some of the things you will see in the stores for Annie's Clothesline. We still have more dresses, skirts, coats and hats we are working on but they should be complete in the next couple of weeks.

Rue Bee 
Princess Coats
Fleece coats with Velcro closures.

These will come in navy, cranberry, and a few in fuchsia (for the Zionsville store) this season. We made them in pink, blue, yellow and purple for Spring 2010.

Patchwork Skirts
Made with reproduction vintage fabrics.

The fabrics will be familiar to most of you. They will be made of the Little Goldenbook art work.

The above two photos are examples of the design that you will see at O'Child Boutique in Bloomington, Indiana (when the skirts are ready for stores).

Kate and Izzy
A-line Scoop Neck Barkcloth Dresses
Made with barkcloth on the skirts and reproduction coordinating fabrics on the bodice. Barkcloth is a thick, textured fabric historically used in home decorating in the 1940s-1960s. The fabric used here once had a life in someones home as a set of curtains. Select sizes of these dresses can be purchased at any of the stores that carry Annie's Clothesline.

Vintage Suiting Apron Dress
These dresses are made with vintage fabrics that were once used to make women's suits. Both styles of these dresses are available at O'Child Boutique in sizes 12 months to 5 years.

Cornflower reproduction fabric with a tan suit fabric on the skirt.

Black and gold.

Washboard Girls
T-shirt dresses with reproduction vintage fabrics.

This style is available at Ballerina's and Bruisers in Zionsville, Indiana in sizes 12 months-5 years.

These feature turtlenecks. Sizes 12 months and 18-24 months have snap closures at the neck. O'Child Boutique currently has these in the store. They have black Scottie dogs on the skirt and white polka dots on the hem.

Girls and ducks in a soft blue are on the skirts for sizes 12 months to 3T. 4T and 5T dresses are reversed, with the girls and ducks on the hem and the red and blue diamonds on the skirt. All sizes are turtleneck tops. Featured at O'Child.

Lastly, we have a pink and brown floral skirt combined with a dark corduroy hem. The tops are crew necks. These dresses are at Ballerinas and Bruisers in sizes 12 months to 5 years.