Hanging out

My little guy Neko all dressed up in his very first free range baby outfit - 1 month old 

*Merino forest jumper with rust and cream leggings*

ON MATERNITY LEAVE with my free range baby

I'm currently on maternity leave with my little boy Neko Newton. Free Range Baby will be back better than ever with all new designs inspired by my little man and lots of first hand baby dressing experience... Now if only he would sleep I could sew!

THE AMAZING SWONDERFUL Work Room Sale!!!

My super amazing friends at Swonderful are having a workroom sale.... If you are in or near Wellington tomorrow make sure you don't miss out on some fabulous deals.

Free Range Baby will be there with samples & limited edition pieces at great prices. If you can't make it this weekend, you will find Free Range Baby at the Craft2.0 market next weekend - for the last time before I go on market maternity leave (my very own free range baby is due this spring!).

Lil' Magoolie - Christchurch quake appeal auction

The awesome Maddie of Li'l Magoolie blog is currently running a great auction full of designer goodies for kids and parents. 100% of the profits are going directly to the Red Cross Christchurch earth quake appeal.

This week there are these free range baby goodies up for grabs. Please follow the links and check out ours, and others listings, knowing your money will be going to a fantastic cause.

See you later summer

Wellington has been putting on a great show for these first few weeks of Autumn, which has been delightful... So, while we had the doors open all weekend, there is really no denying the seasons changed when we were then having to sweep up a little pile of autumn leaves from the kitchen floor.

So long little summer dresses and bare feet, see you next year!

And here's my pick of our summer outfits... A few still left in our nz & international shops, perfect for those surprisingly warm autumn days, to mix and match with snugly warm layers in the months ahead... or simply to hoard away for next summer before they get snapped up by folks in warmer places!

oh dear, too much photoshop! But how great would it be... endless fabrics in the colours of your choosing, with the move of a mouse!

Happy New Year

Yes, mid February is a little bit late to be wishing you all Happy New Year, but I promise it's because things have been so busy down at the free range studio. This means you can expect to find lots of new goodies in our shops, starting next Monday!

Summer has been wonderful down here, but I'm super excited for winter to roll on in this year, as Free Range Baby has lots of gorgeous new coats in the works. Think toggled duffel coat cuteness and lots of vintage buttons, funky plaids, bold wools and snugly vintage brushed cotton colours.

Here is a little teaser of things to come...

GREYTOWN

Free Range Baby is up bright and early this morning for the first ever Craft Country. So I'm heading over the hill to lovely Greytown in the Wairarapa... Hoping to leave this very unsummery Wellington day behind!

It should be a great day out and the perfect pre Xmas shopping spot. So come see!

Directions and more info

Fruit Bowl Craft Jam - Hastings 4th & 5th

Free Range Baby will be in Hastings tomorrow AND Sunday for the first ever Fruit Bowl Craft Jam.
It should be an awesome day out in the Bay, so if you are local do come and visit!

More love for Welly-town

You know it was a hard winter when one lovely day has you all gahh gahh in love with the city you live in...

Design Sponge has also been appreciating our great wee city recently, and has put together a truly fantastic collection of places to shop, eat, drink and be in Wellington. I couldn't agree more with their recommendations. Included in the mix is the best little shop around, Swonderful, the finest place to drink coffee, Peoples Coffee, and the best new spot Monterey, finally a great little bar for my beloved old suburb Newtown...

Welcome Spring, thanks for coming!

"You can't beat Wellington on a good day...."

This is a slightly over used musing about the fine city in which I live. It is true of course. This place is glorious, and today on the first day of spring dear old Wellington put on a great display. True bliss. I got to send the day in the backyard working on a huge crane order, listening to tui's battle it out in the kowhai tree and watching my glorious little two year old neighbour frolic about in nothing but her sun hat. It could almost make you forget the umbrella annihilating winds and horizontal rains of late!

My little friend, Amelie (the aforementioned two year old). is mighty keen on getting hold of my rather large and fragile camera, so I wasn't able to snap away in the garden today, but these pictures set the mood!

FIRST FACEBOOK GIVEAWAY!

If you're not already, now is the time to become our friend on Facebook! We are running our first every giveaway. All you have to do is become our friend on FACEBOOK, make your presense known with a word or two and we'll pop you in the draw to win this cute little free range friend...

Giveaway inspired by RAK, check it out this is such a lovely concept.

Handmade kids interview

I had a little chat with Jemma from Handmade kids recently, about the life and times of free range baby. It's such a sweet blog with an inspiring array of goodies for little people...

A very Good day

The latest issue of the super cool NZ mag GOOD has a kiddies fashion feature, and look who's in it! We are super excited! And how lovely does Peta Mazey's photo look?

Meet Ngaio...

A few little snippets from our Friday morning adventures in Ngaio's backyard. We had a great time playing with free range softies and vintage knitted friends on a glorious rain free Wellington winters day. Huge thanks to Ruth (and Al), your daughters a little gem!

Stay tuned for more free range adventures featuring Ngaio.


Ngaio is wearing: Free Range Baby's Little Western merino top in blue with vintage plaid and Olive & Cranes merino in mandarin.

Felt like free shipping...

Shopping online is the perfect thing, it makes heaps of sense not paying for parking in town, not braving the yucky winter weather, and being able to get things from the over side of the world... just like that. And honestly is there anything better than finding packages in the mail box? BUT one of my pet hates is postage extortion or outright refusal - if you are going to the post shop why can't you send it to New Zealand? Planes come here, really its ok!?

There is something super disheartening about finding a vintage bargain, or an awesome pair of boots online, going through to check out and finding it costs five times the price of the item to get it here. I've abandoned many an online shopping cart for just this reason.

So no postal charge day light robbery here. NOPE. From now on all our goodies bought through FELT are free of shipping charges. And our Etsy shop is at cost, which means pretty cheap... a dress from NZ - Norway $6. Thanks NZ post for keeping it real!

Absence Note...

Free Range Baby would like to apologies for slack blogging and a general absence from the interweb. Excuses for slackness include moving cities, house moving, no internet connection, death of computer and loss of photoshop.

But we're back! Enjoying Wellington winter rains, winds and southerlies... finding it a good excuse to wear merino everyday.

Our love of all things orange was truly satisfied when we found a perfect little cottage with a pumpkin colour scheme. Made all the more lovely because it comes complete with super lovely neighbours, including the utterly adorable toddling Amelie, who looks like the perfect Free Range Baby roaming around in the back yard.

SPRING SALE

To celebrate the Northern Hemisphere spring (that I briefly got to enjoy) we are having a little sale at our online shop that serves most of our northern customers... Of course everyone is welcome, and even though we are heading into the cold months here this is still a good change to head over to ETSY and grab some spring and summer gears for a bargain price.

Lots of tee's and bubble suits. Dresses are coming next week.

Free Range Baby is home...

Japan was amazing, Japanese fabric was incredible, two weeks of Spring before heading into Autumn and Winter was beautiful and magical...

Now back to work! I have 5kg of Japanese fabric and my mind is bursting with new ideas for a very limited edition 'Kawaii' collection. Kawaii is Japanese for cute, and you hear it a lot in Japan, since it really is a country brimming with cuteness!

Stay tuned, I'll be posting little snippets of what I'm working on leading up to the release in late May.


KAWAII COLLECTION: AVAILABLE ON ETSY & FELT SHOPS FROM MAY 30th

Free Range Baby in the land of cute

Free Range Baby is currently in Japan, so we are unable to take orders.

Our online shops will reopen on the 22nd of April with some super deals and lots of brand new cute little numbers. We will have a new range of dresses, jeans, leggings, lovely snuggly winter coats and our fantastic new screen printed tees. Merino gears will be arriving on the scene early May, along with a touch of Japanese fabric!

Tee Time!

Yes they are really here, I picked up my tee shirts from the screen printer today! Actually to be more accurate, I picked up the front pieces of my tee's, I still have to cut the rest and get them sewn up! But still very exciting, they will be available really soon.

We are going to have some organic cream and grey marl.
Plus regular cotton in red, blush, blue, lemon, tan and cream. And to mix things up even more there will be mix of tee's printed in either Black, Green or Red.

Stay tuned...

Till then check out my little friend Eli sporting one of the very first tee's.

Blogging guilt mosaic..

Here is a little preview of the creations that we have been turning out recently at free range studios. It is the height of crazy market season here, with the new waterfront markets in full swing and 2 Martinborough fairs just around the corner.

We have lots of new toys in the toy box and an adorable little model called Eli, sporting the brand new free range baby tee's, not to mention lots of new dresses and overalls.

Where have I been...

Market season in Wellington has cranked into full speed in the last month, with back to back weekend fairs. Such fun, but I'm afraid it has been keeping me off line as I've been so busy sewing.

There are new hats, cranes hatching all over the show and the sweetest range of new girls dresses. I'm working on t-shirts with the help of my fabulously talented partner Rich, which I'll be showing off to the world really soon... watch this space.

A Trifle matter

If you haven't heard already there is a great new online source of fabulous goodies for little ones called Trifle Shoppe where Free Range Baby has its own little store. Here you can find a range of products, lots of them made locally in New Zealand and Australia. The site is the brain child of the fabulous Louise who also runs Skout trade fair that brings together designers and photographers across a range of areas.

Fun Browsing and Shopping!

Vintage Spring... by Peta Mazey

a very vintage spring - as photographed by Peta Mazey

Over the weekend the amazingly talented Wellington based photographer Peta Mazey snapped these shots of this little stunner sporting some of the new spring Free Range Baby treads. Thanks Peta!

Etsy front page

Very excited to find that in the early hours this morning, while I was sleeping, I made it to the front page of Etsy. YAY.

Ok, back to craft2.0 prep... don't forget to stop by the new dowse in Lower Hutt if your in the Wellington region this weekend.

Pet Pocket Pinafores galore

Free Range baby has an extensive range of brand new pet pocket pinafores in sizes 3months up to 3years. They are a mixture of fun and playful fabrics in all tones from autumnal beauties to sweet & summery. Here is a preview, these little numbers will be up in the shops over the next few days.

Free Range Baby - The catalogue

See the side banner for a link to our latest catalogue, featuring sweet little Pippi & baby Leo in the best of free range baby wares.

Bubbles for summer

Summer rolls around again really quickly when you are working in both hemispheres at the same time! So while we are busy cutting out lovely vintage woollen coats, we are also putting the finishing touches on the latest and best ever set of super sweet vintage bubble suits.

Pippi, a free range baby

Wrapped up in Free Range Baby winter wears little Pippi and her gang of stuffed friends hit the parks and the beautiful coast line of Wellington yesterday. With 3 cameras on hand and a professional clown in tow we snapped for hours, with some super sweet results.

Thanks so much to Pippi, Justine, Daniel and Rich, you guys are awesome.

1000 pictures to sort and edit, but here is a preview.

Pippi & friends, getting ready for a day out at the park
Pippi wearing autumn daisy pet pocket pinafore and holding a GIANT pukeko softie

A little note on the new arrival

The latest free range baby dress was inspired by the little peach number, modelled by none other than yours truly and created by my mum, circa 1985.

The new arrival

Due to demand, free range baby has just added a brand new style to the range.
The latest edition is a little dress, all puffed and pleated and utterly sweet.

Here is a sneak peak at the very first one

Quilt it!

Warm things up even more with the quilted version of the free range baby winter coat! Super sweet and oh so snugly!

Winter Warmer: the long coat

... and here is the first of the lovely long woollen coats. This little number features the hood (there will be collared versions too). It's fully reversible too!

Our coats will be up for sale on Felt & Etsy from the 1st of May.

Publish Post

Getting Chilly...

Here is the first peek at the free range baby winter coats.
We are making two styles, the long and the short, with either collars or hoods. And as usual we will have oodles and oodles of fabric options to choose from.

These are the shorties... long coats on their way really soon


... These little gems and many more will be finding their way into the online shops over the next week.

Busy Busy...

Down at the free range baby studio we are working on earthy autumnal shades and dreaming up snuggly woolen winter coats. And trying, even as the weather gets chillier, to think about spring springing and summer on its way in the Northern world!

Glorious seasons!

Special tee

A series of genuine handmade tee's, created using remnant & vintage fabrics. All sewn by happy sewers @ Free Range Design studios in Wellington, New Zealand to the highest standards and made to last. They are limited editions so snap them up here while they last!