Pink pickleball Ribbon by Pickleball ARTwear..............

 I've had a pink ribbon for pickleball in my mind since forever but there was so much else to do first. I've added the artwork clip with my song Standing and you can find that on Itunes or my Reverbnation

You can find the design on all sorts of nifty item on my artist portals like this one HERE, Pickleball Artwear by Rachael Chatoor dot com, facebook, or contact me to custom create some team or tournament wear for you!

P is for Pickles (the first dog of Pickleball). The ABC's of Pickleball ARTwear by Rachael Chatoor

Years of pickleball art making has resulted in enough images to create this pickleball alphabet art book for all ages! Special thanks  to the final inspiration for the book, cover dog Pickles the actual first dog of pickleball! Because the truth is the truth and  it's not "FUN" to alter history just so you can sell it, it's something else entirely. 


 😎👋 #pickleballartwear #picklesthedog #picklespickleball #pickleballchildrensbook #pickleballgiftidea #pickleballhistory #truthinadvertising  #amazonfinds #pickleballart

Find it HERE

Pickleball Again, a pickleball parody sung to the tune of Margaritaville, by Jimmy Buffett!

Pickleball Again, a pickleball parody sung to the tune of Margaritaville, by Jimmy Buffett! Sing Along to this one the words are there you know the tune!

A fitting song for the unveiling of my “pickleball margarita” artwork (and pickles the dog sitting in a margarita) both seen in the video alongside the mermaid plus some vacation clips taken while on a Pickleball Getaway (and also some local clips). Thanks to all the friends and PROs who let me take video clips and photos to share randomly as I need them .

Pickleball ARTwear by Rachael Chatoor | Featuring custom t-shirts, prints, and more (threadless.com)
 

To all the Points I've lost before!

 

This PicKleTEL parody  has been rolling around in my brain for a long time 

and it was finally time to put a little reel together for it!  

Thanks to Julio Iglesias and Willie Nelson of course for the fantastic inspiration song for this parody, 

(To all the girls I've loved before). 

Pickleball ART on gift items and clothing, now available in my store on Tee Public! NEW Pickleball ARTwear designs

Now at Tee Public, you can even search for me because my Pickleball ARTwear is now part of the Artisan program there. What is pickleball art? Instead of paint or brush strokes I use digital images of pickleball paddles and pickleballs to create my images. So it's an image within an image. Sometimes it's even an image within an image within an image. (say that fast three times)

Find it here:  My Pickleball ARTwear by Rachael Chatoor store!

is this rude?? 😝  I mean it's supposed to be cute and funny....

I do have a version of the pickleball fish art without the words if you prefer it. Message me for info. 

 

All these images and more can be found on mugs, stickers, towels, hoodies, etc.... great gift items for pickleballers with lots of big loves! 

Pickleball Party, sing-along to pickleball parodies~!

My whole mission from the get go was to get people singing along together. It always has been. Even when I was in a touring band I would hold the microphone out to the audience to hear them sing. It's my favorite part of being a musician, hearing you. 

Me onstage  as Agnetha in Arrival Canada's tribute to Abba....and the awesome singers who helped....

These last few months my brain has been filling with pickleball songs and images I need to create, but  instead of doing so I've been spending every blipping moment figuring out the Shopify  platform.

It felt like work. So I jumped ship. Well I jumped off the expensive superliner and onto little moterboat. I understand that boat much better and have no need to cross oceans anyhow so that ticket was just too expensive. 
 

The whole reason I started the Shopify is because my previous  ARTist shops were not related solely to me and so when I sent customers to my store they could easily get lost on the site (since it could direct  them to other artists). That's tough when you spend a lot of time catching peoples attention. 

So I thought if I controlled the store, then at least I wouldn't lose people. 
What I didn't anticipate was the enormous cost of involving a platform such as Shopify as well as all the other pieces of the puzzle which  eat up every penny you might make. 

If a shop owner gets lucky and needs a web developers help to deal with expanding, well  you now have to pay what feels like lawyers hourly rates to get things done, and finding someone you trust to do that in a faceless internet world, is not easy. 

So just as I was about to start ramping up advertising I pushed the big red button instead of the green one. 

You see as all this was happening the ARTist platforms began streamlining so that ARTists wouldn't lose their customers so easily, they gave us a shop, not just a spot in their shop. Smart. 

SO, my problem was, I was ahead of the curve and started solving my problem a just a bit too early. It took the larger platforms a bit of time to reach my needs. 

And I realized, since  they do now, just as I was getting more and more bills to my store, my old platform was offering to do it, right. SO I thought, why am I not making use of it? And so I dove into this place ARTIST SHOP



The result is I have time to do more of the things I love, including taking my Pickleball Parody songs out on the road. This Christmas season for any pickleball event I went to I brought my little guitar and a handful of parody lyric sheets. (Taken from my Pickleball Sing - Along book). and PS I realize I need to make a Sing Along book 2 because I have a whole paddle bag full of NEW tunes that are not in book one, so stand by for those..... but I digress....... on with the show.....

A few of these people had seen my videos but not even close to all of them....so this was the first time that MOST of these people had seen or heard any  of my songs. But with my handy lyric sheets, it was easy to get them singing.........so easy.........

 

How much fun will this be for any pickleball event?  Pickleball dinner, tournament, festival or getaway? 

I'm your Pickleball Parody girl, let me know if you would like to know how I can help you do this! :) 

Rachael! 

Santa Baby, Pickleball Carol - Featuring Lee Whitwell and Rachael Chatoor

 Just sharing a little holiday ditty we cooked up!  

Merry Christmas from PickleTEL records! 

Merry Christmas to all my wonderful Pickleball ARTwear  supporters!! (here are just some of your awesome photos, you'll find the rest on facebook)  I LOVE you!! 

Am I wearing my top backwards? Not on purpose I'm not.....

So my new clothes have arrived ( a couple of my samples, anyhow ) and I am more in love with them than I hoped I would be. I immediately set to work on trying them on and decided to film the process and intro the clothes with whatever film I captured. See the video below to get a glimpse of my new goodies. 

If it seems like I'm delighted with the quality of the items I am, I am  so happy the colors in real life look as beautiful as  the colors in my imagination and on-screen, plus the make and fit are reliably supeior to the ones I could design on before.  These are all I was hoping for and I'm so excited.

This video I must admit I laughed at and watched a few times. It was because it made me laugh that I even kept my ass in there as I was pulling  my pants up over it. But it looked so ridiculous to me and I tried so hard to recover and the dragonfly looked so cool I decided to keep it in. 

And guess what. 

The dragonfly goes on the front. 

How 

did 

If it seems like I'm delighted with the quality of the items I am, I am  so happy the colors in real life look as beautiful as  the colors in my imagination and on-screen, plus the make and fit are reliably supeior to the ones I could design on before.  These are all I was hoping for and I'm so excited.

This video I must admit I laughed at and watched a few times. It was because it made me laugh that I even kept my ass in there as I was pulling  my pants up over it. But it looked so ridiculous to me and I tried so hard to recover and the dragonfly looked so cool I decided to keep it in. 

And guess what. 

The dragonfly goes on the front. 

How 

did 

I

miss

that?



Honestly until a friend of mine asked me which way to wear it?  I had NO idea I was wearing it backwards. 

What an introduction. I've decided it's perfect and I'm keeping it in. 
If anything it will give people something to scratch their heads over. Giggle.

Anyhow, I don't expect people to wear all this stuff together by the way.  My items are not meant to be worn "party on the top and party on the bottom" always, unless you love literally being ALOT. Then by all means have at er.

Personally I usually wear a top OR a bottom and  then I pair them with a matching solid from one of my other favorite brands.  The pants I am wearing in this video are Lululemon  




The fit is true (I'm a large in most brands. A medium in generous brands and XL in fancy shit)  I'm wearing large for everything. 

Have fun and enjoy the new stuff, I sure am! xo  

Pickleball ARTwear's first pop up tent!

So I recently set up my first booth at the BC Provincials and I couldn't be happier with the results. Well actually I'd be happier if I'd had more product with me, and with that I would have made more people happy.

Being my first booth I only arrived with a skeleton load of goodies and ran out of sizes quickly. A bit of this a bit of that, I wasn't sure so I took it easy when choosing samples. It was great to see what resonates with people and of course the real reason for going (showing people samples) was achieved. Customers got to see the items in person (my business is really online, custom order on demand)  touch it, feel it, check the sizes out. Now when people order they can be sure it's the right size. I'm glad to say I observed  reactions towards the many different designs and noted I am hitting a lot of pickleball nerves, in a very good way. 

Head to my facebook page @4theloveofpickleball  to find discount codes and  see photos shared of customers rocking their Pickleball  ARTwear. Find it all HERE

This amazing 100% wool (so lightweight and soft ) wrap is not available in my store any longer. It's a special custom order direct from the manufacturer: Yes that's a special edition of my artwork. :) 

Feel free to contact me directly for special orders. 

 

Rachael Chatoor Bio - From music to Pickleball

In my earliest days...

I toured around my province in Canada with a duo called the Forget me Nots. After a making a funny promo video (long before YouTube was a thing), our agents told us to put together a band so they would send us overseas.

A couple months later 4 girls wound up In the United Arab Emirates, rocking out night after night for a three month tour. It was there that I found my husband who himself had travelled to the UAE from the UK to work.  

Fast forward more than a decade, four continents and a couple of kids later...

I found myself back in Canada and on the road doing a rock n roll video series called "All Access Pass" with Kelly Brock (of famed Vancouver band Dr Strangelove) where we got to go backstage and interview music industry royalty such as Loverboy and Chilliwack and go behind the scenes with music industry bigwigs to lift the veil for viewers! (We were both working musician Moms, carving out a creative space for ourselves and we had a blast doing this series).

I also had the Rachael Chatoor Band rotating in and out of the River Rock and Hard Rock Casinos, was lead singer in Hitzone, and sang background with Catherine St Germain in the Indestructables; all of which rotated in and out of the big rooms.

I played Nancy Wilson in Barracuda, Canada's Tribute to Heart, (and shared the stage several times with original Heart guitarist Roger Fisher), and eventually created the Rockingbyrds with Russell Marsland of the R & B AllStars and Jeff Neill of Streetheart.

All of these dynamic bands were playing casinos, theatres, corporate events and festivals locally and nationally.

At the time I also subbed in with a few other bands who were on the circuit and I was doing solo shows, so, some weeks were, well really, a mind melt between all the different song lists and costume changes I had to prepare or pack for. I never minded the grind however, it was my job and I liked it.

While all of that was thrilling and exciting it was also complicated as it involved loads of set lists, costumes and schedule conflicts. 

Along the way I had the incredible good fortune to be asked to be a part of one of the groups I had previously subbed in for, Dreams and Arrival, two of the busiest, bands I've ever had the pleasure of working with. (Dreams and Arrival are the same band so they were as efficient as they were diverse).

This group is a well oiled machine and I had the time of my life performing on those big stages, it was always a good gig and we were always treated very much like rockstars.

I was on and off planes and in and out of busses and hotel rooms several times a month all year long for about 4 years. I loved playing the music and I especially loved the audience reaction when we played it for them. I fed off of the love vibes they gave, and gave it right back.

The energy loop of music is like no other.

Even during the normally quieter months when many bands closed down entirely, we maintained our schedule. I was also blessed, because my solo gigs allowed me to be flexible to my travel gigs, and so I was somehow, able to do it all. I even got back into art and sold my guitar paintings on clothing and mugs and blankets and fun items. Rock stars, backstage crew, music fans and and radio DJ's purcased and shared my GUITARious gear as it was natural for me to create my own stuff and share the links to where I created it, as I travelled around. It worked well, I don't travel with gear, I share my ideas and the art that's inside me. It all worked.

About a month pre-covid, we as a band were lighting ourselves on fire, the Arrival band had just played Roger's arena during the Canucks game, and we launched a third band, Dixie Darlins (now called Gaslighter), a tribute to the Dixie Chicks. We were driving home from a theatre near Osoyoos BC when we got the news that the country was shutting down.

We figured it would last a couple weeks, maybe a month. You all know what happened next, gigs dropped left and right as the country shut down.....and it kept happening. One by one our bookings (which we had well into 2021 at that point) were cancelled, the ones that could be, were rescheduled for next year but immediately our calendar dried up and everyone's world changed. As far as bands go we did as much as we could, we were involved in the first Canada wide TributeWebFest 2020, Tracy Masson and I dusted off our Abba characters and joined the Rogers arena musicians in a tribute video for the Canucks.  But online work is a different animal: you don't get the energy loop. I missed it.

The solo venues that pivoted and kept music also kept me so I've been able to do solo work all year. And that's been soul filling. As a background performer the gig is inherently different, I have to blend in, I don't need the energy loop in the same way, I can do that show for myself, I just invite people in.

Thankfully I was able to work a little doing the solo gig throughout much of it.

In November however, Hallelujah, the band bookings started coming in.

But something happened and I didn't want to do it. I was still afraid of travelling.

Something in me had changed during the months away—I had slowed down and reconnected with my family and home life, and I liked it.

I liked not having a trip looming or packing, song lists, gear and travel to worry about.

My band, they are a machine, they are made for music and ready to play, and I wanted them to.

So I asked them to find a sub for me. They did and they had a fantastic show and the rock n roll machine that is Arrival and Dreams roared on without me and I was so happy for them and so glad they could work without me getting on a plane...

and then it hit me... I don't miss it, the travelling I mean. I do miss the audience but I don't miss the grind. I realized I was happier at home with my family .....and I think I'm done. It was the perfect time to really sub out, for good. There was enough break in the schedule which provided ample time to work a killer singer in to take my place.

And that is how they rock n rolled on without me. They were made for this. :) 

And so I am here, close to home and family, occasionally singing and strumming solo at a select variety of bistros, lounges, private venues, golf/tennis courses. Once in a while I have a girlfriend join me onstage, stay tuned for what might happen with that... 

Which finally brings me to pickleball. Like so many others, during covid I discovered that I love Pickleball. We moved to a new area just as the world shut down and found ourselves walking our dog past a pickleball court every day, (the only thing left to do it seemed).

We used to laugh at them all, playing a game with such a weird name...

HOW JUDGY WERE WE?

Very. Which is probably why I wrote the children's story: Where are the Pickles in Pickleball?" 

You see, my own reaction to the name triggered me to judge it, so I figured that if people can read this book to young kids and get them excited about Pickleball despite the name, then maybe when kids meet me in elementary school for Pickleball month, the mystery of the name will be old news, they won’t pre judge it and they might even look forward to it. That is my hope anyhow. 

And so now I am a full time pickleballaholic. 

My hubby and I play every day that it’s nice outside (when our bodies let us) and at a certain time of year, every year, I help the local Pickleball club teach at the schools. Because I want everyone to know the sport. It has brought so much joy and health (and injury that I only got stronger from) to my life, and I want everyone to know about it. And naturally, I started making my own patterns and art to wear for Pickleball, which I put out there for others to order if they like it. Just as I did with my GUITARious gear all the years I was performing and touring. I have some classic GUITARious stuff for you too by the way. Items which in their conception so many years ago set me up for today because it has translated to Pickleball, and that is how you wound up here. 

Very. Which is probably why I wrote the children’s story: “Where are the pickles in Pickleball”? (Now out onAmazon).You see, my own reaction to the name triggered me to judge it, so I figured that if people can read this book to young kids and get them excited about Pickleball despite the name, then maybe when kids meet me in elementary school for Pickleball month, the mystery of the name will be old news, they won’t pre judge it and they might even look forward to it. That is my hope anyhow.

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Everyone Lobs! brought to you by DINK is VERB, Pickleball ARTwear mix, by Rachael Chatoor

Introducing a LOB story.

Everyone Lobs.

 

Brought to you first, by Pickleball ARTwear. 

for those who know....

 DINK is a VERB 

Find it on my website www.rachaelchatoor.com