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harry high-pants

 

I made a cat doll for Henry for Christmas. He's very fond of cats at the moment and will peer out of the pram as we're out walking, looking into other people's yards saying "Miew? No Miew?" This one was supposed to be a sleeping companion for him (to go with the many other friends who live in his cot), but I got a bit carried away with the buttons so Harry will have to hang out on the shelf until play time.

I can't believe it is so close to the 25th already. By some kind of unprecedented and very surprising miracle, we appear to have finished our shopping. Just the baking to go - that's a pretty big 'just', though. I'm off to start the ingredient list now.

floral tribute

 

 

We are full-tilt Christmas here this week. It's the last week of school so I'm trying to get all those one-kid-only jobs out of the way, plus there's concerts and picnics and all of that other end of year fun stuff. 

The Christmas frenzy seemed a good excuse to make one of these flower garlands (found via one of my current blog favorites, You Are My Fave). The directions call for tracing the petals using a cotton reel, but since very low time input was my main criteria for this I traced the petals for mine from a ribbon reel (about 8cm diameter) so I could make fewer, larger flowers instead of lots of miniature ones. It still worked, and they are now festooned over the door to our kitchen. Please excuse the very classy blue masking tape on the half-painted door, it was impossible to get a half-decent photo of the garland in action.

Also, there's a few words about me & my toys over at the lovely Progressive Pioneer blog this week. Thanks Amy!

advent-o-rama

 
It's the first day of December! And yes, I am posting another picture of the calendar I made three years ago. (Is there a statute of limitations on this? I hope not - sorry!) This year we're filling the stockings with a fairly even share of small treats (hair clips, bubble bath, matchbox cars), miniature chocolate santas and fun christmassy activities. At least, that's the plan - I am still gathering activity ideas, particularly for when the school holidays hit. I found myself madly bookmarking ideas over the last couple of days and thought I might post them here just in case any of you are in the same boat:

- Lots of great activity ideas here. And here! Also, here.

- Kids Craft Weekly has two wonderful issues about advent calendars and activites.

- An online advent calendar with suggestions for crafts and things to do each day!

- The very talented Meg has made an advent colouring book to download.

- A lovely advent calendar how-to here, and more advent calendar inspiration at at the Crafty Crow and Whip Up. 

november girls

 

I had a child-free day on Tuesday. What did I do? Clean the house? No. Knuckle down and answer my emails? Sadly, no (that job is for the weekend). Do some paperwork? Nup. Sew two girl dolls? Yes. Ginger and Minnie Poppy dolls went into my shop this afternoon with a few others, and have happily found new homes now. Thanks so much to the nice peeps who re-homed them.

Well. It's Friday afternoon and we were all set to take a trip up the hill to the Stirling Christmas Pageant tonight (main attraction for the big kid: staying up late to see the fireworks afterwards). But it's suddenly very dark here and there was just a massive crack of thunder and now some very ominous sounding raindrops, so I think we might be needing a new plan to start the weekend. I hope yours is a happy one!

hot or not

Hello! Thanks for your nice words. I'm out of hospital and home taking it easy. I had to stay a little longer than I'd hoped because I had a wacky reaction to one of the drugs. On the up side, I am now minus a gallbladder and minus a bit of extra weight as well (woo!) How about a game of Claire's Hot or Not?

hot

1. Seasonally themed gumdrop-pops from Martha. Audrey and I will so be making these this year. 

2. Dawn's fantastic clouds. I want them all.

3. A heatwave in November. November! Very hot, but not necessarily in a good way (see 'not').

4. Very pretty flower garlands. I've been trying to come up with some toddler-friendly Christmas decorations this year. Wouldn't strings of these look great around a christmas tree?

4. A nice husband who has taken the week off work to look after the kids while I recover from the chop. Lovely.

not

1. A heatwave in November. We've had days of temperatures around the 40s, and today parts of the state have the dubious honor of a first ever 'catastrophic' fire warning. This kind of heat at this time of year is not only foul but makes me fearful of the summer ahead.

2. Weirdy medications. Though I am grateful for their pain-reducing effects, it turns out I am not so good at tolerating anything stronger than a panadol. What a wuss!

PS - the Marmalade cat is one I made last week. She's winging her way to a little girl right now.

bertie-dougal

Another Dougal dog! This one, Bertie with the patchy eyes, looks a little stunned and not terribly bright. But loveable, too, hopefully. I'm very fond of him.

For the past few months I have been thinking about craft markets, and seriously considering hauling my wares to Melbourne to participate. But suddenly! Adelaide is coming to the market-party:

-Bowerbird Bazaar last month was fantastic - really fantastic (yay, Bek!) We were supposed to be away (but that was cancelled due to illness, natch, so I didn't have a table), but I'm looking forward to the next one, next year. And,

-the Stitches and Craft show is coming to Adelaide in March. Exciting!

So there is plenty to think about and potentially lots of sewing to be done.

But the fun stuff will have to wait, because at the top of my mind is a stay in hospital later this week (urgh, hopefully a short one, fingers crossed). Things might be a little sporadic here until I'm back on my feet. x

Dougal

Another doggie appeared today. I needed to do some quiet, recuperative sewing after a week of sickness (me this time) and Dougal here fit the bill perfectly. A spot of calm, quiet making always does the trick. Restorative sewing aside, we are really looking forward to/keeping fingers crossed for a time of good health, these past couple of months have been a little tedious.

On a more chipper note, thankyou so much for your response to the rabbit pattern - I'm really looking forward to seeing some bunnies appear. xo

rabbit pattern!

Hello! Just wanted to let those of you who are interested know that I have just uploaded my rabbit pattern to my shop here. Like the doll pattern it's a 10 page PDF that I will email you within 24 hours, so you can print it out at home and get sewing faster. Included is the full pattern & directions to make your own boy or girl rabbits (like these), plus clothes for him or her: a skirt, short overalls and a vest. I really hope you like it. The instructions are quite detailed, so I'd say that it is about a 3 out of 10 on a scale of difficulty. Any questions, please ask. Thanks so much again!

softies for mirabel

This little fella has been knocking around in my sketch book for a while now. It was so good to have a chance to make him 3 dimensional today while Henry was having some time with Grandma. 

Pups is off to live with one of the kids supported by the Mirabel Foundation. I'm sure you all know about it, but just in case you don't, Softies for Mirabel is a yearly collection of handmade toys organised by Pip. If you're keen to know more, or if you'd like to send along a handmade friend of your own for a kid in need, read all about it right here.

category: rabbits

After changing my mind bazillions of times about which one to tackle next, I have finally settled on getting my bunny pattern ready to sell. It should be good to go in about a week - I hope you will like it! It's been so good to see what has been made so far from the doll pattern, and I've got to admit I'm a little bit addicted to writing these up now. There will be more, I'm afraid, oh yes!

These two rabbits, Jack and Zelda, were made in a wave of bunny enthusiasm, and will go in the shop once I stockpile a few more friends to join them.

Also, if you don't read this in a reader, you might notice that I'm in the process of cleaning things up around here. It's been a while since the blog got a bit of love, so there's a new layout and banner. I'm going to add a couple of new things to the sidebars and have started to use categories. I like using categories on other blogs, and have been intending to do it here for ages. As for sorting through 5 (!!) years of blog posts to add the categories - that can be filed under insane.