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After talking about it since the dawn of time, I've finally put up my shop page this evening. I thought I had better do it soon before I lost my nerve! There are a few things in there right now and my plan is to just fill it up with new dolls as I go along. The link is to the right - I also have a button to add there, but Typepad is messing with my sleep-deprived mind and I think I need to go to bed now and figure it out in the morning!
A quick post, as Matt is out tonight and Audrey has a snuffly nose thing and has already called me for assistance once in the hour she's been in bed - it's going to be a long night! Thought I might share some of the recent aquisitions to my fabric stash. Some new blanketing - my love for the red one is bordering on the unhealthy! Plus some fat quarters in all shades and hues. Hopefully much of this will become hens and roosters soon.
Before I go to bed, some things I am enjoying...
Eguzki (via Rosa) - beautiful, beautiful dolls
Wool felt from here - I can't believe my search for the good stuff in this city finally led me a mere two blocks from my house; no more mail order!
Atomic Ranch - a friend loaned me a couple of copies of this magazine which isn't available here in Australia. I love this style of house (mid century, open, lots of light!), and have been drooling over some of the amazing examples in here.
No basket of fruit yet, I got distracted by an idea for May Month of Softies. This is my submission, a chicken holding a flower. She's a bit twee, but I'm happy with her all the same! She's made from my favourite fabric of the moment: soft soft wool blanketing (I know I've raved about it before, but I really do love this stuff!). With henny I tried a few things that I've been wanting to have a go at for some time. Firstly, the raw-edge applique on her wing - if that is indeed what this technique is called - it was loads of fun. Nothing is safe from the zigzag function on my machine, now! Also, her ric rac flower is from a pattern in an old issue of Martha Stewart Baby (Spring 2003) - hope that just squeezes her into the May Flower theme.
I have been really enjoying Audrey's recent forays into imaginative play. Her latest favourite is pretend shopping, and we seem to spend huge blocks of time carrying around pretend shopping baskets, 'buying' stuff from around the house. So she doesn't grow up thinking that a puzzle piece is actually a banana, I wanted to buy her this cool wooden fruit & veg set. But, as these are fairly pricey for the whole lot here in Australia, I thought I might fashion her some from felt while we save our pennies.
So I started last night with this slice of watermelon. A bit lumpy, but it was fun! I've made a huge list of ones to make next (apple, banana, orange, strawberry, grapes... and then on to the veges). Hopefully I'll have a shopping basket full by the end of the weekend!
Having a quick look around the web, there are lots of great crafted fruit & veg out there. I love these fantastic apple & strawberry pins featured on cut x paste a few weeks back (scroll down). Also, My Paper Crane's brilliant knitted broccoli, Claire's beautiful pear pincushion and Kelly's fun banana bean bags. Here is a great page with patterns for milliner's embellishments for grapes and other fake-edibles (love the flowers, too, but that's a whole other post!)
We've had a lovely long weekend here, full of catching up with friends and family, feeding ducks and kicking autumn leaves. I've had loads of time for sewing, but there seems to be some kind of time vaccum at work - my pace seems to have slowed to a crawl. Hours can pass in the evenings lately and I only seem to get half a cat sewn. Maybe I should stop with the glass of wine I've been drinking over dinner?!
Anyhow, here's my latest finished cat - a little sunburnt gal. She'll go into the shop when it finally goes up, hopefully in the next week or so when I finish off some others to keep her company.
Also, I'm sure you've already been, but if not check out Martha's fantastic Studio Confidante Project over at Naive Knitting. Lots of beautiful and fun glimpses inside crafty lives to see here!
Maria asked if I would share the banana muffin recipe from my baking experiment with Audrey, and I'd love to! First up, apologies to any really good cooks out there, I hope this doesn't offend. It's not a 'proper' muffin recipe, but an all-purpose chuck-it-all-in-and-stir cake recipe that has never failed me. It's from this book - a home made collection sold for charity in a small country town in the very early '80s, given to me by my Great Aunt. Basically, it's a whole lot of tried and true recipes from some elderly country women - and for baking, I say you can't go wrong here! These women can whip up a mean scone! I can't say I've delved into anything but the baking section (pineapple ham fritters... er, no thanks!) but I've been using this cake recipe since I was about 10. Does anyone else have an old favouite, never fail recipe like this?
Basic Cake Mix:
3 oz butter (melted not hot),
1/2 cup milk
add to...
2 eggs, 1 cup self raising flour, 1 small cup sugar + any flavouring.
Beat together 4 minutes & bake for 30 mins (or thereabouts). I added 3 ripe bananas for the 'muffins' but it's a good chocolate cake, too if you add about 3-4 tablespoons of good quality cocoa. Yum!
Back to normal crafting transmission shortly!
Shortly before my family arrived for a Mothers Day breakfast this morning Audrey & I spent a fun 20 minutes in the kitchen making banana muffins. Some of my fondest childhood memories involve baking with my Nanna, so I couldn't be more thrilled with this latest developmental turn of events. (And it sure beats the tantrums that have been emerging at an alarming rate!) I'm not about to ask her to help me whip up a four course meal (erm, not that we do that, anyway) but the kitchen holds a brave new world of toddler activities - very exciting!
Audrey & I spent a lovely morning cruising in the hills with our good friends Jen and little D, stopping to check out their fantastic new house. The kids ran around the enormous fir tree at the bottom of the garden while Jen & I discussed paint colours and potential sandpit locations. It was great! I returned home with a renewed enthusiasm for our little old home. We have been considering moving house on and off for a year or so now, but always seem to stall at the last minute. We've been looking at homes built in the 1950s or '60s and I admit that I've been taken in by their relative good repair compared to our current 90 year old abode. No cracks! Plumbing that doesn't rattle! However, I'm really sentimental when it comes to houses and have trouble letting go... Maybe staying put isn't such a bad thing after all?
The other thing I have been thinking about this week is setting up shop. I've been humming and hawing for months now about selling my softies online, and this week I finally did something about it and put a shop page together. I'm very excited about it! Now I just have to make a few more things to go up there, and I'll put it up. This dinosaur was going to be a start, but it failed miserably with its puckered seams and wonky leg. I toyed a little with my MOS dinosaur pattern, ostensibly to iron out some problems and made it much, much worse! Such a shame - I love this fabric!
Hot off the heels of an unsettling tummy bug last week, poor Audrey now has a runny nose. She's soldiering on and still tearing about with her usual, almost limitless, energy. She's amazing... nights of cleaning sheets and mopping her little brow followed by days of wiping her little nose have me beat! Sometimes (actually, quite a lot) I look at other women with multiple children, jobs, businesses, community committments, etc, and I feel so pathetic admitting that I get tired. Some people just seem to be able to fit so much into their days... how do they do it??
When I haven't been falling asleep on the couch over the last few days I finished this little lion for a new baby boy. All credits to Claire for the idea of using your usual cat pattern to make lions. Claire's beautiful little lasses put my attempt to shame, but I thought this little chap in a brown jumper (felted/fulled from an old one of mine - I finally did it!) might do for a little boy. I'm so used to putting floral dresses and pretty girly ric rac everywhere - so difficult to make something more conventionally masculine!
And, before I shamefully retreat to the couch once more, a quick link to Carly's blog Moopy & Me. Carly is a fellow Adelaide blogger who has just opened a fantastic studio for kid's art classes. Such a great idea and looks like it's going to be lots of fun. Hooray!
