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Homeward bound

How amazing is this gorgeous crocheted blanket? It's my most recent Ebay score, intended for Audrey's room. The flowers are huge, almost 15cm diameter, and the whole thing should fit perfectly folded on the end of a single bed. Lots of work in this (and tired, sore fingers I imagine). I do admire folk who create such incredible things with yarn.

We had a very homey weekend, spent constructing some shelving we ordered a few weeks back (curses to flat-pack and thank goodness for my very handy Dad!) We also searched for a new rug and tried to find an elusive shade of green paint for the lounge room... how many sample pots is too much?

The wheels seem to have temporarily fallen off my crafting wagon. The cats are almost finished, so hopefully I'll have them to show soon. With only a few days to go before the end of the month it doesn't look like I'm going to be magically unveiling a June Bug or an apron, either, despite the best of intentions. Ah, well - next month!

Mavis

I have been making cats... honestly! This however, is Mavis. She started life as a cat and ended up a monkey. I'm pretty excited about her, even through she is still unclothed and her head not sewn on. When she's done I'll put her up in the shop.

Oh, and I recently discovered that some emails sent to me via this site have not been reaching me, so if you've sent me an email and never received a response, I'm so, so sorry, but I probably didn't get it! This has sent me into a bit of a spin, but hopefully it's all fixed now. Technology, eh?

Stumpy inspiration

Sometime over the last couple of days I reached cat saturation point and made an elephant. Young Stumpy here was a bit of dissappointment. He turned out nothing like my sketch or his initial inspiration, a picture from one of Audrey's all time favourite books The Baby's Catalogue by Janet and Allan Ahlberg. Nevermind... Audrey likes him and he was good machine applique practice!

In any case, I wanted to show my young friend because he reminds me that I wanted to share another recent source of kiddy-related inspiration to me. I'm not sure if Playschool is aired outside Australia, but it's an excellent piece of children's programming. I hope this hasn't been written about before in crafty blog-land, I looked but couldn't find any references, if I've missed something, sorry! Anyway, what these people can't do with a cardboard roll and some pipe cleaners probably isn't worth doing. Along with half the country I grew up watching this show, so it's a bit of surpise to me to have only noticed so recently how cool the toys featured on the show are. How gorgeous is Henny Penny? Not to mention Owl, Diddle, Daisy, and even Jemima (who was the butt of so many childhood jokes for my brother and I - we thought she was a bit daggy - but look who got the last laugh, she's even still got her complete original wardrobe from the '70s!) The rest of the Playschool toys can be seen here.

Cat production line and thanks Kelly!

I've been a bit slowed down over the last few days with this cold. Blowing my nose is getting very boring! I've been sewing in fits and starts, though, trying to amass a few more cats for Closet (the shop in Adelaide who is kind enough to stock them, and who have almost run out - wow!) and also for my own little shop which is looking kinda pathetic at this point with only 2 creatures available. That's 6 of the new ones above, all cut out and ready to go sitting next to my sewing machine (an old workhorse which used to be my Mum's before she traded up. I love it because it was hers and also for how it looks; am dreading the day it calls it quits!)

I'm also thinking about my apron for Amy's cool Tie One On sew-along. I've decided how I'm going to tackle it, now I've just got to choose the fabrics and get sewing. There really needs to be more hours in each day! Seriously, can we do someting about this?

And, last but certainly not least, this wonderful package arrived from Kelly the other day. She generously offered to send a couple of her cool banana bean bags when I was making felt fruit a couple of weeks back. As well as the bananas, she added all these other fabulous things: great fabric (I'm totally enamoured with that mushroom one), a cute sequinned rabbit pouch, a cool pencil, and other goodies including one of her gorgeous, soft peaches. Thanks so much Kelly!

Keeping dry

Winter has hit in full force here. It's about a week late, and kind of sudden - yesterday we were running about the playground wearing t-shirts and today it hasn't stopped raining. And to add to the full winter experience, I've got a cold. The fun just doesn't stop!

So we've been thinking lots about indoor winter toddler activities and today Audrey and I made playdough. It was fun. The finished product is above. I won't show you the after shot because we're still scraping it out of the rug...

Also, a very dear friend popped over for lunch earlier in the week bearing this amazing and very generous gift: a packet of Aunt Grace vintage reproduction fabric squares... 62 of them!! I have been pulling them out of the pack at any opportunity ever since just to admire them. I'm a sucker for this kind of print, above are a few of my favourites. Beautiful stuff!

Back

I'm back! We had a wonderful time away. I love Melbourne and always find it a really inspiring and exciting place to visit. Our trip went very quickly, and I completely ran out of time to do any serious craft shopping. But all was not lost - in between eating delicious food, and sleeping through the night (total bliss!) I did get to visit a couple of craft-ish places. We visted one of my Melbourne favourites: the gorgeous Douglas & Hope store on Brunswick St, to fawn over their beautiful quilts - sadly our budget wouldn't stretch anywhere near bringing one home with us! I also hovered over a number of Erika Knight books, but couldn't decide which to buy - any suggestions would be much appreciated from seasoned crocheters out there - where is a good place to start?

After all this inspiring stuff, now it's time for me to get back down to making again (as opposed to all the thinking-about-making I've been doing). Oh, and one more link: check out these lovely blankets, cushions and toys made from recycled fabrics, love the way knits and cottons are mixed in the same 'quilt'.

Going south

Tomorrow is Matt's birthday, so today Audrey and I made a cake and we had a special family dinner tonight. (Yup, I used that recipe again!) She was so taken with the candles, it was beautiful to watch.

We're heading over to Melbourne this weekend. It feels kind of appropriate that it's the first weekend of winter and that's where we'll be. I grew up not far from Melbourne and it always conjures images of cozy wintery days for me. But this weekend is all about celebrating Matt's birthday, sleeping, eating and hopefully a bit of shopping! I'm hoping some craft-related purchasing will be crammed into our 36 hour (!) visit, along with a trip to the mega-Ikea in Richmond. (We still have to wait until next year until Ikea comes to us in Adelaide).

Thanks, also, for all your encouragement & supportive words about my little shop - you all rock!