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Thankyou!

Thankyou so much to everyone for your beautiful and supportive comments left after my last post. Once again, I am truly overwhelmed by the kindness of this amazing webby community. Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou; you have really helped me to get through the week. (If I could figure out to do that heart thing like Tania has, I would do it here now!)

So, I'm hoping to get out & enjoy the lovely sunshine we seem to be blessed with this weekend. All our camelias are starting to bloom; the one above is my favourite. I'm also hoping to get some sewing in after a spot of retail therapy at Patchwork By Sea this morning. Amy Butler's Charm range has finally made it to this corner of the world, and happily, a few fat quarters have come home with me to play.

Some other things to be happy about this weekend:
Jam Fancy's gorgeous sock monkey
Molly Chicken's elephant purse
Sewcherry bags
ElizabethD's incredible crocheted characters.
Kathreen's wonderful list of bag links.

Have a good weekend!

July 26

This is one of my favourite photos ever. For no reason other than it is of my brother Mark, and I. I think I would have been about 3 at the time, and he somewhere between 6 and 12 months. I wanted to share it because today is Mark's birthday, and in a week's time it will be the four year anniversary of his passing. He was my lifelong friend, companion and confidante and we all miss him dearly.

I wasn't sure whether I should write this post at all, but I wanted to pay respect to someone who has been an incredible influence on me in more ways than I could ever mention. I also wanted to share his wonderful memory with you, my crafty blogging friends who share so much of yourselves everyday (and so beautifully!)

So, no craft today, but lots of happy memories and a few tears.

Clarry: Month of Sockies

This is Clarry, my sock monkey for July's Month of Softies. Whenever I think sock monkeys it tends to conjure up images of old men with cool plaid trousers and carnations in their lapels. Poor Clarry didn't get a lapel, but he did get the trousers and a felt flower!

Here's a long shot of Clarry having a bit of a lie down. I was a bit nervous about attempting the monkey, because I'm hopeless at following patterns, but I used the instructions here provided by Claire (thankyou!), and it was easy. And quick. And fun! These blue socks came from a department store in a pack of 2, and I'm very tempted to make Clarry a 'lady-friend' with whom he can see out his golden years.

Edie & Maude

One thing that I really enjoy about making softies is seeing each toy develop it's own character along the way. These are a couple of cats I made during the week (now residing & for sale at Closet). They're made from the same pattern, but as I was making them it became clear who wore the proverbial pants...

Edie looks quite sweet and demure.

While Maude looks like she's ready to beat someone up. Strangely enough, after I named her I looked up the meaning of Maude in a baby name book we have and apparently it means 'strong battlemaid'!

Have a good weekend!

Down here for dancing

Phew! Audrey's all better now, and back plunging the depths of my shoe collection. This is her dancing about in some spangly slippers a friend bought me a few years ago. I'm glad she's back.

Although I didn't get much crafting in last week, I did finally get around to signing up for a flickr account. Still just playing about with it, sorting out photos to upload. I'm also having fun getting enormously distracted by all the incredible photos to be found there, and loving the softies pool. Ha! Just what I needed - ANOTHER internet based procrastination device!

Before I go, here are a couple of (new to me) blogs I've been really enjoying of late:
Molly Chicken
Creature Comforts

A break in transmission

Apologies for the unplanned blogging break here over the past week, and thanks to everyone who has returned anyway, I really do appreciate it. I haven't left the house in days, thanks to a truly evil virus that has poor Audrey in it's clutches. We're hoping she's near the end of it - 5 days seems way long enough! So, crafting action has ground to a standstill, and I'm feeling slightly bonkers from lack of sleep and cabin fever.

Today, I managed to take this photo of Coco - a little cat that I made before the germs descended. She's a bit different from others I've made; I've been playing around with face and body shapes. She probably looks more like a cat than the others! That blue blob on her chest is a knitted flower (of sorts). I missed the first installment of Adelaide Stitch 'n' Bitch during the week, so I had to knit something to be there in spirit.

Also, I just wanted to add my voice to the many sending out their love and thoughts to all those affected by the terrible events in London. xox.

It's a wiggly world

Here is my first finished cat from a couple of weeks ago. She's off to live with little baby O, the sweet daughter of some close friends who is just one week old. We're off to meet little O tomorrow and are really looking forward to it - especially Audrey whose fascination with babies is growing exponentially by the day.

In other child related news, I went on a simultaneous phone/web scramble this morning to get us tickets to see The Wiggles live in December. Apparently tickets sell out within hours, so I was pretty happy to score some seats. Actually, I'm really quite excited & SO looking forward to seeing Audrey's reaction. Not so long ago (OK, probably about 10 years) I used to count down the hours with similar excitement before the sale of tickets to see scruffy boys in guitar bands. How things have changed!