hop skip jump:

Today my book hits the shops!

Up above are pictures of three of my favorite projects from its pages. The monkey is an oldie that I hadn't written the pattern for until now (if you have read my blog for a while you might possibly remember previous incarnations of him from way back in 2006!) Also, a couple of new toys: a fox and a robot.

Most importantly, every one of the projects in the book is made with as little environmental impact as possible. Fabrics, stuffing and notions - all recycled or organic or from scraps. Even the book is printed on FSC paper. There are loads of tips about how to make your toy making environmentally friendly.

To celebrate launch day, I'd like to give away a copy. Just leave a comment on this post, and I'll draw a winner Friday lunchtime (my time, ACDT). I'll post anywhere, so would love to hear from you, wherever you are in the world.

ps: Hop Skip Jump: 20 Eco-Friendly Toys to Sew can be found in most good (Australian) bookstores, and online. By next week I will have a few copies in my shop, too. Thank you for all of your lovely blog-support! x

** comments are now closed! thanks for all your lovely entries, i'll crank up the random number generator and pick a winner over the weekend and announce early next week. **

This quilt has been in use for a few weeks now, so it is high time I blogged about it. I've said lots already about this, based on the one from Lotta's Handmade Living. It was a heavy beast to quilt, as I suspected it would be, so I just went down the wonky horizontal lines route which led to only minimal swearing and quick-unpicking.

The back is a remnant of striped seersucker (not sure what made me think that would be easy to baste) - I didn't have quite enough, so this little patch of scraps made its way in there, too.

The front (I failed to get a half decent photo of the whole front because of it's size, but I'm sure you get the idea) is a mish-mash of a whole lot of fabric I hold dear and was having a hard time cutting - Umbrella Prints, Ink & Spindle, Cloth, Skinny Laminx, Summersville, the rest is vintage or what I had on hand. There is a fair bit of this hemp-cotton blend in there. It's bound in calico, because it's what I had on hand and it seemed to work.

I'm glad it's done. Not least because now I can move on to the next one...