My Creative Space

Now that the first Sugar & Spice Children’s Market is over, which by the way was fantastic and Ali did a great job organising it, there is once again time for finishing and starting more fun creative stuff. And the first project I finished this week was Maya’s little dress.

I had lots of fun making this, my first crochet project. There was no pattern. I made it up as I went along and used one of Maya’s existing dresses for the armhole shape and for size. I learnt heaps about crocheting, in particular how it is so much quicker and easier than knitting! Yay ‘cos I am the slowest, most uncoordinated knitter in the world.

I love the cotton yarn I bought from the oppy and three balls were just enough to finish the dress. I have only about 1 or 2 metres of yarn left over! When I was making the dress I was thinking I would sew the shoulders together but then realised it wouldn’t go over Maya’s head. So I decided to use buttons and loops to close the shoulders. I was going to use an embroidered doily to make a pocket, but instead used it to cover a couple of the self cover buttons I scored from the oppy recently. I love how the dress has turned out, I love the buttons and now I love crochet!

The other fun creative thing I’ve been up to this week is planning and stitching my postcard for the Great Big Stitched Postcard Swap. I’m running a little late but hopefully it’ll be finished this week and on it’s way to my swap partner in the US soon. I don’t have any photos of the work in progress but it is based on this photo I took a few years ago. Do you know what it is? I’ll explain and show the finished postcard later once it is finished and has been received in the US!

More Creative Spaces over here at Kootoyoo.

My Creative Space

My creative space has been very busy this week catching up after the flu last week rendered me useless for a whole three days. Luckily Khye was in care for two of those days and my wonderful mum came to stay and help out with Maya. She got up at 4:30am to catch the 5:30am train just to get here by about 8:45am! Thanks for your fantastic help mum.

Since recovering from those horrid fevers, chills, joint pain and head aches, I’ve been flat out preparing stacks of softies for the Sugar & Spice Children’s Market. There’s the usual herds of elephants, bales of turtles, towers of giraffes, flights of birds, and now a new parliament of owls,and a new colony of bunnies.
If you're near Woodend this Sunday, come and visit me and my menagerie of spunkee softies - we'd love to see you!

Sugar & Spice Children’s Market
St Ambrose Hall, Woodend
Sunday June 20
10am – 2pm
Free Entry

Shadow Shot Sunday

We had a very brief moment of gorgeous sunrise light during the week. It illuminated my sewing space beautifully and created some fantastic shadows.

More shadows over at Hey Harriet.

Opping the blues away

Friday was a freezing, foggy day and I didn’t want to face the thought of spending the afternoon saying “Khye get off Maya” and “Khye don’t pull Maya’s fingers” and “Khye take the blanket off Maya” and then finally cracking it with frustration “Khye just leave Maya alone”!!!!!! I’m sure I sound like a broken record and that he doesn’t even hear me anymore. But that’s another story for another time … sigh ... So anyway I packed up my winter blues, my hopes for a peaceful afternoon (and my cash) and took a little trip to a couple of neighbouring little towns to visit their fantastic country oppies. And rather than enjoy the afternoon on our own I invited a friend and her two kids to join us for some op shop fun.

There’s nothing quite like a bit of opping with a friend to cure those gloomy winter blues. Not only did the fog clear, the skies open up and the glorious sunshine warm us, but I found some op shop gold.

First were the brand new, still in packets, never used, all cotton vintage sheets.

Then there was the dear deer that the kids spotted, looked at briefly then returned to the shelf. I couldn’t let her go, particularly seeing as though she was only 50 cents. There were these little golden books. My favourite is the growly bear book, published in the early 60’s, and it’s beautiful illustrations. There were lots of other bits and pieces – fabric, wool, doilies, more books, kids shoes, embroidery hoops, stranded cotton, a kids coat, wire bowl for my market stall and lastly there was this. Oh my how gorgeous! And then to discover it was only 50 cents too!

Thanks AM for coming opping with us. The kids managed to entertain each other and they were even pretty well behaved, except when they ran around the shop shouting and laughing with that huge purple teddy that was bigger than them. The “Pru and Tru” ladies behind the counter weren’t very impressed though, glaring at them disapprovingly over the tops of their glasses!

Anyway hope you all found some op shop gold this week too! Check it out over at Sophie’s.

My Creative Space Full of Discoveries

I’ve discovered a few things this week:

1. My zygo cactus plants have started flowering. 2. The granny rug I fixed last week looks fantastic on Khye’s bed.
3. I can crochet while breastfeeding Maya.
4. The balls of yarn I got from the op shop for her dress were different dyelots.Can you tell? The left looks more blue and the right looks more yellow. Bugger.
5. I discovered I missed 2 rows of crocheting but I’ve ignored it and I don’t think you can tell.
6. Even though my sewing space is tiny, it can be a beautiful place to work in the early mornings.
Unfortunately this gorgeous patch of sunshine only lasted a couple of minutes.

7. If you actually stop blogging and put the crocheting away, you can get lots of sewing and stuffing and handstitching done. There are stacks of softies slowly coming to life for the Sugar & Spice Children’s Market.

Discover more Creative Spaces over at Kootoyoo.