My Creative Space

Busy, busy, busy preparing for the Sugar & Spice Children’s Market. Only finding time to take photos in the fading light - again. At least my parliament of owls is growing and these guys are ready to fly off soon!

This little brown owl is my favourite.
More Creative Spaces over here.

Front Page News!

Look what arrived in my letterbox this morning.


Local newspapers delivered! Yes, yes I know, not that interesting, but with the very unreliable delivery service around here it is exciting for me. But what's even more exciting than that is the article about the Sugar and Spice Children's Market on the front page!


Ali spends a lot of time and hard work organising this wonderful market full of gorgeous handmade things for children. And she donates all the profits from the market to local charities. The first market back in June was fantastic with a great atmosphere. You can read the article here.


And if you look closely at the photo, you can see my spunkee owl softie tucked into one of the cute dresses hanging in the background and the colourful softie Ali is holding is another spunkee special!


The next market is on September 12th at St Ambrose Hall in Woodend. I won't be a stallholder at the September Market (I am hoping to have a stall at the December market), but I am looking forward to visiting and browsing and no doubt buying!

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

Flea Market Finds

Oh my, I AM HOOKED! I am sorry, very, very sorry for that much overused pun but I don’t know how else to put it. Why have I not learned to crochet earlier? I am loving it! I bought 3 full balls of this cotton yarn from the oppy this week that I absolutely love. I just hope I have enough to finish this dress I’ve started to crochet for Maya. I can’t believe how quickly it is coming along. It’s much faster and I’m more coordinated than knitting.

I’m thinking about using this cute little embroidered doily that I also bought from the op shop this week, as a pocket on the dress. Not sure yet. I also found this 3 tier wire basket to use on my stall at the upcoming Sugar & Spice market – less than a month to go now, aarrgghh. And last but not least is this minty green (loooove this colour!) chenille single bedspread to go with the peachy one I found a couple of weeks ago. It always pays to look in the dog blankets box at the op shop ‘cos I have found some great stuff in there. I thought this was a bit faded but after a wash I think it was just a bit dusty and grimy.

Visit Sophie at Her Library Adventures for some fabulous finds!

My (slightly sidetracked) Creative Space

Sidetracked ‘cos I had planned to get lots of sewing done for the Sugar & Spice Market in June. Sidetracked ‘cos I found a Meh Tai baby carrier at the op shop and it needed a bit of “work” for us to use. It’s such a simple design being just a square with the straps sewn to the corners. But this one was such a boring plain blue (unfortunately I forgot to take a before photo). So after a bit of shaping (the edges of the square were cutting into Maya’s thighs) a bit of colour and the addition of some vintage fabric, this is how it looks now. What do you think? I’m much happier with it now. And Maya’s much happier in it!

I also started on something new (like I don’t have enough projects to work on!).

I’ve been sorting and resorting little bits of scraps into piles. More later!

And I started cutting up this fabric to make my winter skirt. I'm not very good at dressmaking, but hopefully it turns out okay and hopefully it will fit me.

Have you been sidetracked this week? I’m heading over to Kootoyoo now to check out your creative spaces.

New Life

On top of all the things that have been happening in the last crazy couple of months, I have been struggling with morning sickness. Yep I’m pregnant and due to give birth to our second child in September! Here is one of the first pics.

(Sorry its a bit of a blurry photo of a grainy ultrasound scan)

I have been starting to feel a lot better in the last couple of weeks and now have a lot more energy, time and motivation to blog and sew. I didn’t go to the March market ‘cos I wasn’t feeling well, but I did go as a visitor. It was cold and wet and a good market not to got to! The April market went well though – it was warm in the sun and no rain. I will be at the May market, the last market of the summer season and my last market till after the baby is born. But I won’t be far away as I intend to open an online store soon – so stay tuned!

Callignee is experiencing some new life now too. The birds are starting to return, Mum’s garden is looking green and I have been told there are even some flowers coming out now!

Mum and Dad kept this bank of garden really wet in the lead up to the fire and although all the plants were either burnt or cooked in the heat, the roots were kept damp in the soil which meant the plants were able to regenerate quite quickly. The mint was one of the first plants to grow back amongst the molten metal “sculptures” from the burnt out cars.

The trees around them though have been slow to reshoot. Some have a few new green shoots but there are also many that aren’t showing any signs of life yet. Eucalypts are usually pretty quick to reshoot after a bushfire –goes to show just how intense the fire must have been. Dad was outside as the fire front passed through and he recalls that as it came up over the hill it was a wall of flame from the ground to the top of the trees and the flame then curled over the top of the house by another tree length! Very scary. Here is a photo of Mount Tassie, just a few kilometres up the road from Callignee.

The TV towers you can see, supply Gippsland with TV reception and were damaged by the fire. In the foreground is a pine plantation which the fire ripped through very, very quickly.

Now I do tell a small lie when I say I haven’t been doing any sewing lately. I have done a little bit of sewing bringing new life to fabrics in my stash and creating gifts for Khye’s cousins who recently turned one. The first is a soft, pretty dolly. She is my own design with a bit of inspiration from the More Softies book.

Khye’s cousin looked at her for a bit after she was unwrapped, then gave her a big cuddle and chewed her cheek! I guess she liked her new dolly.

I made for Khye’s other cousin a Humpty Dumpty. He again is my own design with a bit of inspiration from the Play School Humpty.
Khye’s cousin was more interested in the curling ribbon around the present than in Humpty himself! Hopefully with a bit of time he will like Humpty and have some fun with him.

Just been busy...

So busy I haven’t had a chance to blog (or sew) lately. We have been busy with Sean’s Dad’s 60th birthday, spending time with the in-laws, attending a textiles course, and visiting my parents in Callignee. They are doing okay and slowly getting the place cleaned up. But the area has been absolutely devastated by the fires. Here are some before, during and after photos of the Callignee fire.

I don’t even recognise the area anymore and its going to take a long time for the community to rebuild both physically and mentally.

On other news, I won’t be at the Gisborne Market this Sunday. I need a break – it’s Sean’s birthday this weekend and we are all in need of some quality family time. But check out my friend’s stall, EcoToys, at the market on Sunday – she sells a range of fair trade and local handmade toys made from eco friendly materials. And don’t forget you can contact me anytime or I’ll see you again at the April Market.

The Christmas Market

The market on Sunday was fantastic in every way. It was a nice sunny day, lots of stalls, stacks of people and heaps of sales. So thank you to everyone for your support over the last 6 months and for making spunkee stuff so successful. I have decided to continue having a stall at the Gisborne Olde Time Market and you’ll find me in my usual spot in front of the hall on the first Sunday of every month starting January 4th 2009.

Here’s a photo I was meant to post last week but didn’t have time.

Just some of the softies that went to the market on Sunday. Most have now found loving new homes!

One turtle, two turtles, three turtles

A customer asked me at the last market if I made turtles. I said I hadn’t but I’d give it a go and this is the result.

one turtle

I thought about the idea for a few days, did some drawings then started choosing woolly fabrics. Like my sleevee teddies (so called because they are made from the sleeves of jumpers), I didn’t use a paper pattern (except for the head shape) and just began cutting and sewing. I had to unpick and restitch a couple of times, but this organic style of working is what gives each of my softies their own unique character. Then I made a couple more turtles...

two turtles

three turtles

one, two, three turtles
For the eyes I stitched pieces of wool felt into place then needle felted them. It is the first time I have done any needle felting and it worked really well. I borrowed mum’s needles which are specially designed for felting (they have barbs to grab the wool fibres and matt them together). Then I stabbed the eyes many, many times – yeah sounds brutal - with the needle until the fibres had matted together.

Here are a couple of cute mini teddies mum has made from wool fleece using the needle felting technique.
The turtles will be available at the next market on Sunday December 7th. And to the lady who asked for the turtles in the first place, thank you for asking ‘cos you inspired me to actually design and make them! If you would like one of the turtles before the market please contact me.

A Great Find

Look what I found at the Op Shop today.

Isn’t he gorgeous! He’s been patched together with wool plaid squares and stuffed with crumbled foam. He needs a bit of TLC.

He has a few holes and some seams are coming apart, but he’s worth all the $3.75 I paid for him. And the best thing of all – Khye loves him!

The twilight market went well on Saturday evening despite it being less than half the size of normal. The December market should be big though ‘cos it is the last market before christmas and the last market for the year. So mark Sunday December 7th in your diaries!

I had promised Sean on Saturday there would be no sewing for the next week. Yeah well that lasted only a few hours till 2:30 Sunday arvo. I couldn’t help myself – I get so motivated and inspired after a market. And it was either housework or sewing. Not a hard decision really.