The Steiner/Waldorf blocks (also affectionately known as ‘offcuts’ around here, thanks to Dermot being the son of a joiner!) were from Mum for Rohan’s birthday. They came from Winterwood, we visited for the first time last week. For the record – beautiful shop, beautiful, beautiful felt, but I don’t recommend driving from here to there and back again with a passenger prone to carsickness. Sorry Mum! (She couldn’t even drive us, since my car is a manual and I won’t let her drive it!)

I’ve been in a fug of not-enough-sleep for so long that my crafty groove was in danger of disappearing completely, but since the year turned, little by little I’ve been clawing it back. On one particular day lately, I was just desperate to be doing something other than cleaning the house (which really needed doing.). So Niamh and I turned up the ABBA music, she danced, and I put together this simple little skirt. And then she put it on and danced some more. It’s the Dancing Queen skirt! And the next day, Molly needed one to match!

The main fabric is from the ‘Natural Effects’ line by Michele D’Amore. I love this particular fabric, it’s striped with three different patterns, so the end result looks more interesting than just a rectangle of fabric with an elastic casing (which is what it is!) Also, I bound the hem with some Denyse Schmidt ‘Flea Market Fancy’ (the only piece I’ve ever owned. How crazy are people for this fabric line?!) Result? Super cute:

Several days later, (actually nights… I left it until late late late one night to work on tulle for the first time. Coz I’m smart like that.) I put together this sparkly concoction for Niamh’s dance classes. Each Thursday Niamh goes to a dance class especially for tinies. It is very cute, but it oversteps my tolerance for PINK! just that little bit. Since there’s not really a dress code (low-stress dance classes = good), I figured I could make something which fitted in with Niamh’s requirements of pretty and sparkly, without it being PINK!

Yeah, she likes it! Naturally, Molly had to get in on this action too (and please notice uber-cool tie-dye t-shirt, which I made years ago for one of Finn’s bears):

PS. Photos of the booties I made for Rohan (which Debby also mentioned) will be forthcoming. Just as soon as I, um… locate the other one!

PPS. There is a disagreement between my significant other and I as to whether my use of the word “fug” in this post was legitimate or not. Dermot thinks it’s not. Mum agrees with me (I probably learned it from her!). What say you? I present to you this meaning – don’t you think that not having slept properly for a year would lead to a “stuffy or malodorous state” within one’s brain?! I’m standing by it, anyway! (Besides, I like to mention the fact that I haven’t slept for A YEAR to him as frequently as possible! It’s a guilt thing )

Niamh is the queen of cheesy grins at the moment. Another cheesy grin for the camera darling?

There we go.

We’ve been making peg-dolls today (don’t worry, I was at the helm of the glue gun). Here’s us: Niamh on the left, I in the middle, and Rohan on the right:

Rohan watched (in another lovely hand-knit by my mum). He wasn’t all that excited by peg dolls, to be honest.

(I’m pretty sure he’s storing extra food in those cheeks for later!)

More creative spaces to be found over at Kirsty’s place

And I love them both!

Secondly, on its way to join my small but growing quilt book collection, will be the learn to quilt book given away by Dianna of “Someday I’ll Be…“. Thankyou Dianna

Which brings me to my giveaway. I’m signing on to ‘attend’ the SEWN Launch party. Have you heard about this? SEWN is the new online quilting and sewing community about to launch. As part of the party, loads of blogs are signing up to giveaway free stuff, and you can win prizes at the site as well.

What am I giving away? These two books:

1. Simple Sewing by Lotta Jansdotter, and
2. Yeah, I made it myself by Eithne Farry

How do you win? Simply leave a comment on this post, telling me which of these books you’d like to win (or ‘both’, if you want to be in the running for either book), and you’ll be in the running to win Make sure to leave an email address so I can contact you. I’ll randomly draw two winners on Monday June 8th, at (let’s say) 6pm Melbourne time. (That’s Melbourne, Australia, not the other one!) Good luck!

Lastly, I know this has been a pretty Niamh-centric blog of late, but I just have to show you her creative space! A friend gave her a sticky-foam-shapes craft kit for her birthday, and would you believe this occupied her for two straight hours today?! That is simply astounding for a three year old, if you ask me!

This cushion:

which is a long awaited finish (remember the work in progress?) from Finn. He finished it in time to show his teacher last week at his (sob! sniff!) last Kinder session.

The proud boy (since having a new camera – early gift from Mum, thanks Mum – necessitated taking new playground shots of kids):

And a finish from me, which I probably shouldn’t really be showing off yet, since it’s still en route to the recipient:

This was for an ornament exchange on the Aus Xers yahoo group. I joined up before I realised what a slump in stitching I was about to experience. Blah. So I have to confess… I probably broke the rules a little bit. This stitched piece (a Drawn Thread freebie) was sitting in my ‘to be finished’ pile already(!) When I realised I had zero chance of getting something new stitched for the exchange, I picked this out and finished it up as a pillow ornament. Is that bad? Anyway, I’m not counting it as a finish for the year, but I do plan to restitch it for myself, because I think it’s really pretty. If I manage to kick myself in the butt after Christmas is over, I might just get it done before ’08!

It turned out that No-vember meant not only (almost)No-blogging, but also (almost)No-stitching. Not a single cross was stitched with these hands in November (shock!), but I did get to and finish the girl-elf I showed you back here, and made a good start on boy-elf. Pics when they’re both finished.

Also, I did some crafty gift making for a couple of the small people in my life. I don’t think either of their mums read my blog, so I can show:

First up, I made a kitty version of Sara Bear, who will go to sweet Lilly. I hope she likes her. Finn has named her ‘Heart Love Kitty’ on account of the hearts in her shoes (uh… which you cannot see… so I guess that makes little sense to mention!)

(Pattern by Hillary Lang)

Next up, a crayon roll for Mr A, Dermot’s nephew. This was fun. I made two – the other one for Finn and Niamh, and it had mysteriously vanished by the time I came to take these pics.

(Based on the tutorial at Skip to my Lou, via Sew, Mama, Sew).

Finally, I whipped up a last minute (11pm, November 30) advent calendar-ish thing to round out the month. We’re also doing the Lego advent calendar this year, because we just looooove Lego around here (except notsomuch when coming across it with bare feet in the dark.) The one I made is simple little felt bags of chocolate goodies, tied with a pretty ornament which goes on the tree (or will, at least). Ornaments from Allsorts.

Oh oh, looks like there’s an imminent break-in!

Hope you’re all having a great weekend

Fooled? No? Look closer:

Niamh followed her own tradition of absconding with the crafty goodness:

Don’t worry, I saved her before she managed to stick the needle in her mouth

PS. Should you feel the need to make your own delicious pincushion/kiddie playfood – mine is based on the Craftster tutorial found here. Enjoy!

Finn (with liberal amounts of help) worked on this:

I worked on this:
(which incidentally I finished off tonight, but the photos I took were a bit on the crappy side, so I’ll have another try in some decent light over the weekend).

Later, I went along to this (you can spot me in one of the pics on the blog if you squint), and I stitched on this for a bit:

Fun fun. The design is an ’06 Christmas freebie by Hillary Lang, and there is a matching boy-elf, so I’ll be stitching the pigeon pair to make up as Christmas gift bags for the kiddos. Cute, huh?

Have a great weekend – we’re off up north to celebrate Fathers’ Day with multiple fathers!

I made this one today for Finn, as a replacement for a peyote stitched wristband I made for him a while ago. The beaded wristband has broken twice, and I figure this will be more durable for a small boy. I only realised how ‘Halloween’-y the colours were when I started tying the knots. Looks pretty cool, don’t you think?

Finn has been wearing his ‘monkey shirt’ with pride today… it rapidly acquired yoghurt stains, but never mind that! He had complete artistic direction over that one – green with a monkey, please Mum! The orange one was more of an afterthought – I thought I’d have another try at the low-water immersion technique, but I never seem to get this exactly how I like it… I’m more of a control freak than this allows! The giraffe design was, um, nicked from the Internet somewhere (shhh), but the monkey is all mine

And yes, there was also more floss dyeing And here’s part 2 of “Ask and ye shall receive”. I’m working on an 18-step colour spectrum from which you will at some point soon be able to purchase (with pastel shades to follow). The following 6 skeins have been evicted from the line-up. Not because they’re bad colours, but because they were too close to others I already had. So… six of you lucky ducks get to grab a freebie. All you need to do is comment below – mention which colour you’d like (so that commenters below you know what’s been taken) then email me your address and I’ll have it in the mail asap. Easy!

Vital info: Skeins are 6 meters in length, as I’m keeping a portion for my records. To avoid confusion, let’s call them (left to right): magenta, purple, blue, green, orange, red (which is actually more of a dark orange). The purple does have some slight smudges of blue in places… let’s call that a Finn original!

PS. Forgot to add, it was pointed out to me by two someones that the Caron heart can be found here. Enjoy!