Archive for the 'Other Craft' Category
The big day. It dawned misty and magical, so after packing Daddy off to work and Finn off to school, Niamh and Mummy walked down to the reserve to get some Birthday Girl photos.
But. Hmmm. There was a lot of this:
(She’s about to yell!)
And this:
“No Wotos Mummy”
So Mummy took a photo of Niamh’s beautiful Soulemama-birthday-crown on a magical and mystical log, instead.
(Note - I made this yesterday. So much fun - It took me about an hour (and only that long because I was messing around with elastic casings). Niamh does like to wear it about, honestly. At her convenience, not mine!)
Then Niamh had to try out the very wet playground (of course she did):
(At least we got to show off the new shorter ‘do’)
Then we found out Mummy forgot to pack a playground snack. (Ouch). Whereupon we went home, and Niamh had a nice long kip:
And Mummy got the kitchen ready for this afternoon’s cupcake fest:
Finally… proof that there was both smiling and crown-wearing yesterday:
Happy Birthday beautiful girl!
June 03 2008 | Family and Other Craft and Sewing and The Kids | 9 Comments »
Look at all that lovely de-lurking down there! Thank you for all the kind comments on my birthday post. (Only one ‘You’re Ace’ though. Hmmmm.) I’m delighted to announce that the ten pretty flossies will be making their way to Valerie any day now.
I was going to give you photographic evidence of the name-draw as carried out by my barrel boy, Finn - but Melbourne winter evening + poor kitchen lighting did not permit. Besides - see above. It looked kind of like that! You’re just going to have to take my word for it 
Valerie, if you would be so kind as to send me your details, I’ll have the floss off in the mail to you ASAP.
Oh, by the way, if anyone else is interested in what happened to my floss dyeing tutorial (I had an email a little while back about this), I do plan on getting it back up at some point - hopefully with accompanying photographs. In the meanwhile, I have the text of it available as a PDF, so just email me if you’re interested in doing some dyeing of your own!
June 01 2008 | Dyeworks and General Ramblings and Other Craft | 3 Comments »
… the blog turns three today!!!
By some odd chance of fate (the strangest coincidences keep happening to me lately - something in the air?), this lovely lady asked me yesterday how long I had been blogging. It occurred to me later that my ‘bloggiversary’ (cripes I hate that word!) must be sometime around now, and lo and behold, May 28 is it. Yep, I’ve been rabbiting on for lo these 36 months now. So Happy Birthday blog!
Now like all good crafty bloggers, I’m giving the birthday gifty to you Readers-slash-commenters bring the life to a blog, and I am so grateful to those of you who have hung around, especially over the last angst-ridden, sparsely-updated twelve months or so. Niamh and I have assembled this pretty little palette of Sugarlemon hand-dyed embroidery floss. All you need to do is delurk, tell me I’m Ace (or not!), and one random person scoops the lot.
Also, we made Birthday Scroggin. I can’t guarantee there’ll be any of that left when the time comes to send off the floss though 
(Actually, the Scroggin has nothing to do with the bloggiversary, but it is very festive, don’t you think? Inspired by an old Kiddley post. Yum).
(Oh yes, and smilies still not fixed. Gosh I’m lazy!)
May 28 2008 | Blog Blather and Dyeworks and Other Craft | 17 Comments »
There’s no escaping it - excluding January, 2-oh-oh-8 has been a pretty lean year for me, crafting- and stitching-wise. I’m a bit bummed about that, but as usual, when I’m feeling a lot of stress about other things, I find the urge to create falls in a heap. Instead, I’ve been doing a lot more reading than usual (the highlight of which has been the very beautiful Girl with a Pearl Earring - how, oh how have I not read this before?) More recently, I’ve developed an unhealthy addiction to Packrat on Facebook (and I’m going to go ahead and blame Annette for that, even though I know she will protest!)
All has not been completely lost though. Way way waaay back in February, I did actually do a wee bit o’ cross-stitchin’ Can’t for the life of me remember where this cute heart is from (DMC??), but it was a freebie chart, and I stitched it with a pretty pink hand dyed silk from Jo.
Then, in March, I became a joiner-in-er! I sidled into a Brown Owls meeting one night, had a bit of fun stitching up my name and Tweenie panels, decided that a room full of crafty strangers wasn’t quite as scary as I thought, and became a Seconder that very night. What is Brown Owls? Why it’s ‘Brownies’ for Crafters, of course (or ‘my weird cult’, if you believe my sweet husband!) Bunches of crafty chicks sitting around the clubhouse drinking tea, eating bikkies, chatting, and learning and sharing bits of crafty goodness. All thanks to the Good Lady Pip.
I’ve been to another two meetings since - in April we played with hooks and yarn. After the crochet class, inspired by Lara’s collection of flowers, I came home and puzzled my way through a few online tutorials to create this bunch:
At last night’s meet we had a bit of a Mix-up - everyone brought in whatever they liked to work on, plus some Show & Tell. I was so worried I was going to be the daggiest crafter there - because it has always seemed to me that even in this atmosphere of crafty revival, cross-stitch is still stuck firmly in the ‘Nanna crafts’ category. But surprise! and yay! I wasn’t the only one who brought cross-stitch. I know… I worry about the silliest things 
Oh yes, and on the weekend, one of my red flowers made its way onto a last-minute handmade gift for my Mum for Mothers’ Day (makes me feel like I’m back in kindergarten… in a good way!)
Pretty!
But the thing that is making me happiest of all today is a small but significant breakthrough in the Finn situation. We’ll get there yet
May 13 2008 | Counted Stitchwork and Finished and Other Craft and Sewing and Yarncraft | 6 Comments »
Today’s Show & Tell comes to you courtesy of my ‘1000th comment giveaway’. Remember that, waaaay back in November? Nope, didn’t think so! Jenna had probably well and truly given up on me by the time her package arrived… this week! I have no good excuse - I had gathered together a little bunch of goodies months ago, but then wanted to make something to include as well… but seeing as I had lost my stitching-mojo along the way somewhere, I was stumped for awhile. Finally, finally, I settled on some personalised Gocco-printed stationery. I put together a little starry design based on Jenna’s blog theme, had lots of fun printing it up, packaging it all together in little organza bags, and finally got that package off. I’m so glad it has arrived, Jenna, and so glad you like everything
Oh, and can I just say for the rest of you - I am sorry about these pictures. I was trying to finish everything up while Niamh was napping that day, and I just didn’t manage to get the best photographs. You’ll just have to believe me when I (very modestly) tell you these look so much better in the flesh!
(Stars courtesy of the 90 Stars BRK font found at Da Font)
March 05 2008 | Other Craft | 4 Comments »
This is a bit of a filler post, I apologize. It’s a bunch of stuff I made in January but never got around to blogging, perhaps because I was busy with the making, and with all that other stuff. So here you go:
I made this little artist-tote thingummy for Marita’s daughter Heidi’s birthday. The inspiration came from several places, but in the end I sat down and made it up as I went. Despite a few dud calculations, I think it turned out okay.
My sister stayed with us for a couple of days in January, and asked if I could make her a pouch for her new digital camera. The camera is shockproof and waterproof, so the pouch didn’t need to provide super protection, just a barrier against scratching. The first attempt came out a bit small (bonus for me, as it’s now my coin purse), but number two was a winner.
Next up, bibs (same spotty fabric!) for a friend’s baby. This is where I shamefacedly admit I haven’t sent them off yet, d’oh! Suzie, if you’re reading this, I’m so sorry, and pretend to be surprised when you (finally) see them, okay?
Then, Finn’s school library bag gave me the chance to use up some more of that mushroom fabric, plus co-ordinating colours picked by him (hence the yellow, of which I am less than fond):
But wait. That’s not all! I also made a green stripy grocery bag - no pic, but it’s from this craftster tute. It was easy peasy, and I plan to make a bunch more. Aaaand, then, squeaking in on the last and second last days of January, I de-and-reconstructed a men’s green shirt to make a school Art Smock. Yay!
And just in case you think I wasn’t busy enough in January, guess what else I did? (This will make you fall down in disbelief, I promise)… I read FOUR books:
- The Time Traveller’s Wife (Audrey Niffenegger)
- Other People’s Children (Joanna Trollope)
- I Choose To Live (Sabine Dardenne)
- Dandelion Soup (Babs Horton)
(Of those, I heartily recommend the First and Fourth, but reserve merely a ‘meh‘ for the others).
So now. I think you can guess what two of my New Year’s Resolutions were!
March 04 2008 | Other Craft and Sewing | 7 Comments »
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