Introducing .... Prakash, the Indian Elephant

Ladies and gentlemen, may I have the pleasure of introducing you to Prakash, my new Ellyfump. He is an Indian Ellyfump, hence the Indian name.

I have named him in honour of my Indian tailor from Dubai, Mr Prakash. Mr Prakash made me many splendid outfits and deserves to be memorialised with an elephant.

Prakash is made with a wonderful Amy Butler home dec fabric called Bali Gate in Periwinkle, from the Love collection.

It's a cotton sateen fabric, heavier than the quilting weight, that makes it perfect for items that need a little more structure and strength.

Prakash stands about knee high, and of course his trunk is pointed upwards for luck. 

He's pretty awesome. 

Wot I did on my New Year holiday

I made ellyfumps! 

There are six photos here, but there are only three elephants ... each one has different fabric on either side. 

Love this psychedelic retro fabric I got in Beirut ....

....along with this mercerised cotton I got too

All pinks and blues and tiny florals ....

....make this ellyfump perfect for a little girl

While this one here is going....

to my Syrian friend who's expecting a boy in March

This is practically my last burst of sewing, as my sewing machine gets packed up and shipped home on Saturday this week.

I felt an obssessive need to fit in as much creativity as possible before it disappears from my life for three weeks. Is that an oxymoron? Forced creativity?

Vroom vroom!

Doesn't this bright cushion make you want to rev your engine! Should I call it Hotrods, or Vroom Vroom?

I love Echino fabrics - there's nothing quite like high-quality linen/cotton in smashing prints and colours to brighten your day. I think the yellow colourway is my particular favourite - it's not quite mustard and not quite ochre, definitely not lemon and not even close to butter. Let's call it "hepatitis".

I had some scraps left over after making a series of my One Car Off The Road totes, and as I pushed them around on the table I was struck with the idea for this piece. It's 60cm x 40cm and I've used my favourite feather and down insert inside, so it's supersoft and you can plump it up beautifully. I used to use polyfil inserts in my cushions but I'm not fond of the way they eventually go sad and flat over time. These feather ones are much better - and of course, you know the Lincraft saga that relates to them.

So this lovely thing is coming with me to the Shirt and Skirt market tomorrow down at Abbotsford, and if you think the boy (or girl, we're not sexist) in your life could do with a Vroom Vroom pick-me-up, well then you know what to do.

That reminds me to tell you of another thing that happened to me during that long month away recently - my stall at the Shirt and Skirt Market was filmed by the Postcards crew! Postcards is a Melbourne tv show that tells you all about the cool things you can do in and around Melbourne, and in February they visited the market for a shoot.

I wasn't interviewed like one lucky stallholder, but they came and did some overlay shots of my bright and colourful stall - especially the Arnotts vintage brand cushion and my Hoots and Ellyfumps. I was also filmed tying one of my fabric necklaces round the neck of the host (though I am sure they will cut me out of the shot and just show the host, no doubt), who then played about with it for a while on camera; and then picked up one of my Ellyfumps and did cute play-acting things with it. Nice!

It was only the briefest of brief segments, but I really hope I make it onto the show! Apparently it will go to air in September sometime, so you better be watching to find out .....

After a (long) pause, she returns .....

Right, I think it's fair to say that my break turned out to be a slightly longer hibernation than I had anticipated. Where does the time GO, people??? Any minute now it's going to be Easter, and then my birthday will come roaring up, and then it'll be the middle of the year, and before you know it, I'll be buying Christmas presents again. Cripes.

So where to start? It's been a month since my last post (egad!), and I have MISSED IT and MISSED ALL OF YOU. Perhaps I should start with an apology, in fact. I am deeply sorry.

A lot has happened in the past four weeks. As Innigo Mantoya says in The Princess Bride, "Let me explain. No, there is too much. Let me sum up."

First, without really trying, I got offered a new job. Then, to my surprise, I got offered another new job. Both of them good, in very different ways. So then I had to decide between the two new jobs - one with a big schmicky law firm, and one with a small credit union. I thought I had decided - credit union - when my current job came to me and offered me an Amazing, Incredible Opportunity in the form of a five-week secondment to the East Kimberlies. Asotnishing stuff. The kind of secondment that can be transformational - working with a remote Aboriginal community organisation in Kununurra, how cool is that?

So I had to decide between both brand-new sparkly jobs and a five-week secondment. Readers, I chose the secondment, which means that on 27 April I'll be flying to Kununurra to do something that totally scares the pants off me. It's going to be great! Was I crazy, though, to give up both new (permanent) jobs in favour of a short five-week secondment?? I'm trying to take the perspective that when one door closes ..... you know the one.

More on the secondment later. What else have I done in the past months?

My One True Love and I spent our second wedding anniversary traipsing up and down the Grampians, which was absolutely wonderful (though my knees thought it slightly less than wonderful, I'll admit). Lots of Grampians stories for further posts, I promise.

I also have my first retailer, Tender Vuillermin in Auburn Road Hawthorn, which currently stocks my Hoots, Ellyfumps, birds and snakes - I seem to have an animalistic vibe going on right now. I am super excited about this news and will do a post solely on Tender Vuillermin in the days to come. Hooray for me! This is a milestone in my Flickettysplits development, and I am very proud.

Oh, and I made a new Ellyfump pattern of which I am VERY proud! Now Ellyfump stands up by herself, which is great - previously she was only two-dimensional and had to lean against something. Now, she stands up by herself, even if her gusset is not quite the work of art it needs to be just yet, and requires a little bit of tweaking.

So on that note, I would like to welcome myself back into the fold and hope that I haven't lost every single reader I ever had. My huge thanks to those of you who are still here!

My TIDY creative space

Okay, so Kootoyoo's My Creative Space meme has finally caused me to tidy up the horrible mess of a dining table which masquerades as my creative space. Thank you, Kootoyoo, I owe you one.

And look at this! Here is a lovely neat photo to show you as a result.

This is what's currently on my creative space. Amy Butler's (relatively) new In Stitches book, which is filled with lots of lovely projects. AND it includes pattern sheets in a little envelope at the front.

I bought this on the weekend ... I've been thinking it over for a while, and then of course I was possessed by an impulse and just bought it.

Of course, I'm never going to make some of the things in it ... like an incredibly complicated quilt, or a bed valance (I mean, really)... but there are others, like the cushions and the napkins and the placemats, that look really fun.

The book is lying on top of my new Cocoa Sugar Snap fabric by Melissa Averinos. Did I tell you she wrote me a comment on Monday night? I'm still quivering with shock and awe, but at least I've stopped hyperventilating.

I think I might use some of this lovely fabric to make one of my Perfect Picnic Rolls. It's just the loveliest, brightest fabric - the way the fuschia and tangerine colours pop is just beautiful. I think it would be the ideal picnic accessory.

And then over on the left of the photo is a small saucer of buttons. I got a button kit from Etsy recently and it's been great fun to use up my fabric scraps on lovely little buttons! Now I can coordinate the eyes of my various creatures with the fabric they're made out of.

Back to sewing tonight then! I have the Shirt and Skirt market coming up in late April, but before that I've got a cushion to finish, two Hoots to make, an Ellyfump, and a dinosaur as well....

Come to the Thornbury market

Right, people. Time for some shameless advertising.

See this picture at the very top of that right'hand column? The one titled "Come To The Market"? The one advertising the Thornbury craft market? That one right there? See it?

I want you to come to the market! Support your local community. Feed a local artist. Come and finger my wares. That is, I mean, you know, pick up my pretty little things and admire them. And then hopefully buy them too!

At this market I'm going to be all stocked up with soft toys - Hoots, and Ellyfumps, and Pussycats, and I'll have some new things as well. I think a fish. And perhaps a giraffe. Maybe a dinosaur as well - we'll see how much time I can snaffle for sewing between now and then. I'm really going to have to take in my machine for a service soon before it expires with a last exhausted gasp.

Or if you don't want one of my things - crazy, I know, but possible, in an alternate universe type of situation - maybe you'll like one of Curlypops' things. She does lovely bags and other goodies.

Or perhaps one of Tinnigirl's things? She does lovely tins with surprises inside - nice ones, not nasty. And gorgeous recycled album covers filled with papery goodness on the inside. Sometimes there's nothing nicer than a little surprise, is there?

So come to the market. Support your local community! Feed a local artist!

To market, to market ....

There's nothing quite like the feeling of coming home from the market on a day that you've sold the bejeesus out of your stock, because it makes your wallet heavy, and your heart as light as air.

Today was one of those days, and it was very, very welcome.

I only do a market once or twice a month, because it's about what I can manage in amongst the full-time job, the sewing, the sleep, the relationship, the housekeeping etc (not in order of importance, by the way, clearly).

I mainly do the Shirt and Skirt Market at Abbotsford Convent, and sometimes the Northcote Town Hall markets when they're on. And I love them!

I love the whole set-up, and the process of getting my stall looking just right. I love arranging and re-arranging all the tote bags, and the doorstops, and the cushions, until it looks perfect and proper.

I love the first sale of the day, and the feeling of the notes in my fingers as I put them into my cash tin.

I love chatting to people about the weather, the economy, the political situation, gardening, skirts, and the wedding guests trooping past in a bizarre array of bondage footwear teamed with far-too short skirts and and odd assortment of suits.

But most of all, I love the compliments! If I'm honest, it may well be the real reason I do the market.

I love it when people tell me the pencil rolls are cute as pie (and they were a big hit today),
and when women stroke the cushions lovingly, and tell me
they're beautiful, and I especially love it when men buy something
for their girls. That's a big compliment.

I get a kick out of watching small children handle my soft toys with their sticky fingers - okay, maybe I don't love the sticky part that much, but I love that they like the toys themselves. Kids are honest - if they're not fussed on something, they're not shy about telling you.

I sold one of my Ellyfumps today, the orange one just here, and I sold Hoot the Owl to a fellow stallholder, and even the strange red cat (photo at the bottom of this post) got snapped up really early.

And I only made the cat last night, because I bought a new wicker basket to put the toys in, and I didn't have quite enough to fill it up ... there was a big cat-shaped hole left over, and so that's what I made (in somewhat of a panicked and sweaty hurry, I admit).

Ah, it's such a feeling of fulfilment to see it go.

I think there's something truly wonderful about receiving a compliment for something you've made with your own hands. Something you've chosen the fabric for, and designed the pattern for, and sewed together, and embellished with ribbons and buttons and bobbets.

It's a straightforward and honest compliment. There's nothing underhand about it. There's no scent of backstabbing glory-hungry colleagues (to quote The Sister Of My Heart, proto-primal friend that she is).

A compliment from a customer is a true and honest one. It comes without malice, or agenda.

And I think that's the reason I like them. In my sewing world, it's a place where things ARE as they seem.

And then came the darkening

It's 6.25pm on Friday night and instead of going out to the Australian Open with My One True Love - he's taken the Amateur Actress instead - I'm (slightly ashamed to admit this but it's true) sitting at my sewing machine, finishing up an Ellyfump for my upcoming February market stall.

Now, this is not as lame and sad as it might sound. It's actually quite good. I've got the house to myself, the air-conditioning is protecting me from the 45 degree weather outside, and I think I probably have ...oooh, at least five long, lovely, quiet hours of happy sewing to myself, before the other two return home.

I've settled into a nice rhythm. Beside me there is a glass of clove cordial with ice gently creaking and cracking and clinking. I've finished making the flappy ears - this is an African ellyfump, so the ears are gigantic - and I'm just starting to sew the two body pieces together.

When all of a sudden the machine stops, the air-conditioning stops, the tv goes off, and the lights go out.

Now I'm sitting in complete darkness.

It's obvious what's happened, of course. On the tv news they were talking about the immense power demands through this heatwave, and clearly, Northcote has guzzled more than its fair share of electricity. Greedy, greedy Northcote.

I can't sew, clearly. And I can't open the blinds or the back door to let some natural light in, because then of course the lovely cool air will escape and the sun will blast in and I'll fry to a crisp in the heat. So what to do?

I push back my chair, take up the glass and drink down my long cool river of cordial. I go to the fridge. I extract the Duvel beer I've been saving for a special occasion, and I pour it into the cordial glass. It froths satisfyingly.

I scoop up a book I've been meaning to read but somehow never got around to, and I wander up the hallway and out through the front door. It's ever so slightly cooler here, because the front of the house is protected from the sun.

People are milling about, suddenly freed from their semi-comatose states in front of the tv. They're calling to each other about the blackout, and everyone agrees the timing couldn't be worse. The man down the street has taken on the role of neighbourhood Oracle, advising people as they pull up in their cars arriving home from work; The power's out! Not a volt! Nothing works! He sounds really excited about it.

I settle into the deckchair out the front. I make myself comfortable on the cushion Podder usually sits on - it's covered in cat fur, like a small furry hide, and I watch the world go by for a bit. The New Parents down the road are taking the baby out for a walk, it's too hot to keep him indoors in this weather. They're thinking about going to the local cinema, but of course it's blacked out too - so, just a walk then.

I sit back and read my book, for over two hours, but the book's engrossing and I don't even notice the time passing. I sweat quietly, without worrying, and just enjoy the free time.

Eventually the power comes back on and I retreat back indoors, and so does everybody else, and the unusual sound of neighbourly conversation eventually stills, and I can hear the hum of airconditioners powering up, and the faint sounds of a radio floating down the street, and doors slamming as people close up their houses again against the summer sun.

I assume my previous position in front of the sewing machine, and so it goes.