Stalked on Etsy!

My bathroom bag has been featured on EtsyStalker!

Whoo hoo! Check out the link here if you'd like to see the original post. It's all about moving out of home for uni, and some of the things you can use to ease the transition... it's called "From the nest to the dorm".

I have never heard of EtsyStalker before, (has anyone out there ever heard of it?) but that has absolutely no bearing on the fact that I'm completely rapt to find this out.

I get such a blast when someone likes one of my things. It's part of the whole reason I started doing markets - because yes, on the face of it, markets take up heaps of time (especially on the precious weekends) and you often get rained on, and sometimes blown over, and every now and again you have a really rubbish day where you hardly sell anything .... but I tell you, the rush I get when I sell *anything* is completely worth it.

I love the look on a little person's face when they pick up a Hoot or a Catticus. I love it when people rush over to look at some of the amazing fabrics I use. I love it when a little girl tugs her mother over by the hand to see one of my Perfect Pencilrolls.

I love it because I made it, and in some way it's like that little bit of particular happiness would never have existed without me. And that makes me feel worthwhile (and on special days, super powerful and almighty. But only for a moment.).

Recently Thornberry did a post on the whole market vibe thing and asked people why they chose to sell at craft markets. I really enjoyed reading the range of responses - I highly recommend you check out the post - which varied from my little bit of happiness thing, through to it being a way to connect with the community, and also the very common "I sell craft so I can buy more craft supplies" - which is certainly true for me too.

I for one am really glad to see the resurgence in craft markets and the desire to buy local and support your artistic, crafty community. I'm glad for the chance to meet up with others like me. I'm glad I get to send a little bit of happiness out into the world, happiness that is unique and special and might never have existed if I hadn't slaved over a hot sewing machine to create it.

Nothing beats that buzz - crafters, together we are raising the happiness quotient in the world!!

Long may it last.

(and if blogger could please just sort out this weird spacing thing I'm experiencing, my day would be complete.)

A Very Busy Weekend

I'm shagged. It's been a Very. Busy. Weekend. Look here at what I did.

First I made some lovely new heatpacks for the Skirt and Shirt Market next weekend in Abbotsford. I found the lovely black and white ticking a week ago and it is the PERFECT THING for my heatpack designs. You can't go wrong when you team one-third bright colourful print with two-thirds classic black and white stripes. You just can't.

Then I finished off two Appleblossom Hoots.

Then I made a pair of pants for myself - no photo because they still need to be hemmed. And also, because they are PANTS and therefore I would need to photograph the below-the-waist portion of me to show you them, and I am currently in despair about everything below-the-waist of me (oh, and ok, the waist itself too) and therefore there will be No Photos Of The New Pant. Not unless I miraculously wake up one day and find I'm half my current size. Then I will happily put on the new pant and photograph it hanging loosely off me.

I digress. I made four new doorstops, and completed two Perfect Pencilrolls.

Then I put the finishing touches to a lovely HOME cushion I've made to order, using wonderful Warwick upholstery fabric for the body, and Liberty print cottons for the letters.

And I also finished off some new Catticus toys, and listed a whole pile of clothes and shoes on eBay (refer to previous lunatic comment about below-the-waist aspect of self), and completed a couple of new products I will show you in coming days. I'm exhausted! I need a weekend to recover from my weekend.

Oh, and we also went to see the new Aussie film Beautiful Kate, I highly recommend it.

Exhaustipated!

Do you ever have those periods of time in your life that just flash past at a hundred miles an hour, and you're doing a hundred things all at once, and there's a million more on the list undone, and you're juggling it all and you don't even have time to breathe, let alone pause, and you're completely frantic and then all of a sudden things just STOP and you go .... oh my god, it's a week later?

You do? I am so relieved!

Because that's been ex-ACT-ly my life for the past week, and it's why I've been sorely neglecting my blog and you, of course, my lovely lovely readers - along with My One True Love, my animals, any thought at all of exercise, my personal down-time, my sewing and of course my cuticles. My poor, poor cuticles. It's just as well you can't see them.

There was a work-related leadership course offsite for three days, which was absolutely fascinating - all about who you are as a person and how you can use those qualities to be a better leader by being true to yourself and your values. Profound, and deeply affecting, and something I am still mulling over and reflecting on.

Hot on its heels came the Northcote Winter Artisans Market, which was practically deserted. Such a shame! Where WERE you all? I missed you! We all missed you! Please come this Saturday!

I only sold three of my marvellous Hoots, which I was very sad about. I did also sell my new Bring LOVE Into Your Home cushion. Does anyone know the song "Buy My Love" by Fairground Attraction? Whenever I sell a LOVE cushion I get that tune tinkling through my thoughts.

And I met the lovely Belinda, who admired my Perfect Pencilroll in Alexander Henry owl material, and who was wearing this fantastic three-panelled skirt. I want one! There must be a pattern out there that I can find to replicate it.

It was so stunning I stared at it across the aisle, and luckily she came over to finger my Pencilroll lovingly, and eventually after I complimented her skirt a number of times (and came round the front of my stall and got down on my knees and felt the fabric and turned the hem up and examined the seams and construction) I had the bright idea of taking a photo for reference and posterity. Sometimes my inability to think of the bleedingly obvious surprises even me.

But isn't the skirt marvellous? The photo doesn't do it true justice. Thank you Belinda for letting me completely encroach on your personal space!

And then it was back to work, and I've had the kind of days where you have seven hours of meetings in a row, and when do you actually find the time to do your real work when you have to spend seven hours meeting with people on different issues? Sheesh.

So I'm exhaustipated, and it's all I can do to type these words out. I think a cup of chamomile tea beckons ... and I think I can smell the scent of a blackberry and apple pie My One True Love has been warming up in the oven .... mmmm.... pie ......

The photos I promised you ....

Finally - me and the camera, in the same place, at the same time! Here are the photos I promised you.

First of all, three of the four pencilrolls. I don't know what happened to the fourth one, which was all made out of Isadora Phoenix's Woodstock Ombre Dots .... I can't find it. Perhaps the Fatpuss has eaten it. (He went to the vet today for a weigh-in, and since he's been on a diet, he's GAINED four hundred grams. Four hundred! Sigh.)

But here are the other three. I think I like the one on top best, made from Birds of Norway fabric, matched with the orange polkadots.

And here are the fabric buckets I made, out of the Heather Bailey Bijoux Tiles fabrics. And at the front is the strange "boat" that I created when I sewed together the wrong edges of what should have been a bucket.

I blame the instructions, they said "fold fabric lengthways and sew raw edges together". Would you not think that means to match up the two long edges? Well, exactly. It's what I thought too. But no, when they said "lengthways" what they actually meant was "widthways". Silly me. So now I have an odd boat instead of a bucket.


And here are my doorstops all ready to be filled with sand ahead of the market on Saturday. It's been so wet recently that I think I'm going to have to dry the sand in the oven before I can use it.

And lastly, the piece of resistance from Rathdowne Remnants - my lolly pink / calomine lotion coloured wool and cashmere blend. I love it!

It's a very late Sixties kind of colour in my book, and I'm really looking forward to having a suit made, and then wearing it to my very conservative work environment. I love bringing colour into that place, it's like a giant injection of vibrancy into a dark, dark world.

Bring LOVE into your home

First day of the working week and I am wrecked. Absolutely wrecked. Getting out of bed this morning was like trying to drag myself up out of a river of treacle.

I blame the sewing machine.

I made another two pencilrolls yesterday, and another Appleblossom Hoot, and a baby Catticus (should he be a Kittencus?), and a new cushion which I've called Bring LOVE Into Your Home. Subtle, eh?

I'm starting to feel like I'm getting more on top of things for the market this weekend, which, let me tell you, is a GOOD feeling and I LIKE IT and all I have to do is keep sewing like a maniac and everything will be FINE!

I dropped into Rathdowne Remnants over the weekend and picked up some more textured black upholstery fabric to make a few more Catticus (what's the plural of Catticus? Is it Cattici? Or Catticodae?) and have a lovely chat with the ladies there. I tell you, that shop is an absolute goldmine for fabric. Every time I go there I get lovely, lovely things.

This time around, in addition to the upholstery fabric, it was a gorgeous lolly pink wool and cashmere blend. The pink is a kind of cross between between bubblegum and calomine lotion, which I'm going to have made into a suit for work - I wouldn't trust my own skills, I'd be bound to muck it up and it's such amazing fabric I couldn't bear that.

And of course I left the stupid camera on my table so I will have to add a picture to this post once I get home from work!

While the cat's away ....

....flickettysplits will sew! And when I say "cat", of course I mean "husband". He's interstate visiting friends for the weekend, so the furry babies and I have got the house pretty much to ourselves.

And it's just as well I took the sick sewing machine to the hospital a few weeks ago and got it all fixed up, because today I have just about flogged the poor thing to death. With no chores to distract me, and no husband to pay attention to, I've had a full day of sewing to run at.

And run I have: I started around 10 this morning and I'm just finishing up now. Of course the camera battery died just as I was about to take a photo of the mountain of stuff I've produced - so I'll have to post photos tomorrow and settle for a quick itemised list instead.

• two lined fabric buckets in four different shades of the Heather Bailey Bijoux Tile print
• one lined fabric "boat" in Alexander Henry owl material in green tea, with Sandi Henderson's Ginger Blossom Vintage Dots in lime on the inside. This was meant to be a bucket too, originally, but it was the first one I did and I sewed the wrong edges together. Oops.
• two doorstops - one in a groovy sixties print in blue and turquoise, and one much more staid in a plain rust-coloured corduroy
• two Perfect Pencilrolls - one using a great psychedelic cotton in purple, pink, lilac, orange and red "eggs", with a pink polka dot lining; and the other in Bird of Norway fabric with orange polka dot lining
• three doorsnakes: blue, green and rust

And that's ENOUGH for one day!

My poor sewing machine has scuttled off to whimper quietly in the corner for a bit, nursing its wounds.