Craft night

Well, the craft night last night was great, in my opinion! I was actually able to finish some stuff, in between dealing with my kids, etc (not that I did too much of that, in the evening, anyway, when there were a fair few other people for them to bounce off! And most importantly, a Pippa to play with!). Not only that, I got to hang out with people I really like! Can't get much better than that!

Here's what was on the go:

- Anna was embellishing two tops for some lucky new babies...

- Jennie was knitting a sleeve for her DH...


- Nat was knitting a baby hat with bargain yarn!


And I dragged out the scrapbook and finished four pages - whoo hoo!


Here's the saga of the scrapbook. We were in Canada a year and a half ago, for five months, visiting my DH's family. I decided that, for Christmas, I would make his parents a scrapbook of our time in Canada, an ABC of our experience, in fact. I'd never done any scrapbooking before. And given I was putting all this effort into pulling together layouts and Photoshopping photos, well, I thought I'd make one for us as well (two relatively identical scrapbooks).

Anyway, I left it a bit late, so the last week or two, I was up til 5am way too often in an effort to finish the gift in time, and being an ABC, I couldn't leave out any pages! I got about half? of ours done, and then I had to leave it, otherwise I was going to kill myself with fatigue. So yeah, it has remained unfinished til now, til I dragged it out last night and saw the light at the end of the tunnel. What an ace feeling - gotta love finishing off old projects!

Now for some reason, I neglected to take a photo of the beautiful red shawl my Mum was knitting - not quite sure how that happened, sorry Mum! And I didn't even think of snapping a shot of Samara's gorgeous array of tags earlier in the day... bummer... But anyway, you get the gist. It was just a really pleasant vibe, mellow music, conversation punctuated by periods of industrious silence, and a virtuous sense of accomplishment (for me anyway!!)....

Anna finished these two tops - top job mate!


And here we are at the tail end of the night - Mum, Jasper, Anna, Jennie, Natalie and Sally.

Flashback Friday

Can't believe it's been a week since I last posted! I guess I haven't done too much crafty stuff, although there's always knitting on the go. Actually, I did wake up one morning with a compulsion to sew something, a prototype of an idea, and I worked at that in all the little spaces I had that day, but now I need to make the next stage - how's that for secretive?! I will post about it when it all comes together, but yes, it's made for a boring blog this week.

And I can't even find a musical flashback photo - bummer! Here's a photo of me anyway, with my Mum and Dad in 1981. Tonight my friend Anna and I are hosting a craft space at my place, from 2pm til 10pm. We've hosted craft nights before, but I felt like we hardly got going and then it was time to wind it up, hence the early start. I also felt like I was forever jumping up to make people cups of tea, so this time I'm just going to leave all the stuff for that on bench. I'm not talking masses of people here, just our friends who are interested in making stuff. I'm hoping to finish the tea towel I started at the stitching night at Meet Me at Mike's, and perhaps tackle the next bit of the prototype, but I want to set low expectations so that whatever I achieve feels good! I could even post some photos, now there's an idea...

Before then, however, there's a house to tidy!

Here's Piper with the one finished crafty item of the week, a spider who came together 20mins before I had to dash off somewhere. So yeah, no finesse, but Piper was happy!

Flashback Friday

Well, this is the best t-shirt shot I could find - couldn't find anything more incriminating! This is me somewhere close to two years old?, in 1981. My t-shirt says: My grandma and grandpa went to San Francisco but all I got was this dumb t-shirt!

Thrifted Thursday

Hit the Salvos today, and guess what I found?

First, a full-length black velvet dress, really not my style, but consisting of copious yards of fabric, and I instantly thought: cushions, alongside some print or other. Nabbed it for $10 and now we just have to see if I DO something with it, or just store it in the cupboard for ten years (my husband will be groaning when he reads this!).

Then, after dumping a pile of clothes in front of the sales assistant? volunteer?, I was poking through the basket of jewellery they have right there, as they do, and I found this:
It's funny, cos I'm really not one for wearing one's name around the place but I just had to buy this. For one thing, it was the only one in the basket, just this little wrist band in amongst heavy gold earrings and chunky old necklaces and plastic clip-ons - and there's my name on it, or technically my nickname, but the right spelling and everything! Like it was just waiting for me to come along! For another thing, I kind of liked how it felt kitchy and cool at the same time - kitch to wear one's name, and a rhinestone-studded heart, but cool cos the style of the letters is at odds with the curvy-pretty heart, and the metal (esp. the clasp) is smooth and shiny. And hell, for $3.75, it wasn't going to break the bank!

I put it on as soon as I got home, after I laid out all my finds on the couch. Later on I was looking at it again and it hit me that it says, Love Bec, like a reminder to me to love myself, to cut myself some slack when I'm stressed and judgemental and losing it with the kids, to take myself off to bed to rest when the achiever part of me wants to stay up late and knit or blog or read or whatever, to put some effort into making good food for myself... lots of different things, but yeah, what a cool message... (but hehe I'm staying up right now!)

And as if bringing home a bag of goodies wasn't enough, at home a parcel had arrived from Stitch Cleveland - I ordered it late Friday night last week, so I wasn't expecting it for a while yet! Gotta love a good postal service (not like b/w here and Canada - dunno what's going on there, but if Gord's family sends us stuff, it invariably takes months to arrive - grrr)! (Don't mind me nekkid in the background!)
The funny thing is, going by the colour on my monitor, I thought this yarn was blue, but it's actually more purple! Now I'm totally happy about that - purple is eminently useable - but yeah, it reminds me of the tricky aspects of ordering anything coloured online. Don't really know a way of getting around it though - any hints, anyone?

Talking about yarn, I bought this pink and red pile recently to make this for one of Piper's friends. Her mother and I were bemoaning the fact that it pretty much had to be pink to be well-liked by the four-year-old! What is it with pink and little girls?? I figure the red will help mitigate the rosy onslaught!
Now, I realise I've neglected to write anything about the stitching night last week. I got all hyped about Magnolia Square and I forgot all about the beautiful matryoshka doll I began embroidering. Tried to take some photos of it this arvo, but the light was all wrong - I'll try again another time. I haven't worked on my tea towel since, but I will! Yeah, it was a great night - I enjoyed talking to those closest to me - loved the quietly industrious vibe - loved Pip and her attentive hospitality! Thanks to all who were there, for making the space what it was...

Flashback Monday

I only just joined the Flashback Friday surf ring (see link at right) so I'm a bit late posting my costume flashback. Here I am with my friend Tessa at kinder in 1983 - I'm in the black. We even put on a fashion parade (the one and only time I've been on a cat walk)!
Here's me the following year in a fairy costume my grandmother hired for me.
This day is seared into my memory, actually, as it culminated with a rather painful incident! One of the boys was being nasty to my friends and so I whipped him with my wand (as any righteous fairy would!). Unfortunately I caught him on the ear and he had to go and get stitches! Whoops! And yeah, my Dad gave me the biggest smack on the kinder steps... I can still remember exactly where it happened! But hey I'll cut my Dad some slack cos he's changed a lot since then, and now I have two kids, so I understand how they can push your buttons...!

Magnolia Square

Today my friend and I hit Magnolia Square, a craft fair here in Melbourne. I think you have to be invited to exhibit stuff there, so it's all pretty classy stuff. I found out about it through blogland (of course!). Ahhhh, retail therapy - you gotta love it! Here's what treasures I came home with:

Two plush duckies, by Gertie and Me, for two babies yet to be born. I think I'll knit baby hats to go with them...

Some ultra-cute magnets, by Little Chipipi, which I'll send out with some cards I plan to make (one of these days!)...


A gorgeous set of mail stamps, from I've forgotten who - whoops. We're heading to Canada in a couple of months, for ten months, and I'm on the lookout for cool letter-writing stuff, so I can send fun mail to my friends...


Here's my favourite (and most expensive) purchase! Me and my new bag, by Bell + Watson.

And here's what I bought from Auntie Cookie's stand, two cards, two badges and an applique pack...


I was hoping to meet Shannon (alias Auntie Cookie) - in fact, it's kind of what got me to the market - but she was coming down later. However, I was totally stoked to meet three other bloggers who I keep track of: Joanne of Teacup, Samantha of whizzme, and Angela of Three Buttons and Sew Your Own. I got the low down on the copying controversy, which was helpful. Amazing that people in the craft scene feel they can't be creative enough to come up with their own stuff. Anyway, it was ACE to meet these people in the flesh - makes reading their blogs that much more personal. And they knew my blog, which was so gratifying - hey, it's way better feedback than I get from most of my extended family, who I originally started blogging for.

Lastly, I would have bought these shoes by Chook Leaf for Piper (the Spanish Stripes in the pink/red colour scheme), but they didn't have her size. (I was very tempted by the Pullet boots too...) I can order them online though...

So to sum up: Magnolia Square, very fun but hard on the hip pocket!

And now for some pleasant mail!

Wow, look what arrived in the post today! (albeit while I was lying down attempting to take a nap - really must remember to abstain from coffee in the morning if I'm planning to hit the sack in the arvo - let's just say I was rather wired! However, I had a whole lot of creative ideas while horizontal, so it wasn't a total loss)

So yeah, some lush fabric from Matatabi that I bought totally on a whim (late at night!), but man, I love them all! No excuse not to drag out the sewing machine now!

Some super cute character prints: the little gingerbread man (in the foreground), pink with hedgehogs, Sleeping Beauty(!), and characters from a Japanese fairy tale (that one was a bonus for forking out my cash!)...

Mice with apples (not that you can make them out too well in this shot!), pink cats, and squirrels on linen - what's not to love?!

Elephants and mushrooms, mmmm green...

And lookey here, she was willing to face the flash today - here's Piper in the cardigan that took me forever to finish (not that the pattern was hard or anything; in fact, it's a great pattern, I highly recommend it, and as I've said before, I love the wool. Both pattern and wool are by Vero).

And guess where I'm off to in about ten minutes???

STITCHING NIGHT AT MEET ME AT MIKES!!!! My first ever proper attempt at embroidery, except for this...