Craft Schmaft

This morning I dashed out (well, as fast as a pregnant woman can dash… perhaps more of a waddle at speed?) to buy the Sydney Morning Herald. There’s an interview in the (Sydney) Magazine with me talking about my softies, crafting and babies.  I was really quite nervous about it and, in hindsight, probably should have bribed the photographer more to get stuck in with the airbrushing but there I am. With all my beloved softies. In real print. A whole double page spread. Wow!

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The gorgeous Kristen Doran and Alison Brookbanks are also in there. Go crafters!

Update: Here’s a PDF of the whole article with myself, Kristen and Alison.

Homespun magazine approached me last year to create a softie for their “Go Green” issue. Whenever anybody says the word green I’m taken back to Kermit the Frog singing “It’s not easy being green” so I just had to make a frog.  He’s  made out of (you guessed it) a pair of socks and full instructions on how to create your own are in Homespun. The socks are from an online e-tailer called “Happy Socks” who have some seriously cool colour combinations.

I have that selvedge bag by the clever Jodie set in my projects to do sights as well!

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…well he thinks so. It’s a big photoshoot afternoon here at Chez Craft Schmaft and while taking this little guy’s picture he dived into this pose. It’s either very blue steel or a sign that I need a beks and good lie down.

Preparations for S&C are almost there, just the usual frantic last minute panic. More photos tomorrow.

This little sausage dog is almost finished and her personality is coming through already. She’s a bit like me – not perfect, a little rough around the edges but ready for adventure and always up for a laugh. The Sausage dog pattern is just having the finishing touches put to it and I’m thinking that Sally might just be the cover girl. Of course we’ll have to wait and see if we can tame those ears and how the eyes turn out. All going well I think she’s deserving of a little pink collar and lead to match for the big photoshoot, don’t you?

Wow… I had no idea so many of you would want to test the Sausage Dog pattern, thank you! Sadly  I don’t have enough wheels to send out to all of you so I’m going to draw out of a hat and I’ll email you this afternoon if you’re a winner. Here’s some of the pics of the finished dawg – Oscar is sick so he was a little more subdued in his pulling today than expected but I have to tell you it was the biggest thrill to see it actually working in the real world. I’m going to make another one and unleash it in the kids park across the road to see what happens.

You know that saying, “It never rains till it pours”? Well it’s flooding around here. I promised a friend I’d cover his job in adland while he was on paternity leave and his wife went into labor 2 weeks early. At exactly the same time the hubby announced he had to go to off Germany for two weeks for business. My mum and sister are both away for Australian surf lifesaving titles and I have Stitches and Craft in Sydney and Melbourne on the horizon. Craaaaazzzy. So sorry I haven’t been big on the blogging, I’ve been busy panicking.

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However there has been progress on the pull-along Sausage Dog – wooden wheels arrived this week and I’ve been doing some experimenting with how best to attach them.  I tried stitching pieces of cord and twill tape below his belly, tying them in a knot on either side to secure the wheels . Sadly this was a complete disaster – the wheels kept falling in on themselves. So my next option was to order little axles designed for use with the wheels – these are designed for wooden trains and model cars and don’t come long enough for my sausage dog.*hmph*

So through trial and error I’ve established that I need one long axle connecting both wheels that can be sewn to the doggie. Today I cut some dowel down to size and glued it to the wheels – glue is almost dry so tonight is the night… will the sausage dog work or will this just be one long, and quite expensive, flop.

Stay tuned!