Craft Schmaft

Sorry about the grumpy outburst yesterday. You know when you’re having a bad day and you think, well it’s gotta get better, and then it just gets worse? Yup, that was my day yesterday.

.

So rather than continuing to curse at the world today I simply took myself to Buddha Belly, a cafe surrounded by imperial gardens, and pretended I was in Bali for a couple of hours.  Not quite sure how I did this given that the coffee in Bali is horrible and I was enjoying a lovely latte but I managed it nonetheless. Next I took myself to Chatswood to buy a brand new Bernina. Thank you all so much for the tips, it seems the Bernina Activa 230 is very popular and after rave reviews by so many of you I simply walked in, spent two minutes with the lovely sales lady and said that I’d take it. I think she was slightly shocked but let me be honest, I have 6 months of free crafting before another bundle of joy arrives and I turn into a dairy cow for a while. So people I don’t have time to muck around.

Last night I started on a project for my two year old, Oscar. We go to gymbaroo every week and you have to find something in line with that week’s theme to put in the treasure bag. Next week is a seagull. Oscar is obsessed with finding Nemo right now so I’ve taken inspiration from the Nemo gulls and started this. Yes, it does look quite phallic right now. Actually it looks hideous but I find that all my sock toys do at this early stage. I thought I’d post the progress of this one and if it’s a giant craft fail well, you’ll get to see that too. Fingers crossed!

In a moment of inspiration from the supremely talented Tania (Myrtle & Eunice), I signed up for Soozs tea towel swap. Love a good swap, I do. I had all sorts of grand plans for screen printing but then I had a change of heart. I’ve been very into stamps for a while now but just haven’t really managed to do anything crafty with them. I remembered that Dudley Redhead had little sets of blocks and carving tools on her stand at Sitches and Craft back in August and I quizzed her about stamping on fabric. It seems the Japanese do it all the time.

.

So my current plan is to try my hand at stamping on linen tea towels. Well I’m going to have a go… and if it all turns pear shaped I’ll go back to the nice people who make a stamp for you from an illustrator file. I have 10 tea towel blanks to play with and just have to hope at least one of them is decent enough for a swap. I’m thinking owls, but this could also turn to mushrooms as well, given my mushroom fetish at the mo.

So the year got off to a bit of a slow start but suddenly I find myself in market fever. Next weekend I’ll be at Allies Attic in Mosman, on the 6th of March I’ll be at Mathildas market, Paddington and then on the 14th of April I’ll be at the Stitches and Craft Show, Redfern. So now I’m in full kit mode and first on the list are Owl Mobile kits – I had lots of requests last year for a mobile kit so here they come.

.

The part I like best about making up kits is choosing the fabric and sock combination.   There’ll be 3 colours initially – piggies and cream, pink and robo-blue… whaddya think? The fabrics are mostly Japanese -  the piggies I’ve had forever in my stash (oh how I wish I’d bought more!) The little robots were bought from Retro Mummy, and the pink/white flowers are called Hana Bunny.  I’m still deciding with the robots whether I should use red/white dots fabric or red gingham. I’ll have them at the markets and in the store next week.

Thanks for all your entries into the Stitches and Craft giveaway, still time to enter I’ll draw the competition on Friday.