Some new additions to the doll family, one of which is still in the making... I really want to make multicultural dolls, but I'm finding it hard to get fabric the right skin tones. I think i will have to dye some myself.
Escher and I made badges today for the market. We made them from vintage kids books and fabric bits. We are going to make fridge magnets too, as we got lots of magnet backs thrown in when we brought the badge maker. I think we will put old school kitchen appliances on them.
And the final shot is a suitcase full of goodies for the market.
I have a blister on my finger from the scissors.

Market Day is almost here!

Nettle & Brier and I have been working our little booties off making stuff for our lovely little local market. So if you are in Melbourne come along and say hi!! :)

teeny weeny itsy bitsy little shoes

In it's previous life, these shoes were a hat hand felted by my beautiful, talented friend Kimmy. It was living in E's dress up box but was never used so I started thinking I should recycle it into something.
The end result is tiny little Mary Janes for miss Charlie.
I've never worked with felt before and now I can see why people love it. It's so malleable and sculptural and three dimensional. You can shape it and stretch it which makes it very forgiving!
I started with this free pattern and I played with it and altered it to suit.
Now I'm totally hooked! I've made about 6 different types of tiny shoes, slippers and booties, with more still in my head (I will upload a photo of the complete shoe family when I'm done)!
I'm so inspired that as soon as I get time I'm off to do this course which I have wanted to do for ages. I love handmade shoes! :)
I feel so inspired but fear I have unleashed yet another creative passion to vie for my already maxed out 'me' time....

mmmm....easter

Hot cross buns as promised- I almost burnt them whilst getting carried away ranting about something terribly important, but luckily remembered just in time. Yum yum yum,. It's a beautiful crisp sunny autumn day and I got share it and the buns with a beautiful friend over a lovely pot of french earl grey. Happily listening to her little boy call them bums(and his flannel shirt a fanny)!

Here also are a group of wee friends for the market- giraffes, or 'orseys' as Escher used to call them. A tower, a gnat, a cloud or a horde of giraffe.

Happy Easter!

Cool for Cats

Ok, now I'm actually getting somewhere with making stuff for the May stall. Today I made these beauties. All from exceptional vintage fabrics- most of my favourites fom my stash are there. That tropical print with the blue background is amazing, and there's the yellow spotty linen, the purple 70's barkcloth and the incredible 50's barkcloth.

Then this photo got me thinking, exactly what is the collective noun for cats? According to AskOxford.com the most commonly used term is a clowder. Commonly used? I've certainly never heard anyone say that. Have you? Maybe it's because cat's don't often hang out in groups, we don't get much opportunity to say 'oh my, look at that great clowder of cats there'! :)

Tomorrow it's owls and chocolate hot cross buns....

You can these for sale here :)

Squidgy Sausage Dog

I made this cute little sausage dog from an amazing 70's bathrobe I was given. The fabric is thick terry towelling which actually makes him quite nice to cuddle! Of course Escher wants to keep him but I have to draw the line somewhere :)

I love a good restoration project. I really love resurrecting something other people see as rubbish. I love that we are recycling something that may have ended up in landfill. I love too that it has a history, a story.
We recently finished this chest of drawers for wee Charlie.
We learned a lot while doing this. The biggest thing was to use paint stripper to remove the old paint- don't sand! The scratches from the sanding are almost impossible to get out of the finished product.
This is a depression era chest, and when we stripped it we discovered the frame was beautiful blackwood so we just treated that with boiled linseed, painted the drawers and replaced the handles.... wa la!
Next project is a pink vintage Repco 'Continental' bike that Adam found dumped at the back of one his clients yards. Stay tuned...