No Time, No Time!

I am grabbing a sneaky five minutes while the girls are watching after school TV to update my blog. With school holidays, visitors and a flooding basement I hardly seem to have had a moment to get on this blog to update it. I have been busy in the sewing room though.

This gorgeous sweater bear is a commission for the lovely Stephanie of Liberty Lane. The sweater was hers at university and was definately a tricky one to felt. I had to put it through the machine 3 times to get it to felt and the black and white fairisle stitches on the bear's face didn't felt properly at all. I ended up zig zagging round the whole bear before I put him together to give it extra stability. The bear is for Stephanie's son's first birthday. I love that something she wore is going to her son to cuddle.


I also made these groovy monkeys for the 2nd August Devonport Craft Market. I LOVE the purple disco monkey. The disco arm was actually an accident but I think I will make a few more in this way. Friends on Facebook are coming up with names for them at the moment. Most popular names at the moment are MJ/Micheal, Elvis,Britney,Stevie and Justin.

These monsters are big favourites too. I need to make a few more and I'm hoping they will be popular with the little (and big) boys who come to the Devo craft market. They are made from wool felt and stuffed with toy fill and beads to give them a little weight. They are basically squares with arms and legs. The ears on the orange fella are made by pinching out the corners until the seams match and putting a few stitches in. I might make a few owls in this way too.

This is my favourite dessert at the moment

Its a gorgeous lemon cheescake tart. I will post the recipe another time as I've promised it to half a dozen people!

We had our first crafty get-together a few weekends back. Several stallholders from the market got together on a Sunday evening to eat cake and do crafty stuff. We have a challenge/swap for the next meeting. The theme is 'Green' (any interpretation of the word is fine) and the plan is to make something, bring it along to discuss and then we'll put our names in a hat and do a draw to find out who gets to take which handmade goody home. I can't wait. I have a minor obsession with felted sweaters at the moment so I think the little something I make may be made from one of those.

I made these button shaped cupcakes for the first crafty get-together.

They are from the Australia Womens' Weekly Easy Cupcakes by Colour . I adore this book and I know it is going to be very well used over the coming years. I can see my daughters fighting over who gets to take my copy with them when they leave home! There are some beautiful cupcake designs in it and everything is stunningly photographed. Go get yourself a copy! There are some gorgeous polka dot cupcakes that I am planning to adapt to make toadstool cupcakes for Eloise's 3rd birthday fairy party. She had her first ballet lesson this week. Isn't she gorgeous?

She inherited her ballet outfit from her big sister but I made her the headband from this super-easy pattern. It's a great project for a beginner sewer and is really really quick. The kids have lost all patience with my computer time now so best go and play yet another game of Candy Land.