“Everyone with a heart has a secret crush on Bob Brown. He is the Bowie of Parliament – bold, daring and an icon to those who love unitards. Raise him up to teen icon status by covering your bed with these love-cushions and dreaming of giving him a tongue-kiss behind the bike sheds.”
now available at Polichicks! (via the Greens blog)
Also — check out Dear John in the lead up to what promises to be a very exciting federal election day.
On a sunny day like today my mind it set on the idea of Summer. It’s still over two months away for us down here but I am planning summer activities, summer shoes and summer reading. This morning I found a really cheap box of wooden christmas tree ornaments and I suddenly got inspired to make Amelia an advent calendar (perhaps out of felt? Maybe?) which she can hang on her wall in December with tiny pockets for each day – inside which she will find a little sweet or ornament or whatever. Project 254. Sigh. I bought the ornaments anyway as they are really very cute.
And so, with the new season will come, as usual, a new design for this website. This summer – to celebrate 5 YEARS on the web I am going to plan a MAJOR REDESIGN. This old site has been clunking along and I keep ignoring the stuff that doesn’t work and the bits that could be better. So, like Heather, I have been brainstorming. I am going to start a gallery page which will have all the finished (ha!) projects I have done. I think I might try putting more time and effort into my craft updates so that there is a better record of what I have done and “how to” pages, or more appropriately some “oops – how to avoid” sections. Hmmm… Now my mind is ticking. I am going to go away and write this down on a piece of paper… but in the mean time, leave me some ideas in the comments (or send me an email if you prefer) for features/pages/sections/updates that you may like to see (or ones you don’t but please be kind – remember I get to approve or not all comments! 
). Thanks! I hugely appreciate the feedback.
A few mornings ago I started cutting out the pieces for a rag doll for Amelia’s birthday.
She’s almost done – I just need to do her a little wardrobe.
As usual I am kind of making her up as I go along in a bit of a trial-and-error way. As a result she is looking kind of odd and not entirely as I imagined her but she’s very cuddly (the main aim) and I am really growing to like her.
I am using a very ordinary book I borrowed from the library called “Making Rag Dolls” which shows you how to make some pretty ugly dolls but the patterns are good and basic and easy to follow so I decided to roll with it and change the bits that don’t really work for me. For her legs I have taken some inspiration from the beautiful Dinara dolls and have made them out of Kaffe Fassett striped cotton fabric – to give her a fun stripey stocking look. It’s gorgeous stuff and comes in great colours – I should have enough left over to make a tiny Blythe dress some time. Her hair is made up of my crazy coloured yarns from Marta’s – it’s in pinks and purples with some streaks of her mossy green slubby stuff. It kind of looks a little like dreadlocks but I have braided it so that it doesn’t get too tangled in the hands of a two year old. I have based her face on the faces of some vintage reproduction dolls that I have seen about the web. I don’t think the cheeks quite worked but I glued them on before applique-ing them so there’s no going back.
I still have to find something suitable that matches all these colours to dress her in. I am thinking something very plain in olive green or chocolate brown. A trip to the fabric store is in order.
My christmas cards are finished, saved to disk and waiting to go off to the printers. While I wait for quotes feel free to take a look at the card designs and send an email to be added to the notification list (obligation free!). They will be sold in packs of 10 (5 of each design) and although I am not sure how much they will cost until I get my quotes I will definitely be shipping them worldwide.
Click below images for a larger view:
I am not a big fan of cats. The problem is that I really wish I could be as I really like the idea of cats. I think they are beautiful and independent and serene and generally very cool but I have two problems. The first is a pretty common, fairly boring allergy problem. The second is a far more complex, deeply rooted thing which I call the Edward Complex.
A long time ago… when I was thirteen, I was allowed to choose a pet cat. We had already had one other little kitten for a short time before she was hit by a car. We were devastated when we lost little Jenny so a new cat was always going to be a logical addition to our household. So as I mentioned, I was allowed to choose this new cat which means I have no one else to blame but myself. On a Saturday afternoon my Mum and I went around to a neighbour’s house to choose a kitten from a small litter of kittens that their gorgeous cat had just had. All her black and white kittens were curled up and sleeping when we were shown into the room, with the exception of one little fellow who was swinging wildly from the curtains. I loved him instantly – what flair! What joi de vivre! And he had a cute little white patch on his nose.
Six weeks later we picked him up, called him Edward and brought him home and life was never the same. As time wore on the little white patch on his nose faded away and his joi de vivre turned out to be aggressive, overly energetic bad tom-cat brain wiring. He literally terrorised us (and particularly me) every (every!) day for years and years. He grew larger and larger, cost a fortune in vet bills due to fights he would pick with all the other neighbourhood cats and as his 15 years wore on he got a little slower but he would never would turn down an opportunity to bite an unsuspecting hand, claw his way up the back of the couch and wrap himself around a head with flailing claws and snapping jaws or pounce on any passer by from any one of dozens of hiding places.
You either loved him or hated him and I am sad to say that I fell into the latter category. I didn’t like him. I don’t miss him and thanks to the memory of his razor sharp claws and the sound of snuffling and chomping in my hair I am now afraid of all cats. I will stop and say hello to a cute cat on the street – from a distance. I will admire cute kitty photos and I will always be excited when a friend gets a new cat. In fact, one of the two main characters in the book I am writing is based on one such cat – Nic and Jud’s beautiful Slither Diddle. Nonetheless, unfortunately I find it totally impossible to relax in a room where five adults are watching the first episode of Survivor Vanuatu and there is a cat (this very same cat – the elegant Slither Diddle) – on the loose – who is being stirred into a frenzy by my thoughtless husband and who insists (as cats do when they sense fear) on sniffing me and exploring my lap. I recognise those big black excited pupils. I recognise that whiskers-forward, head jutting look… I know what will follow! I’m sorry Slither, our relationship is going to have to be purely literary.
