Eleanor the Roller Skating Elephant is now up for Auction on Ebay. I am donating the money she makes to UNICEF… so bid away! I am doubtful that it will make it to any overseas destinations for christmas, but I will happily make a little gift certificate which I can email to you for you to print if you intend giving it as a gift.

Back from our holidays. We enjoyed incredible thunder storms and didn’t enjoy the many, many flies. I am glad to be away from the spiders and the mouse poo that mysteriously appeared every morning, but miss the night time frogs, the morning kookaburras, the cheeky horse out the window and the kind ladies in the post office who were so helpful when I took the odd order of christmas cards down to mail. It took Amelia about four days to settle in and to stop being incredibly frustrating in that frustrated-toddler way. Once she got into the groove, she started to smile and play happily and run through the garden in the late afternoon screaming at the top of her lungs into the wind just for fun. She loved all the animals and was particularly keen on the puppies but couldn’t stand going out in the heat of the day because of the flies that insisted on buzzing around her face. I have a very keen memory of her standing in chin high dry grass in the paddock behind the house in her funny little sun hat bawling as the flies hung around her in a huge cloud. They were so annoying.

I hit a bit of a jackpot. Mum had mentioned that there was a fair amount of thread, fabric, buttons, lace and other miscellaneous bits and pieces in the back sleep-out which had been shut up in cupboards for years and years. So I went for an investigate and apart from having to dash from the room from time to time due to a black spider emerging from some nook or cranny, I discovered a cornucopia of embroidery thread – I guess because my great great grandmother lived out in this house in the country and would probably have only visited the city occasionally she must have stocked up on her threads. And boy did she stock up! Instead of one or two hanks of white she has a whole three boxes of white DMC thread – want blue? There are about 15 shades of blue to choose from. And she also used a lot of very fine, beautifully glossy silk thread – which there is less of but still enough to use here and there. It all smells quite musty so I am going to hang it all out in the sun to see if that will help — otherwise I might have to gently wash it which scares me a little.

There was also a few useful bits of fabric, cards of ribbon, buttons and lace but an added bonus was stumbling upon a huge box of exquisite iron on transfer patterns for embroidery from the 1920s and 30s. Ah wow! There is enough there to keep me going for the rest of my life. While not quite as hip as the stuff that Jenny Hart produces and while a lot of it is useless and rubbishy some of it is elegant, some of it is beautiful in it’s simplicity and some of it is fabulous in all it’s tackiness. I felt truly lucky to have found my own Aladdin’s cave out there. I want to use some of the threads to make two cushions – one for Amelia and one for my little nephew James. I think they might treasure these cushions in years to come knowing that the threads came from their great great great grandmother’s stash.

Just quickly – a few people have asked me what the meaning is of November’s theme for A Month of Softies which is “Holiday Hang-Ups”. Here is a definition of “hang-up” I found on the web. So, as I mentioned in a previous entry, it’s an interpret as you like theme but the basic idea is that it is something that you can hang and also related to the holiday season (such as a tree ornament or some kind of wreath or mobile or something). You are most welcome to ignore the ornamental part of it altogether if you wish and just focus on the idea that a hang-up is also an “emotional preoccupation” – for example that it’s some kind of personal problem that one might have with the holidays. A grumpy Scrooge doll would be perfect. And so on. Please remember that ultimately anything goes. I apologise to the folks who do not speak English as their native language for a theme that is a slight play on words. Let me know if you are still having problems with its interpretation.

Meanwhile, I am off to the country for a week with Amelia and my parents. I am looking forward to the break, but not to the eight hour car trip with a restless toddler. I am taking multiple projects of which I will probably work on maybe one if I am lucky. Plenty of walking, swimming and playing with puppies is planned.

Unfortunately I had no time to do a Illustration Friday this week, but Penelope has launched the Illustration Friday web site and it’s great. It has forums!

I have just done the last update to the Month of Softies gallery for November – there are now 9 more elephants to see (scroll down to the bottom). November’s theme is now closed so it’s time to start on the next one – and I have already received one photo for December’s theme!