November’s Month of Softies

November’s A Month of Softies gallery is now up!

Thank you again to everyone who participated. There is so much variety! Who would have thought? If for some reason your submission doesn’t appear to be up please email me. I have been a tad disorganised and it may have slipped through and been filed in the wrong email folder or something.

You will also notice that on the Month of Softies page the new theme for December is up. “Holiday Hang-Ups”. I decided that it needed to be a nice loose theme for this month for you to interpret as you like - I assume everyone will be extremely busy with many other projects on the go so as long as the object you create for the Month of Softies project is something that is holiday based and can be hung up (or is about hang-ups) then anything goes. I am thinking about the obvious - a tree ornament… but I am also wondering if I might get time to make a string of little stuffed christmassy birds… but in the end I might just enter Amelia’s christmas stocking if I get that finished in time. My mum is talking about making an elaborate stuffed voodoo pincushion depicting a family sitting around the christmas table looking angry with pins stuck in them (she’s going for the hang-ups idea, I hope she isn’t trying to express some personal holiday hang-up she has that we are all oblivious too).

Anyway, back to the elephants. Here’s my Elephant! Eleanor the roller skating elephant girl:

After making five heads I finally settled on this one. I am proud of her because even though she is a little strange looking, I designed the pattern for every single bit of her… it took me almost all month to make but I finished her up last night at 10.30 — just scraping in.

She looks a little unsure - as you would be if you had to ride on these roller skates:

Oops

A quick note to those who may have tried to order cards online in the last few days — thanks to my messin’ around in paypal, it has been trying to charge extra shipping. If this has put you off please try again. It’s all fixed again thanks to our friendly neighbourhood Jez!

Elephant countdown

There is one day left of November which means there is only one day left until all elephant photos need to be submitted to the Month of Softies! I don’t know about you… but I am feeling slightly panicked. My elephant friend is finished but she is yet to be accessorised and I am still determined to make roller skates. I know that there are a lot of people feeling very unpanicked having already finished their elephants. I know this because I have just finished doing a thumbnail gallery of the entries so far and each and everyone is gorgeous and special in it’s own way. I can’t wait to share them. If you are still stitching (or crafting in other ways) I am looking forward to receiving your emails soon. If you are feeling like your elephant looks weird and you don’t want to send it in, please be reassured that the elephants I have received so far come from folks who have never picked up a needle before to folks who have their own homewares range. There is even an elephant made from a drink bottle and some paper cups (who is most amusing and comes from the Box office staff at Cirque du Soleil in Texas!). So take heart and join in the big elephant family.

Illustration Friday - Cling

Another week has flown by… Here is this week’s illustration for Penelope’s Illustration Friday. Click image for bigger version.

Because we didn’t get too excited

After many nights of lying awake thinking about cheap wood paneling and other such fine features, we decided to pass up the crazy house. In the end it wasn’t the fact that it was crazy or wood paneled or really, really ugly that turned us off it, it was the fact that it was further away from the centre of the-universe-as-we-know-it than we wanted to be. I am aware that universe centres shift easily and quickly, but if we are going to be that far out, then I would far prefer to “down size” and go and have a pond with ducks in the country or at least live in beautiful Eltham! Annnyway we passed on it and are now moving on and the search continues with renewed optimism and a fresh sense of what it is we really want.

So now it’s time to get focused on some craft projects. Obviously there’s the Accessorised Elephant that needs doing for the first Month of Softies. I have spent a bit of time working on a pattern with head shapes based on ones that can be found in my all time favourite toy making book “The Splendid Soft Toy Book”. Unfortunately they all look a bit weird - I want to put this head on a doll’s body and they are all too big and puffy… so I am now back to making up my own and of course it’s looking even weirder. Big-P keeps giving my elephants looks that clearly say “what on earth are you thinking??” and I shout (rather over emotionally because sewing these heads can get a little tense) “It’s meant to look a bit funny!”. Hopefully I can get it to look exactly like the funny elephant in my head and not the elephant man.. Number four is going under the needle tonight.

Apart from this, I am also planning Amelia’s Christmas Stocking.

I found this little picture of a cushion made by Beth Lacefield in the latest edition of Home Companion and I suddenly thought that something like this might look quite fun appliqued on a stocking with bright buttons and some rickrack. This is my first foray into Home Companion. It caught my attention with it’s article on one of my long time favourites, Jennifer Murphy - which is accompanied by great photos of her work and her studio. It’s quite a nice mag - a bit on the all-american, all apple-pie side, but at least the projects are all fresh. Martha Stewart Kids got left on the shelf this month due to looking like it was full of totally rehashed articles and projects… what’s that about? What a disappointment.

Illustration Friday - Regal

Finally! I managed to get something done for Penelope’s Illustration Friday. This week the theme was Regal. Click the image for a larger version.

Let’s not get too excited, but…

I have taken Mum and Dad and Amelia back to look at the crazy house (the one with SIX bedrooms that I have mentioned previously) this morning and they liked it. I am still to be convinced but it seems too big and too cheap not to consider. I have never seen so much wood paneling in my life and I really, really don’t like wood paneling. The kitchen is basically made of wood paneling and the whole outside of the house is covered in crazy dark brown wood panel cladding. It continues to be called the Crazy House and if we buy it I will make a name plaque that says Casa Loca (though Maison Folle also sounds quite good) because it really is pretty crazy and it will be fun to strive each day to make it crazier.

Anyway, now that we are seriously considering it and getting lawyers to check out paper work and our building friend to do an inspection and so on, I am still not terribly excited but I am trying to work out how we might use the SIX bedrooms. Obviously there will by our room, and Amelia’s bedroom and a home office thing, but there are still three others to consider. The three rooms in question are awfully small so ideas such as pool room, home gym, music room, plant conservatory etc. are unfortunately not a possibility.

A guest room would be good, especially as we have many nephews and nieces overseas who are just getting into that “tour the world and discover yourself” age so you never know when they might need a boring suburban stop-over in between partying on the Gold Coast and going feral in the desert. Also, as we are living very far out in the suburbs we might need rooms for our friends who live in the inner city to be able to stay in after dinner parties as a late night trek home might be tedious… I am also considering a library - four walls lined with book shelves and a chair in the middle with a tiny little writing desk on which you can rest your pipe. That would be useful. We shouldn’t have got rid of all of Big-P’s academic tomes - he told me they would be useful one day… And perhaps I could have a sewing room and a room to do my illustration work in, and a print gocco room and Big-P could have a study too… and Amelia will definitely need a “teenager’s retreat” when she gets to that certain age and probably a seperate study so she can concentrate away from all the distractions kids need these days… oh dear, I don’t think this house has enough bedrooms. And if in the end we decide this house is no good, then we will have to find another house that has this many rooms!

Targeting

I have a few people who I have been trying to contact regarding their christmas card orders. I am desperate so I am posting your names here because I can’t think of any other way of contacting you short of refunding your money. If you happen to be

Verawati Kwok
Bradley Morse
or
Johanna Lundstrom

please email me… it seems your paypal email is not working and I need your shipping address. Thank you!

By the way - thank you to Virge for pointing out the MT Plugin “CloseComments“. A great solution to a really annoying problem.

Big Issue Illustrations

I have done an update to my folio site which includes the illustrations I have done for the Australian Big Issue Magazine.

Currently I am illustrating a regular column by Gina Morris which is called “Diary of a New Mum”. I have just finished my fourth installment and it’s been an interesting experience.

Firstly, doing some work again for the Big Issue is a strange thing for me. The Big Ish will always be an important part of my life - I was part of a tiny team that launched a magazine that is still in print 8 years later. For most of my year or so there I was entirely responsible for the design, layout and print production of the magazine. Having never done this kind of thing before, every single day I was stressed, challenged, and exhausted, yet amazed that I was able to get it together every two weeks. It was the steepest learning curve I have ever been on.

In no other job will I meet such an huge array of people. The editorial staff and the homeless vendors all worked out of the one office. We sat behind computers while vendors dropped in for coffees and gossips and to pick up a pile of magazines to take back out and sell on street corners. The staff were all passionate and slightly crazed (oh yes, you know we were!), the board of directors who occasionally stopped by drove huge cars and had very nice suits but most had kind eyes and clear visions, and the vendors were from a section of our society I had previously had no exposure too with my safe Private schooling - their stories of homelessness, drug, alcohol and gambling addictions would weigh heavily but their personal victories when they managed to sell an enormous amount of magazines or even just one or two, or move into a flat or find a new job were always inspiring.

In no other job will I work until three am and then lock up, step quietly over a vendor who had made our front steps home for him and his two dogs and catch a cab home only to get up and do it all again the next day.

In no other job will I be asked out on a date by a guy who is as high as a kite, sporting new stolen sneakers (and proud to tell me so!), with syringes lined up in his top pocket like a row of pens. It was difficult to turn him down, only because I had heard the whispers in the staff kitchen that he had killed people.

In no other job will a huge smelly guy wearing a father christmas hat and a pair of crazy 70s sunglasses regularly give me huge hugs and make me feel like it’s all worth it.

And in no other job will I catch crabs from innocently sitting in the staff lounge on an extremely festy couch… mmm.

Putting that magazine together is one of my major lifetime achievements but I was daily discovering my personal and creative limitations and professional weaknesses.

So not only is there all that, but there’s Gina and her stories of her little girl, Lillah Rae. Lillah Rae is only six weeks old so far in these entries so I am being called on to illustrate breast pumping, baby acne, mother’s group and all these other scenes which now seem so far away to me and my little girl who is 2 and a bit and getting more independant every day. It’s weird and kind of emotional to remember exactly how I felt on my first mother’s group get together, and how exactly you hold a breast pump. I am surprised at how much I have put out of my mind, yet how quickly it comes rushing back. None of it is exactly inspiring me to go there again in a hurry.

Anyway, if you’re in Australia, find a vendor, have a chat and lash out on a three dollar copy of the Big Issue - because it rocks.

blah

Another wasted Saturday filled with miserable house huntingness and nothing to show for it except a huge book full of print outs of houses and floor plans and notes scribbled across them that read “bad feeling”, “neighbours look extremely dodgy”, “sold” and “this place should be bulldozed”. Ugh ugh ugh.

I should be sewing my elephant (who is looking very alarming) but I am more inclined to crawl into bed and hide.

There was a great hail storm in Box Hill today, and steam rose eerily from the road surface in Forest Hill - but these sure signs from the gods seemed to mean nothing at all. My new arch supports do not fit and cause great discomfort. That seems to be much more meaningful.

Enough of this. Here are some pleasant distractions:

Snowflakes by Children’s book illustrators for charity auction.
My favourites are definitely Sophie Blackall’s and Jaime Zollars’ (via indie shopper)

Also, some inspiring paper lampshades which can be found here — whimsical scenes made of simple shapes. I have filed these in my “to do one day” folder.

Now I am off to sulk.