Turtle secrets

Those turtles are very cute – but I suddenly felt very guilty for asking for a scan of the pattern when I am a strong believer in the rights of artists and crafts people to protect their work. So this morning – thanks to pointers in yesterday’s comments – I bought the Aranzi pattern book (and a few other cute things – hmm) from aranziaronzo.com. Yvonne also pointed out that it’s available from Amazon Japan.

And really, how could I resist? I think I got the last one in stock.

Officially today is the last day of June here in Australia which means the last day of “June Bug” submissions for A Month of Softies – though as you probably know I very rarely turn back late submissions. I hope you will stick with me and forgive me my tardiness when it comes to putting up the galleries and still take part next month. Tomorrow I will be announcing the new theme which I have just this second come up with and I am truly excited by this one so tune in tomorrow.

Going on a turtle hunt

I have a big favour to ask – I am proposing a swap because I am desperate for a pattern for some turtles – specifically these naughty little guys:

I am pretty sure they come from one of the Japanese craft books — I can even picture the other animals in the book but I can’t for the life of me remember the name of the books and can’t find them online and it’s driving me bonkers! If you can scan or copy a pattern for me please email me. Pleeease.

** thanks Yvonne! Turtle has landed… :D **

Soon soon soon

It is a most perfect cold and sunny Melbourne Winter day. Our small household is feeling extremely slow today after attending a good friend’s wedding in St Kilda yesterday and mock-meat vegan feast late into the night (I believe we stayed out until almost midnight!). It was a wedding full of much amazing love, warmth, humour and lighting effects. We took part in some hastily choreographed hora dancing which finished up in a kind of crazed wedding mosh with crushed toes and aching sides from laughing hard. There were long but thankfully hilarious speeches and seemingly hundreds of little kids fluttering, pushing and stampeding through adult legs in the semi-darkness. Amelia managed to avoid her arch enemies the “Pinchy Pirates” – who are a gang of small boys who I think she must have once seen at a house party pinching one another – so she too had a great time in her fairy wings, tutu, boots and all.

Now Amelia is off in slumber land after an intense lulla-bye session and P is making pizza dough so I am sitting here pondering the enormous amounts of stuff I need to do and really all I can muster up the energy to do is look through flickr and catch up on some blogs. Due to unavoidable wintery colds and flus I haven’t had a lot of time to do anything work-wise or craftwise lately and its frustrating me stupid. When I don’t have a chance to make anything or create anything or plan anything I start to get very antsy. By last Friday evening I was dragging my feet around making fish fingers (ugh gaaah!) for Amelia for dinner and feeling and acting like Queen Grumpypants of Grumpland. I had managed to mail out a lot of the prints but everything else has been put on a backburner and the list keeps growing. So this afternoon I am going to have a look at the Getting Things Done TiddlyWiki and start getting some things done. Then again, Amelia may sleep for an hour and I just bought the DVD box set of season one Arrested Development ($20! Score! thanks M for the tip-off) so I may just have to check that out and let my brain rest.

This week I will be working on two MEGA galleries for A Month of Softies. I am really sorry to everyone who is waiting patiently to see May’s gallery. I honestly just haven’t had a moment to put it together.

Photos aplenty

Today I am a bit all over the place so I am going to do an update which reflects that and throw a whole bunch of random photos at you:

I found these two tiny birds at Winterwood when I went up there last. They seem to be hand carved out of some kind of soft foam stuff and I just love the colours. Anyway, Winterwood is the place I get my 100% wool felt and although its not the cheapest stuff around, it’s definitely the most beautiful to work with – soft and fine and hardy.

A while ago I mentioned that I am making a dog’s breakfast out of my back-tack project contribution. Here you can see it in its unfinished state spread out on my ironing board.

Every time I look at it I feel disappointed and I am never inspired to pick it up and keep working on it. Plus I took the easy way out and did the very unsporting thing of hiding my assigned fabric inside the pockets as a lining. This is hardly in keeping with the spirit of the project. So back-tack attempt number one is heading for the never-to-be-finished box and I am starting out again with some fresh ideas and a more personal approach. Luckily I still have plenty of my assigned fabric to use in a far more positive manner. I realise that am leaving it a little late, especially as it also has to get to the recipient overseas, but I think I might ask if she wouldn’t mind waiting for an extra-special last minute effort.

And… here is a huge pear that I made Van for her birthday.

It’s sitting beside one of my other little (unfinished) pears as a point of comparison. In the background you can vaguely see Big-P sitting on the couch trying to get my online shop working… yes he looks stressed. Big-P is a hero. Here is an action figure I made of him a long time ago:

And lastly here are some super cute photos of my parents in the 60s:

Shop!

The online shop selling my limited edition prints is up (finally! what a nightmare! I hope it works ok…). It’s pretty ugly at the moment but will hopefully do the job.

I am sorry if you miss out on the print you wanted but if you are interested in news about future products, please feel welcome to create an account and make sure you check the newsletter box when filling in your details. This way I can send you news about shop updates. I am hoping to have regular monthly updates of toys, cards and other goodies.