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project 7/52 . . .

. . . a complete cheat this week. Little Man is about to 'graduate' to another room at his day care and we want to give the women who have looked after him something to remember him by (that isn't snot and temper tantrums). I had three notebook covers already made in my 'stash' but there are four women . . . so I made another one. In yellow.

project 5/52 . . .

Yes yes, I know. I'm late. I did make these last week but didn't have a chance to post them until now . . .

Felt balls for a friend who doesn't know she is getting them yet. She was wanting something to decorate her mantelpiece and, in true Christchurch style, it had to be something that wouldn't break or have the potential to become a lethal object if it suddenly became airborne. Felt balls - the obvious choice.

project 4/52 . . .

. . . pink and green birds, a belated birthday present (resolution FAIL) for a dear friend who likes pink and green.

project 2/52 - two birds . . .

 . . . with one stone. Today's Project 52 is also my entry into this national competition.

(Please excuse the crap photography - damn my complete inability to compensate for white backgrounds!).

It was an interesting exercise and by interesting I mean 'not to be repeated in a hurry'. I should have started it earlier - weeks earlier.

While the competition determined the theme, the end result is something that I would be happy hanging in Little Man's room . . . and this is where it is destined to end up.

And in other news, we've bought a caravan. A 1972 Zephyr. We actually bought it about a month ago but this weekend was its first outing. Muz has these golden memories from his youth of caravan holidays with his family. I have a slightly more realistic idea of just how much fun you can have away from your own toilet and shower, but I am still up for the challenge.

We went about an hour out of town because we didn't want to go too far afield, given that we are caravan novices. We forgot a lot of stuff (essential stuff, like insect repellent) and we didn't put up the awning properly but hey, that's what the outing was all about. It was a test run and, even with all our amateur mistakes (and there were many), we had a ball.

project 1/52 . . .

. . . starting it off easy with the whole 'make something every week' resolution.

Behold, a cluster of baby tops destined for yet another friend who now knows why sleep deprivation is a form of torture.

Uninspiring, I know, but I am pacing myself. I still have 51 projects to go and I don't want to peak too early.

this . . . .

. . . is what has been keeping me quiet of late - the mother of all advent calendars. It damn near killed me . . . and it is just one of two I made. Little Man has one, his cousin has the other. 

Damn. Near. Killed. Me.

In the end I ran out of time and had to cheat a little. I was going to hand-sew the pockets but ended up machine-sewing them, six at a time, onto ribbon, then machine-sewing the ribbon onto the panel. I figured that this way the imperfections (and there are plenty) would be less obvious. And instead of hand-sewing the numbers, I used 'sticky-back' felt. i feel kind of dirty . . .

Tonight we put up the last decoration - the 'Santa Kiwi'.

And in other news, the earthquakes are back. I was driving home for the first big one and almost lost control of the car.

For the second, the '6', we were all upstairs. Little Man was jumping on our bed and all I could do was throw myself over him as stuff came crashing down around us. Poor Muz was just trying to have a pee in peace . . .

Last night we had something like 20 aftershocks and today I am a little tired. Unfortunately Little Man is now a bit freaked out by it all. He's that much older, and that much more aware. Even though Muz and I both smile like crazed idiots and reassure him that it's all OK, when the world around him starts to rock he still gets a bit scared. Breaks my heart a little.

It's been a long year and I'm ready for a new one. Wishing you and yours a very Merry Christmas, and a happy, safe and shake-free New Year.

it was . . .

 . . . a freakin' awesome day yesterday. Thank you Sue, Paula, Kate and all the Craft 2.0 helpers - you guys created a truly awesome event. The new location was a winner and the atmosphere was great.

I shared a table with the fabulous Emma. It's the second time we've shared a table and she hasn't killed me yet so I am taking that as a good sign. We were also next to the lovely Millie. As much as anything, these events are a great chance to catch up with people. And buy stuff (more about that later).

Due to some poor planning on my part, my flight arrived a mere 35 minutes before the fair started. By the time I got to the venue I had about 10 minutes left (to add to the time pressure, my taxi got stuck behind the World's Slowest Driver). Luckily my set-up is pretty speedy. However, there was no time for photos.

I hate to post without an image so instead I thought I would show you my next 'work in progress'.

Oh yes, as far as works in progress go, this is a biggie.

That rat's nest is what Muz fondly refers to as his 'studio'. I sacrificed my 'studio' so that my first born could have somewhere to sleep (I'm all heart) but now I've decided I need a place too. I have a lot of sewing planned in the next couple of months, including a dress for girl who turned two . . . in June. I need a place where I can set up my machines and keep them set up, so I am staging a partial land reclamation. A corner of that room is going to be mine. ALL MINE.

Muz is currently in Perth visiting his brother and I have three nights before he gets back.Wish me luck, people, because this is going to get worse before it gets better.

another snow day . . .

 . . . which is a bit like lightning striking twice. As already mentioned, I live in a sea-level city. We don't do snow . . . but apparently we do this winter.  Just add it to the list of weird shite that's going down in Christchurch at the moment. Having said that, it has been more than 48 hours since our last earthquake. Today I finally got round to putting Little Man's bird mobile-thingie back above his cot . . . so we must be due something big any moment now!

But back to Snow Day - while Little Man still isn't that fussed at touching 'nooooooooooo' (as he calls it) he loves watching it. Once he realised it was snowing he was up for the day . . . the only shame was that he made that discovery at 5.30am. So it was an early start in our household today.

No work for me again so we spent the day indoors, staying warm and trying to think up new and interesting ways of preventing Little Man from trashing the place. Honestly, little humans just have NO respect for property.

In between trying to save the paintwork, the furniture and the cats I did have a few spare minutes to scheme. I am currently 'between craft fairs' which is a glorious place to be and is allowing me the time to try out a few ideas. Here's a new style of bird brooch that I'm working on.

I've also made a tui version which looks better in real life than this truly shite photo would have you believe.

a wonderful time and a spate of babies . . .

As predicted, I had a wonderful time at Craft 2.0. Thank you Sue and all your helpers for another great event. Our plane/bus combo meant that we arrived just in time and by 'just in time' I mean we made it with about 10 minutes to spare. I set a land-speed record setting up my stall. Below is a very crap photo of how it looked. Initially I thought the photo was bad because I took it in poor light. However, when I went to take some photos today, in brilliant sunshine, I discovered that Little Man had changed the settings on the camera so that everything was underexposed. That boy has an uncanny knack of finding settings we don't even know exist on our electronic equipment.

And in other news, I am in the middle of another spate of babies. Four couples we know have abandoned all reason and bred. With two of the couples I can get away with my usual baby t-shirts but for the other two it is their second time to the well, so to speak. Madness, sheer madness. Do they not value their sleep?!?!? Case in point: last night Little Man, who has another cold (his 100th this year so far) woke at 1.30am, 2.20am, 3am and 4.30am. My partner was at another one of his feral doofs and came home at 5am . . . and then Little Man announced his intention to GET UP NOW at 6am. I might as well not even bothered going to bed.

But I digress . . . for the two couples who already have one of my stock standard baby t-shirts, I have had to extend my repetoire. I obsessively hoard retro craft books (that's a blog post for another time) and they are my backstop when things get desperate. After a quick search I settled on these puppies . . . no really, they are puppies. I am quite enjoying making toys, especially ones with gussets. Very ugly word, 'gussets', but they are undeniably handy when it comes to making something that can stand up on its own.

Now I am wracked with uncertainty - those underneath bits are called gussets, aren't they?

a weekend of crafty goodness . . .

Handmade 2011 was freakin' awesome. The event itself was great but for me the real highlight was hanging with the crafty crowd. I partied with the Christchurch crew - Lucy, Nin, Rose and Jan. I caught up with Sue, Millie and Colleen. I met Melissa, Frances and Paula.I drank red wine, ate artisan cheeses, sold some stuff, stayed up waaaaaaay too late and then totally ruined my One Chance At A Sleep-In by waking up at 6.30am because it would appear I am now programmed to do that. My body clearly hates me.

The workshops themselves were a learning curve. I've never taught a workshop before and I think it is fair to say I have room for improvement. For starters, and most significantly, I underestimated the time it would take for someone to complete a felt bird - a completely amateur mistake and quite cringe-worthy. Even with experienced sewers in the group everything just takes longer simply because it is a group. However, most people managed to get most of the way through and one star even managed to finish within the available time.

Confession time: I am crap at maths. There is a reason I work in communications - I like words. Numbers, on the other hand, are evil. I am particularly crap at maths when I have people looking at me (for example, when I am trying to add up someone's sale in my head and they are staring at me in disbelief that I am taking so long to add $5 and $10 together). Halfway through my first workshop on the Saturday I got in a complete maths-muddle and then started to panic because I thought there were only 15 minutes to go and no-one was anywhere near finished. I was trying to hurry everyone along and people were getting in a bit of a flap until someone pointed out that there were actually 45 minutes to go. Big difference. So another learning there - remember to take a stop-watch. Or maybe just learn to read the time properly.