Bunny Hunting

Armed with the scrap box and a super easy pattern (found here), these bunnies bred like rabbits just in time for the Easter weekend.

They were so simple it was hard to restrain myself. I made a batch for all the nephews (only nephews here so far) and then I kept going to supply a bunch of toys drops.



After just one evening of sewing, I ended up with 16 bunnies in total, so I handed out a few to family to do their own drops.

The newphews' bunnies were buddied up with a couple of homemade chocolate lollipops and a sensational little ceramic egg decorating kit packaged in egg cartons. The bunnies were a huge hit with the nephews, which was a relief. One was even named lollipop and everyone took them to bed.

The Toy Society bunnies will appear over there during the week.

Spy Bear!

Meet Spy Bear, a little character a friend of mine designed a long time ago (possibly in a land far, far way). He spent hours turning Spy Bear into an animation. We had some sort of exchange where by he painted us a yeti (I think) and I brought Spy Bear to softie life. It was many years ago and the details are a little fuzzy. I have been thinking about Spy Bear a lot lately so I dug out the pattern I made.

The details were important. Hat, eye patch, and


y-fronts.


The face details are taken from the sketch Adam did over drinks on his balcony one summer.


And the eye patch can be removed...poor little guy has to wear an eye patch cause of his sight problems.


His hat can be taken off in hot weather...thank goodness because summer has arrived early.


Oh look, Spy Bear's a nudist!


The Smurf has claimed this Spy Bear as his own, in an hilarious discovery overheard from another room. Spy Bear lying on dining table, spotted by Smurf "I seeit"....smurf climbs on chair..."ooo pirate!"..."Smurf's pirate"..."I keep it" and it's accompanied him since. But I'll be making more of these for my Toy Society Christmas toy drops.

New Kid on the Block

This new kid on the block has pipped the Smurf's favourite take-everywhere toy "Bubba" from the top of the favourites list. It's a sure way to make your Mum happy when you favour the toy she made you this week. Good Smurf, good Smurf.

It's even nicer when you spontaneously kiss the new kid on the block while your Mum's taking a photo.

And extra special when Bubba is thrown to the ground in favour of the new kid accompanying you on the grocery shop.

Aunty Cookie fabric panel bought at Finders Keepers. Lined with calico to take away the transparency of the basecloth and backed with blue pin dots from the stash. 5 minutes sewing, 10 minutes stuffing, 5 minutes finishing. Instant gratification.

I'd say it's a winner, don't you agree?

Festival of the Cocoa Bean

Chocolate. That's what Easter's about isn't it? Well chocolate and spending a day when the only fruit you consume is dried and contained in Hot Cross Buns (lunch) and the only veggie you eat is potato and comes as a chip served with your fish and chips (dinner) and the only dairy you consume is contained within that mountain of easter eggs you received from some egg laying bunny.

Murtle and Eunice's Chickammyjig, finished this morning (Easter Monday) in front of the Smurf.


Lucky he's too young to realise that such things are out of place on Easter Monday (or that that crazy Easter Bunny managed to find him on 3 different days of Easter at a myriad of locations).

Project # something

I whipped this up (using the Softies book) this week as a present for the horses birthday approach to birthday celebrations at mothers group ie one first bday [party and present] for all the kids. Despite my excitement about the unveiling, it went down a bit like a lead balloon amongst all the piles of plastic fantastic fisher price crap. Oh well, like I said.

Anyway enough about that. About the pattern. I picked it because it was quite simple and I had no time. I approached a couple of parts of the pattern slightly differently for the sake of simplicity; I didn't pre-cut the legs or the wings. Instead I sandwiched the uncut pieces and sewed around the cut out pattern piece and then trimmed. Same for the wings. Makes softie making quicker and easier. I tried with the face and body piece but discovered through trial and error that those pieces are best cut before sewing.

Anyway, I loved the finished little bee and the Smurf cracked the biggest smile when I did my market research.

Now, look at this bottle brush tree.

Makes me feel happy when I spy it through the kitchen window. Although it freaked me out when I took the photo of the softie bee above. I could hear this really loud buzzing sound. When I looked up it was swarming with hungry bees. I didn't stick around to see if the softie cut it with the real gang.

New Toys

I'll be short and sweet - which is so unlike me! I've been working on some new toys.

This is Icarus:






He's designed by my "cousin":

I brought him to life as a present for his 21st.

And this is Serious Ghost:


Designed by Azz who I "met" when he found a member of the Toy Society in Canberra

Happy Birthday parties... did I tell you the party is for twins?

It's raining birthday parties this week, little girl birthday parties. I thought some Black Apple action would be in order for the one year old and the 2 year old. The parties were today back to back and on opposite sides of the city.

Present making was all on track, fabric cut, stuffing ready to go, machine plugged in. Roll clock forward through dinner, a couple of sneaky beers, some feet up time on the couch to 9.30pm when Mr S+L has a brain wave. I think the 2 year old is actually twins. What the fark I say? Twins? You forgot to tell me? Now I need to make 3 dolls?! Geez I was about to go to bed. So I drag him upstairs thrust the scissors in his hand and demand: "CUT" "HURRRRRRRRRRRY!". And finally we got to bed ready with three dolls ready to be stuffed and finished in the morning after breakkie.





I allocated the travel time to the twins' party across the city for final sewing together of gaps and stitching on the faces. But um I forgot to account for time to get car sick. Blag. Imagine that, getting car sick for the first time in your life because you're desperately trying to finish off the last minute hand made pressies for the twins you thought were only one child just a matter of hours before. Arrggg.

I had to contemplate arriving without a present(s) to a lovely party in a wonderfully warm welcoming house full of people I'd never met before (Mr S+L's work friend) - the sheer embarrassment. Lucky I found a quiet 5 minutes to make a phone call escape to the car to finish and wrap before we had to leave.

And we made it to the second party back on the original side of the city, albeit 10 minutes before the finish time. But for obvious reasons I have no finished doll photos to show.

The Smurf couldn't have cared less about the present debacle and thoroughly enjoyed himself at both dos, laughing, making friends with a 6 week old staffy puppy (oh and other kids), eating tiny morsels of bday cake and doing some context appropriate clapping at the clown.


And so begins our new life on the kids birthday party circuit. And I'll forever more check and double check the number of children celebrating at each event.

PS We bagged the lolly bags. Sweet.

Feeling the lerv

I know I know it's so very 2001 to use the word lerv but I can't help myself cause it surely was flowing freely in response to my last post about the Toy Society. Thanks for all the positive feedback I am floating about the place full to the brim with ideas and excitement for the project. I'll post answers to all the questions in the coming week...after the next drop. Yep this weekend. But I'll be posting most Toy Society info over on that blog including details on how you can get involved.

my pet ghost

Speaking of lerv there was also lots of lerv felt at a certain Newtown Thai restaurant last night too. Craft love that is. There was another meet up. It was great, lots of good conversation, excellent (and very cheap) food and crafty gifts. Woo Hoo. I unashamedly announced that the presents were the thing I missed most when I missed our last meet up. But um it's true. This is a talented group of girls and the quality of gifts is high.

This time I made a fabric scarf. (We Are Spiralling if you're still out there I owe you one from last year!!).






And my gift is from the lovely Jade of My Art is My Outlet. Beautiful fabric supplies and she says there's a crafted something or other to come too. Lucky me! I hope I remembered to say thanks last night Jade and that I didn't just drool or get all vague cause it was after 10pm?

Anyway if you're a crafty Mum in Sydney and want to join in the present fest meet up go visit Belinda and let her know you want in.

Watashi no puresento

My Presents! Cause it's good to spoil yourself and sew a present for you for once instead of the Monkey Union




And to splurge a mere 25 bucks on yourself for one of these babies


Maybe your family can be as happy as this one if you too have your very own Gocco?

What a lark! A family that Gocco's together stays together - or at the very least smiles cheesily together.

It's all justfiable because it's perfectly OK to sew yourself a Mother's Day Present and buying yourself a cheap second hand Gocco will make you think happy thoughts even when you're walking like a broken old lady with a carrot up her arse (hello google weirdos) thanks to your sore back.

PS The Monkey Union isn't exclusively Monkeys, incase you were wondering? The membership is quite diverse, but it belongs to Mr S+L and Miss Priss up there is living on my side of the bedroom. Just incase you needed to know?

Monkey See Monkey Do

Inspired by my new softies book and by Jade's prolific output of these little guys a while back I put one of those cute little monkeys together for Yogi's baby shower back in January.


Oh sorry yeah Yogi is what we call my Sister's bun in the oven. She called the Smurf Boo Boo (she didn't like Unit 1) so of course when she got up the duff Yogi seemed the logical name.

Hmm now I'm sposed to be playing the This Is game...but with the move and stuff I've been a bit off track, actually I didn't even manage to start. So sorry if you've stopped by looking for what I had for Sunday lunch or what my inspiration board is...but thanks for stopping by anyway - I'll try and get on with it although it is a little hard with all our belongings in storage.

Ketchup

This guy's been multiplying!

This one went to a very special friend who we miss an awful lot after moving back north of the border.

Things have been crazy. We've made our big move interstate


In my mind I'm still in denial - and in Melbourne where last night I would have attended the first Brown Owls meeting *. But I'm not in Melbourne anymore and luckily there have been many things afoot here to distract me and remind me that other cities can be fun places to live. Things like weddings with Smurfs in tuxedos


Surprise 50th bday parties with an Elvis impersonator


Swimming in the ocean


And playing with our cousins' face


*Don't worry I became a Faraway Brownie.

Mirabel Softies

I thought I'd contribute to the Mirabel Softies appeal that Meet Me at Mikes is putting together


She has a reversible dress a-la Molly Chicken style


Her dress is a bit too long but at least she has her modesty - she's wearing no knickers!

See more softies over here.

Let there be craft

Before I let there be craft.... thanks so much for all the comments about the Smurf. Thanks too for the tips from the Mums, I've already implemented a few - like the right shoulder burping tip from Snoozen - works a treat, my boy is a champion burper (when he's not spewing in his bed). OK how bout that craft?

This is someone else's craft...a good friend of ours.


There's a pacman one too, but I'll show you when we get another warm day.

Check these softies out


Oh and the craft...


It was minor, just some bigger better wraps in non vomit inducing colours (my vomit - not Murphy's he needs little help in that department). I'm a bit sick of all the pastel crap with fluffy ducks and bouncing bunnies - BORING - so I pulled out some flanelette I bought about 4 yrs ago when a good friend of mine announced her first pregnancy. It's all aliens and star wars like space ship prints. But you know I forgot to take a photo of the finished wrap ...dah baby brain. So instead here's the shoes I sewed in


Rose Red will these count for Shoesday? It's these or my thongs for shoes at the moment. Aint life exciting.

The (craft) Junkie Express

(Don't freak if you're reading this Grandma, the tram is perfectly harmless really!)

The Junkie express...that's what my tram line is nicknamed. It's the number 86 and rambles up Smith St Collingwood - if you live in Melbourne that sentence is all I need to write to explain it really. In our time travelling the Junkie Express I have witnessed singing cowboys, 14 year olds drunk on jim beam, beggars, passed out junkies, whacky 'art dealers' (he swears the painting he brought on the tram with him was worth a million), domestics between shazza and bazza, argy bargy, chats about robberies and more. And tonight I added to the list a drug deal complete with talk of how he hates his dealer cause she stiffs him on his score. Oh how I will miss the number 86 when we move to our house with the red door.

On a completely other topic I have been tinkering with my own softie pattern...


It still needs a bit of fine tuning but overall I am happy with the shape. Oh and it might need some clothes.

Now speaking of craft junkies, we start packing for the move this weekend and Mr S+L advised me every so kindly that I will have to select a small number of craft projects to sustain me in the lead up to, during and after the move. Now how's a craft junkie sposed to cope with that?

Jenny George

Edited to add: whoops somehow the photos disappeared so I added them back in

Meet Jenny


This week she joined the Monkey Union. And then climbed a lime tree.


Mr Sadieandlance named her Jenny cause she's the first woman to join the Monkey Union, just like Jenny George was the first woman to lead the Australian Council of Trade Unions.