The Toy Society Christmas Drop

My second drop for The Toy Society was part of their Christmas Toy Drop.

This little toy went along on a road trip with our family from Brisbane.

Our destination was Melbourne and the plan was to do the drop along the way. We took off on Sunday but it was either raining or threatening rain, and the play parks in the highway towns were deserted.

I waited until Monday lunchtime when we pulled into a beautiful and well used park on the Castlereigh River in Coonabarabran, NSW. I left him in the tube slide, a quick toss in, a picture (can you see him in there?), and we moved on down the highway. Happy Christmas to the finder!

The one dollar, one hour Christmas sack

A last minute and basically only bit of Christmas-style crafting blog post here. We aren't really big on the whole Christmas thing, for us its more a family get together time and a celebration of the end of another year.


But....I did make a Christmas sack for my little boy. I bought a small sized white pillowcase for $1 from the Salvation Army. It got a wash and dry in the hot Brisbane weather. One hour later it was embellished with an appliqued red and white striped star and embroidered name in green.

Ready for a few modest train set additions from us and the family. Enjoy, my sweetest.

Re-fashioning

Wow, I have been doing a lot of sewing lately! Thats about to change as we head off for two weeks with my family about four days south of where we live.

This halter neck sundress has been in my wardrobe for some time and I have hardly worn it, its very thin cotton, the ties at the back of the neck are too bulky and iritate me and the elastic back sags down. But, I love the colour. I unpicked the skirt panels and turned them into a cool summer top, easy to wash and dry while on a road trip too.

Big stitches

Mmm, instant satisfaction is sewing together fat quarters into a patchwork. The three pieces of vintage sheet I ordered arrived in the middle of a heavy shower of welcome but rare rain on Tuesday. Lucky they were wrapped up well in plastic inside the paper envelope.

I got two fat quaters out of the orange and yellow flowers...

two fat quarters out of the blue and purple flowers (middle right, below)...

and two out of the blue flowers (bottom right, above), with more left over for another project.

Fifteen pieces in all, three by five in a patchwork. Oops, there's my toes!

Just waiting now to have the time to put the backing sheet on. Its a surprisingly different pink, green, blue and white sheet, fairly contrasty to the front, but let's go wild!

Little Things

I promised to do a post about what was in the box from a week or so ago, so here it is.

They don't have a name. They are just little things.

A little experiment of mine.

My most excellent friend Elizabeth has recently opened her new shop, Nest Nappies in Paddington, Brisbane. Its all about cloth nappies actually (if you use cloth nappies, or are thinking about it, and live in Brisbane, then definitely go and check her out). She does sell a range of other baby accessories and a general array of gorgeousness like slings and carriers, bibs, bags, hair clips and such. She has been lovely and supportive and put six of my little goodies in her shop.

Just to see.

How will they go?

All monies from any sales will go to the shop's chosen charity - Food, Water, Shelter.

Check them out too! A group of Australians doing great stuff for kids in Africa (and eco-friendly to boot!).

Now I know my ABCs

I have this ABC frieze by Dick Bruna. You probably know Dick Bruna through his "Miffy" books - do you recognise these illustrations from your childhood? Actually I have three friezes - ABC, Numbers and Animals - published in the early 1970s and they are certainly well loved and have been used by two generations of our family.

I had this ABC one stuck to coloured cardboard in my son's room, but it got all mis-shapen and fell down. And look at it! Its water damaged, ripped, brittle and tired, and basically in need of retirement. My crafty plan (next year...) is to create a fabric version of it with fabric/felt applique of the illustrations and then make a wall hanging. It can then continue to be used and loved into the future.

So, if you are visiting this post today, how about weighing in with your opinions on two things. Would you mind? I think I would have to make each square one at a time and sew them together at the end, kind of like a quilt. My two conflicting ideas are:

Should I make an exact copy including the coloured backgrounds?

Should I make an all white background version? (possibly makes it more uni-sex)

What do you think?

My Creative Space

Its been too hot in Brisbane to do much lately. I am suffering from a bit of heat induced crafty/blogging-itis, just feel like lazing around like a lizard, and with looming holidays I am kind of winding down anyway.

So, what do I have on the go? I am cutting up these vintage sheets into fat quarters to make a patchwork, inspired by this one from Meet me at Mike's. There are a few more pieces of floral sheet fabric arriving in the mail this week - yay! The sheets are nice to work with in hot weather, they are thin, soft and cool. I also got a great $4 floral sheet from the Salvo's store as a backing piece. Maybe it will be all cut and stitched by the time we go on holidays, maybe not. Its holiday time after all!

For more creative spaces, head on over to Kirsty at Kootoyoo!

Another one

I had a second try at skirt making recently. I used the same Little Bird pattern but didn't bother with the three panel version like last time but just made a straight up single panel skirt. Much faster and a lot less fiddly. This time I made the medium size, and it was still too big! Do I dare to make the small size next time?

The yellow and white flower/lace trim was $2 from the Salvation Army store. A nice finishing touch I think.

My creative space

This week I have pretty much started afresh on things. I have cleared my shelves and posted off the softies for Mirabel, and birthday season for my friend's kids is over, so yeah, time to concentrate on something new, and also something to finish off my year with.

A pile of cute, bright fabrics has migrated to my table in the last week or so....don't worry, there is way more fabric in my sideboard cupboard (a sideboard is not for plates, its for fabric around here)...

...I have a fabulously organised system for keeping my embroidery threads...

...and a few days of stitching, embroidering, ironing, clipping and stuffing have produced a box of goodies, but I will tell more about what they are for later.

New fabric

I finally went to claim the black zippers that I ordered in at the fabric shop. I was just meandering around, as you do, and I came across this little pack of five fat quarters. I just love flowers and birds, and the colour combination was really appealing as well. It was the only one of its kind on the shelf, so I thought it definitely needed to be purchased...

I have already used some of it too.