Not suitable for chubby girls

On Dave’s fortnightly payday I often stop in at two local thrift stores. These are B-grade stores on my complicated thrifting scale. B-Grade means mostly pricey, mostly rubbish but if you find a score at a B-Grade place (and you will eventually) then most likely it’s going to be a SCORE and well worth the rummaging through piles of junk.Today was one of those days where I SCORED.

I walked into the first one and realised I was standing next to about 8 small boxes stuffed with sewing patterns. Some of them were from the 50’s or maybe even older. Most of the patterns were from the 70’s and 80’s that should never ever be made into clothes – muu muu’s and such but here and there was a little gem. Vintages girls skirts or dresses, a soft toy transfer pattern, a cape pattern for an idea I have been considering and a very old baby layette pattern. I must have got over excited with my grabby hands though because I seem to have bought some hideous 80’s blouse pattern in amongst my treasures, oops! Anyway I don’t think it really matters when you consider that I only bought one of the other patterns because it had this written on it:

No way would you see that on a pattern these days!! They were a bit more blunt in 1967!!

Keeping a record

It’s pretty easy when you have a million shades of floss to find the exact right one for a particular shade of felt. But unless you like a system where you then leave that floss in a little bowl forever so you can find it again it can become a problem. When that bowl started to overflow I usually ended up putting the floss bobbins all back in the boxes and tried to remember which floss matched which felt. Or made a scribbled note on a scrap of paper which quickly became lost for good. Which is not good. I use a good half dozen felt colours regularly for toys, not to mention it’s always smart to keep a track of what colours you used for that amazing embroidery that you might want to repeat one day. And now I crochet…well yarn has batch numbers and dye lots which are quite important to keep track of. I can barely remember my 50,000 passwords for every account I use daily so rather than lose yet another scrap of very important paper it was time to start a craft notebook.

I bought a tiny 70 cent spiral bound notebook and each page has a different project. Each crochet project has the size and brand of hook I used (size varies with each brand), the brand, colour and dye lot of each yarn plus a final tally of balls used overall. The felt page has a list of the DMC shades and a colour description of each felt they match. As I find my little scribbled embroidery projects notes I will add them too. It makes it so much easier, for example, if I want to make a rainbow to flick through until I find the notes on my rainbow caterpillar. Or the page with all the different shades of red for redwork or bluework. The more time I save planning a project, the faster I can just get down and do it. Which sounds good to me.

Oh and it may prove to be handy to keep a track of prices so you can find at a glance which is the cheapest place to buy that brand of floss/yarn/hook/needle next time. Saving money and time? That sounds great to me!

No place like home

Dorothy had it right, you can go far and wide but there really is no place like home. Sometimes I wish it was a little further away from my family but I’m pretty sure that home is only so homely because they are so close. I know that the reality of owning our own home is going to be far removed from my delusions but for now while things are so challenging I am indulging myself with a lot of house thoughts and plans. Nothing concrete, just making the days more interesting by thinking about curtains, lighting and a table runner design and creating comfortable little corners where I can create, dream, think or do nothing at all.

These are some of my inspirations. Patchwork curtains in my studio? Oh yes! I didn’t know I needed them until I saw that photo! And a stump for a bedside table? Impractical as heck but so gorgeous! Maybe as a corner table by the sofa instead? With a pretty Zamm lamp on top. Oh yes. And I think painting a blackboard door in the kitchen is the very first thing I will do after we unpack. I’m obsessive about unpacking asap before I lose all motivation. When I get upset about the neighbours from hell or a sister who tries to kill herself at least once a week (it’s really been a long year) or my cats hissing at each other it’s just oh so very nice to slip off to dreamland and think about our very own house and making it into our very own home.

Crafting from the stash

Before the last couple of fairs I got so annoyed with my mountain of useless fabrics I bagged up most of them to give to the thrift store. I just couldn’t find the good stuff. I have very very little really nice fabric and it had all sunk to the bottom and become lost. My stash is now about 1/3 smaller and still shrinking but at last I can see the really pretty fabrics, the ones that inspire me and actually make me want to use them. Not just tottering piles of white sheets for ’something’. Anyway I stumbled on a little bit of canvas with a child’s print on it, enough for a bag.

Rebekah blogged a while ago about having a stash of craft books and never actually using them. Yeah, sounds familiar. So even though I love my copy of Bend The Rules Sewing and use it regularly it has got me thinking – 1) use books I don’t normally use and also 2) if I use a book regularly try using a different pattern from it for once. Woah, that’s pretty radical thinking there! Anyway I used a pattern I had never tried before and I liked it. I might even dust off one of the oh dozen or so books that I absolutely had-to-have-just-couldn’t-live-without-owning-it- but-have-never-once-used and make something from them. Woah, now that’s just crazy talk!

Mr Conehead

You’d barf if you saw the stitched up wound and the drain in his chest. But you’d laugh yourself silly watching him trying to walk, eat and drink in this thing. Poor boy.  We’re taking action against the neighbours, their cats are unfed, untrained and aggressive. It’s cost us $880 in 7 months – half of that in the past 2 days – and Rastus is a shadow of his former porky self. The stress is just eating him up.

In a somewhat related matter kiwis and australians can now buy my felt dogs and other things here. I spent a few weeks thinking about whether I should give up crafting altogether or if I should take it further. Our finances decided that one for me in the end. Or rather Mr Conehead up there decided it for me!

knackered

The fairs are now over. Whew. Craft 2.0 on Thursday night, not my best sales but lots of feedback, ideas and kids running up to my stall, grabbing a hobby horse and making clip clop noises. Be still my heart!

Knack was today, a new one for me and quite successful – considering this fair season was so bad for me. I made some money then spent most of it! I noticed a guy two stalls down selling the most incredibly priced pottery so I bought FIVE pieces. Three are for Christmas presents (and I never give presents so that’s how good I think his stuff was) if I can bring myself to give the bowls away.

The colour and  detail on this bowl is just beautiful. I hope my mum likes it, she’s been really good to me this year.

The stall across from me was amazing:

And I don’t have a Christmas tree and can’t have kids but I bought these:

I am a sucker for cute things!! Declutter, smeclutter! It’s not often I have the money to enjoy myself like I did today, so I really just had fun and enjoyed my day. Isn’t that what it’s all about really? But I would like to mention that there was a woman selling gorgeous imported fabrics and I resisted the temptation. I think that earns me a few brownie points!!

I have two orders to fill before Christmas, both of which mean ordering supplies asap but until the supplies get here I will be relaxing with this past weeks mail. I am knackered!

And hunting for Rastus – missing for 29 hours so far. Bloody cats.

On my mind

Last fair tomorrow, the time for a little inward thinking, clearing out the clutter in my house, my brain and if I’m halfway organised my computer too. I’m feeling the need for reflection today too. Here’s to warmth, joy, colour, beautiful babies just born and yet to be born, candlelight, summer picnics, whimsy and for no particular reason…dogs in face masks. Because if they don’t count as whimsy then I don’t know what does! Happy weekend!

Love bytes

Eek, it’s December!!! I feel like I wasted November, I want a do-over! My brain is a bit of a blank today so here’s some ‘love bytes’  for you.

- Is it okay to want these so bad when I have no children? I don’t think I’ll buy them…but then you never know what I’ll buy sometimes! I am a total sucker for wooden toys.

- Two Guyz Spinning!!! Love it! And they use natural dyes

- The next craft fair is in TWO days! If you’re local come out to TheNewDowse and buy my stuff! Seriously, the stuff on sale is going to be amazing. The local craft talent makes me feel like a hack! And there’s wine and a band too

 

- My mail is going screwy. A book I ordered should be here and is not. A crochet hook I bought online is also not here and a swap parcel has not arrived. Le sigh. What did arrive is the first 4 back issues of Living Craft that I treated myself to. The postie left them jammed half out of my mailbox in frickin’ torrential rain so they got rather wet. Thanks NZPost.

- I’ll be sending off the buttons you all sent my way to the kids at Moriah School on Thursday, just in time before the school year finishes. There’s over 1,100 buttons! Here’s a great little slideshow from the kids about their button project.

- I think I need to destash and declutter before the new year. Moving house in a few months is a big inspiration. I’m not keen on moving my crap from one house to another!

Fail-tastic

After meaning to for months I finally got around to menu planning for the last grocery shop. The theory behind it is that we will have two weeks of varied meals, I will know what to cook each night (but can change days if I have to) and eventually we will save money by planning. What a big fat fail it turned out to be. I forgot to buy practically everything. We were going to have spaghetti bolognese…but I forgot the pasta sauce. Nachos? Forgot the corn chips…you know, the nacho part. And the sour cream too. Sausages and mash? Forgot the sausages. Tomato and onion sausages were out then too obviously. My 14 day menu plan shriveled to less than a week worth of planned meals we actually had the stuff to make. I can only hope that my next attempt goes a bit better because I cannot tell you how stupid I felt each time I realised one more essential ingredient I forgot.

I sort of redeemed myself in my own eyes by scoring the exact bookcase I have been wanting for ages at the thrift store. Of all our bookcases (5 – big and small) none are actually for books so it will be a novelty not to have to root around in a box under the dining table for something to read. Unfortunately the bookcase took the very last useable wall space so no more purchases until we move. Settlement of Dave’s mothers house is in exactly 2 months and our 3 year anniversary is tomorrow!! Three years of Dave and the worlds neediest cats and domestic life. Who would have thought I would come to love this life I now lead so very much?

manic days

It’s just been absolutely manic here lately. I have to write 3 stories due by the end of the month (not going well so far) then the last 2 craft fairs on my list before I have a little time to relax.

I had my 2nd craft fair of the season on Thursday and although it was as unsuccessful as I expected I did at least sell a couple of things and made enough to buy Simple Sewing which has been on my list forever. We’ve been desperately poor for the last 2 months so finally having money to buy things again feels wonderful.

On Sunday we drove over the hill to the Wairarapa. I had hoped to get a lot of work done on the crochet kitchen mat in the car but Dave takes corners like a lunatic and ’slow down’ means nothing to him so I mostly stared into space and waited for my stomach to catch up with the car. It’s slowly coming along though and I love the colours. It’s also helping that it’s just rows and rows of the same stitch. Sometimes there is nothing better than 15 minutes of a mindless project while watching TV or even just a few stitches on the way from one manic project to another.

Now I have a week to write 3 3,000 stories with no inspiration, 10 days to sew as many soft toys as I can before the last two craft fairs – my beloved Craft 2.0 on Dec 3rd and a new fair for me – Knack on Dec 5th. Then I think it’s time for a week of doing very very little. If things get a little quiet around here you can find me under a pile of half finished felt toys.