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!

fairly good

Well wordpress ate my blog for the second timein as many days. The fair was today and it was a lot of fun. I was across from alison of agnes coy and her stuff is always extremely tempting – and her husband is gorgeous. Oh my he is yum – please don’t tell him I said that Alison!!

I swapped for this doll from stitchpixie:

I splurged on the worlds yummiest cupcakes and this handdyed sock yarn from needlefood beecause I am easily swayed by pretty colours – thank goodness I set a 2 skein limit!

I tried to blog last week but wordpress ate it. I have had a physical breakdown of some sort similar to a stroke so my typing is shit, I am slurring like a drunk and am very frustrated. I saw the infertility doctor the day it happened and he was not concerned and it seems to just be a physical reaction to the stress so I just need to cancel all commitments I can and relax – if it doesn’t clear up by Tuesday will do to the doctor though! Oh and specialist said I don’t ovulate – so the problem isnt just Dave like we thought. It’s me too which means a double hurdle. Am giving it a year to try fertility treatments (we only get too funded tries which is not much really) then back to adoption . Only so much heartache I can handle.

By the way (typing dependent) I will be listing the soft toys over the next few days in my shop if you want any. Hobby horses are available for locals betweeen here and masterton. I have all of them left 😦

It’s the little things

My hiatus was only little but it was enough to make me a lot happier and I was able to make a few decisions. It’s a slow process but I feel like I am more on track now.

– I finally bought earplugs. Why oh WHY did I wait so long?? Best sleep I have ever had since I met The Man And Cat Who Snore.

– A change of direction. This is the big issue that was bugging me 24/7 for a while. I wanted to make new things, learn something new, change where I was headed. I couldn’t figure out how to start the process and it drove me nuts. I’m not there yet but I am finally heading where I want to head again.

– Part of that process involved closing my etsy shop for a while and finally opening my Felt.co.nz shop here. Because it’s NZ based and the NZ$ is so rubbish right now it means much cheaper prices for overseas customers. I am still slogging through making a hobby horse my grandma paid for ummm 2 months ago but as soon as that $#&@*%! thing is finally done I will be loading the shop with new things. I was actually on the verge of giving up crafting but this new direction has made me feel great.

– We should have an appointment to see a fertility specialist within the next 3 months. I could be pregnant before I turn 31. Ok, public health system so make that 32 but still…the day is drawing nearer.

– Dave’s mother has been given 3-6 months to live. It’s nice to have a more firm time frame on that, since we were so worried she was at deaths door right now.

– The one really upsetting thing for me is Rastus has developed mental problems. He was handling everything so well for so long but it all suddenly got too much for him. A new cat downstairs, Ginga coming back, the neighbours cats picking on him so much. Between our property and the one next door there are 6 cats and something snapped in Rastus’ brain and he’s become….scary. He still has these moments of smoochy loving cuddles but then in the blink of an eye he can chjange and fly at your face. He’s growling and hissing, not just at Ginga but at us too. And the front door. He suddenly hates the front door. I did a little research and it’s all to do with losing territory. Apparently it should die down within a few months to a year but a year of having my beloved cat fly at my face….and I also worry about what having a baby would do to him. So now moving to a new house is the #1 priority to give him and Ginga equal territory with no horrible neighbour cats. Until he is better it means that putting clothes on him has to stop 😦

– It’s not much but I decided to have a teeny tiny weeny little giveaway. I have tried to sell these buttons on Trade Me but I cannot do it. I love them that much. Selling them feels wrong. I bought them for…well I’m too embarrassed to say how much I spent on them but they are some of the most expensive buttons ever made I’m sure. So rather than have them sit there unused forever I thought that somebody might like them. So if you want them leave a comment and I will pick a winner on Tuesday evening  US time.

More vintage bunting

Ever since I made the first string of bunting with vintage embroidered linens I have been on the lookout for more but alas…there just seems to be a shortage of them in Wellington thrift stores. But recently when we were up in a small town called (I’m so not giving away my source lol) we found this great little shop that was like the motherlode. They import vintage linens from the US so they are more expensive than thrifted ones but wow wow WOW. Americans have NO idea how lucky they are to have easy access to all those old things. So finally this week I finished another bunting. Purple. I love purple, it’s hard for purple not to be fun.

So if you’ve ever wanted a string of fun purple bunting on your wall or if you’ve ever wanted some but didn’t know you wanted some go check it out in my shop. But if purple isn’t your thing no worries, I’ll be making more real soon. Cos some things…you just have to, ya know?

The slow lane

There’s a couple of Waldorf crowns in the shop now. They are both pink but will be followed by boys ones as soon as I get more boy style linen tape. If I ever have a son he’ll spend his life begging me to buy less pink! I’m trying hard lately to be a little less in love with pink – just in case I do one day have a son. In the last 62 years my mothers side has produced 2 boys and 9 girls. I can’t help but think we’re due for a few boy babies! They are so hard to make stuff for though – or is that just me?

What else is new? Ummm. We got our breadmaker! The first attempt at white bread flopped. It was soggy and heavy and we felt like we’d just bought a $95 fart maker. Nasty LOL. I tried WHO bread today and it worked a bit better – less heavy. I think it has something to do with the brand of yeast I am using. I’ll hit the right recipe eventually. Or beg you all for one!

Other than the heady world of breadmaking I am trying hard to live ‘in the moment’. Just sitting and reading a book and thinking of nothing but what I am doing. I am so rushed this week and it feel good to slow down a bit from time to time. Rastus has made it his main priority too and has claimed any shafts of sunlight that have hit the living room this week:

Cats really know how to live the good life don’t they? (BTW I have a swap request next entry if you’re interested in craft books and a giveaway at the end of the month)

Change of plans

An exceptionally needy cat with no idea just how much humans like to sleep at night and a grumpy exhausted boyfriend (because of many nights of said needy cat) put paid to my plans for a day in town. I doubt I could have opened my eyes at 7am even if you paid me. So I decided to do my shop update today to keep busy and not think about how hot it is and how tired I am and how very much I want to strangle my cat. Remind me why I want to have a baby when it seems like I already have one.

This was featured on the CRAFT blog which is always exciting (welcome to all the new readers of my blog):

This was finished last night while I waited for the cat to settle down for the night:

They can be found here with a bunch of other things.

Crafty bits of awesomeness

I finally finished the hexagon dolls quilt/wall hanging/whatever it is!! I was only a day behind my estimate which is pretty good for a crafter. I hand stitched the binding on the back which was a first for me and I am proud of it. The thread is a couple shades lighter than the hot pink binding but I like the little stitches around the back, they give it that special handmade quality. Bask in its glory:

The backing is the same yellow and pink Heather Bailey floral as some of the hexagons. It’s now in the shop here. If you want to buy it put BLOGFRIEND in the comments to seller box and I’ll give you $1 shipping.

Other bits of awesomeness have to include yesterdays thrifting scores. I have noticed over the past year that prices in thrift stores have crept up and in some cases rocketed up into insane ranges. Bargains are getting harder to find. I did a little jump for joy though when I found a pair of green napkins for 50 cents and a huge supermarket bag full of scraps for $3. Most of the scraps were curtain remnants or old lady stuff but I did rescue a few little bits and these larger pieces:

The napkins are destined for embroidery, the very dark blue stuff is destined for baby pants and the blue will become a cute vintage baby dress eventually. You’ll notice most sentences I utter these days include the word ‘baby’. I can’t help it! I try to think of other things then I spot these wooden bowls for $2 each.

Perfect for a baby to eat off so into the baby basket they go! And that brown leather? Well that’s a freebie from my shoe repairer brother and it’s going to turn into baby booties of course! The piece he gave me is worth probably over $30 and if I cut right I might get 2 pairs out of it. This years main craft goal is to learn to make fabric booties, I just can’t seem to manage them and it can’t be that hard! So the leather will sit around for a while but it’ll be there when I am ready!

And embroiderers, there’s more awesomeness. I’m running another redwork penny square swap on swap-bot. There’s a couple more days until it closes, so come join us here! I haven’t swapped or embroidered in ages so I’m excited!

Finger puppet fun

I had some ideas of what to make for my first 2009 update for the shop but partway through making them I suddenly got so enthused to make finger puppets that I just had to make them. You know that feeling a crafter sometimes get where you simply can’t sleep until you’ve got out of bed and put in a good couple of hours on your project? It was like that. There were some problems along the way – a pig that  looked more like a pink horse, half sewing a head shut before I realised that having a face might help it. Trying to redesign the elephant so it didn’t look phallic.

So, after much stitching, here’s my first Year of Toys listings:

African animal finger puppets:

Barnyard animal finger puppets:

And by the way thats Dave’s wrist in the photos. Just in case you think I’m that hairy. And omg my blog entry is invisible. Literally. I’m typing and it’s completely invisible. Weird.

200th post giveaway

It’s my 200th post on this blog and I’m having a teeny tiny giveaway to celebrate. I’m sure you’ll understand that my money is being funneled into the adoption fund but I wanted to be able to give something small away as a way of saying thanks to everyone who has been so nice to me lately and the many readers that have come through my blog from people linking the embroidery pattern entries and the hexagon tutorial. Sooooo…I am giving away an Aunt Martha’s pattern (Spotlight in Porirua has started selling them and I nearly squealed with joy when I saw them) and 4 beautiful linen DMC flosses to start someone on their way to a full set. The linen range has such a beautiful palette. DMC should totally sponsor me, I brown nose them so much.

To enter go to my etsy store and have a quick look around then come back here and tell me what you think. What you like, what you don’t think works or what you’d like to see more of. I’ll draw a winner on January 5th about 5pm American EST. It’s only a little giveaway but I am hoping to have another one a little sooner next time.

I’ve listed the last of my current stock and I’ll start listing new stuff early in January. I’m very excited about it, I’ve never had stuff look this cute on the first try. When I manage to impress myself then you know it must be good! (By the way someone suggested I start a donation fund so if you’re in the mood there’s an adoption donation page up the top of the blog. April 30th is the absolute latest day we’ll be applying and hopefully much earlier than that. 2009 has me so excited I can hardly stand it!)

Have a happy new year! We’re talking about going away for a night…although sleeping in a car is not as exciting to me as Dave seems to think it is LOL.

The Year of Toys

This post contains far too much babbling and a lot of soul baring so be nice please!

I said in my last post that we’re going to go ahead with the adoption procedure in 2009. When we went to the information evening back in June we discovered that the statistics for our region weren’t good (less than 1 in 6 couples get a baby per year right now) and we decided we were financially not ready to have a child. Of the 13 couples in that room we certainly appeared the least affluent. Although if we waited until we could *really* afford a child we’d die of old age first.

Anyway we decided to think about it for a bit longer.  But after another 6 months of hard thinking I am adamant – the heart wants what the heart wants. The heart wants a baby even if the bank doesn’t. Because I do not, for one tiny second, believe that having less money than the other people in that room will make us less fit parents. Love is free. And we’re not so poor, I don’t want people to think I’m trying to justify bringing a baby into a slum or something. I’m typing this on high speed cable after all 😉 And before we even get into the waiting pool there’s classes, interviews, medical checks, home visits etc etc.

But I have spent the past 6 months thinking. And researching. Because while we aren’t poor I am perfectly aware that a child costs more than I think it does. And while I know we can afford to feed/dress/educate a child I wanted to be absolutely sure in my soul that we’re doing the best thing for the baby that some woman is giving up as well as the best thing for us. Are we prepared for not just having a baby but adopting that baby? The legal fees can be a lot higher if the birth father wants in on the adoption too. Open adoption means we’d have to keep in contact with the birth mother. What degree of contact do we want to maintain? And there’s something called ‘permanance’ which is where you get a foster child, usually not quite as young as a newborn adopted baby. You sign for permanent care of that child but the parents maintain their rights. It’s complicated. Would we be prepared to accept permanence of an older child? It’s more likely we’d get picked sooner than if we were only open to adoption of a baby. Do we want sooner or do we only want a baby? We decided that we only want a baby. And there’s a lot less hassle – a lot of the kids come with parents who are in jail or on drugs. I couldn’t handle that complication.

There is also the issue of marriage. As an unmarried couple only one of us would adopt the baby and the other one would have to apply for parental rights. I would be the adopter, that’s always been the decision. As a woman it would be easier to adopt than a man and as the mother I would want full legal rights over any medical emergencies or whatever. But would it have Dave’s last name when he isn’t legally the father? I don’t desperately want to get married, I’m happy as we are. So is Dave. But we do want our baby to be *our baby*. To have their daddys last name as a connection to him, like most other kids with two parents do. And for Dave to have full and equal rights with me at every step of the process. So while we have only vaguely discussed it it’s possible that at some point next year we’ll have a very small low-key wedding so we can both be equal legal parents. The legal adoption laws are from roughly 1966 – it’s an outdated legal minefield.

So….we’re applying to adopt a baby sometime in the first part of 2009. And I am scared. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. But it’ll be worth it, I know that. It might be tough at times, we’re going to have to tighten our budget to the barest bones for part of 2009 to save for the fees but when your heart wants something this bad is that really a sacrifice? My mum will drown the baby in knitting, I’ll drown it in sewing, Dave will drown it in computer parts and Rastus will drown it in cat fur. Schooling is cheap, healthcare is cheap for kids and while my child may not get the newest designer labels they’ll never go without.

AND so….2009 is the Lovestitches Year of Toys. In order to save the legal fees (this bit is tricky – they can be as low as $500 or they can be  as much as $2000, it all depends on…stuff. Lawyers and birth fathers etc) I’m going to be cranking the poor neglected (although I did have my 4th sale last week, woohoo!) etsy store up into high gear. It’ll be bulging under the weight of toys soon. Plus there’ll be craft fairs, my felt.co.nz shop (coming soon) and really as many other outlets for my work as I can find. Because if the man I love agrees to raise a child with me (the crazy fool) the least I can do is help pay for it.

I was planning on posting a photo of one of those toys in this post but after a day of sewing my cat softie looks alarmingly like it has hemorrhoids. The first toy in the shop is unlikely to be a cat.

Any feedback you want to leave will be appreciated but please remember how important this issue is to me and be gentle!