Oh, man, I'm going to Hell.....aka OMG OMG OMG!!!!!

So, I am busy trying to raise funds to haul me and the kids to California, to see my family, which is going to take a chunk, seeing as we gotta haul us all the way from Sydney, Australia. To that end, I was working over the weekend, for my FIL, doing floorsanding. I thought we were doing a food court, but when I got there, I thought it was the strangest looking food court I had EVER seen!

That might have been because it was actually COLLETTE DINNIGAN'S studio/factory!!!! I nearly died!! It was SO COOL!! I was standing right in the middle of where it all happens!! :D All the drawings, and mockups, and to-die-for swatches, pinned to the boards, with what must have been hundreds and thousands of dollars worth of trims filling shelf upon shelf; all the idea boards, the coming season's designs, etc etc etc...not to mention all the industrial machines and sergers!! I didn't even know where to look first, and had to seriously repress my desire to lose all dignity and start rummaging through the rubbish, rofl! As it is, I couldn't resist, I had to know...do world famous designers use some fabulous, special pins on their amazing fabrics?? Something us mere mortals only dream of? I had to do it...I stole a handful of pins out of the dustpiles under the machines to put them to the test. Therefore, I am going to Hell. But it's WORTH IT!!! :D :D

Elephants and Candy Canes...

I have a very dear friend online, who I met through a shared love of the White Stripes, and when I saw THESE patterns, I knew I had to make her a Candy Cane Elephant! (I kill me! :p )

It was pretty simple, if a bit fiddly, and is not the best example ever of my sewing skills, but I thought it came out pretty cute! :D

I used another one of the patterns to make these little giraffes for another swap...I was stalking to find out tastes, and discovered some remarkably similar ones in her wist, right at the same time I saw these patterns, so it was obviously meant to be, right?? From the sounds of things, they went over as well as I had hoped! I forgot to take a pic myself, so I had to beg her to snap one and send back to me:




My dd loved them so much, she BEGGED me to make one for her, so...:



I have a calf cut out from those patterns, too, but I am not sure I am going to make it or not...it calls for fun fur, and I don't want to use fun fur, which means it might come out pretty odd looking, and I might not want to waste my time...we'll see.