Repetition...

Not been doing much...12 pairs of little-boy undies takes WAY WAY more time than I imagined! (Yeah, yeah, I KNOW there are only 11 up there...I found the last one under piles next to my moniter, where I had dropped it during a thread trimming session. :eyeroll:

Happy Birthday, Baby Boy....

My baby just turned 11. Babies are NOT supposed to turn 11!! Empty nest syndrome is looming large, I tell ya.

Well, THAT didn't work...

My first foray into marble magnets was...less than spectacular. :/ Blurry images (they looked WAY better before!!), bubbles, offkilter glass to magnets, and glue everywhere. Sad.



Oh, well, better luck next time!!

B is for Beautiful...

Her name begins with B, and she is one of the most amazing, special people I "know" (she's an online friend), but she has so much trouble believing in her own amazingness.



She likes words, and morbidity, and kitsch, among a hugely eclectic other list of stuff.




I didn't take enough pics to show it properly, cause I was in a rush out the door. Dumb.

The covers are made from plywood, and then connected with a glued on strip of fabric lining them, connecting both covers, and forming a soft spine. I had this fabric I loved, black with white pinstripes woven through in a staccato fashion, making pindots on the reverse, that I thought was perfect.

The pages are a wild variety of recycled office papers that were salvaged from the bin next to the copy machine, various colored papers and cards, along with other things, and then images cut from a Sotheby's art catalogue, scattered randomly through. All very strange and random, and turned out very cool, I think. I used an industrial paper punch to punch the holes in the plywood (that was fun, lol), cause I couldn't find the drill; and then I tied the papers to the covers with a deep blue velvet ribbon. Was supposed to be black, but I ran out. Duh.

The front image is a result of hours in photoshop, and hours with an online dictionary. Muchas gracias to my SIL, who critiqued my image, and helped me figure out why my original one just wasn't working. :p Printed on photopaper, rather than plain paper, to give it a touch more class. :p

I loved the result, and I think she liked it, too. :)

Take the snowflake to the next level..

Reading Live.Craft.Learn, I saw the work of Emma van Leest, a woman who has perfected the art of the paper snowflake into something out of this world.


It totally made me think of something I saw on the blog I uh..blogged about here. I could have sworn I had seen the same artist somewhere on there, esp given the Indian theme, but apparently not (I spent two days trying to hunt that one post down! :p ), unless somewhere in all the French, there is a clue that they are done by the same person.



Whatever, they are AMAZING, and make me never want to make another snowflake again, out of sheer suckage! :p

The Monkey King..

So a little boy wanted a baby monkey...we are huge fans of Hanuman, the Monkey King, around here.




Soooo......



You can't see the necklace one I added, too, but it's there. :p I embroidered the tilak on the face, and then made the jewellery using good, old fashioned, friendship bracelet knots (I used the style in the first picture.)

I wanted to make more decorations, but one, it was for a little boy, so I figured the simpler the better for survival; and two, I made the helmet out of felt, and it turned out looking like a yellow thimble on the top of his head. Really stupid. I quit while I was ahead. :p

It came out really cute, and I HOPE he liked it!!

(Oh, and I did NOT make the monkey itself....I had to retain SOME sanity over the Christmas season!!!!!)

Again!!!

OMG, I won again!!!!! :jawdrop: Man, I am a relatively new intro to the blogging world, and have only just gotten really into following other blogs, thanks to Bloglines, and what an introduction I am getting!!! :D :D

Check out the ADORABLE prize I won from the wonderful wonderful Beata!! Suki, the aforementioned 13 yo dd, is practically ripping me away from the screen to get a better look. :p


When I saw them on her blog, I was SOO impressed with the incredible neat- and even-ness of her creations...now I get a chance to get up close and personal with one...I can't WAIT!!! :D :D

Thank you so so so much, Beata!!!

OMG I WON!!!

I just won my first ever blog draw over at I Heart Linen!! And what a prize!! I am totally waffling over which one to choose!




Rashida is going through a tough time right now, and I am amazed that she even wants to deal with something so trivial as this. Maybe sewing is the therapy she needs right now. I know it is for me.

Thank you so much. :-)

Sydney Botanical Gardens...

So, I often lament my lacking camera skills. But I thought I got a few nice shots when we went to the Botanical Gardens with a couple other families (12 kids, and 5 adults....we were a thundering herd)....



Until I had a peek at dd's folder from the same day....



Sure, she has a ways to go before she turns into another Ansel Adams, but she is still kicking MY butt. It's almost disheartening. :p Not bad a for a 13yo.....

Oh! Oh! Speaking of small world!

So instead of getting me the Patchwork book I was asking for, my lovely, lovely SIL got me gift certificates to Kinokuniya..woohoo! And then dh gave me a day to myself to go out and do whatever I want...so I spent almost 3 hours hunkered on the floor of Kinokuniya, browsing the Japanese craft section!! :dancingdancing: I came away with four books:

ISBN 978-4-408-62831-8, aka Who the heck knows cause it's all in Japanese, a language I know absolutely nothing about (the names of various noodles do not count, imo!!) It's not even adapted for Westerners, and must be read from back to front. Cool. :p It works pretty much along the lines of Burda, et al, except for SO much more guesswork, since I can't even TRY to translate with the seriously dubious Babelfish or whatever, lol. The patterns are all simple, though, and completely within my abilities to assemble, once I get past the hurdle of avoiding cutting out pattern pieces from 5 different unrelated garments, all in different sizes. :p
(Edit: According to Donna of Purple Kappa, this one is called Simple Fall/Winter Sewing)



ISBN 978-4-408-62817-2 This one has trendier patterns, pretty of the moment, which is thrilling dd...also simple enough to figure out (eventually!), and same line as above...I think it might actually be mag, like Burda, too: (Simple Spring Sewing, says Donna)



Something or other Book, aka ISBN 978-4-8347-2443-1 It's a hat book..someone French blogged about it here ...I mention French, cause I can't read that, either, and therefore STILL have no useful info to share. :p But maybe you do, and then you are set. :D So, anyway, very cute hats. Really like them. Except after I was halfway home, I discovered that one of the above mags already have BOTH patterns I really liked in them...I could have put the hat book back, and bought ANOTHER book!!! I was leaning towards Basics for Girls, but then put it back...dumb dumb dumb!! Oh, well....just means I need to make another trip, huh? *crowing*
(Donna: Handmade Hats)



And then Simple Chic, ISBN 978-4-579-10961-6 by Machiko Kayaki. I've been wanting this one for AGES, and I finally have it! :D :D Also French-ly blogged.
(Lastly but not leastly, courtesy of Donna, Dress-Up Dress-Down. Thank you, Donna! :p )


All in all, a pretty satisfying haul. I like satisfying hauls. :D

Oh, yeah...small world and all that. So, I am standing there in Kinokuniya, after hitting Spotlight, the local Ye Olde Discount Fabric Chain around here, and another lady there notices our mutual fabric addiction..uh...sickness...no, wait...prudent stockpiling tendencies....and strikes up a conversation, in which I quickly discover she is none other than Sue of McArt, who I had seen a few weeks ago featured on Sew Mama Sew!! So very cool!! I also discovered that her output (seen via her Flickr link) completely puts mine to shame, and quite embarrasses me, lol.

Very awesome to meet such a cool lady, and such a small world to stumble on someone you sort of "know" out of the vast WWW community!! :D

So Elizabeth of Oh, Fransson! fame (one of my fave blogs in my bloglines!) commented on my pencil roll about my pockets being all the same color, which confused me, cause I had made it from memory, and I thought it was SUPPOSED to be that way, lol.

Now, I have no idea where I saw it first, either from the famous Last-Minute Patchwork and Quilted Gifts people have been blogging about, or from Pink Chalk Studio (also one of my fave blogs!), but apparently the idea originally came from Pink anyway, which I found out when I actually saw the book for the first time today at Borders. Such a small world is the 'Net.

Oh, and re the book....I thought I wanted it, seeing other peoples' projects in Blogland, but looking at it in person reminded me that I really don't actually like the patchwork and quilted look anyway. Good thing my SIL didn't listen to me, and didn't get it for me. :p

One should always encourage a new sewer....

Maybe sewer isn't the right name...Sewist? Seamster? Needle-wielder?? Whatever...she wants to learn to sew, so lets make her LOVE to sew! :D

Her own personal little sewing kit:


My painting skills didn't impress myself as much as I hoped, but I hope they impressed her enough. :p Painted and then varnished. I just realized, I never took a pic of the awesome matching polka dots I did all over the sides!!! What's up with THAT!!?? Took me ages to do, too! Man.....

Anyway...so I lined the inside with butterflies:


The matching needle book up close...I went and made it upside down by accident, cause I put the closure on the wrong side, and then went and reinforced the heck out of it, so that I really (reallyreally) couldn't be bothered with unpicking the whole thing all over again:



I am told she LOVED it, so good. I guess it was worth it. :D