creative gathering (aka craft circle) this weekend!

It's on again! Drop me a line if you want to dedicate some hours on Sunday afternoon to creating!

To have a sneaky peek at what these groups look like (and if the cake is any good!), go to craft circle on my flickr.

Happy Thursday (one day to the weekend... yippee!) xx

summer pickles softies getting out and about!

Okay, so I was just casually cruising various Melbs blogs this afternoon, and as I popped into Cinnamon Moon's blog, saw a familiar face looking back at me.... it was Frank the angel!

Frank was featured on Cinnamon Moon's blog in an entry titled things that make me laugh, which is perfect, as Frank's purpose is to make people smile (and perhaps giggle a little too!). Frank is now available through etsy... click here to get to know him a wee bit better.

Thanks Penny for featuring Frank, this was very exciting (and made me giggle a little too)! xx

no craft for me this weekend!

Well, another weekend gone, and no more craft projects any further along... this whole selling the house thing sure does get in the way!

But, here is a bit of a clue re what we have been doing this weekend at our place...

1. rebuilding the back step; 2. replanting the garden; 3. packing boxes; 4. admiring (and standing on) the new back step...

hoping many of you got more crafty goodness out of the weekend!

xx

flashback friday! group photo 1985

Ah, you can't get a whole lot more Australian than this! A good old backyard barbie on the grass.... perfect!

This photo was taken on my 10th birthday. My brother and I used to alternate years for our birthday parties, and it was his turn in 1985. Somehow I still managed to have this great party with all of these grown up (and a few kid) friends! I remember this day, I had such a great time... and I remember the smell (again, I know I go on about smells but this one is really fresh in my memory!).

I am the one with the long blonde hair (centre part, no fringe), facing the camera, in a very gorgeous pale mint green dress, holding a spare rib through a paper serviette (I am still a bit funny about sauces and other sticky foods on my fingers). I used to LOVE this dress! It had mesh inserts (very cool) and these great short sleeves that you could loop up and shorten if you felt like it... it was a great dress! Oh and eyelets for detail everywhere too.

My dad has his back to us at the barbeque, and mum is, of course, taking the photo. (Hang on a second, I think my dad still has that shirt!?!)

What I really love about this photo is just how relaxed a bbq really was then, there's no special outdoor furniture, no special outdoor crockery, we are not in an "outdoor room" but in the backyard (some of us were even sitting directly on the grass!), no one is all dressed up, dad is cooking on the barbie he built himself, everyone is eating with their fingers.... oh! and the hills hoist in the centre of it all!

Ah, the simple pleasures of the 1980s!

Have a beautiful weekend!
xx

Penelope the kangaroo arrives in Poland

Penelope the kangaroo by summer pickles

Not sure if I even mentioned it here that I organised a toy swap with lalootka through flickr, and was sending over Penelope the kangaroo for the swap. I sent Penelope some weeks ago now, but saw on flickr this week that she has arrived safely in Poland (a long way to travel for a little aussie kangaroo!).


Clearly I am excited about this!!! lalootka and I have promised to take photos of our toys received, in local places, doing local things.... should be loads of fun!


The little character that Penelope has her arm around in the photo below is Bo the lamb, who will be coming to Australia shortly to stay with us. I am already developing a list of places for photos.

Welcome Penelope, hallo flickr friends, Bo, goodbye Originally uploaded by lalootka

Please let me know if you might be interested in hosting Penelope for her next holiday (probably in October?) by leaving me a comment. Thanks Aloutka!
xx

things I learnt from the cloth doll workshops - instalment no. 1

Hi there!
Okay, so I have kept you in suspense long enough... Here are a couple of the things that I learnt from the workshops mentioned in a previous post.

1. Cloth dolls made from simple patterns can be very beautiful, when the focus is on the embellishments. This was an important lesson for me - I had been getting myself into such tangles with developing up really tricky pattern pieces that were incredibly fiddly to work with, and at times, just frustrating! These dolls are made by Cindi Goodwin, who does amazing and beautiful embellishment work:

Dolls by Cindi Goodwin

2. Sometimes you need the right tools. I have included a photo of my new tools here, and will provide photos of me using them as we get through future posts. What I have is a poppa (fruit juice box) straw, a blunted wooden skewer, a pair of forceps and a tiny finger stuffing fork.

Here's me stuffing an elephant's trunk with the forceps. Now, I actually used the forceps to stuff all of the elephant, but did much of this at my lunch break at work, so no photos. One of the advantages promoted to us at the workshop of using forceps is that you can get right into corners with stuffing, as well as "the pain element", which is what happens when you try to overstuff a doll/toy (you end up with incredibly sore thumbs/fingers from the handles of the forceps if you are trying to overstuff and are exerting excess force!). As well, they have blunt ends, so won't go through your fabric!

You might notice in this pic that there is a big trail of wadding going off to the right. One o the things I learnt at the workshop was that to avoid dolls looking like "a bag of peas", you should stuff them as if you were spinning wool.... you stretch out the wadding into continuous, stretched stuff and then slowly feed it in. This has definitely impacted (positively) on the look of my toys and dolls.

I'll be back soon for some more instalments and the interesting stuff... demonstrating use of the tools and providing examples of my new work.

Oh! And here is a photo of the doll I created from a pattern by Bethan Short in my first workshop (sorry, not a great photo). This doll is just two pieces of fabric of same shape sewn together and wings added.


Have a gorgeous week everyone,
xx


Oh! and can anyone help me by telling me why my line spacing changes mid-post when I include photos, and what to do about this??? drives me bonkers! Thanks! xx

Flashback friday! Fancy dress

Hi there - just arrived back from holidays a whole half an hour ago, realised it was flashback friday and jumped on to update my blog immediately! I have just checked with the new flashback friday flickr group , and this week's theme is fancy dress. What a terrific theme!!!

My mum was the queen of fancy dress... here you can see me in 1985 (whew! just made it) dressed up as Heidi for book week - think the skirt was made from just a rectangle of fabric with some elastic at the top, the vest is made from felt. My brother on the left is dressed as Hans Christian Anderson, wearing a homemade seersucker vest. Mum was amazing!!! On other book weeks I went as a witch (very cool - 1987), the queen of hearts, a princess (of course!), Pandora (1986).... loads of cool outfits and even better props (mum was also queen of props, and helped me top make a cauldron for my witch outfit, a box for Pandora etc...).

And, it wasn't all saved up for book week! We also had a fantastic dress up box, including some of the most incredible shoes!!!

Hats off to my mum who is imaginative, creative and fun and encouraged us to be the same. (Thanks mum xo)

Chat soon, and have a gorgeous weekend!

xx

ps. Mum just taught me the very basics of crochet while on holidays at her place... I will add some funny photos of beginners crochet once my camera is charged up again!