calendar photo project

We started a photography project in January this year after purchasing these from Picky Sticky back in March 2009.

Each month we take a photo (or several in my case) of the kids then file them in our 2011 Calendar file on Flickr. At the end of the year we will hopefully have a photo from each month to choose from.

Look out family! I don't want to give anything away... but there may be a calendar or two finding their way into Christmas stockings..... just a guess...

sketching in the bathroom....doesn't everyone?

Mmmmm...given I'm still a bit of a newbie in the world of blogging I'm finding myself constantly blog hopping from one intriguing post to another. So what's the trick to regaining my life away from the machine???? There is so many fabulously entertaining people out there with a lot to say - all of which seems to interest me (even the kind of weird sites fascinate me ...I've always been a bit of a people watcher - I think blogging is just a new form of this).

Anyway..what I'm getting to is that I'm spending way too much time reading about everyone else and not enough time posting here. Not only that, but I have an exhibition to prepare for which starts on the first weekend in April and in true FiFi style (that's me) it is still in my head. Over the last 3 years, friends of ours have been converting the Euroa Butter Factory (1.5 hours out of Melbourne, Australia) from a derelict building into a contemporary function space with warehouse-style accommodation. It has been an absolute labour of love & produced a lot of blood, sweat and tears (literally), but so SO worth it. They have just found out that they will be featured on Postcards (an Australian tourism & lifestyle television series) which is very exciting. I have a wee soft spot for the project as I had a little involvement with interior design concepts & planning documentation.

So anyway....I'm really getting very sidetracked tonight......the exhibition is to be held at the Euroa Butter Factory and is called Autumn Harvest. It is a celebration of work "using Autumn to celebrate life and good fortune". I'm planning to have a collection of cushions to exhibit (and sell) and tonight put my first pen to paper in an attempt to extract the ideas from my head. The kids bath-time can be a very productive thinking time for me & occasionally I'll take a pen & paper in there for a sketch or two. Voila....tonight I exit the bathroom with first designs!

I'm feeling a bit excited now & having bad thoughts about sitting up all night and sewing with my scrumptious autumny fabrics (which I've already laid out on my workbench)........ aaaawwww .....no don't do it! I'm already way too sleep deprived and have to be up early tomorrow to have my haircut at 8am. Can't look like death in the salon amongst all those young fresh-faced stylists!!!!!

Stay tuned.

Todays experiment = DISASTER

Ok so it's probably not so cool to be sharing my flops, but I found this one particularly bad and worth a post. I've had this new idea in my head for a little girl's baby rattle in the form of a tree. I'd sketched a shape and liked the way it was organic and a-symmetrical. Here's a pictorial journey from the start to ...... mmmm.....not quite finish (it was so crap I couldn't even palm it off on my own kids). Feel free to "lol". I did.

Looking good so far. Fabrics selected and cut - shame to waste good fabric!

Still going well. I'm liking the contrasting satin stitch joining the tree top to the trunk. I'm now feeling excited about sewing it together and turning it inside out...this is always my favourite step as all the fabrics come together for the first time.

WARNING! WARNING! this is not looking good! What the hell is it???? mmmmmm...doesn't look much like a tree at this stage. So I think, maybe if I stuff it with polyester fill it will start to resemble the intended shape. Always an optimist.

STOP! Go no further. Now it looks like a strange kind of artichoke (perhaps I have a vivid imagination). So at this stage I have 2 screaming children wanting to be released from their bedrooms after day sleeps so I simply walk away and call it a day.

LESSONS LEARNT.

1. Don't be so impatient - create the first prototype in calico or scrap fabric rather than waste good stuff
2. Tight internal corners don't work so well - too much puckering. Must look into this and see if there is a technique to achieve a better finish
3. Weirdo artichokes are not a good look for baby rattle

I love Custom Orders

I had my first custom orders on Etsy and I loved it! Funny enough within a couple of days I had 2 customers email me both requesting special orders. One of these was a mother of 3 month old boy & girl twins in Sweden - she wanted 2 of my baby hammer tools in fabrics she saw on a couple of spanner tools in my shop.

I sure whipped them up quickly. It was so enjoyable making them as I was visualising these little twins bopping each other on the head with their hammers. How cute!