With Thanks

Just before Christmas I won a giveaway over on FrogslegsNvaseline.
Look who came to live with me.......

Fern !

Isn't she the cutest little monkey you have ever seen. She is all woolly and gorgeous and has the cutest little thumbs in the world. Thanks so much Chris.

The day Fern arrived I also got a beautifully wrapped parcel from Karen of Selvageblog

eeek................ a teeny tiny little quilt cupboard. How clever is this? And Karen sent this to me "just because". Just because she is lovely -obviously. Thanks Karen, it is a hoot!

You guys know that this is the only way I will ever have a cupboard full of quilts.

So while the sewing room is undergoing some serious renovations (That's a big fat lie, it is just a phenomenal mess). Fern and my little cupboard are sitting on the mantelpiece, overseeing the left-overs being eaten , the children kicking back, and me drawing and redrawing and swearing at some new projects.

SSCS

I waited so patiently for Christmas day to arrive, for all the usual reasons but mostly because my SSCS parcel had been waiting on top of the wardrobe for me for weeks.

Every time I walked past I wondered who it was from, and of course what was inside. I did give it a squeeze or two so I am very glad it had no pins in it.

My SSCS swap partner was Deb of The Angel and the Pukeko and she made me this beautiful table runner. There were also sweets (all eaten) and gorgeous smellies in the parcel as well. I think it must be the year of the table runner because I sent one to my SSCS swap partner as well. (I have to admit that the one I sent was nowhere near as complex as the one that Deb sent to me.)

Thanks so much Deb , I do really love this and we used it on Christmas Day and (insert small miracle here) no-one spilt anything on it ! Whilst I want to say a huge thank you to Deb for her beautiful gift I know that everyone who took part this year would also like to give a rousing cheer to ChookyBlue for organising this swap. So many many people from so many different countries were involved and she kept us all up-to-date and in line and on time...and lets be honest that's no mean feat.

Thanks Chooky !

Its all done.

Christmas is pretty busy you know.

Eloise and I did lots of paper chasing and sticky-tape chewing and maybe we might have maybe a little bit accidentally attacked someones Venus Fly Trap plant that was all wrapped up and nice looking but it was an accident.

Christmas means you get to have sleeps in the middle of the day which is good cause I am really very good at sleeping.

Christmas is when you get to talk at people that maybe you haven't talked at for a long time, cause maybe you are too busy or maybe they are a really really really long way away in another whole country even , or maybe they are family ......and families can be tricky.

and maybe talking to them makes you feel a bit wrinkly on the inside 'cause talking to them is so good that you might miss them even more than you did before you talked to them.

and that sucks a bit... but it's OK

no truly , it is

Its nice to have people that are worth missing.

Sliding in to Christmas

Things went a little pear shaped earlier this week and I crashed into bed with a two day migraine.

What a disaster !

Yesterday, feeling better I wrote my ten mile long list of things I HAD to do to catch up, cooking , cleaning, shopping, sewing............

and then I did none of them.

I went to the supermarket and I bought stuff.

I had coffee with Flowergarden

I visited Ballarat Patchwork (twice).

I played with dollies.

Last night we had a little get-together with neighbours and guess what??

No one noticed that I hadn't hand-cured my own cheese by the light of a blue moon or that the short breads were not hand sugared by seven vestal virgins.....

Seriously no-one cared !

The Christmas police have not called to say that I cannot share my gifted Christmas cake with my in-laws - that I must make one myself. I have not been issued a pre-Christmas warning to pick up my game.

There has been no town crier in the streets calling "hear ye, hear ye, Jodie of Ballarat has dropped the ball. Jodie hereby and henceforth fails Christmas"

But just before I sink into the pit of irredeemable slackness, where the bad parents, sloppy housekeepers and wanton lushes live, I just want to say thanks. Thanks for every visit and comment and lurk. Thanks for the friendship, selvedges, support and hot-tea-snorting-out-the-nose-laughter.

May your Christmas , no matter what shape or size, be just right for you.

Toy Society Christmas

Today, along with heaps of other crafty people I joined in the Christmas toy drop for the

Toy Society.

This is Eustace and she was quite excited by the whole thing

She didn't even mind getting popped into a plastic bag (I assured her there were small air holes).

She snorted a little when it was obvious that I had forgotten some string to hang her up with,

But I think she was quietly impressed when I found a selvedge strip in my hand bag and saved the day !!!!

10 minute craft - not quite tutorial

Spend less than one minute grabbing some of the tape measure stash .

Take 2 minutes to find the snap thingo's and waste five minutes looking for the hammer.

(Ignore the snap instructions -it saves time).

Take a minute to wrap a tape measure around your wrist and chop it off at the right length.

With a minute to go, hammer some snaps into your tape measures and you're done.

It'll take you far far longer to decide between subtle vintage glamour,

or 80's Madonna style than it did to actually make them.

Or... as a foundation member of the one-step-too-far club, I suggest making a whole garland of them.

'Tis the season after all.

Like totally hot!

Yesterday I wore Hope to work.

I won Hope on Anna Laura's blog when I filled in a survey about her Valentines cards. I also got the cutest little hand printed pouch and a spunky card. Anna seems to have just about all the bases covered doesn't she, drawing, printing , sewing......(sigh!)

When I heard that I had won I told myself not to undo the parcel- but to keep it for myself until christmas.....but then it arrived and well, I openened it of course! Thanks Anna, I love it all !!!

So yesterday I wore Hope to work and I was totally the hottest library chick in my school.

and the fact that I am the only library chick in my school should not detract from the previous statement at all.

Seamus

Hello, My name is Seamus and I am a super-monkey.

I can do super-powers things like running really fast and super high jumping. I can fight bad guys and do rescuing of girls . Mostly I like to do fighting bad guys and locking them away to jail. Rescuing girls is not really much fun cause they fall in to love to you and you have to just run away and make them all kind of sad and squishy.

Sometimes I have to be just Seamus again so that nobody knows I am a secret super-monkey and then I just be normal. When I am just Seamus I have to do boring stuff like playing with toys, and eating dinner or being talked at by grown-ups.

I am Seamus, and you're not the boss of me !!!!

once upon a time

Once upon a time I had to send a photo of myself to someone.
This photo was going to be seen by lots of people. It went with an article, but you know it kinda became all about the photo for me........
I am not beautiful , I am not young and I am not slim but mostly I am just happy being what I am. This photo worried me. I wanted to look.......different?....better?........Younger?
slimmer?

and you know what ? At 9.30 in the morning without make-up (I don't even own any) standing in the sewing room dreading the photo and running late for work.......well I kinda look like someone who is smiling through a rectal examination.

I sent away the photo but secretly didn't want anyone to see it. I didn't realise I was this vain. Today everyone can see the photo and I know someone in blogland will direct you to it......
I kinda still want to keep it hidden but at the same time, I think Living Creatively are awesome and I have to share what they do........


So ,This is me, smiling through my rectal examination.

My name is Jodie and I don't usually look so pained.

I sew stuff and I am pleased to meet you.

Is it genetic?

So there has been enough naval gazing and kitten gazing here on the blog lately and although I have been doing some crafting , I have also been wondering about the correlation between crafting and generosity.

Do generous people become crafters by nature? or does being a crafter make you generous?

Its a big question...

The delightful Michele from calicodaisy sent me this sweet machine-embroidered chicken along with some selvedges. He is super cute and I have plans afoot for this one already. Michele has a zillion designs that she makes and she also does some great collaborative stuff with her designs on other people's work.

The totally unbelievably generous and talented Holly from Two Cheese Please sent me this present last week. Can you believe she hand carved that stamp for me ...why???

"Just because" is what she said. How long would all those teeny tiny letters have taken? I must admit to a little squeal when I saw this and look at those little dots - they are for me to print my very own selvedge !!!! eeeeekkkkk

And then Sherrin from Starashan popped this in the post for me. Sherrin makes me green with envy every time she post some of her screen printed stuff. I would love to be able to get involved in screen printing. One of my usual drooly comments about her stuff and hey presto she sends me one of my very own - on delicious red linen- I'm thinking a bag maybe???

and just to prove how talented she is......even the card is cool!

Now, I am not going to rant on here about the generosity of bloggers or how crazy in love I am with just about every single bit of blogging. I'm just going to say thank you to you all and promise to pass on some of this "just because" generosity as soon as possible.

I am working on dollies and finishing up all their little bits and pieces in time for Christmas. I do love making dollies, but as I sew little cardi's and frocks my mind is racing onto new things , the selvedges are haunting me (as always) I am thinking of the Christmas to-do list and I was hoping that if you guys grabbed your side and I grabbed mine we could stretch December out for another week or so.......

hypothetically speaking.....

If I was to be involved , hypothetically, in a ginormous market some time next year,
and if hypothetically, I was selling stuff at said ginormous market....what would I sell????

If you met me at a market what would you like to buy from me?

When I say ginormous , I mean like about 5 hypothetically consecutive days of marketness? How would I make enough of anything? How many things do people expect to sell in five days?

If I hypothetically decided to make patterns to supplement the actual items.... what would I make patterns of ? What would you , hypothetically like a pattern for?

Should I make selvedge items or will people just look at them and go home and make their own?

If the hypothetical market is for crafters, surely they don't want to buy things already made? I mean , they can make it all themselves....

If the hypothetical market is as ginormous as I expect, I feel a little bit (like a lot out of my league) and this hypothetical step is an enormous one.

Do you have any hypothetical suggestions or tips?

hypothetically

My brain hurts

Complete....

So the stitch selector no longer shows up very well,

and there is actually a little wire doodad missing from here,

she may be wearing an old bit of tape from a long ago reminder

and she has the odd ding and scratch from the time she did a triple somersault off the back seat of the car

but she is home


and she completes me.

don't tell her...............

Hello, it is me Jude again, being on the computer.

I am being on the computer because Jodie is ...um.........you know ........... well she is all gone a bit kind of bonkers. I think she needs some quiet and peace.

First she started to want to grater up a man's rude bits which I think is not nice to mans and then at the same day her sewing machine stopped working......She said the biggest swear words in the whole wide world. She said she had lots to do, she had dollies to finish and swaps to tidy up, she had things to try and Christmas to think of and who in the world invented this stupid sewing machine in the first place and what on earth was she thinking trying to get all this done in one day and for gods sake why was there no wine in the house?

I hidded in my bed for a little bit...

and then I dobbed her to Eloise. I had to whisper the rude words and Eloise said I am not allowed to tell you because they was too naughty for blogs.....

Then I went to Jodie, cause I love her , and I looked her in the straight eye and I said

wanna hug?

Dear John,

I was hoping to do a little catch-up post today and tell you of some great things happening in blogland.

This week (and it is only Wednesday) seems to be going to hell-in-a-hand basket. Don't worry there have been no monumental dramas , just the feeling that anything that can go wrong probably will ....and tempers are a little frayed.

Everyone I have to deal with is crabby, or incompetent or both! Things are breaking , stuff is getting lost, appointments are forgotten.

but there is light at the end of every tunnel? yes?

Today I found out my blog has a new fan.

HI JOHN !!!!!

Now the thing is John, you have probably caught me at a bad time , you know how it is, I'm a little under the pump, too much to do and not enough time to do it in. Normally I'd be a little more welcoming and I'd also respond to every comment if you had enabled that function.

We could chat, get to know each other (in a purely crafting sense) but again, and I know it sounds like I am making excuses....its just that I have so much to do.......time on the blog is shrinking as the other life crap takes over.....

So please forgive me for not baking a cake or waving flags, but I'd really really like to welcome you and let you know that if you leave me one more comment about Viagra.......

I will hunt you down and I will do things to your willy that no amount of Viagra will fix !!!!

Love Jodie

x x x

Tweaking hell.

Hmmmmm....

So the newest selvedge project is not exactly what I had hoped for. The chorus of angels have been sent home and the band have packed up and left.

It is not a total disaster, obviously it has a certain parasol-ness about it. I mean, it really couldn't be mistaken for anything else and it opens and shuts and does everything a parasol should.

and I do love how it looks from underneath with the sun shining through the selvedges

But it is essentially wonky...... far wonkier than these photos would have you think

I have tweaked and unpicked and re-tweaked for days, but (with a resigned sigh) wonky it shall remain.

I am all tweaked out.