The good tea-set

Today I finished off a new tea set.

This is the "good tea set" , you know the one that only ever gets used when great Granny comes to tea. It lives in a special cupboard, never goes in the dishwasher and is always used at the table with a full set of cutlery. It holds dainty cakes and gourmet meals. It is home to Christmas dinners and starchy, over-rich puddings.

This one is the regular everyday tea-set that the normal folk get to eat off. It is just as happy on the table as it is on your knees in front of the telly. It is happy to hold your dinner, your snacks and your hot-chip sandwiches dripping with sauce.

With the gorgeous and gracious help of Miss Precision (seriously this woman's workmanship cannot be questioned can it Nikki?), this pattern will be available at the Stitches and Craft show in a few weeks. For people who can't make it , the pattern will go into my very neglected Etsy shop just as soon as I have had a little post-show sleep or two.

Right now I am thinking , that maybe those numerous attempts were worth it after all.

Effective Time Management

This pretty much illustrates about one tenth of what is going on in my brain this weekend. I am totally all over the place - multi-tasking at an all new level.

If you phone me you will hear typing in the background as I put the final touches on the patterns I am preparing for Stitches and Craft.

If you pop in for a cuppa you will be handed something to fold, stickers to stick or fabric to sort.

You will be nagged about joining in with Handmade Help either by donating or bidding or in whatever way you can.

If I head out in the car (as a passenger) the car craft basket will be brought along.

The term frantic was used this morning, but I prefer to think of it as effective time management.

I am really excited about Stitches and have just been told that my workshops will be going ahead.....how cool is that? At first I was so nervous at the thought of teaching a workshop (and I use the word "teaching' extremely loosely), but then I figured.....Whats the worst thing that can happen? ..... I'll just bribe all the participants with chocolate anyway !

Apart from that, I recently delivered a whole slew of selvedge products to Living Creatively for a display - Yep.....The Frock is coming to the show as well. I am really really excited / nervous about this. I mean of course I am excited that the poor dear gets out of the wardrobe , but I am kinda nervous about all those bona fide seamstresses out there checking out my seams and darts.

There will be other selvedge things there as well, even one or two that have yet to be seen on the blog..........In fact the latest not-so-big-but-kinda-more-technical project is about 290 short pieces of selvedge from completion...... and I am sooo in love with it , that I plan to give up sleeping to get it there in March.

Giveaway / goneaway

Further to yesterday post, and I'm sure you are all aware by now of the various ways you can help. I just wanted to mention the blog that Cindy has set up

Here, she is show casing the ebay auctions that people are running to raise money for the people affected by the bushfires.

If Ebay is not your thing, Silly Gilly has kindly offered to take charge and list thing for people who can't get to it themselves.

I did mention earlier that I was planning a giveaway soon .....well the giveaway has up and gone away...

This little girl, Matilda, destined for the giveaway will now be making her way over to Silly Gilly to be auctioned to help raise money instead.

and at work, as I rattled on about the ways people can help, one boy asked if I would teach him to make a toy so he could send it to the Toy Society.......... a chorus of kids joined in and now Annie and I have a big plan.

In their own ways so many many people are doing so much.

and that's kind of wonderful isn't it?

Can you help?

I can't begin to talk about the horrific fires of the weekend. The news just became worse and worse as time wore on. So many lives lost and so many homes and memories gone.

You can make monetary donations at the Commonwealth Bank or at Bunnings or here with the

Red Cross.

If you'd like to put your craft skills to good use, The Toy Society will be collecting handmade toys over the next couple of weeks to be donated to children impacted by the fires.

Lets give what we can.

One track mind

Stick with me guys -

The Stitches and Craft show will be upon us in four weeks time and I have roughly five kersquillion things to do in the mean time. I'm sorry that the show has taken over the blog, but with everything I need to do and that danged day job I have to go to - there is very little time for any "other"crafting.

I do have a tutorial on the back burner (April) and a very very special giveaway planned as well.........just not quite yet.......

Ester and Ruby and Violet are very excited to be coming along to the show. They are a bit nervous to be meeting lots of bloggers but they know that some really really fun people will be there. They are less than happy that Harry and Oscar will be coming along as well. They have made me promise that they don't have to play with them if they are being silly.

Having spent the day with Harry and Oscar, I am just hoping they don't poke anyone, throw food or call someone a poo-bum head.

tick tick boom

After some consultation with The List this morning I decided to work on a few samples for Stitches and Craft. I have gocco'd some little boy and little girl panels so thought I should make up a few things to give people ideas on how to use them apart from the mini quilts. Yes?

So ...Buckets ....Tick

Pot holders....Tick.

and then 3 solid hours of selvedge sewing. (yep, that's 3 hours worth )

This new, not-so-big-but-kinda-more-technical project is soooo exciting.

Please don't tell "The Frock" but I like this new project even better.....

Oh and did you know that the current issue of Real Living has a two-for-one deal on tickets to the Stitches and Craft show. Its right on the front cover-you can't miss it! So come on , grab a friend and come along and say Hi........ I might need you to take over the stall while I have a wee break!

When craft goes bad.....

Have you ever fiddled something into existence, only to find that you are completely unsure about it?

I saw a tutorial for making paper gift wrap thingy's recently ( I have no idea where) and when I was chopping the tails of all the too-long zippers...I fiddled these similar little doo-dads....

I am not sure if they are totally cool or totally naff ! Actually the more I think about it - the more I am leaning toward totally naff.

But then I fiddled this one into existence from the tape measure stash.......

ahhhh......much happier !!!