Hey hey

Ever since Seamus , (gee that was a long time ago) I have had the idea of a monkey on the backburner. I Love monkeys ! About a year ago I spent a few days playing with heads but it ended in disaster.Yesterday I pulled them out and tried a few new variations

I tried the inserted muzzle kind of thing, and I tried an awesome darted variety (that would drive any sane person completely bonkers)and eventually I settled on a muzzle type four piece head with felt to highlight the facey parts.

A four piece head means either a four or two piece body , the first two piece body meant he had dangly legs which were cute and floppy but they wouldn’t work with the undies I wanted to try, so onto a four piece body with button jointed legs….  I got this far, little pinned-on ears and chunky baby kind of limbs….yeah, not loving him yet so today I decided to add some character to see if I could see where I was heading.

Aha, I added a bit more “face” and the felt undies. A cape and mask (of course). gee those undies are badly aligned aren’t they?

but hmmm.

The arm is too straight and unfriendly looking

The leg is…. on drugs ?

The cape might be a bit short and the front overlappy bits are far too wide.

Do I need larger leg holes in the undies, the obviously need some embroidery etc. to make them look like undies

The tummy might be a little extreme.

The mask was just for effect so I’ll need to do a few more variations.

Lower the ears?

Sounds like complete plastic surgery.

 

Lucky he is a patient kind of patient.

(Throw your hat into the ring guys, I am not precious… what kind of surgery is required?)

Remember the sperm? (or gifts for all occasions)

I trawled my blog this morning, positive that I had done a post about sperm…apparently not, it must just be one of those posts I wrote in my head.

Last year (?) a friend went off for a vasectomy so I decided to make him a little specimen jar of happy spermies. I recall asking on twitter whether sperm were known for their happiness or whether they were snarly competitive types.

I made a little label with his name and a ward number etc. on it for him (no photo for some reason) and thought it a rather grand and thoughtful gift.

As is my wont  I then couldn’t stop thinking of sperm and whales and sperm whales. I Bookfaced this guy asking people whether I should scrap it or keep working on that damned tail.

and I did (insert at least six more weird sperm /whale creations here) and I made a little whale pincushion

and then I made another and so on and so on and so on. I so want to add a little joke here about all of this coming from one little sperm, but I'm guessing you guys are way ahead of me.

Tuesday Rotate–Liberty

Last week on a trip to Millrose  in Ballan, I found the cutest packaging ever!

I stole this photo from their Facebook page by the way.

yes, that just happens to be a ricrac display – look at those little tins, down near the owl… Kits to make up the chubby birds- crazy on the cute meter.

Of course I don’t need to buy a kit of one of my own patterns, (although I was tempted) that would be bonkers.

Instead I bought you guys a present. A tin of liberty!

What is this obsession with cute packaging? I think I would purchase anything if the packaging were cute enough.

Once again , there are no hoops to jump through and secret deals, I bought this ‘cause I knew you would love it as much as me. The tin contains ten 10cm strips x the width of the fabric of Liberty Lifestyle Bloomsbury fabric (that’s the craft weight stuff). All up, its a metre of liberty, tiny little tastes of ten different flavours.

Last weeks winner is Maria of The next stage

I am in the mad almost back to work last week of holidays where I try to crazily achieve everything I set out to do at the start of the holidays. Sleep is an elusive beast as my brain rockets into overdrive and I am humming the Long service leave mantra to stop me losing my mind. In a few short weeks I shall be a lady of leisure…..

I can barely imagine what that will look like.

He’s back

Not that he really went anywhere, but Arthur Cabbage, My sweet little friend is back from the pattern testers and ready .You know, it is the things that I make and really love that I find hardest to share, maybe because I love it so much I worry that other people won’t.

(or maybe I am just a bit mental)

Your local shop can get him in for you, just ask and if you get stuck there are lots of places online – check out my stockists page.

 

I just realised, if it wasn’t for pattern-writing-avoidance, my house would never get cleaned.

bragging rights

While I am being a Mrs big head, I have to share with you – my pattern for the one-hour bag was a 2012 favourite on the Allfreesewing site.

Do you know the allfreesewing site ! Its huge ! if you are ever stuck on any kind of sewing thing, you are sure to find the answer over there, buckets, bags, purses, clothing, embroidery, just about everything. They compile links to some of the best tutorials on the web. You can sign up and join the site, saving all your favourite patterns and tutorials in one place or you can sign up and receive the great newsletter

I made the one-hour bag tutorial just after disembarking from the ark, and it is one of those patterns that people just keep trying. There are a few of them in my Flickr pool, but I know that many many more have been made. You know if you make anything from my blog or patterns or whatever, I’d love you to add photos to the pool.

This make me realise how long it has been since I have done a tutorial. hmmmmm

I have also noticed that my free download patterns over on the sidebar have stopped working – Why I have no idea. I tried to fix them yesterday and I managed to send one to Bookface . Do they work for you?

keep them? delete them? put them on a new page?  errgh, I am going back to the sewing machine.

Tuesday rotate - Vignette

I think we have established that Tuesday Rotate is a rather ad-hoc blog supplement but here it is again.

Today I am going to brag – nope not even a humble brag- a real life Look at Me , I’m in a magazine kind of brag. The awesomely funny Leanne Beasley invited me ages ago to submit a project for her magazine Vignette. Do you know Vignette ? While it is kind of a stitching magazine, it also has travel and recipes and information about fabric shops and supplies – all that kind of stuff I’m guessing you guys are into.

So, enter Mrs sausage Dog (Not my most creative name I admit).

 

Leanne took some awesome photos for the magazine (and even stole one of me from my blog to include)

Leanne does all the photography for the magazine (in fact everything in the magazine) herself.

You have to buy it just to see the photo of Mrs sausage Dog with the cow !

So todays Tuesday rotate will be a copy of Vignette Issue 9 plus a kit for you to make up your very own Mrs Sausage Dog.

(The winner of the felt from the last Tuesday Rotate is Willywagtail – Congratulations)

Chuck in a comment folks and I'll see you tomorrow.

eight-teen (s.o.b)

      Wearing the coat to protect you all from the arse-crack

A thrown-together, no pattern quilt

Hand quilted with hundreds of teeny tiny stitches, some straight, some not

Every stitch a labour of love for the birthday, and all joining to create a giant yet subtle piece of text across the quilt.

“Son of a bitch”

‘cause there is something in that for both of us.

People power and no I am not styling these photos

After quite a bit of faffing about in the land of bookface, asking for opinions, I was able to move forward with the bear guy that sprang up just before Christmas.   

You know, I think the thing about toys is trying to make something that looks like the real shape of animal , but also looks appealing… a kind of compromise between a really truly representation of an animal and our idea of the animal.

(and of course the limitations of the person doing the actual making) I also think I think way too much.

    

So the Polar Brothers are born and I do really like them. Kind of real, and kind of cute and the best thing? that crazy Minky fabric makes them all touchable and rub-on-your-cheek lovely.

 

Please do ignore the gargantuanly headed deer who appears to have collapsed under the bears….

He just can’t stand on his own two feet.

Balance schmalance

It is sometimes like an archaeological dig in this sewing space, but in fact it is pretty much like my brain – all the projects and ideas falling over each other and fighting for space. I realised that last year I seemed to work a lot-both at the real job and the jobhobby and whilst I love every minute of the jobhobby, it can become  a tad consuming (cue family eye rolling).

It is just this weird sense of urgency to create everything that I imagine, or to document it for another day or to just spend an afternoon on gusseted knee joints. I do enjoy making things to the exclusion of almost anything else. 

I was just about to type how I think this year will be different, with seven months long service leave in the not too distant future, surely  I will be better balanced….but then I thought OMG – International Quilt Market…get off the computer woman, go and DO stuff !

I am fighting a losing battle.

Jodie- next bit middle bit surname

Best you make a cuppa before you start on this one.

Once upon a time a couple got married, had kids and gave them names (because otherwise it is just too confusing).

After a bit they got divorced and the woman married someone else. Lets call him newfather.

So the kids all changed their surname to newfather.

No big deal – this would have to happen to tens of thousands of people.

Life goes on and one of  the children gets a drivers license and has to fill out a special form explaining about the remarriage and the newfather name.

Life goes on even further and the whole thing is never thought about….the kid has been a new-father since she was about 5. Banks stuff, house mortgage, university diplomas..everything is newfather

 

So welcome to the present day when Jodie –next bit, middle name, newfather decides she might need a passport. She figures she will need a full birth certificate, not just an extract and proceeds to dig out the extract.

Well surprise surprise ! of course Jodie is expecting it to read “jodie-nextbit, middle name, oldfather” but it doesn’t…..it reads  Jodie, next bit, oldfather.

WHAT ? the next bit is not joined to Jodie with a little hyphen ??? really??? and where is my Middle name ???

As you can imagine this brought about some discussion with the mother. Apparently when Jodie was baptised the priest was not impressed with the Jodie, next bit, oldfather name as it did not contain any Saints names so he joined the next bit to Jodie with a dinky little hyphen and added the middle Saint’s name himself….

Thanks dude.

So I have been lugging around this great big overweight name for all this time when I didn’t have to.

Hurray….a legal name is in order to go back to Jodie, next bit, newfather (and then a passport)….however if I do that I would have to change every other piece of paper in my life. That just seems like a whole new can of hassle.

So now I have to legally change my name from Jodie next bit, , oldfather  to ummmm, Jodie-next bit, Middle name, newfather, the name I have been using for thirty something years.

The first attempt was rejected by the office of pink polka dots because I was born under the jurisdiction of the office of green squiggles.

You know what, you can call me freakin’ Elvis if it will get me a passport.

I may be swimming to Portland.