To the tune of ‘fat bottomed girls’…HIT IT !

Hey

I am just a crafty chic

With a taste for nice fabric

But I take pics before I leave my sewing room.

I sew a lot of stuff

And I fill that stuff with fluff

crafty people, make the blogging thing worthwhile .

 

Oh, can you see me sew tonight?

Oh down beside Bernina’s light

Oh I will give it all I got,

Craft-minded girls you make the blogging world go round

Craft-minded girls you make the blogging world go round .

 

I’ve been following the blogs

Sharin’ photos of my dog,

I’ve seen many crafty fads along the way,

But their beauty and their style

Wear kinda smooth after a while

Give me sewin’, give me stuffin’ every time

 

Oh, can you see me sew tonight?

Oh down beside Bernina’s light

Oh I will give it all I got,

Crafty people you make the blogging world go round

Crafty people you make the blogging world go round

 

Now I’ve just turned forty-four

No spring chicken anymore

Ain’t no beauty queens in this locality

Oh but I still got my sewin’

It gets my juices flowin’

Crafty people, thanks for hanging

out with me.

(and from the back catalogue you can revisit forty-three) 

Can you feel it....

You guys know that I don't speak knitting or paper craft, but Corrie does ! She also speaks crochet !

and has the cutest shop ever !
Right now she is looking for helpers for the Melbourne Stitches and Craft show.

Even thought I am flat out and quite possibly boring you all rigid... The excitement level is beginning to rise.

I can't wait to catch up with all the Melbourne crafters again as well as hopefully spending some time with Kate and Mr Banshee.

Kate's awesome platypi
I have promised toilet breaks and chocolate for Claire .....

(and I am getting first dibs on one of the pull-along dogs kits I tell you.....)

I have booked some accommodation for myself and my best-ever helper and I'm trying to wiggle to get to see a talk by Kate Vandermeer of iSpyStyle .

I really do hope all of you are coming along ( OK with the exception of those folk living in other countries....)

and I promise to stop boring you all with my plans .... I am working on a tutorial......and a wee giveaway cause I passed a humungously outrageous anniversary type thingo...and completely missed it...just give me a day or two.

Oh and the derriere is much improved (kind of) - thanks for asking !

Market mayhem

Daylesford turned on a spectacular day on Saturday for the market. I am sorry it has taken me this long to blog about it BUT someone who has finished VCE and been home sick seems to have eaten all my Internet (and trust me I have a lot of Internet) so I am back to caveman Internet until tomorrow.

(MR Burly - husband of Julie sporting a very flash three tiered pink ensemble)

Julies idea with the Suffolk Puffs or yo-yo's was great - I met so many bloggers on Saturday that my brain was a bit of a whirl. Please leave me a comment and tell me who you were again so I can come and visit you. (waving wildly at Ms Sprouts and the pirate) and she BAKED ! That's right she baked yo-yo's and let Annie and I give them away to bloggers....

Annie was in charge for the day and I could not ask for a better assistant (or friend). She is so willing to help and give up her weekend to stand behind my stall and flog my wares (and she does a far better job of it than I do I can tell you).

It is so hard to explain just how much fun Saturday was - I was on a crafty high all weekend. I met THE BEST people and caught up with awesome inspiring crafters and shared plans and exciting news and made commitments to friends and crafters to do less hibernating and more socialising.

(Kirst's music boxes - she is my biggest blogcrush ever )

I can't really do a major festival of links - mostly because I know I am going to forget someone - and really there were so many bloggy visitors it was almost hysterical at times. But also because it will take me about another ten hours on caveman Internet.

(One of these curlypops delights made its way home with me)

If you would like to see just some of the fantastic bloggy visitors that made their way to the market, head off to the delightful Superpops blog ....

and if you want to meet the other stallholders then here is a list for you. I did this from memory and I am sure I have forgotten some people, and a few stallholders are not on the net so I apologise in advance

Curlypops

Kootoyou

Pink snowflakes

VillaHunter

The clunes strangler

ceci bean

lillipilli

bob boutique

Dandelion

Bluebell

Pictures eat people

Mandamade

There was one other stallholder there who I would like to tell you about tomorrow.......and I am going to blatantly try and sell you all something as well. I might coerce, I may threaten or I may just beg......

(Consider yourself warned!)

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.......

Do you mind if I bang on a bit?

On Friday Flower Garden and I headed off bright and early to Melbourne for the Stitches and Craft show.

We were very excited at the thought of catching up with all the celebrity bloggers on the Living Creatively stand but mostly excited about meeting Chookyblue in the flesh as it were.

On arrival - we were early ! We headed upstairs out of the crowd and began shopping. A little while later we got the phone call from Donna. Flowergarden was thinking , "who is Donna?" Of course it was Chookyblue so we raced downstairs to meet.

We said Hello and then there were hugs and laughter and Tracey of Ozcountryquiltingmum joined us for more hugs and then four women began talking all at once and I don't think any of us drew breath for the whole day. I'm sure Fairy Girl (Chookyblue's daughter) thought we were all mad.

We stood clogging up the Janome stand for so long that eventually we decided we needed coffee to continue our chats. So then we had show and tell and Tracey gave us some great tips on cards- She is the queen of the card. We couldn't get our cameras out fast enough when she headed off to the mens toilet!!!


Actually the only decent photo I got all day was my lunch ! It must be a dead giveaway that you are a blogger when you take out your camera to photograph your lunch!

Off we headed to the Living Creatively stand. They had the cutest set-up !! I met Cathy (Miss Marzie) and Louise (Lululollylegs) of Audrey and Maud soon-to-be-fame (Got their autograph as well, sorry it says Agnes. that was Cathy having a go at the fact that I had written it wrong on my blog ).

They introduced us to Jenny from Amitie (I have a bit of a crush on her, she was sooo nice). We met Fi of Dear Fi, I recognised her gorgeous fabric bowls on the stand and then I looked up and there she was !!! I approached Three Buttons to tell her how much I am enjoying the "This is " meme and I saw a person I was almost sure was Bluebird makes her Nest (as in, she kinda looked like someone whom I am guessing is her on her blog), but i wasn't certain so I smiled but didn't go and accost the poor woman.

I really did have such a great time that I have had to digest it all a bit before I could post about it.





So here is the banging on bit - (feel free to skip to the end).

Collectively the women on the living creatively stand were awesome, They laughed and shared and were so generous with their time and generous with their praise and respect for other crafters.

It was beyond great to spend the day with Tracey and Donna and Annie, it is the best fun, hanging out with people who "get it" or "get us' and craft and blogging and the whole thing.

The girls giggled when I told them how happy I was to be out of the crafting closet but it is so true. I love to craft and always have done , but now sharing it with all you people in blogland and actually meeting some of you makes me so excited. I got such a buzz from the day, seriously we crafty people are quite amazing when you stop and think about it. Just check out anyone's blog for confirmation of freebies and gifts and giveaways and thoughtful kind messages and shared hints and tips and knowledge.


I don't know what any of this means really I just wanted to say that I feel like I am a small part of something so fabulous and exciting and I just wanted to say - thanks for having me!