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.......