moopy & me

Busy busy busy...

This fun little article was published in a local mag... Adelaide Matters.

Consequently ALL my toys have been sold ... and a trillion orders have come in.... GREAT you say!...  except this was after making the decision (only two weeks prior, due to THIS project) to cancel wholesale orders.... You see, I thought the article would be focused on the art classes I teach which is my primary business.... I suppose that big red kitten was too cute to pass up for a photo..... I have decided to wholesale one or two designs again (kitten & owl) with a bit of help....

This has been a long time coming but a very hard decision to make... they will all still be handmade with much love... and I will still be making them, just with a bit of help. This will give me the time and inspiration to keep making new designs without having to make the same toy over and over... this can drain all creativity and joy from any craft. So I have lots of sewing to do to replenish my real life actual shop (as opposed to the online one which never has much in it... that is about to change).

I have planned a crochet night this week with someone who knows what they are doing ... I will hopefully get some tips on how to make unholey smooth critters ala Camilla ... well we will see?

When a bunny is a puppy

I have finally tried out Camilla's pattern for her adorable crocheted critters (from Happy Hooker ), sadly due to my lack of patience I ditched the pattern early on... I kept getting tighter and tighter balls of crochet? I made it up as I went along and as you can see ... I should have given that pattern another go!! Head too big, face too flat, huge holey crochet or too bunchy crochet... None the less still quite cute and this bunny kinda puppy is heading across town today for a special little someones birthday party.. Happy first birthday Grace xxooxx.

(Note: the critters don't take too long ... one evening in front of the TV but then again I didn't make it properly ... I can't wait to try again)

I followed Fiona's lead this Easter and made a last minute dash to Wheel & Barrow to pick up some cookie cutters... Thanks for the tip! I baked a basic butter biscuit but added Kangaroo Island honey, real vanilla bean and a dusting of secret german spices.. well not so secret really I just don't have time right now to look it up or add links to the talent mentioned above... will link it up later after Easter festivites tonight.    Ok I searched for a link for my spices but no luck... they are made by Alba... and they are for pfefferkuchen (best known at Christmas ... but well worth a revisit in small doses during the year.. I did say small! otherwise they wouldn't be soooo incredibly special at Christmas)

Oh and a big thank you for all of your warm wishes of congratulations regarding the fabric adventure.... more pics of the holey puppy ... practice makes perfect... All hail Camilla!

Pre-Launch

It is with much excitement that I can now reveal the super secret project I have been working on!

Bek and I have been working on reproducing some 60's/70's fabrics designed by Pamela Walker, she was a funky children's textile designer back in her day and we have been given permission to go ahead and reprint them! The exciting part is that we have an opportunity to also design our own textiles to add to Pam's range..... we will be choosing new colourways for the exsisting designs and creating a new set of designs to recreate a story that can be either bought by the metre for you to use and also we will be launching a super fun children's line of furnishings & clothing. How exciting is that! I just can't contain myself... I have been working on this for months now and it has been killing me, not being able to share all the fun... but from now on I can share all the goss with you. And it is great that I can share with the blogging world because out of all the people ... I know you guys will be the most excited.... MORE FABRIC! It will be 100% Australian designed & made, very important to us... and we will be using natural fibres. There is so much for us to learn and I am sure many mistakes will be made but we are having such a blast ... there are endless possibilites.

Sprout Design will be launching some greeting cards with a few of our textile designs on them very shortly ... so that you can get a taste of the action before the 2007 official launch.... I can't wait.

The cards will be a limited edition run so if you don't want to miss out email me with "sproutdesign mailing list" in the subject and I will let you know when pre-orders can be made.

I have a tiny teeny photo of one of the designs that will be coming out as a greeting card... did you guess it? Yes it is  a fish ... and the twist was that we were producing it on fabric!

Little side issue here: my 100th post .. phew!

Feeling special

This Moopy bunny has been made with a mix of vintage and Surface Art fabric... very funky indeed .. thank you Moyra for your generosity!

More vintage kittens... green must be my colour theme this week because looky at what the posty delivered this morning.... feeling very special!

Is Alicia not the sweetest gal ... speechless .. a custom made patchwork collage just for me in the most perfect colours all the way from Portland OR,  beeming.... smiling.. I need to say it again .. I love this crafty blog world, if only I knew Alicia was right there in Portland when I was living in Beaverton just 5 years ago... *sigh*.

And more mail ... from Shannon (thanks sweety, yours is on its way..promise) who has one of my new fave blogs ... but photos later.

Close but no cigar

Some tins and pots on top of our kitchen cupboards... not quite a corner of my home ... and not quite a playdough table either... I picked up the bird tin (grabbed with much excitement) last week at Hype&Seek, a super funky retro shop across the road from my shop .... very dangerous to have right near where I am working... I did look for a playdough table today though..... but came home with this very fun apple platter (notice the stalk is the knife!).... better luck next time.

And here is another sort of corner of my home.... it's more of a disaster area really .... I have had my eye out for a cute little op shopped cupboard for months now...but no luck, I think there is another IKEA purchase waiting to happen here...