Artsy clutch

I finally made something from Amy Karols Bend-The-Rules Sewing. I absolutely should have made this earlier! It was the easiest bag I have ever made!! And it came out SO beautiful!! It won't be the last one I make!

Crafting karma

All my good deeds, giving catnip toys away and doing the PayIt Forward thing etc must be giving me major karma points. I mean how else do you account for the Japanese embroidery book I found at the thrift store today? $4 is about twice what they'd normally price a book like this at, they obviously realised its beauty. But considering I have one of these books that I bought from Superbuzzy for a heck of a lot more....$4 is like pennies for this.

Hooverpuss

I dropped the cat treats and almost had to get the vacuum out to clean them up. Luckily Hooverpuss saved the day by swooping in and clearing the floor in no time.




The reason I reached for the treats in the first place was to distract him so I could finish this:

Teddy time

The last couple of bears have been cuddly (washable) flannel ones for two little girls. Now its for two little boys but this time I decided to go back to felt. Especially since all my flannel is rather...girly. I doubt they'd appreciate purple swirls. The time I embroidered the muzzle before I sewed it on, which led to a much tidier face and I added french knot eyes because I love doing french knots.

Now he just needs a name...Dave is going for Herbert. I love Dave but I doubt it baby.

Snail mail sweetness

I wasn't expecting this for a couple of days and had pretty much forgotten I ordered it. Just when I was trying to decide what to embroider I decided to check the mail. Problem solved!

Walkmans in World War 2

Did you know they had walkmans in WW2? I sure as hell didn't. They were called mikiphones, and were a very small gramophone, the size of a cheese tin. Pretend you know how small a cheese tin was. As small as a large pocketwatch apparently. You couldn't exactly tuck it in your pocket and go for a run but it was small enough to put in your pack and I absolutely want one.

karma and catnip

Today marks the end of my little 'Me Time' break. I got busy crafting last night, spend many of my boyfriends hard earned dollars at Craft 2.0 this morning (that'll be the next blog entry probably) but I think the best part was taking the catnip to the shelter.

I also took several large cans of cat food cos showing up with only treats is a bit rude. When we walked in with the catnip toys and started the handout there was about 8 cats visible. Within a minute there was about 25 sniffing around. They LOVED the treats. It was especially nice to see some of them rolling around cos it turns out that some are quite....porky. Some of them take to grazing in other cats bowls so...

This is Miss Muffit, you can't tell from this cell phone photo but shes a gorgeous and headstrong wee lass. I'd have adopted her on the spot if I could.



Crookshanks, a tom cat currently causing chaos amongst the shelter residents, goobing on a catnip toy


Other goobing catterpusses

This behemoth was collecting the toys to bogart the catnip, one paw on each toy.


Gratuitous cat porn photo....and this is only the second biggest cat there!


Apparently they have about 40 residents. I only bought 20 cat nip toys and probably saw 25 cats at most but they have their little hidey holes. Next time I have to make more!

Theodore

His name is Theodore and every lopsided embroidery stitch (note to self: next time DO NOT sew it together before you embroider it when you're a hopeless beginner!!) is stitched with love. His flannel body is made for cuddles from little arms and soon he's off to a new home where I hope he'll be loved. And of course he can't go anywhere undressed so he's wearing a dashing felt waistcoat.

Progress

Well for a break where I meant to sew and create like crazy I don't know if it's turning into the frenzy I hoped. We finally have clean laundry and I have watched Little Women and the BBC version of Pride And Prejudice (oh Mr Darcy....*growl* Colin Firth) but not much beyond that. My sewing machine has been moved to on top of my desk to tease me for not using it as much as you should be using a $500+ machine- daily!! That does at least mean the desk is tidy enough that the papers no longer threaten to eat my keyboard . I have also spent today doing an embroidery while swooning over Mr Darcy's saucy smile and those curls. Although thanks to him the stitches aren't great...yeah blame it on Colin Firth, thats right.

I still have to bake some cookies and sew something, anything, before my break can be considered over. On Saturday I am going to Craft 2.0 and taking the catnip toys to the shelter...finally. They stink!! I hate the smell of catnip but I hope I get to give a few out to the kitties to play with. Also on Saturday I get to pull the names out of a hat for the first swap on my flickr ribbon and button swap group. If you belong to flickr and would like to swap with us please join!!

Running in circles

I am heavily bogged down right now and I think the rest of this week is Me Time. Craft 2.0 is this Saturday and I was so disorganised I didn't even get around to applying to be in it. So this week is going to be spent selling, donating, chucking anything I don't want or need. Our 'house' is something like 50 square feet. So making room for us to move around would probably be appreciated by Dave too. I *might* even be able to put my sewing machine on TOP of the desk!! Oh it makes me almost giddy to think that! The mess has begun to 'eat' the keyboard.


See you in a couple of days!