Monday, January 4, 2010

...and a Happy New Year

Dear all

Just a quick note to wish all my readers (I am sure I have some out there somewhere!!) a Happy New Year and here's hoping that 2010 brings with it peace, love and happiness for us all.
For a lot of reasons I am very glad to see the end of 2009 - it was a year of ups and downs with the downs being unbearable for my extended family and the ups struggling to hold their heads high in amongst it all - but nonetheless I celebrate them here.
My little (or not so) family made it through another year of job searches (successful), academic achievements, sporting highs (and lows - just to even it out) and the general pursuit of happiness. For us, I hope that 2010 will bring with it new opportunities - new friendships to make, jobs to find, courses to do, games to win and lose, time spent with family, time spent with friends, travel, laughter, tears, sunshine and rain - just life really.
I wish the same to you and yours.

Thursday, November 26, 2009

wish it was monday cause I am a bit manic....

hey all. Again my apologies - it has been awhile...
My head is abuzz with ideas about things I want to be creating. Unfortunately I do not have enough hours left in the day by the time I finish work to tackle many of these things. I am frantically scribbling things down on bits of paper and leaving visual reminders everywhere so that hopefully I don't forget anything before I have a chance to make them. I feel I am in a manic phase - which is probably a good thing as I have markets on Sunday I am getting ready for so a slump right now would not be a good thing at all!

this collection of goodies is begging to be made into some phone sox - the colours are cute as and self striping too - can't wait!

these babies are on the table blocking and waiting to be joined together in a christmas banner, a bit like...


these!

Also on the table are crocheted flowers waiting to be attached to hair ties (that is the blue wool in the corner of the photo of the white stars - I did take a photo but it was a bit blurry....well it was early okay!), a ball of red wool to remind me that I want to make a set of birds as well as the packet of hair ties to remind me of all the flowers I still need to crochet and attach. In the cupboard and out of sight (but not mind) is a bathmat WIP as well as a whole lot of hair clips that need to be packaged.

And these are the just the things that have managed to make it from my head and into fruition...believe me - my head is nowhere you want to be at the moment!

Hope you and yours are all doing well...come and see me in the mall on Sunday if you happen to be in the area!

Friday, October 23, 2009

Watcha doin’?

Well it is a nice rainy Friday night in Armidale. Comfortable on the lounge updating the blog, doin’ a little bit of facebookin’, checking out the others in blogland and generally just chillaxin.

So – a couple of things I wanted to check in with – firstly a laundry reno update…

PA090546 before – well after a little bit of emptying of all contents other then washing machine and dryer – remember this is where we have showered for the last four weeks!

PA230567 after – the removal of the exterior wall to allow access for the cement

PA220561 and the view from the outside

  PA230571              the cement truck moves in!

PA230575 in the thick of it!

So now the cement sits and just does nothing but dry out for a few days before they come back and start putting it all back together again. Bring.It.On!!!

On another note – what do you think of these?

PA220566

PA220565 A little knitted town – well the beginnings of one anyway.

So if you happen to be in Armidale this Sunday come down to the mall and check us out at the markets!

See ya

Cilla Mary

Thursday, October 15, 2009

Hey there…

Okay so it has been a while I know… no excuse springs to mind that would be in anyway acceptable – it’s just the way it is.

So what has been happening I hear you ask – go on, you know you want to – well, a lot, but at the same time not much – you know how it goes.

Leesa and I again braved the dismal Armidale weather and worked the September markets with some success. Not a lot of people around again (it was a truly horrible day) but we did okay despite that.

markets 270909

markets270909

We now both have our regulars as well which is quite comforting – you know, that they actually want to come and buy something else from us!! I can’t speak for Leesa of course but I am constantly surprised that anyone wants to give me money for my knitting – probably shouldn’t spread that around I guess, keep it to yourselves won’t you!! We are both busy gearing up for the run-up to Christmas and hoping sales will skyrocket.

On the home front we have had builders in for a bit more than a month now and, fingers xxx’d, we will have a functioning bathroom this evening – well except for the toilet that is – that will be sorted early next week and until then we still have the old one to use. So our open air showering days are over!!! Like – YAY!!!!!!

P9210518  bathroom at the beginning of the work

P9210519 our makeshift “shower room” – the existing laundry

P9230531 creating our new shower

P9280543 things looking much more civilised now

PA090544 new tiles and everything!

Okay so that is it for the teasers – it is all but done now but I will post “the big reveal” when it is absolutely complete – painted and everything – so stay tuned!

School holidays have also been happening of course but as both St Blair and I have been working we haven’t really done much but it is still nice to have a break from the yelling and screaming gentle encouragement that is the normal soundtrack to our mornings.

I had a great surprise last week when I received a phone call from an old friend that I have not seen in (gulp) 17ish years!!!! She and her partner were on their way in their truck from Brisbane to Sydney and were coming through Armidale and wanted to call in and say hello – which they did. Isn’t it funny how you just fall back into the same patterns with close friends – like, we have literally not laid eyes on each other since my biggest boy was a baby and as he is just about to turn 18 that was quite a while ago – of course we have kept in touch via e-mail, photos, this blog and the occasional phone call – but it was like we had just seen each other a week ago – we still laughed about the same things we always did, she certainly still looks the same and all in all it was a fantastic visit – brief but satisfying…thanks Pip – it was really great to see you again – may it not be another 17 years before we see you again – but of course it won’t be will it…we will see you in January right?

Caitie, Maibz and I also managed to fit in a flying visit to Warialda to see the Piggy Queen – you know how I love to do that and once again we were not disappointed – again, all too quick but far better than not having seen her at all!

So that about wraps up what we have been getting up to to on the home/family/craft front – not a whole lot of knitting going on but I did finally get around to the whole knitting with fabric thing (see below) which has been fun and has opened up a few possibilities for future projects so I shall keep you posted – in the meantime enjoy the pics and let me know if anything takes your fancy.

PA130550 take an old sheet, some chunky needles and a couple of hours and…PA130552voila! a new bath mat – this also gives you a hint of what the floor in the bathroom looks like!

PA140556

PA140557

…and a little bit more fabric and a crochet hook and tada! I think these will become brooches…

So there you go – let me know what you think.

Cheers

Cill

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Quick one

Just a quick one to show you what I have been working on lately to get some feedback before they go on sale at the next markets.

These little beauties are pretty cute I think and I am relying on them being big sellers too…  

P9090484P9090482

P9090483

Whaddya reckon?

As for the next item, it was a bit tricky to photograph as a whole but I hope you get the idea. I think it would be quite delicious hanging from a window in a nursery, or from a cupboard door or something like that.

P9130497 P9130498

P9130506 P9130505

Let me know what you think. Suggestions are always appreciated.

Keep smiling…

Saturday, August 29, 2009

My little fairy

You’ve seen my dolls before right?

I have had this vision in my head for sometime about a particular doll I was wanting to create. Seriously, it was keeping me awake at night.

I wanted a fairy doll. Deliciously soft made with cotton and bamboo, in my signature colour scheme of pink and whits (of course), with beautiful lacy wings on her back.

The doll I could do – it was the wings that were keeping me up nights – how would I make them, I wanted them slightly stiffened – how was I to do that. I made one prototype which were a disaster – went away for a few days and came back to it with fresh eyes and came up with these…

P8270432 Sooo – I was happy with the overall look of them (the colours are really not working for me tonight in any of the posts) now I had to work out how to stiffen them. Lightbulb!

I gathered my ingredients…

P8270440 …and got cooking…

P8270433 …dipped…

P8270437 …blocked and crossed…

P8270439 Waited a few hours drying time and then attached.

P8280447

P8280446

But, I thought she was missing something…Lightbulb (yep twice in two days – a record!)

What does every fairy need?

P8290448 Why a wand of course…

P8290451 Ahhh – maybe now I will get some sleep!

caped crusaders

A showing of Miss Lish’s latest Textiles assignment.

The brief was it had to be made from at least 50% recycled material.

So after a forage through the linen cupboard to “reclaim” some sheets, a few weeks of work in the textiles room at school this beauty emerged…

P8260429P8260427 P8260425 P8260424P8260421  The creator at work.

She would like to thank her younger sister for modelling – right Lish? Yep I thought so!!!!