As mentioned in the last post, here’s what I picked up at Mikes earlier on in the week:

A delicious bundle of vintage fabric pieces and scraps, an adorable t-shirt with appliquéd mushroom from Market Baby and a sweet red smock also from Market Baby. You can seriously spend hours at Mikes - there is so much to see (and potentially take home with you!).

I’ll be on a blog break until the 1st week of July - there are a number of orders and other craft commitments that need my attention before the end of this month. I hope to return to the blog world with lots of photos and new projects including a new blog! :-) Take care Friends!

Slowly catching up on the emails and Bloglines - thank you to all of you who sent birthday wishes for Aurora :-)

The lovely Jade tagged me to list my top 5 eating spots. In all honesty, hubby and I are not picky eaters and are more than happy to feast on a drumstick from KFC :-) So here’s my little list:

1) I’m a HUGE fan of Japanese food. My favourite are Bento boxes filled with a little bit of everything and they are especially satisfying during winter. When I’m in the city for work, you will find me at either Shuji Sushi on Flinders Lane or Don Bay on Collins Street at lunch time. Fast service and authentic.

2) My second favourite cuisine is Thai. Hubby and I always head for Lemongrass on Lygon Street in Carlton. Thumbs up for the Thai Beef Salad. We love the atmosphere and the service. It is a bit pricey so we only go there on special occasions :-)

3) Hubby and I adore San Franscisco - we often half-joke about packing up everything and moving there! I have wonderful family who live in San Jose and whenever we are there to visit them, we always make time to head out to SF and see the sites (even if we’ve seen them many times before). Last time we were there, my cousin took us to the most amazing Spanish restaurant in downtown SF. The name escapes me but it was such a treat. The tapas were sensational as was the service. If I recall the name, I’ll post a link . . .

4) I have to include the local pizza ‘n’ pasta eatery! We have a few nearby and when we’re wanting to take the girls out for dinner to a child-friendly place, we head for one of these restaurants. We just enjoy the casual atmosphere, the fact Ava can run around a little bit (inside and outside in the kid area), and we can all order something that we like (not just a pizza or pasta but fish, steak, seafood, etc).

5) I have a major sweet tooth :-) When we go back to the Philippines to visit family, we always pop into a Goldilocks Bakeshop. They sell a range of native Filipino sweets - and Filipinos sure do love their sweets! You can’t beat the prices either. At Aurora’s birthday, one of her cakes was a traditional “Ube” (pronounced “oo-beh“) cake, which is a sponge cake made of purple yam with coconut jelly and butter cream in between the layers. It may look kinda strange - but it is delicious (and very fattening!)

So there’s my little list - very hungry after all that! Like Jade, I’ll tag all the commenters on my last post - Bianca, Michelle, Lou, Sarah, Marisa and Dana (and Joan too :-)).

Above are a few Baby Chibi Dolls. Baby Chibi Aroha is a gift for a newborn. Baby Chibis Ines and Gigi are custom orders. And Baby Chibi Lucy is the giveaway from May.

P.S. Happy Chibi Girls Chrissy and Camille (named after two of my dear cousins) are now available at Mikes along with the Owlie Cushions and Clara the Cat. Got to pick up some wonderful goodies from Mikes that I’ll post later on in the week! Now to finish off some Shmerpi orders.

. . . from the laptop and the sewing machine the last few days, chasing up the final details for this little bub’s first birthday party.

We celebrated it today in a hall with 100+ friends and family, lots of food and 2 cakes. The two girls held up well despite the long day and I even caught Ava feeding her little sister some chocolate cake to keep her entertained and happy :-)

Hope to catch up on the email, Bloglines and sewing tomorrow. Wishing you all a wonderful week ahead (it’ll be a freezing one down here in Melbourne!)

Just a quick plug to say that due to the unfortunate closure of The Great Green Room, which stocked some of my creations, I have now added the items that were once listed there into my etsy shop. These particular items are now on sale for the month of June.

Please hop on over to the One Red Robin Shoppe @ Etsy for more details (sale items are prefaced with the word “SALE” in the title and are the most recently listed).

Also, I have finally added a FAQs page (in the menu above) to answer some of the questions I have received about One Red Robin.

Yes, I am indeed amazed and overwhelmed by the kindness of those who left comments on my last post. Thank you SO, SO much.

Here’s Happy Chibi Girl Eloise summing up exactly what I think of you all:

Elosie wears a “jumpsuit” of Japanese fabric under a blue corduroy smock.  She’s part of an upcoming swap.

I had a good chuckle at Dana’s advice on my last post, which was to “Keep Calm and Carry On“. I figure I should go get me one of those posters too :-) Speaking of Dana, have you seen her and Kerri’s line of baby’s clothes called MarketBaby? So ADORABLE! They are available at Mike’s.

And speaking of Mike’s, they’re having an embroidery night on the 21st of June - with delicious nibbles and snacks too! I believe they have a few more spaces available so hop on over to their website to sign-up.

I also wanted to mention the “Meet Me in Melbourne” blogmeet that’s happening on the 17th of June at Flagstaff Gardens. It will be a great opportunity to meet up face-to-face, so if you’re in Melbourne you might want to pen that into your calendars. I would love to attend but we have Aurora’s 1st birthday party on the same day.

And now back to the sewing machine - these 2 little sisters are waiting for their scarves and hats before they go to live at Mike’s :-)

Once again, thank you all.

Hmmm. I normally don’t post too much about my personal life as I like to keep this blog focused on craft, but I hope you will let me indulge here for just a little bit.

A few posts ago, I mentioned that I was rethinking the direction of this blog and this little business. An opportunity had come up, which was in part due to the blog’s existence and which I considered a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. It all started very well and looked very promising. In fact, it many ways it seemed just too good to be true.

However, it all ended very badly. And when it did end, I felt extremely disappointed. The problem is that I am not even sure of where it went wrong and the other party’s response has been very disrespectful and callous. Without any real answers as to the source of its demise, I started to question whether the failure was all my fault, which somehow lead to questioning of my self-worth, which inevitably lead me to question whether the rejection was caused by the way I look (unfortunately, a recurring theme throughout my life). I was stuck in a very unhappy and depressing mindset.

With the support of hubby, I managed to get some closure on the situation. It is always difficult to deal with issues that shatter your self-confidence, especially if you have been grappling with self-esteem issues for most of your life. I can honestly say that I now have peace about the experience and am happy to move forward.

I share this with you because I want to thank you for the comments that you leave behind when you visit my little piece of cyberspace. During those times when I really struggled with feelings of worthlessness and self-doubt, re-reading your comments provided so much comfort and encouragement! It is a pity that I may never even meet most of you face-to-face in this lifetime as I would like to thank you personally if I could :-)

So THANK YOU – really. Your support through your generous and kind words is invaluable, especially during times like these.

If anything, the whole experience has left me with a renewed focus and motivation concerning One Red Robin. So as someone once said, “onward and upward!”

And now, back to regular programming :-) Some recent projects:

Baby Chibi Doll Isabella – an extremely overdue gift for a beautiful newborn:

Garments appliquéd with patches of Japanese fabric for my nephew and niece:

A Happy Chibi Girl in progress - just have to finish off the dress and make some shoes:

And you may have noticed the Doll Quilt Swap badge on the sidebar – yup, as mentioned in my previous post, I have finally caught the bug and have signed up. Sign-ups close June 17 if you’re interested. (C’mon, you know you want to!)

Ahhh, finally a bit of time to myself to post while the girls go make a mess in the living room :-)

Thank you all for the sweet tips!!! Besides some classic favourites, there were also some new-to-me and interesting sweets like cookie-dough kit kats and skor bars! And we have a winner for the May Giveaway. Here’s my eldest (straight after waking from a nap) displaying the number she picked out of a hat:

Comment number 17 comes from Karen! Karen, I’ll be emailing you soon with details.

I’ve been working on the improvements to Cheery Chimp (first version here). I decided to make his face narrower, his legs longer, and to attach his arms to his body after he was all sewn up. I ended up with a more chimpish looking little fellow - and quite tall at 65cm.

I’m definitely more satisfied with this version of Mr Cheery Chimp - perhaps a Ms Cheery Chimp should be in the works too? :-) Pattern and instructions for Mr Cheery Chimp are being finalised and will soon be available in a magazine publication. I’ll advise of details when I know of the publication date. By the way, the cute little ABC Book in the first Cheery Chimp picture above is from the delightful Apak - inside you’ll find prints of cute characters for each letter of the alphabet. It’s available here.

And finally, another custom-made pirate Shmerpi is on his way to his new home. The request was for blue and green, and a monkey buddy. I called him Sassafras - it’s the name of a town here in Victoria and has always been one of my favourite words :-)

P.S. Have you seen the Mini-quilts Showcase on Whipup today - each one is so amazing!! I’ve resisted getting stuck into a doll quilt for a while now - but I’ve just added it to my To-Do list . . . heehee!

P.P.S. Baby Chibi Doll Ana pattern & instructions are now available at Duckcloth!