On my desk this evening are a couple of woodland doll-head brooches:

And worn:

Why the brooches? Well . . . the APM in Hong Kong stumbled upon a picture of my exhibition at Hudson last month. They contacted me and invited me to fly over and have another exhibition of my work at their mall this December.

In addition, I would also be holding a few workshops on how to make the brooches above AND I would need to bring 2 4-feet tall woodland girls for their Christmas display.

After much pinching of myself and discussions with my family, I decided to take up the offer. Now that the contract has been signed and the paperwork finalised, I can share this with you – I have been busting to tell you since last month but wanted to wait until all the details were ironed out :-)

So besides working on the sewing patterns for Pattern Press, I have been spending almost every child-free, work-free, waking moment on making softies for the exhibition, working out details on the two large dolls and putting together a few sample brooches. I’ve been getting up before 6am and sleeping just past midnight most days. My family have been wonderfully supportive – of course, they will be coming with me too :-)

I  have received a number of emails regarding the date of the next shop update. Due to the preparation for this exhibition, I have had to postpone my next shop update to late December (most likely after the 22nd) when I return from Hong Kong. The softies I will be bringing with me for the exhibition will not be for sale during the exhibition so I will be making them available for sale in my shop when I get back. My sincere apologies to those who were wanting a doll or softie before Christmas.

This opportunity was completely unexpected and even though the paperwork is all done, I am still pinching myself. Thank you again to all of you who supported my show at Hudson because I suspect that if you had not mentioned it on your own blogs, APM would not have found out about it so easily. Thank you!

It feels good to be able to finally share this news with you – I’m looking forward to sharing my progress with you too!

Growing up, I never, ever, liked the colour Green – it was always the last colour I chose for anything. My mum loved (and still loves) that colour and I used to wonder why, oh why? But somehow it has grown on me over the years and now, when given a choice, I usually pick it – or specifically, chartreuse – over all the other colours. I think it’s refreshing, serene and happy. So weird.

Credits for the above collection of chartreuse-related flickr pics:
1. chartreuse… as seen in nature, 2. concerto in chartreuse, 3. texture on chartreuse, 4. Chartreuse Lace Handknit Scarf, 5. Chartreuse Hellebore, 6. friday flickr fix: chartreuse

Thank you Victoria for the fun theme this week, and thank you Angela for the meme :-)

Over the weekend, Simmy and Sid finally received their little teddies:

And Woodland Girl Nikki was completed as a gift for a wonderfully supportive and generous gal. She’s made from Japanese fabrics, my favourite woodgrain print, and a vintage button.

Simmy and Sid were completed this week:

They are the larger-size Shmerpi creatures and made from two different types of fleece – chenille and terry. Just need to make their little teddy bears. The sewing pattern for these two will also be available through Pattern Press in November. I was sent the mock-up cover for the Happy Chibi Girl sewing pattern the other day and I’m really happy with it and can’t wait to share it with you.

Meanwhile, this gal is in progress:

And this Peg Bear, Nagauta, is on his way to his new home.

If he looks familiar, I used the same Japanese fabric as the one used on this Peggy, but a different panel.

I also picked up the new issue of Frankie today (after the tip-off on Catherine’s blog) and oh boy, oh boy, it’s a good one! It comes with a sweet little book of gift-wrap by Catherine, Beci Orpin, Mel Stringer and Jodee Knowles (of course, I don’t think I could actually use these as gift-wrap – but they will look great in the girls’ room!). And lots of lovely stuff to look at, a few articles that saddened me, and a few articles that made me laugh out loud and almost snort-choke on my lunch.

So how’s your week been? Glad it’s Friday? I’ve had a rough week with three consecutive migraines in 3 days, so I’m very happy it’s Friday again and I can kick back a little bit. I’m looking forward to a less stressful and migraine-free weekend – hope you have a good one too!

My desk is a serious mess (and it’s now started spreading itself out on to the floor), so it’s not worth showing since I can hardly find anything there myself! Also, the weather’s been super nice lately so we’ve been spending time outdoors (which means less time indoors cleaning up said mess :-)). Instead of messy desk pics, here are a few of the girls enjoying the sunshine:

And one of my recent favourite pictures drawn by Ava which celebrates the outdoors, complete with “rainbow grass” :-)

And speaking of favourites, here are a few more on the internet that have me swooning:
>> Elsa Mora’s new blog on paper-cutting
>> Sketches by Amy Sol for her upcoming solo show
>> Children’s book illustrations by Paul Rand featured by Chronicle Books
>> ALL the Box Prints by Dolan Geiman, but especially “Field Guide Tennessee”
>> Week of Australian Fabric Design on Mikes
>> Tryst Jewelry found via Paisely St Claire
>> Handmade cloth book using fabric printed via Spoonflower

I’ve started getting up at 5:45am most mornings to fit more into my day but the body is still trying to adjust so I’m off to get another cup of coffee – hope to be back soon with more softies!

I’m a little scatter-brained and a little lost for words at the moment, so here are some pics of the completed Chibi Dolls. A pair of Happy Chibi Girls in spring colours:

And a Baby Chibi Girl and Baby Chibi Boy:

Thank you for your comments on my last post – the above will be available in pattern form through Pattern Press in November. Just working on ironing out the bugs in the actual patterns.

Hope you’ve all had a refreshing weekend and ready for the new week ahead!

On my desk last night were a few dolls in progress:

I can finally share some news about these: the sewing patterns for Baby Chibi Doll – a Girl AND a Boy version – and Happy Chibi Doll will be available very soon!

I recently joined Pattern Press – a company that publishes and distributes sewing patterns. This means that I can now just concentrate on designing/writing up softie sewing patterns and not have to worry about the whole packaging/publishing/distributing/marketing side of things (as Pattern Press will be looking after all that for me). This also means that my patterns will be a whole lot more professional looking :-) and will be more widely available.

The sewing patterns for the Chibi dolls mentioned above, plus large Shmerpi Creatures (including a pirate) and the patchwork Seahorse are slotted in for official launch at the Australian Quilt Market trade show in November, here in Melbourne. I’ll be at the Pattern Press stall with Helen (business owner) and I am feeling both slightly nervous and very excited as it will be my first trade show. Preparing for the launch of these patterns has been taking up most of my crafting time lately so the life-size woodland dolls I mentioned previously have taken a back seat, but I am very excited to share with you what those dolls are for and hope to do so soon :-)

I also completed a challenging little project for me – a mini-Babushka soft doll.

She is smaller than the length of my hand and I was a little hesitant to actually work on her but you know what? It wasn’t so bad – it was actually fun and not frustrating as I had imagined it would be. The trickiest part was sewing in the base so that she can stand on her own. Yay for mini things! She is the accompanying child doll to Babushka Soft Doll #2.

And here are the goodies the Youngest and I picked up from the the Salvos oppie shop early this week:

Vintage bed sheet; cotton toddler-bed size blanket in great condition; two vintage-inspired aprons with fantastic fabric panels; a few doilies; and – yippee! – a whole bag of crocheted granny squares in different sizes and colour combinations. I seem to be on a crocheted-granny-square kick at the moment :-) I am hoping to learn how to join the squares so I can make some cushion covers and I am also thinking about incorporating individual squares into some of my softies. If you’ve come across an easy online tutorial for joining crocheted squares, please let me know in the comments!

So today I’m taking a wee break from my typical frivolous posts on crafty stuff to talk about the issue of poverty, as a participant of Blog Action Day.

{image credit: United Nations Millennium Development Goals Report 2008}

Now I know that some of you may click through to another blog just about now because you are sick of hearing about “poverty“. It’s an issue that has been all over the media – it seems that every few minutes politicians are raving on about it and celebrities are flogging it in your face. Somehow, somewhere along the line the message has been lost and instead, it seems to have become the new “hip issue” to be involved in. But I do hope you will stick with me through this post as it is a real issue – one that has existed for centuries and rather than disappearing, is actually getting worse.

If we strip away the rhetoric and the celebrity-induced hype, you will find some cold hard facts about poverty in our world today, such as: (Source: Globalissues.org)

1. At least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day.
2. Number of children in the world: 2.2 billion . . . Number in poverty: 1 billion (every second child) . . . Children out of education worldwide: 121 million
3. The world’s low income countries (2.4 billion people) account for just 2.4% of world exports.
4. For every $1 in aid a developing country receives, over $25 is spent on debt repayment. The poorer the country, the more likely it is that debt repayments are being extracted directly from people who neither contracted the loans nor received any of the money.
5. A mere 12 percent of the world’s population uses 85 percent of its water, and these 12 percent do not live in the Third World.
6. Rural areas account for three in every four people living on less than US$1 a day and a similar share of the world population suffering from malnutrition. However, urbanization is not synonymous with human progress. Urban slum growth is outpacing urban growth by a wide margin.
7. The wealthiest nation on Earth has the widest gap between rich and poor of any industrialized nation.

(More facts here)

And the effects of poverty? Well, the list is long and includes: high infant mortality rates, decreased life expectancy, poor health, poor education, death from causes that could have easily been prevented had the resources been available.

After reading the facts, now consider that behind all those numbers and statistics are actual, living, human beings. Mums, Dads, Daughters, Sons, Families. People.

It’s easy to become overwhelmed and start thinking that really, what, as one person, can I do to help? This is an issue where the adage of “every bit counts” is true. Hundreds/thousands/millions of people doing their own little bit can bring about change. And if everyone who visits this blog today committed to support one person who lives in poverty – that would be more than 1000 people helped in just one day! Can you imagine the impact? It’s exciting stuff when you think about it! This is why there are approximately 9000 bloggers from all over the world blogging about poverty today – so that not only are more people aware of the issue but that more people realise that their little bit actually does count.

Okay, so if you’ve read this far – thank you for sticking with me! Now what can you do, as one person, to help? Well, you can go over here to see a whole list of resources and links to help get you more educated about the issue and find organisations you can join. There are two that I would like to focus on in this post as I am a big believer in one-on-one assistance, and in education and supporting entrepreneurship as a means to fight poverty.

The first is KIVA. If haven’t yet heard of KIVA, it is an organisation that supports “person-to-person micro-lending, empowering individuals (you) to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world.” You can loan as little as $25 to an entrepreneur who needs financial assistance to support their business (and therefore feed and support their own families) and you will receive updates on their progress and repayments of the amount you have loaned. Once you have been fully repaid, you can re-invest that same amount into the business of another entrepreneur if you wish.

As someone who runs a little indie craft business myself, I am very excited about KIVA and the way it is changing the lives of those who live in poverty by providing the means for them to grow and develop their business, and become self-sufficient*.

The other program is one that helps children in our own backyard, so to speak, and is the Learning for Life sponsorship program by the Smith Famiy. This program enables you provide financial assistance to a child in Australia through a phase in their school life (primary, secondary, post-secondary), who otherwise would be limited in their opportunities for education due their family’s financial situation. As the Smith Family states, “In the long term, poor educational achievements limit employment opportunities and may sentence those who suffered child poverty, to a lifelong struggle just to survive.” This program is a means to break the cycle of poverty. Go here for more details.

Thanks so much if you’ve read this far. There is actually more I’d like to write about this issue but I will leave it here for now and encourage you that your bit helps/will help. Other organisations you may want to consider if you want are interested in one-on-one assistance: World Vision, Care, Compassion, Fred Hollows Foundation, and Oxfam.

Related posts: My hubby’s take on Blog Action Day 2008

*A proportion of the funds received from all One Red Robin sales currently supports such entrepreneurs through KIVA.

Ever since we moved the clock forward last week for Daylight Savings, I feel like I am always running a day behind! Thanks to MissK for the fun “This is” theme this past week – “This is my current reading material“.

And here is mine (a day late):

This theme is actually very timely as 3 of the 4 books above arrived from Amazon just last week! I am still reading this fabulous book, one chapter at a time whenever I get a quiet moment. The first book from Amazon is “The Boss of You” by Lauren Bacon & Emira Mears. I’ve read a lot of good buzz about this book around the crafty blogs but haven’t as yet gone past the first page (not because of the book, just because there are only 24 hours in one day!). I’m hoping to get stuck into it at the end of the month.

The next one I picked just because I totally adored the pics one of my fave bloggers, Danielle, posted up on her blog. It’s “Complete Embellishing” by Kayte Terry (previously a Visual Manger for Anthropologie and freelancer for Adorn magazine).

The projects are just soooo good – everything from garments, to accessories and home furnishings. Here’s a snippet of a few things I am hoping to try (adding a mod-squad collar to a t-shirt; making an argyle vest out of an old plaid wool vest; scarf made from dyed doilies; and felt silhouette pillowcases):

And it’s a fantastic resource for embellishing in general as well. In fact, the first half of the book covers sewing, sculpting fabric, embroidery, crochet, trims, felting, beads & baubles, applique, fabric printing and painting/etching. I can’t wait to try out the techniques and projects on some of my clothes, the girls’ clothes, and even on a few softies!

And the other book that is on high rotation with the girls (and I keep by my bedside because I love the pictures!) is “ABCs” by illustrator Charley Harper. Just take a look at the inside cover – stunning:

Besides catching up on some books, I have been doing a whole lotta sewing. Not much to show you yet though as they are still going through the stuffing process (and I can’t believe I bought 5kgs of stuffing today to cover the next few weeks!). But here’s one little gal who escaped from the studio – Myrtle the Big-Headed Turtle:

She’s a little shy about having such a huge cranium so I made her a little bonnet to distract from that fact :-) If all goes well, the pattern for her will be available in a few months.

In other news, you may notice the new banner up at the top of my blog. My solo show has ended and my little website has its first sponsor – Burdastyle! This is a fantastic website for all things sewing – free patterns, how-tos, tips, and an awesome community. I love checking in on their fabric/textile projects section to find some inspiration and ideas – this section is also a great resource if you are looking for projects for gifts or a handmade Christmas. Be sure to wander over!

Okay, back to the business of stuffing!

I finally finished my submission for the Plush It show last night. If you haven’t yet heard of Plush It, it’s a group show happening on November 12th at the Ruban Rat Gallery in Sydney. All participants were given the same softie template to adapt into our own style.

I was stumped when I received the template – complete softie block :-) After a few days of pondering, making a samurai popped into my head. I drew some sketches but then realised that it would probably not translate too well given that the template is rather small and there were a few details I really wanted to incorporate and exaggerate.

Then I considered making a Woodland girl but again thought the body was too small for me to make it work (as you may know, I am not keen or very good at working on small softies!). So I decided to throw the whole planning stage into the wind and just designed the face and printed it out on to fabric. Next, I looked at my shelves of fabric and picked up the first 2 things that jumped out at me – the woodgrain fabric and some synthetic fur.

I cut some leaves out of felt and attached them to the body. After she was all stuffed and sewn up I decided she was still lacking something. Her eyes were pointed upward towards the top of her head. What could she possibly be looking at?

I suddenly remembered my little box of vintage handmade birds that I picked up from eBay a long while ago. After all, she did look like a tree. So I attached a small piece of ribbon to the top of her head and attached the vintage bird-and-nest to it (there’s a clip under the nest making the bird-and-nest removable).

So here is Sprout, the Woodland Tree-Girl:

In other news, I visited the Fracture Gallery at the Fed Square to see Omnific Assembly’s “Totem: Dolls with Souls” exhibit during my lunch break today. It was SO inspiring and satisfying to see the work from so many talented artists up close. Unfortunately, I didn’t have my camera with me so I have no pictures to share. Most impressive was Poppalina’s huge bear. I also adored the dolls by Kirsten Doran, Alice Jean McKellar and Warisa Somsuphangsri. If you go to Poppalina’s post here you can see some photos from the show. The exhibit ends on October 12th.

After work, I picked up a copy of the MX newspaper to find my brother and his band, Carnation, featured:

They are launching their debut EP tomorrow night at the Revolver (if any of you Melbournites are in the area). They’ve been together as a band for a few years now and worked really hard on this EP. It’s so great to see that they have reached this milestone (and have been receiving good reviews and airplay on indie radio). Obviously my brother is that Asian dude in the front. He’s 26 and a little eccentric. Oh, and he’s single too (ahem . . . but let’s not tell him that I told you that okay?)

And to wrap up this rather long-winded post, thanks so much for the great feedback on Softiesmaking.com. I am really happy to know that some of you are already finding it useful/helpful in making softies, and encouraging others of you to give softie-making a go :-)

Last night, before I went to bed, my desk looked like this:

- Copy of Homespun volume 9.10, where you will find the pattern/instructions for my little owl (yay!)
- The project from Brown Owls the other night – a Sausage Dog embroidered CD Case thanks to Kirsty – that I actually finished (double yay!)
- And a softie-in-progress (finally – triple yay!).

Here’s my owl (christened “Octavious”) in Homespun with an accompanying article on the Roman ruler of the same name. The issue is now on newsstands.

Speaking of owls, Brown Owls was such a treat. Not only did I get to finish the cute project but I also got to see Pip, Brooke, Kirst and Gemma again, and meet in person fellow bloggers/creative chickas, Cindy and Danielle. Oh, and the sweets were absolutely delicious – think lemon tea cake, pink cupcakes and chocolate cake!

Also, you may notice a new little image on my sidebar. It’s my pet project: Softie Making. I get lots of emails from people who want to get into softie-making but aren’t sure where to start, where to find easy free patterns to use, or don’t quite get the whole process. I’m no expert but I do have my own little folder of bookmarks to useful sites/blog, so I started up a blog to catalogue all of the resources I have found useful in making softies. I hope you’ll find it useful too! I’m slowly building it up so you’ll find that lots of bits are still under construction. I’m adding posts whenever I have a spare moment and topics include free patterns/tutorials, tips-n-tricks, events, reviews and interviews.

And you can contribute too! If you have something softie-making related on your blog (e.g. free tutorial or how-to, softie-related book review, softie-pattern review, softie-related event news, etc) there is an option on the blog where you can submit your link (and you’ll be given full credit too). Maybe you’ve stumbled upon a useful softie-making post on someone else’s blog – you can submit that too and you’ll get credit for providing the link.

So if you have a spare moment, check it out here: Softie-Making: Resources for Making Handmade Softies