. . . crocheted-belly Peg Bears in progress for the show:

Happy November! We arrived a few days ago from our very short holiday in Sydney where we had a long overdue catch-up with friends - friends I’ve had since high school. We get together every once in a while and it’s always a wonderful and amazing experience to see each other again and see how our families have grown, and where we are in our individual lives. Every time we get together it really is as if we have never been apart. A real blessing.

{The Youngest and I having an important conversation at Royal Botanic Gardens in Sydney}

I’ve taken time off from work to make softies for the show and I think I am almost half-way there. Hope to post the details of the show on the weekend - it opens in about 10 days time - yikes! Back to the sewing machine!

Thanks to Kirsty, you can find more Creative Spaces here.

Hope you all had a lovely weekend! We’ve enjoyed a wonderfully relaxing long-weekend . . . always makes it hard to think about getting up for work again tomorrow!

I finished up this little gal and will be posting her off to Craft Hope’s Casa Bernabe Orphanage project:

Here’s a sneak peek at the amazing collection of dolls the project has received so far: Craft Hope Update

Thanks to Eren and the Craft Hope gang for organising this awesome project and providing the craft community with the opportunity to make a small friend for a very special child :-)

How lovely is unexpected mail?! I had a rotten day at work today and came home with another migraine. But it is amazing how one little package can turn things around so quickly!

With all the recent busyness I had forgotten that I’d ordered a couple of fat quarters from Spoonflower a few weeks ago. I was stoked when I saw the package sitting on the kitchen bench this afternoon. I ripped it open and I kid you not - the migraine quickly disappeared :-)

I took the risk of ordering a few yards of these designs last week when the Aussie Dollar was a little stronger than it is now (without waiting for the fat quarters to arrive first) and I did breathe a sigh of relief when I opened the package. I’m so happy with the way they have all turned out. Plus the base cloth is so much better (texture and weight-wise) than the cloth they had originally used.

I’m also so glad that Kirsty recently posted up a very clever method on folding a fat-quarter as I think that will come in handy for folding up some of the fabric for the show - the video is fantastic! And Kirsty also pointed me to Hoppo Bumpo’s Seam-Along (what a brilliant idea) - I’m thinking the French Seams will be a good option for some non-softies I am hoping to sew up.

One thing I am bummed out about is the fact that I missed out on joining Brown Owls this year! I’ve had it on my list of things to do since late last year and completely overlooked it. So exciting that Brown Owls are popping up all over Australia! And the first Melbourne meet-up is coming up soon too! Oh well, at least I can still listen to the Brown Owls radio station :-) Go on and join up - I’ve already found some new favourites to listen to!

Two fawns were finally completed this week. Fifi is made of a red wool cashmere and vintage fabric (from Dawn):

And Figaro is made from wool-blend suiting:

(Pics have been edited using Picnik)

The unnamed Happy Chibi Girl was also dropped off at Mikes this morning for Mirabel. She was a lot of fun to put together and I am hoping to make a few more yarn-haired dolls. I used a 50/50 cotton/wool blend mix for her hair. I am sure her recipient will bestow her with the perfect name :-)

It was lovely to have a quick catch-up with Cam and Pip again at their shop and I even got to meet the super-talented Mr Ghost Patrol in person :-) Speaking of Mikes, I finally have all my Christmas gift-shopping done (and am starting the less-fun task of wrapping).

Most of my shopping was done online after accepting the fact that there was no way I was going to have time to make gifts this year. Here’s some of the loot I bought from here, here, here, here and here - all very highly recommended!

Buy handmade this Christmas! :-) Happy December!

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!

Back from the little blog break :-) We went to the Gold Coast. Wow - such lovely weather when we were there! Accommodation and passes to Dreamworld were for free so we couldn’t resist escaping, even if it was just for a couple of days.

We spent Father’s Day at Dreamworld, which was SO MUCH FUN. Hubby and I hadn’t been there for at least 20 years (boy, that makes us sound real old!) when we visited with our families (separately, not at the same time), so it was a real treat to share a day there with the girls. The girls enjoyed every minute, especially when they got to meet one of their favourite dinosaurs :-)

We also spent a wonderful day at Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary and loved seeing lots of animals up close. Here’s hubby and the girls looking very relaxed at one of the rain forest look-outs at the sanctuary:

And two beautiful creatures we were able to encounter up close:

We’re all refreshed and ready to get stuck back into things. On the crafting front, I was able to make this little Baby Chibi for my cousin, who requested one for his girlfriend for their upcoming anniversary.

I also came home to find my copy of the recent Handmade magazine, where the pattern and instructions for Springbean the Bear are available:

Thanks again to all the lovely emails I’ve been receiving about the show. I’ve been told that all of the softies except for one owl will be going to new homes - yay!!! Many of the framed prints are still available and there are copies of these prints unframed at Hudson too (printed on archival cotton paper and limited edition of 50 each): Peaches Likes the Alphabet, The Owls Don’t Mind, Doddi Wonders . . ., and Anouk’s Distraction.

Thank you also to Jessica and Nancy for the sweet show plug - if you happen to be be looking for Peg Bears, there are three still available at Modamuse over here.

Now working on some owls and hope to have pics of them to share soon, but for now it’s goodnight!

Wishing all the Mamas & Mamas-to-be a wonderful Mother’s Day!!! I’ve been spoilt with chocolate, kisses, hugs and artwork from the girls :-) It is only fitting that the “This is” theme this week is “This reminds me of my Mum” by Angela.

My Mum is a very generous and giving soul - she’s the kind of person that if you remarked how nice that bracelet was that she was wearing, she would respond with, “Really? You like it? Here, do you want it?“. She and my dad sacrificed so much to give my brother and I a better future here in Australia. She is wise, strong in character, and loves and protects fearlessly. She is a woman of simple tastes but her one indulgence? Jewelry!

She has tried to share that love of jewelry with me but unfortunately, it hasn’t really stuck (sorry Mum!) When I was 8 years old, she gave me a very cute little container to store my jewelry and some pieces from her collection:

This is only a very tiny sample of what she has given me over the years - I have returned much of it to her given that it would get more use with her than with me! I think I mentioned in a previous post that I really don’t wear much jewelry, but I do keep these few pieces close at hand simply because they remind me of my Mum and her unconditional giving and loving spirit - two qualities I strive to develop in myself and in my girls.

In crafty news, Oliver the Owl was completed this week:

As was Happy Chibi Girl Cadence, her two outfits, and her little pouch-bag with mini-Peg Bear ;-)

She initially had a nose on her face but it just bugged me too much so I got rid of it! I decided to keep the ears (couldn’t resist putting button earrings on them!) and I think all Happy Chibi Girls will have ears from now on too :-). Cadence will be auctioned by Craft for China - I’ll post details up here as soon as she’s listed.

And welcome! to all the new readers who have stumbled upon my little blog for the first time, thanks to 3 lovely blogs:

>> One Red Robin was included in a round-up of Aussie design/craft blogs on Decor8 (blink and you’ll miss it :-))

>> A few photos from my studio and a short interview about my studio space were recently posted up on Poppytalk

>> And I talk a about what inspires me creatively on Hip Slope Mama

Off to enjoy more time with the girls (and of course, more chocolate!)

Thank you to all of you that left a comment on the last post and shared your thoughts. It has been enlightening and helpful to understand your thoughts on the issue. I did want to clarify (which I should have done in the previous post) that I am not accusing the makers of the doll of outright copying or infringing of any law. A reader of this blog had raised a question about its similarity to some of my dolls and as I wasn’t so sure myself, I opened it up to you all to get some perspective and to understand your definition of “copying” and whether it was in terms of being identical or a degree of similarity, in the light of recent events in crafty blogland. (Phew, that was a long sentence!)

It is certainly a clear-cut case where two objects are exactly identical but how similar does an object have to be to another in order for it to be classified as a rip-off and for it to infringe on copyright? How much can one push the degree of similarity before it is deemed copying? A very tricky subject indeed! Definitely not a fun topic to address so your honest and open feedback was much appreciated!

Now, moving onto a much lighter and frivolous subject! I’ve finally completed a few softies - Baby Chibi Dolls and a Peg Bear. The printed details on these dolls have been blurred out as they are gifts and I don’t want to spoil the surprise :-)

I’ve used a very colourful and cute Japanese fabric and scamp sherpa fleece for this Peg Bear:

Aptly named Peg Bear Pop :-) He’s ready to jump on a plane (hence the cap!) and go off to another website for a giveaway they are hosting (more details soon!).

In progress is this little gal to be donated to a great cause:

It’s been a while since I’ve made a Happy Chibi Doll so it has been fun putting her together. I’m still trying to pick out the fabrics for her 2 outfits. She’s a little different from previous Happy Chibi Dolls as I’ve added some ears and a nose. I like the ears but am not so sure about keeping the nose - I’ll wait until she’s all done before I make the decision to keep it.

Next on the list are a few more Peg Bears, and then I need to get started on the April shop-update, which will be the last major shop-update until October :-)

I’m sitting out the “This Is” meme this week - the theme being “This is my jewellery/knick-knack box“. Such a great theme but I have to admit that I don’t actually own a jewellery or knick-knack box! In fact, I have very little jewellery (I tend to borrow from my Mum!) and wear very little daily (earring studs, watch, engagement ring and that’s it!). But I am looking forward to what all the other participants will be showing-and-telling today!

Hope you’re all having a relaxing weekend - I’m off to end the weekend on a high note and catch up with my best friend :-)

Thank you all for your lovely messages on my last post. I’m feeling normal again :-) And it definitely feels great to be feeling normal again!

A few more things have been crossed off the “to-make” Christmas gift list.

A couple of Baby Chibi Dolls:

And 12 kids and toddlers t-shirts. The screen-printing thing didn’t work out so I decided to choose a few of my favourite Little Golden Book Classic illustrations, scanned them, and printed them onto fabric sheets, which I then appliqued onto the t-shirts.

I also bought 12 different Little Golden Book Classics, so each t-shirt will be wrapped up with a book also.

Can you believe it’s just a week until Christmas??? It’s always interesting reading how others are preparing for Christmas on the other side of the world, dealing with much cooler weather and snow. We’ve been having very sunny weather here lately and the girls have been enjoying spending time outside.

We’re going to have Christmas Eve dinner at our house this year, with family and extended family coming over to join us, so major clean-up has begun starting with the front-yard. Hubby had the girls help him plant some flowers down the front path.

“Prepare-for-large-family-Christmas-Dinner” is another list all together and hope to get cracking on that list very soon too :-)