Playing with Food

Another current crafting obsession has been making (and buying) felt play-food for my grandson ... he loves cooking.

I bought some great pieces from a fellow Etsyian FeltFoodCreations - a wonderful Banana and this fantastic Breakfast Set ...
just love those eggs!



I've also been making some myself - and I certainly appreciate how much time-consuming hand-sewing goes into this play-food !!
I bought some really good patterns from another Etsyian Umecrafts ...

Here are some vegies:




and some fruit - very proud of the strawberries:
Then I got really enthusiastic and thought sandwiches would be fun to play with ... here is the bread, wholemeal of course


Took ages to make as I hand embroidered all the 'grains' - there is a kitchen sponge (new & unused) inside the slices. I've also made the butter, some peanut paste (crunchy), nutella and vegemite ... some of those are in satin fabric as I thought they needed to be shiny. Am currently making some strawberry jam - with felt lumps :-) No patterns - they are just triangles with wobbly edges.

Bright fun knitting from the depths of winter

Well it looks like spring is just around the corner with all the flowers starting to appear but we had some grey and gloomy weeks this winter - and one of my favourite tricks for an instant cheering up, is to dive into my yarn stash, find some gorgeous strong colours and knit ... the other tricks all involve calories !


This bright and exotic scarf is for sale on one of my Etsy shops:

But this is mine all mine - an adaptation of Twinkle's "Best Friend Cardigan" in some gorgeous yarn from Hawthorne Cottage. I just adore the colours ...
all of them!

Hyperbolic!

One of my current crafting obsessions is crocheting bits of Hyperbolic Coral. Even though I'm not much of a crochet-er.

The Sydney Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef will be on display at the Powerhouse Museum in August and lots of people are busy making bits of marine life in yarn, bits of plastic, video tape etc. Visit sydneyreef@blogspot.com for more info.

There is a workshop this Sunday at the Powerhouse from 3pm - I'm looking forward to it :-)


These are my favourites so far - a group of "sea squirts" from the "recycled sari silk" yarn

I've been interstate - visiting grandchildren

Have had a lovely dose of grandmothering - they are great kids ...aahhhh just wish we all lived in the same city.

Well, much of my recent crafting has been knitting for the little ones - this wonderful vintage pattern, early 1950s I think, very warm with the double breasted front and stylish with the collar and mini-cables.

Made it in lovely soft 'Alpaca Rich' a new yarn from Bendigo Woolen Mills.

In the same yarn, a set for granddaughter - my own patterns all with Hearts & Flowers in Fair-Isle ... because she makes me go 'all Hearts & Flowers' :-)

I'd finished the jacket and had started planning the pattern for the helmet when my daughter rang and asked if I could knit some 80's style leg-warmers; of course said I - after I'd stopped laughing ....

Remember the movie "Fame" ? here we are doing some stretching -

Here is the helmet with hearts on the ear-flaps :-)

Domestic Goddess Status

My daughter bakes her own bread so she definitely qualifies as a Domestic Goddess - well baking bread just ain't my thing but I think I have finally achieved Domestic Goddess-ness because ... I've successfully darned a sock.
What a thing of beauty! the sock is hand-knitted too, from Regia self-patterning sock yarn and it is about 6yrs old, worn at least once a week, with boots ... a wonderful yarn ! Regia has been taken over by Patons - I hope the quality is still the same.

I bought a wooden darning mushroom years ago and was waiting for the opportunity to darn ... finally the heel of one in this pair went to holes and the 2nd was very thin and about to go ... darning both socks only took about 1.5hrs ... needle weaving in and out over the mushroom while feeling exceptionally Domestic Goddess-like :-)

I'm Back

I've been without Internet connection at home for almost 5 weeks ... very frustrating and very difficult to maintain my Etsy and ArtFire shops from Internet cafes ...

Despite not being able to do more than the bare minimum, I've had some sales on the Etsy shops YEA!

Well, I am back and I've lots of newly crafted things to show you.