Happy Australia Day

Had to share this very Aussie moment -
I like to boast about the things that grow and live in our garden - it is really very small, an inner-city backyard but hubby dear has created a sort of micro rain-forest. Today there were 2 really tiny (freshly hatched?) skinks (Cryptoblepharus ? ) hanging about the back door where I'd left my thongs. They are very common lizards but we don't often see such tiny ones.

He didn't seem to mind my getting really close with my rather basic camera - look at those lovely toes! but eventually decided he'd had enough ... Bye now

Breakfast at Tiffany's - a Blythe tribute

My daughter calls the phenomenon "compulsory procrastination" - when you are really really busy but you spend valuable time doing something completely NOT on your To Do list. e.g. when the person up a ladder cleaning the leaves out of their gutter should really be working on their PHD and the only time you feel like cleaning the refrigerator is when you've a project or an essay overdue ...

So when my ToDo list is completely out of control what do I spend time doing? A tribute to That dress from "Breakfast at Tiffany's". My new Blythe doll is called Audrey - she doesn't like the idea of a cigarette holder and tells me that it is actually a magic wand. I'm not telling her that it is really a broken paint-brush!

Though I have a great many 'issues' with the story-line of B@T's, Audrey Hepburn looked completely gorgeous in those Givenchy dresses. I had fun getting the cut-away back looking similar - though it created problems with fastening - snap-studs are quite bulky on the tiny scale of dolly dresses. Audrey Hepburn's pearls etc were a separate necklace - for convenience I've sewn Audrey's to the dress.

Busy!

I've been really busy since Christmas - while all you guys where having a nice holiday I've been busy stitching away - stitch stitch stitch - knit knit knit ... ok ok the world's tiniest violin working overtime :-)

Loads of knitting and sewing - paid jobs. The knitting is for 2 stage productions and the sewing is for my private clients. Until everything is finished - on stage & on my lovely clients I can't really show off but I thought I'd post some tantalising teasers!

These knits are finished - some are deliberately tatty & "distressed" because the characters are poor people




These are still on the needles -

That "stitch register" in the last item was my grandmother's :-) it is holding stitches which will be added to and worked as a giant Icord to form a pleat ... I'm such a tease!

This sewing is finished - lovely fine cotton fabrics


but this is still in progress - beautiful teal silk with contrast bits in burgundy. The white part is the under bodice (built like a corset) the silk is all stitched to it - mostly hand stitched I might add !

Here's Audrey

I've been hankering for a Blythe doll I could call Audrey - for Audrey Hepburn of course - and my Lillian (who is named for Lillian Gish - another movie star famous for having gorgeous large eyes) has been asking for a friend in Sydney. Lillian has friends in Melbourne and she visits them quite often but Lillian gets sad and lonely when she has to leave.

Then I saw Takara's "Simply Chocolate" ... and it was Christmas time and our exchange rate has been quite wonderful ... and ... well Audrey arrived this morning - she is really pretty and quite shy. Lillian has gone all protective :-) and is introducing Audrey to the other crittersNow I must find some time to make Audrey some clothes.

Cicada Metamorphosis

Back in early December we had about half a dozen cicadas emerge from the soil of our tiny inner-city back garden, they left their old skins all over the place. One did its metamorphosis just by the back door and I got to take lots of photos. A Greengrocer or Cyclochila australasiae - one of the loudest insects in the world they spend 7yrs underground eating the roots of plants (which plants in my garden had all those grubs been munching on?) before they emerge and metamorphose as gorgeous big loud bugs that fly about, mate, reproduce and then die after only 6 weeks ! As I didn't get to blog all this until now - 4 wks later - this cicada should be on his/her old age pension by now.

Here is the metamorphosis:
10.35 : 07 am when I first saw this amazing thing happening he was hanging almost completely upside down10.35 : 50 am
10.37 05 am a side view 10.41 07 am wings are expanding - he was swinging his body slowly up & down, pulsing the wings and making wild little leg kicks
10.44 00 am wings are growing
10.44 44 am you can see those side flanges either side of the thorax - makes him look like a frog with wings
10.46 09 what hard work metamorphosis is - 10.47 03 looking like a little dragon now10.47 32 - got a firm grip on his old shell now and struggling to free his abdomen ... almost out
10.48 07 Done It - completely out of his shell. No more of that dirty old grub existence now!
10.48 18 am straightened abdomen
10.49 21 am - wings are getting stronger looking but still a bit crinkly. He is still doing those crazy side kicks with the hind legs which are getting greener and more muscular
10.54 59 - and look at those wings now
11. 03 00 am - a side view11.03 53 am and the last photo I managed to take. Camera battery was completely flat by then. But Cicada basically sat and rested for about 40 minutes and the next time I looked he was gone.

Hand Dyed, Hand Spun Yarniness

Had one of those "D'Oh" moments this morning ... summer here but in the Northern Hemi it's mid-winter and I have some hand-spun yarns sitting about - most of my sales on my Etsy shops have been to folks in the US - perhaps they'd like some of these yarns which were inspired by Spring and Summer flowers. Guess they might like of our spare Australian sunshine :-) so I got busy listing yarn on my Etsy knitting shop.

This one was inspired by Frangipani flowers:


















Blossoming fruit trees here:
Also listed some of the gum-blossom inspired yarn which I posted about previously.

Happy New Year

Here's to a wonderful, fabulous 2011 - with Best Wishes from all us Aussie Critters