garden lust

Today I love Lynn-Anne's beautiful garden (photos from Flickr, found via Apartment Therapy).

I just got the Alice in Wonderland dvd (and have watched it several times in the last week!), so if this were my garden I'd be impatiently waiting for the Mad Hatter & the March Hare so arrive so we could take tea.

I adore the bright yellow / duck egg blue combination!

rainclouds afloat

Rain Drops coinpurse available in the Pocket Carnival shop!

It's almost starting to feel like Winter... again! The weather has been a bit inconsistent, I felt like Winter was coming a few weeks back but then it got warm again.

The only person who's unfailingly happy about the weather is my little gnome. He guards the clothes line, and this is what he can see...

Grey skies! The plum tree seems to have started dropping its leaves quite suddenly about a week ago, it's almost like a bit of a protest. 'You want Autumn? I'll give you Autumn! Hah!'

It is nice to walk around in the garden now, it's all scrunchy sounding! And the worms are enjoying the leafy additions to their compost bin... mmm.

Rain Drops Clutch Purse available in the Pocket Carnival shop!

I love love love this purse. It's a combo of gorgeous fabric from Spin Spin, and my own raincloud fabric. I made a few clutches with Spin Spin fabric last year, but I do love this combination of fabrics. It pleases me!

I think it works for me because the vibrant tomato red is printed onto a hemp/organic cotton fabric, which is a more creamy natural white. The rainclouds fabric on the flap is also an organic cotton (100% cotton), so it seems to go! I took one of these clutches out last night and it was so nice to have my cards easily accessible in the flap on the front... nice!

melbourne design market tomorrow!

Such a frantic time of year! I've been very busy in my little business, but a bit quiet on the blog!

I've been sewing up some pretty thinks for the Melbourne Design Market tomorrow - pretty purses & clutches made of Ink & Spindle fabrics, and vintage & new cottons. Yay!

Ink & Spindle are at the market selling their beautiful fabrics and homewares, and a few crafty people (Shannon, Matt & myself) will be selling gorgeous things made with Ink & Spindle fabrics.

So, if you're in Melbourne tomorrow, come say hi!

Melbourne Design Market
10am - 5pm
at the Ink & Spindle stall
Federation Square Carpark,
Flinders Street
Melbourne CBD

Hooray for excellent almost-ready plums on my little plum tree (birds not welcome!)

Such a frantic time of year! I've been very busy in my little business, but a bit quiet on the blog! I was happy to get a copy of Homespun, which is a super sweet magazine full of crafty projects & news - this issue they had a little Toadstool feature and included one of my prints - thanks Homespun!!!

You can get your own copy here.

blogtoberfest day 10

So, I'm not sure about you all, but Blogtoberfest is proving harder than I thought. Sure, a blog post every day is okay, but keeping it interesting? Especially when honestly all I've been doing much of this past week is sewing. Today I packed it in and gardened instead. We have a scrotty looking front courtyard area where our recently deceased lemon tree used to be - today I weeded and weeded and discovered an old glass pill jar, half a beer bottle, some pieces of roof tile, various plastic toys, and our neighbours water pipe (thankfully in not a disastrous manner). We then planted a couple of native plants... hopefully they live happier lives than our lemon tree pal.

I took 'before' photos, and will show 'afters' when the plants are looking happier!

We also planted tomato & eggplant... hooray! You can see the tomato in amongst my magic mushrooms. I love home grown tomatoes so much. Exciting. Also, so excited that there are two consecutive warm days this weekend. Starting to feel like Spring.

it's starting to feel like spring!

The plum tree in my backyard has lots of flower buds on it... they're all just starting to flower. Hopefully this means we'll get lots of yummy plums this year!

Cups of tea & chocolate.

And, badges are not so related to spring, but I've listed some on Etsy! I'm pretty happy with my packaging, it's made of 100% post consumer recycled card, and fabric scraps that were too small to make into anything, but perfect for this!

violets

I love violets. One of my favourite things about Winter is that violets start to grow in my garden... yum. They're very hard to find in flower shops and of course they don't smell anything like the violets you pick straight from your garden.

works in progress

Trying new things always inspires me to sew more, if that makes sense. However sometimes it takes a few shots to get it right. This is attempt #1 at a pleated clutch, very of the moment.

You can see how the pleats aren't quite distinct enough? I do love the color combination (it's lined with bright red) and I like the little bow. I'm working on a couple more at the moment though, they are more pleated, possible too much so? I will post those pics too. At least now you all know I do all my own designs...

Today I went to the St Kilda Farmers Market, at the Peanut Farm Reserve. I got lots of yummy things, fresh organic veggies, lovely pizza bases, had a yummy Mexican Hot Chocolate... and just as I was leaving I spotted these gerberas... the cute bunches were the same price as the growing plants, so I got too. I got an orange one for my mum, and I get to keep this lovely pink one. It's got heaps of little buds so I'm looking forward to pink gerbera goodness. I don't think the gerbera seller has been there before, but I hope he comes again.

warm thursdays

I've decided it's quite fun being a designer (that's what I've started calling myself). Example 1 - I made a lovely coinpurse, and it wasn't quite perfect, so I got to keep it! Example 2 - I was going to an art gallery opening last Friday, and I didn't have the perfect bag, so I made it for myself! I ran out of time to add a button, forgot to take an umbrella and got SO wet, but here are photos of the clutch and the coinpurse.

Also, my new little strawberry patch looked so cute in the sun today (finally, and did you hear it's meant to be 21 degrees in Melb on Monday?) that I just had to take a photo.

Happy Thursday!

painting & gardening

I've been painting a lot lately, and yesterday I did the biggest gardening effort of the year! We have a huge weed patch with Jasmine and lots of other creeping goodies like that, and I've pulled so much out! I wish I'd taken a before photo so I could feel good about how much I've done.

I also planted Sage and Chives (garlic!) and Parsley seedlings that have been growing like mad in my garden. I was speaking to a friend about Sage, she said she's been cooking heaps with it lately and has been having very vivid dreams. (This may have inspired my purchase a little...) I also like the idea of cooking with Sage, it feels so old-worldish, like living in a little cottage on the moors in Scotland or something.

Apart from this, as I said, I have been painting a lot which is fun!!! I am painting chickens right now, as you do.

Ps... I was going to call this post 'Sage & Chickens' but I thought it sounded like a recipe and I'm too vegetarian to allow that.

bags of joy

hello again,

i bought so much fabric yesterday to make into bags. i was at the material store looking around, and i thought to myself 'i'll just look in the $2 bin and see what there is'. and there was such good stuff! normally it's all polyester offcuts and sequins and stuff, but there was denim and plaid and stripes in nice thick cotton for bags.

so soon there will be bags in my store for all, and they will be lovely. with bears and balloons and giraffes and rabbits and dachshunds on them. (hopefully).

here is one i made (and put in my store) earlier. little birds! in a forest. i've made others but this one grows on me the more i have it. it's lovely and denim and felt birds and iron on fabric which i love love love and even made me buy an iron.

anyway, hope you are all having a lovely sunny day. it's very sunny here, almost good enough for basil planting take 2. every year i buy basil on the first warm day, and it gets eaten by snails the next day which is invariably cold, and because of which if the snails didn't eat it the frost would've got it. then take 2 happens about a fortnight later, usually maybe 1 plant survives? keep you posted :)