1. The drawers are actually finished! Yay... Joe spent an entire day last weekend touching up the edges of all the animals and attaching the handles. I will post a photo when it's where it's supposed to be.
2. The flat is so clean that I almost feel awkward. All the fabric is away. We had a house inspection this afternoon.
3. I did the Glebe Street Fair on Sunday, and I think it worked as an antidote for all markets for me, possibly forever. I forgot how rude people can be, don't get me wrong there were some really nice people too, but the 'I could do that' crowd was out in force.
My highlight was hanging out with some people I hadn't seen in a long time, one being Riyo, who spontaneously made me this blinky stamp- a type of portrait, she sat and drew a picture of her fave blinky and whipped this up and presented it to me!
She also gave me some of that great Japanese rubber she uses to carve her stamps from, my mind boggles at all the possibilities, but she's had a lot of practice, and I'm pretty sure my first attempt won't be nearly as impressive as her stuff.
4. Needless to say, I have some extra dolls left over from the weekend, and I will be popping them in my online shop sometime soon- this time I'm using Etsy, the Aus dollar is practically the same anyway.
5. I'm selling the Dew Drop Girl and Meekoo patterns up until Christmas- I've gotten a million emails about them in the last little while, so this is the link to my etsy shop. Please don't make them and sell them though, I've noticed a bit of that going on lately.
6. I've been making some more things for the baby, including some drawings for her walls, and I'm planning on making up some screen prints too. This is what I have so far:
B.
This last week has been much, much better than the week before... I actually got some stuff done, including a nice big batch of screen-printed Anne-Sophie dolls which I took up to the Monsterthreads Shop in Newtown, and have just listed in my online shop. I also managed some dew drops, some meekoos-- the first few in a very long time! and of course some blinkies. And the new Monsterthreads Shop in Melbourne is opening as we speak, it's in Collins Street, and they have some of my pandas, alpacas, bunnies, sheep and a large batch of blinkies as well.
I was also lucky enough to be mentioned in the current edition of Inside Out Magazine, well, Anne-Sophie was mentioned, and pictured, and amongst the likes of some other very cute cushion dolls such as kitty by Lisa Max, and Louise by Thomaspaul. Woo hoo for me, I mean for Anne-Sophie!
B.
I've been having lots of fun with scraps the last week. Making little lambs means lots of little tiny pieces of chenille lying around, and they work wonderfully on red foxes. And all the tincy little pieces of blanket and fur make little bunnies and bears... my scrap piles are dwindling again.
And Japanese fabric Winter Dew Drop Girls, still my favourite to make!
B.
I've been sewing ALL week this week, from Monday morning right up to 5:13 this evening, and it's been full on. I thought that I was going to do both Glebe and Bondi Markets this weekend, but with the completely miserable Sydney weather I've decided to skip Glebe and leave Bondi to be decided sometime tomorrow. So now I have much more stock than I expected to have, and copious amounts of sewing always leads to new ideas, to sketching and to new little critters coming into existence.
I have been on the quest for the perfect panda for soooo long! And finally I'm happy with one. I feel like I've made about a million different types, but they just didn't pass the cuteness test. Some of you may remember the enormous panda I made last year (in the background), when I was busy making lots of Spring Lambs last September, and now I present Little Panda, who is a version of my Little Lamb who was new (and very popular) at Finders Keepers, so my brain definitely links pandas and lambs somehow... well maybe it has more to do with the chenille... ?
And Joe gave me the best idea this morning too, alpacas! And I have some lovely soft and fluffy teddy bear fabric that will work perfectly... And now I have tomorrow to do nothing more than sew, sew, sew!
B.
EDIT: These little critters along with many other Blinking Flights friends, including Dew Drop Girls, Blinkies, Egg Dolls, Meekoos, and the even more can now be found at the Monsterthreads Shop in Paddington. I went there yesterday, and it's very nice, I suggest you check out the fabulous hat wearing bear they have painted behind the counter-- too cute!
Well, I'm sure kids are great for lots of reasons, but seeing how I don't have any, this is my rationale behind their being great:
I've had some fabric printed up at Spoonflower from one of my doll drawings, and I've been selling a combo of the fabric panels and simple cushiony-type-dolls made with the print, and they haven't been very popular with adults, who can see over the table, I've had them leaning up against stuff, sort of towards the back... and kids couldn't really get a glimpse.
At Finders Keepers however I had to put them towards the front just because I had a smaller space than normal, and I noticed a strange phenomenon where girls between the age of about 3 and 5 NEEDED them, liked crying, pointing NEEDED them, and I always find situations like this really awkward because I want to sell stuff to people, but I really don't want to bully parents into buying stuff for a million different reasons, and so this kept happening over and over again.
The tantrums weren't great, in fact I'm inclined to say that tantrums are a very strong reason for children not being wonderful, but I'm nearly 30 and I chuck tantrums too from time to time... the greatness came from their ability to consistently understand my illustrations... this happened with my little doll earrings too. I kept hearing parents and grandparents query what things were with Claire up there, and with the earrings, and the little girls would simply explain, 'it's a doll', and many other fascinating things, like when I heard one woman say but what's the red on her face for, and a little girl matter-of-factly explained 'she has rosy cheeks'. It was amazing too see and hear! I'm not sure if it's because kids watch so many cartoons or look at picture books, or if their little minds just haven't been bent out of shape yet like all us adults, but I'm sure many people have written papers about such things, I think maybe it's because they still draw and colour in and are still very connected with these types of representations. I noticed it happened a couple of times at Bondi on Sunday too, which is probably why its still floating around in my mind.
So yay for kids!
B.
It seems to have been a whole entire week since I wrote anything to you. I've been a very busy person this last week, having recently decided to embrace my whole personality as opposed to continually fighting all my short comings, I figured that the best thing to do was to leave all the sewing for Finders Keepers to the last minute. You see, I would have left all the sewing to the last minute anyhow, but I would have wasted an additional 2 weeks pretending (to myself and everyone around me) that I was doing other things for Finders Keepers, that is, a bunch of completely unnecessary stuff in the name of stall presentation, in designing something new without enough time to actually make enough of the new design to sell, and so on and so forth. I need a deadline to make things apparent in my mind, and now I have one! One week today, I will have to be completely finished all the sewing, the stuffing, the counting, the packing, the cleaning of the stall stuff, and the name tags too... and its starting to look like I will be, and like practically everything will be brand spanking new, and never seen before by anyone except me... and Joe who complained 'I can't have an opinion on every single one' when I took the time last night to show him 30 new blinkies, 10 new drop girls, and 4 new meekoos. He's right, but they take so darn long to make that I have an opinion on each and every one of them.
So, if in Sydney, you MUST come to the market. Below are the details, and if you like my stuff, I guarantee that you will love all the fabulous stuff there, it only happens 2 times a year and its definitely worth the effort! Check the designer profiles here, and I will post some more details about how to get there and my prices during the next week.
Happy Thursday! Almost the weekend for you folks out there in working-away-from-home-land!
B.
Well actually Joe called them Egg Dolls because of their shape, nothing to do with Easter or chocolate or chickens or anything else to do with eggs, and since I really don't like thinking up new doll names, I think this one might just stick. I think they are pretty cute, and I'm making them all with red heads and blue hair for now-- I find that when I'm making something new, narrowing my colour palette really helps me a lot! And it seems I'm completely over sewing mouths... they are so last season... or something like that...
And speaking of seasons, it's getting to that time of year when snuggling and sleeping on fabric is far more fashionable than it has been in a long time...
B.
Sometimes I make dolls that I love a little bit more than the rest, I know I'm not supposed to, but it just happens, seeing how I already have 2 dew drop girls, 4 blinkies, and a Russian doll... and Joe has a special bug named Sylvie that he loves, and a meekoo named Sash, keeping more of them could result in us living with far more dolls than would be socially acceptable... so even though I loved her, I put little Mitsy out on display yesterday, and I took some photos just in case someone else loved her too... I went to buy some coffee mid-morning, and came back to the stall only to notice a little bit of a gap in the display, and a distinct lack of red...
Joe said that the lady who bought Mitsy loved her, and didn't even consider any of the other dolls, apparently she was very nice and didn't even need a bag, she was happy to just hold her new little friend.
I just hope Mitsy knows, I love her, where ever she is now...
B.
And ink-jet printers are great! You can download this little letter set here, it'll be in the sidebar under 'freebies' from now on. The size is A4, but if your printer doesn't have that setting, just set to US letter, and it'll scale it down ever so slightly to match your paper.
Enjoy, and thank you for all your lovely comments and emails all the time! I read them all!
B.
If I sit here sewing non-stop, I go a little bonkers. My shoulders start hurting, my right foot gets sick of the pedal, and my fingers are already so tough, I can stick a needle into one, and feel nothing. Drawing keeps me entertained when sewing is too much... but what to do with all these little doodles...
I've been wanting to make some laminated jewellery for a while now. I first saw some at Mathilda's back in November, and have since noticed it popping up all over the place. It's all pretty straightforward, and so I made some:
They'll all have names and stories too!
B.
Joe found this great bag online somewhere, he doesn't know where it came from, and neither do I, but I want it, it is perfect! I'm reading Persuasion at the moment though, and Captain Wentworth is proving quite the heartthrob... Jane certainly likes a man with some attitude!
In other news, today I replenished depleted stock at Monster Threads in Newtown-- new Dew Drop Girls & Blinkies, which I didn't have time to photograph-- but I assure you they are cute-- one is made from the Seoul subsystem fabric I bought recently, and one is made from a pretty doily, completely inspired by the coin purse I bought from Gretel a little while back.
And I managed to find some small vials which will be perfect for making little rattles-- I've been on the look out for-EVER! Apparently they are very popular and hard to get a hold of... and in the process I managed to get some 'squeakers', so look out parents, I'll be contributing to the noisy toy industry sometime soon-- they sound like ducks, and I think after visiting Kinokunya this afternoon, and looking at all those Japanese craft books, I'm filled with an endless array of ideas!
And (!), I returned home to find a lovely package in my mail box. I won some fabric from Sheridan last week in her 3 year blog anniversary giveaway-- I've been on the look out for this sausage dog fabric for a very, very long time!! And she kindly included some utterly beautiful Tina Givens fabric as well, which I adore!
B.
I finally updated my online shop... I'm using the Big Cartel one this time, the patterns are still available on Etsy, but after looking at who buys what and realising that most of my finished toy buyers are Australian (90%+), it seemed crazy not to use this other shop where I can list things in Aus dollars, where I can have multiple quantities of the one item without additional fees, and where people don't have to become a member in order to use it, but can still use paypal if they like. I also feel as if I am drowning in the ever-expanding sea that is Etsy!
And for overseas buyers, such as Americans, Canadians and Europeans, your dollars are generally worth more than mine, so you'll receive a nice suprise at the checkout as opposed to the unpleasant increase in price when I transfer the US price to the Aus price... although things are about as good as they get at the moment, the US dollar buys about Australian 90c.
And the little Anne-Sophie print that people seem to love so much is available at $5 per panel! :) I only have 10, and 5 would make a very sweet row of bunting... in fact I'm going to print some more for my market stall today!
Happy Sunday,
B.
I've been making some custom dolls over the last few weeks, and decided that it might be a good idea to have a fabrics set on my flickr page so people know what I have. I'm not sure how it will work in terms of when I run out, but it will provide a good place for inspiration and ideas, I will try and update it each week. The little doll here is named Ursula, and she is made from a machine embroidered pillow case I picked up at the op shop recently... I have a bunch of pretty things like this here at the moment too & they work really well with modern fabrics.
----------------------------------------------
My market highlight from this weekend was when a very serious girl, about eight years old, took one of my cards and asked if I was at the markets often. She told me that she loved my dolls and fabrics and that she was going to save up. Very sweet and made me smile.
I can't believe it's Autumn already... jeepers!
B.
I just popped the Russian Doll sewing pattern over there (------------->) in the sidebar. Please feel free to comment, email, ask questions, add suggestions, I'd love to hear them. You can also pop your creations in the Blinking Flights Flickr Group.
Happy Sewing!
B.
I've been taking things pretty easy production wise around here. I'm taking the motto 'slowly, slowly', and it's turning up good results, I'm liking what I'm making. I'm spending less time feeling resentful whilst sewing something I don't so much like-- not that it happened often, but it did happen. This new mindset is a good one to be in... and these are the things that have come into being this week:
I'm yet to sell a brown skinned doll, but I like them, so I'm sticking at it.
I started making these little scarf wearing gals just before Christmas-- an accident, I really messed up the hair and the headband, and in an attempt to salvage certain coloured felts, I stumbled across this do... they last about 4 seconds on the table before someone buys them!
And this special matroshka fabric which I bought from The Netherlands has been sitting around for months, I cut out a dew drop doll dress as soon as it arrived, but it wouldn't work with ANYTHING, that is until Riyo generously donated all this lovely teddy bear fabric to my stash, and voila!
But these three girls won't be at Glebe tomorrow, they have headed up to the Notebook offices to have a photoshoot, as they will be featured in the craft section of the April edition-- very exciting for me, and the blinky and dew drop girl pattern will be published here too!
These guys will be there tomorrow, despite the crazy heat that is predicted! Jeepers-- 39 and windy, I'm not sure if I'll stick after noon, but I'll be there in the morning for sure.
I've gone a little crazy with the message blinkies- 'say I'm only bee in your bonnet' is going to be a hard one to hand over to someone else.
She's half bug, half doll... something new for me. I will be so sad when that pink floral pillow case runs out...
Hope you all have a great weekend, and if you're in Sydney too, I hope the heat isn't too mean!
B.
I've been busy...
A big Dew Drop Girl and a little Dew Drop Girl...
A ballerina and a Swiss Miss...
Lots of this...
Checking my new PDF pattern pieces out...
Lots of blinkies for Glebe tomorrow...
More pattern checking was required...
Lace up ballerina legs and a tutu...
Lots of vintage fabrics...
And lots of stuffing this afternoon!
YES the PDF pattern is finished... I will pop it up on Etsy once I have had a chance to photograph the dolls I made from it... (one of each outfit!), I'm aiming for Monday afternoon.
Good Night and Happy Weekend! And please know that if you're heading to Glebe tomorrow for a blinky, most don't make it past lunch time-- and I can only make so many!
B.
