Category Archives: Memes

Creative Space – Refashioning

Posted on July 22, 2010 | 8 comments

A lovely mum at Niamh’s pre-school the other day offered me some of her son’s old shoes for Rohan. She was careful to add in the disclaimer – “that is, if you don’t mind hand-me-down stuff. I know some people do…”. I had to smile – that day in particular, Niamh was wearing op-shopped pants, and Rohan was in an op-shopped top and pants I made from an old pair of my own. I most certainly do not have a problem with hand-me-down. I can’t quite believe anyone would turn down a well-kept pair of (originally quite expensive) kid’s shoes. Would they?!

Anyway. In my creative space at the moment, I’m contemplating the future of some more Op Shop* finds. A bit of refashioning is in order for a few skirts I picked up a while back. The first has already undergone the chop:

OpSkirt01-therip

It started out looking like this:

OpSkirt01

Meh. Not really my cup of tea. But perfect for cutting up and making more doll clothes!

The other two are much kinder to the eyeballs. The brown one is a few sizes too big for Niamh – I’m not sure whether I’ll try making this one into a top or just stick with something simple and do a downsized skirt.

OpSkirt02

The pink one is going to become a light summer dress – it has shirring at the top, so I’m planning to cut it down to size and use the excess fabric for straps.

OpSkirt03

Actually, I’m not sure how any of this will happen today. Thursday is crazy with ballet-piano-swimming attendance, and later tonight I’ll be popping in to Cathy’s exhibition 🙂 But possibly I’ll carve out a little bit of time in there somewhere.

See what other creative folks are up to today, over at Kirsty’s place.

*Op Shop = Thrift Store

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Posted in Memes, Sewing

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My Creative Space – In and Out

Posted on May 13, 2010 | 8 comments

In: snapped while the kids were waiting for their porridge this morning. Creative Space/ Kitchen Table reality, don’t you love it? I admit to an occasional green-eyed-monster moment when I see other spaces which are actually dedicated Craft Spaces, but my time will come!

CreativeSpaceMay1301

I picked up a Pocket Bot kit from Jodie at the Stitches and Craft show (More on the show perhaps tomorrow.) Pieces were cut out during last night’s Masterchef. Hopefully it will be less in pieces later today.

Out: car crafting while Niamh was at her Kinderballet class and Rohan was sleeping in the back.

CreativeSpaceMay1302

Trying to make sense of the Blair-Witchiness of DPNs. I am determined to conquer this circular knitting thing and make myself a cute pair of fingerless mitts for winter. Note everpresent iPhone, complete necessity for catching up on crafty blogs whilst out and about :giggle:

Hmmmm. I seem to becoming the just-Creative-Space-nothing-else blog. Must work on that! Meanwhile – see other Creative Spaces today over at Kirsty’s.

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Posted in Memes, Sewing, Yarncraft

My Creative Space – Decisions, Decisions

Posted on April 29, 2010 | 3 comments

CreativeSpaceApril29

My creative space today is once again a study in jostling priorities. I have a bad case of can’t-decide-what-to-do-next-itis. The knitting bug is still about, after finishing off a beanie for Rohan at the weekend – I’d like to do something lacy, perhaps this (Ravelry logon necessary for that link)? The dyeing bug is biting once more as well, since a visit yesterday to my local Savers yielded all this crochet cotton, which is just crying out for a colour-makeover; and the crochet bug is also still on the loose, since Mr. Ebay kindly delivered my new crochet hooks, which will hopefully be kinder to the once-broken wrist than my regular hooks have been lately. (I’ll no doubt be satisfying the dyeing and crocheting urges in one hit, since the dyed cotton is destined for more ric-rac)

But what I really really am supposed to be doing, is sewing. The fabric beneath my goodies is leftovers from a friend’s kids’ playroom curtains. I promised weeks ago to turn it into a couple of floor cushions and a new doll-stroller cover. Easy really, I just can’t seem to get myself in the mood to do it. Perhaps the kids will be kind to me and have an early bedtime tonight?

Feel like playing along with your creative space? Head on over to Kirsty’s to leave your link and check out the other great spaces today.

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My Creative Space – Speaking of Colour

Posted on April 22, 2010 | 7 comments

HandDyedFelt
I did say I was itching to get stuck back into the dyes, didn’t I?! Funny how when I get something into my head, the priorities list has a way of rewriting itself! Last night I dyed a few pieces of 100% wool felt. It’s the first time I’ve done this – I’ve been meaning to try it for an age, but was finally spurred on when I saw a) the lovely hand-dyed felt Trudi has been creating, and b) the deliciousness out at Winterwood. Winterwood is where I picked up my base felt – it is so soft and lovely, and it thickens up a bit more in the dyeing process. The trick is getting it not to thicken up too much – I was scared to poke and prod too much once it was wet, and as a result there is a bit more mottling than I was after in two of the pieces. Now I’m a bit more familiar with the process, I’m sure the next time will be a bit easier.

Combined with a little bit of car-crafting from Monday (doesn’t this make a lovely knob-cozy for my stereo?)…
CarCrafting

…I think you can tell what I’ll be making more of today 🙂
HandDyedFelt02

Visit some more creative spaces via Kirsty.

Oh, and also Speaking of Colour, it has recently been brought to my attention (when I switched to using the family Mac, with it’s whizzbang monitor, instead of my less whizzbang laptop) that on some screens, my blog and all my photographs look a bit… crap! So if you have one of those screens, I’m really sorry. It would appear I’ve been blasting your eyeballs with oversaturated colour for the past however-long-you-have-been-reading 🙁 For what it’s worth, the background felt in the above pictures should be a lovely creamy colour, not the light yellow it appears on my screen currently (of course, the problem could lie with the whizzbang screen I suppose!)

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Posted in Dyeworks, Memes, Other Craft, Yarncraft

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My Creative Space – Bead People

Posted on April 15, 2010 | 4 comments

CreativeSpaceApr-15

Today I’m making wee folk for my wee folk. Do you want to know how? Trudi posted this great little tutorial a couple of weeks ago as her Creative Space. She also sells kits in her etsy shop, with all the little bits and pieces you need, including some pieces of her hand-dyed felt. The embroidery floss is the only thing not included – I picked these two out of my stash of my own hand-dyed floss. (I’ve been itching to get back to some dyeing, too – so little time, so much to fill it with! But who’d be happy if that was reversed?!)

Have a happy Thursday, whatever you’re making or doing. Check out some more creative spaces over at Kirsty’s.

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Posted in Memes, Other Craft, Sewing

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My Creative Space – Beauty and the Beast

Posted on April 8, 2010 | 13 comments

CreativeSpaceApr-08
In the left corner we have Beauty: crocheted ric-rac, inspired by Kate at Fox’s Lane; quick and easy tutorial found here. Fun, easy, and slightly addictive crocheting. No idea what I’ll be doing with it yet – I did threaten the bemused other half I’d trim a lampshade in it!

CreativeSpaceApr-082

And in the right, the Beast: product of an impromptu knitting lesson with Mum yesterday. The change in the seasons has started up the two-needle-itch again, and I want to be ready for something a bit trickier than my one completed knitted thing.

Ugly, isn’t it?! But hey, there’s increasing, decreasing, short rows, a wee bit of lacy stuff, heel stitch, 1×1 rib, and picking up stitches along the edge, all in that little piece of ugly!

(Edited to say I realise that sounds like I meant Ro’s cardigan is ugly. No no, I actually meant the grey thing just up there. The cardi is still gorgeous, but I bet it doesn’t fit anymore)

Also in my creative space today are some little bits of not-allowed-to-show-you and a whole lot of nothing-to-see-here-but-supposed-to-be-finished-by-Sunday. (Because a certain wee someone we know is about to be one, and don’t mention it to me or I might just cry!)

My Creative Space comes to you courtesy of Kirsty!

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Posted in Memes, Yarncraft

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My Creative Space/ Giveaway

Posted on August 13, 2009 | 8 comments

CraftMag

This week has seen a bit of reorganisation happening about the house, as we moved Rohan from cradle to cot (which makes nary a difference since he spends most of his night cuddled up in with me anyway). My craft space, aka the wardrobe, becomes somewhat inaccessible with the big cot set up in our room, so I moved some of it out to our third bedroom (aka ‘the junk room/piano room/ study’, though by the end of the year we hope to achieve a functioning third bedroom), packed some of it away for the forseeable future, and even did a spot of tidying up/ destashing. Not a fraction of what it needs though. The sleep deprivation has started to hit in full force this week, so I’m feeling a bit of a zombie.

Anyway, in the process, I found a few things that I thought I might pass on to new homes. First up is this copy of CRAFT: magazine Issue 08 – I have two copies, so one could be yours! If you’d like it, drop me a comment, and I’ll have a random-number draw thingy after 6pm on Sunday (Australian EST). Sorry – Australian residents only this time – I got a bit burned by postage on my last giveaway 😮

PS. If you only pop in on Thursdays, you’ll be wanting to know about that knitting!

PPS. More spaces over at kootoyoo!

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My Creative Space

Posted on July 9, 2009 | 13 comments

The knitting. Also Mixtape. Chucked on the passenger seat of the car in the vain hope that kids might all fall asleep, post Museum-visit, and I might sneak in a row or three. Ha!
Creative Space July 9

But look. The knitting… it grows!

I’m enjoying the knitting, actually. I’ve even knitted in public(!) and I don’t think I attracted a single strange look. The friend I was with even assumed I actually knew what I was doing(!) I’m quite pleased, and fairly convinced I’ll see it through to the end. Meanwhile, what unfinished quilt?! La la la, I can’t hear you :giggle:

Museum Kids

We did have a nice morning, despite the very busy-ness of the Museum. We met up with Marita and her gorgeous girls. Finn and Niamh were the best behaved they’ve been all holidays. Keeping them both within my sight while tending to a very wiiiide-awake-but-grumpy-and-will-not-bloody-go-to-sleep baby was a wee bit of a challenge though. I realised it was the first time I’d attempted such an outing with three children. And I’m still intact, hurrah!

Museum Babe

More spaces over at Kirsty’s place.

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Posted in Family, Memes, Other Craft, The Kids, Yarncraft

My Slightly Creative Space

Posted on July 2, 2009 | 6 comments

Kirsty is taking a break, but I’ll show a bit of my Thursday creativity anyway… since there is some to show this week 🙂
CreativeSpaceJuly2-1

Could that be? Yes, I am actually knitting something! A non-scarf something 😮 Well, I’m trying, anyway. Knitting has never really been my thing, but I think I can do this. Whether I can finish before Rohan outgrows it is another matter entirely.

By the way, any errors you think you see are definitely intentional. I’m trying to embrace imperfection, otherwise it will never be done!

Finn thought you might like to see a bit of his creative space too:
CreativeSpaceJuly2-2

Foil and toothpicks occupied them for, oh, at least 10 whole minutes. That only left the remaining many, many, many, many hours of today to fill in. Such a looong day. I’m trying to love the school holidays, I am, but it’s hard work when the weather and baby are both miserable 😥

(We did eventually get around to using those M&Ms on top of cookies; which reminds me, has anyone else done this and had the M&Ms crack in the oven? All of ours did. The recipe actually called for Smarties, I wonder if they are more crack-resistant?)

Righto. One more row before bed…

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Posted in Memes, Other Craft, Yarncraft

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Playing Tag

Posted on March 14, 2008 | 3 comments

About forever ago, four lovely bloggie girls tagged me with stuff, and I am terrible at playing tag (always was bad at sports!) and haven’t quite got around to my responses yet. So without (much) further ado, here is the mother of all meme-posts…..

Leechbabe Marita tagged me with an interesting ‘Favourite 5’ meme. I have to give you links to five of my previous posts, relating to 1) family, 2) friends, 3) myself, 4) my love, and 5)anything whatsoever. Hmmm, let’s see:

  1. Family: My babies… say ‘awwwww’.
  2. Friends: new and old ones.
  3. Me me me: Geez, pick a post at random. They’re all about me!
  4. My Love: Well now. It appears that I well and truly don’t write much about Dermot on here. That’s half intentionally, at least. How about a link to a post he wrote?
  5. Anything: I did love it when the 3-and-a-half year old learned to read. Ha!

(Going back through my archives made me realize that not only are many of my image links broken because I am too busy lazy to fix the mess made after a recent domain switchover, but also there is even more crap blogging here than I thought. Gah!)

That Rebel Rebecca tagged me with that 7 things meme that’s been thrice round the blogiverse in the last several months. Seven “weird or random” facts about me? Well hey, I’m no weirdy, so let’s just go for random:

  1. I like words with pleasing or unusual letter combinations. Like ‘-esce’ (mmmm, fluoresce, effervesce) or ‘ae’ (some of you know me as ‘chimaera’ elsewhere on the web. Encyclopaedia is another). Ooh, I like ‘subpoena’. An old party trick of mine used to be the ability to spell ‘subpoena’ whilst inebriated. (Ok, so I am a weirdy. And very very sad).
  2. Once upon a time, I briefly had a black belt in Karate. Actually, Zen Do Kai, which is not technically Karate, but an ‘open martial art’. I say briefly, because not long after obtaining said black belt, I moved from my home town to Melbourne to go to uni, and discovered boys and booze. And that, as they say, was that. (I did actually look for a new club but wasn’t really happy with the local club, or my after-dark transport options for getting to- and fro-. Going down the pub was far more appealing)
  3. My Honours degree was in Pharmacology. My thesis concerned Phenylketonuria (which I probably cannot spell whilst inebriated), and involved the dissection and sectioning of a lot of mouse brains. Mouse brains are really really cute.
  4. The only non-Australian country to which I have ever travelled is China. Unless you count Tasmania (hint: you don’t count Tasmania).
  5. I have a tattoo above my right ankle. I am convinced that you can tell the approximate age of a woman by the tattoo she has. Tattoos run in fads – roses, dolphins, butterflies, Chinese symbols. I have a dolphin. Damn I wish I had been more original!
  6. Seven years ago I almost qualified as a massage therapist. I completed the entire course with the (notable) exception of the final exam. Painful ganglia in my wrists and some nasty personal-life stuff got in the way, and I never went back.
  7. I edited my first Wikipedia page recently. It gave me a 15 second thrill of excitement… until some other user undid my edit! Shortly afterwards my edit was restored and an apology was forthcoming. I’m not telling you what I edited though, it’s a little creepy.

Aaaand, finally, both Missy and Christine presented me with ‘You Make My Day’ awards. Aw shucks. Thanks girls 🙂 And in passing it on, here are ten bloggers who make my day…

Soulemama
Loobylu (hooray, Claire’s back 🙂 )
Pip aka MeetmeatMikes
Wee Wonderfuls
Finslippy cracks me up!
Heather Bailey
Montessori by Hand
Sooz
Dietgirl
and lucky last… and best of all
all of my stitchy friends. You know I can’t choose between you, you all make my day! Awards all round, and chocolate eggs too 🙂

Now… another random fact: I’m finally finishing this up at (OMG!) 3.08am (the timestamp is out b/c of Daylight Savings Time). I’ve been having a few lie-awake-til-the-wee-hours nights lately, and I figured getting up and doing something productive some mindless blogging was a better plan. Hopefully now I can shut my brain up and get some sleep – gotta go be a Canteen Mum tomorrow 🙂

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Posted in Memes

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