getting organised


Recently I've seen a lot of Etsy sellers talking about getting their shops ready for the Holiday Season and so I decided that I should follow their good example. Living in the Northern Hemisphere the Holiday Season means cold weather and dreams of a White Christmas, so it seems slightly strange to be making Christmas themed amigurumi while it's 40 degrees outside (that's 104 degrees for any American readers!). As you can see my photographic assistant also thinks it's pretty bizarre!

Sock Monkeys :)


Last night we had a bit of fun making sock monkeys! We used the tutorial by Kristine Howe featured on craftbits.com.

Across the World...


Yesterday I posted this parcel. It has 3 dolls in it and they are destined for Schmancy in Seattle to appear at PlushYou Seattle 2010. I'm always a little bit scared when I post things to far away places in case they get lost on the way, but so far that hasn't happened. One parcel I sent to the states did take 6 weeks which is why I've sent this one in plenty of time. I really hope they arrive safely as I'm pretty excited about the opportunity to have my amigurumis at PlushYou!
PlushYou LA opens this evening at Munky King. If you're in the area go and have a look. There's some amazing stuff to be seen.

Happy Birthday Dad!


Today is my Dad's birthday :) My Mum and Dad love walking, they go somewhere pretty much every week and they like walking holidays too. My Mum asked me to make an amigurumi caricature of my Dad with his walking gear as a present for his birthday - and here he is! I'm pretty happy with how he turned out - although I have to say my Dad's hair isn't quite as crazy as this! If you would like a custom caricature amigurumi of yourself or of someone you know feel free to contact me here or through my etsy shop.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD xxx I love you lots :)

How I made this bag and other things...



I haven't posted a blog for 10 days - I think that's the longest time since I started blogging. Why? I guess life has been busy! We're in the last 2 weeks of our summer holiday programme at Klub Novi Most and every day is busy working with young people, preparing activities etc. And as well as all that we've been to camp for 2 days, we've had a visitor from the UK for 2 weeks and we've been house hunting in Jajce.

The house hunting is now over as yesterday we found a really lovely place :) our visitor from the UK is gone and there's no more camp so maybe the pace of life will slow down a bit now.

This bag is something that I made as an example for a sewing night we had at Klub Novi Most on Friday. We had 7 girls come and each of them made a bag similar to this one. It's a very simple reversible bag:
  • For the pattern I drew round a piece of A3 paper, folded the fabric in half and cut it about 1cm away from the lines so the fabric is as big as 2 sheets of A3 paper.
  • Then I ironed the fold and using a sewing machine I sewed up the 2 sides along the lines I had drawn.
  • I did this again with another fabric.
  • Then put one inside the other and sewed the tops together. To do this you take the 2 bag parts you have made, turn one the right way out and leave the other inside out. Then put the inside out part inside the part that is the right way out. then fold in the tops of both parts, pin them together so they match and sew.
  • For the strap I just cut a piece of fabric as long as I wanted it, folded it in half and sewed along the side. Then I turned it inside out and sewed it to the bag.

Jamie and Julie the Cactus



This is Jamie and her best friend Julie the Cactus. Together they run an exotic plants shop in London. They travel round the world twice a year - once in January and once in July, in search of new plants to sell in their shop. Having a shop in London is never boring as there are always plenty of interesting customers - even the odd celebrity! available in my etsy shop now!