elsa and emery

Elsa and Emery are patient. They have sat quietly together waiting to be finished. They've waited whilst we went away on a little holiday, whilst a little rednut ventured off to school for the first time and watched all the tired tears and tantrums that resulted. They've waited whilst we had in-laws visit and whilst I changed, washed and tried to dry a gazillion nappies and little peoples clothing.



They've waited whilst I've breastfeed children whilst surfing blogs (what better time to waste on the net than when a child is attached to you), whilst readers are read and homework done. They've waited whilst sunny days gave way to bone chilling winds and heavy rain.



They've waited, with increasing excitement as little aprons were made, knowing their time must be coming soon. And then they waited as each was lovingly stuffed, cuddled and popped up away from little hands. Then we all waited for the sun.....finally we caught a ray, snapped some piccies and here we are.



Now Elsa and Emery are waiting for tomorrow night at 8.30pm (sa time) to be listed on made it. Hopefully they won't have to wait for too long to meet a new friend.

my creative space

I was going to have a bit of a whinge about how I'm getting zilch achieved at the moment but who wants to hear about that! and well to be honest it's not doing much for my mojo whining about it. So instead I'm going to tell you what I want to get done.

Well firstly, I'd really like to sew this jelly roll up into a lovely quilt. Such a shame it has become sage's #2 favourite thing to do. #1 fav thing of course involves boobies, but #2 is definitely sticking little owies into "her" jelly roll.



I would also really like to start sewing some sweet little faces on this pile of long legged polly and ollie dolly's. Look there's even a little pixie amongst the pile waiting for some arms and legs to be attached. My very fav part of making a softie is sewing their faces on. That and choosing the fabric of course. They're a very patient bunch this lot.



With all the chilly weather I also keep looking at my wolly stashes. Be it either the lovely wool blends waiting to be made into little jackets, here's hoping I'll get them done this winter or it will never happen! And then there's the absolute plethora of beautiful, beautiful crochet rugs i keep coming across like this one

And there's new skirts and dresses for my big girl, warm pants for my littlest boy (who now has teeth, eats, sits in a sort of wonky way and is on the move! slow down little man) and so so much more. And then if I go and take a look at all these creative spaces, well I'm sure to be hit with even more inspiration and NEEDS to make! If only there were more hours in the day, that and I had a nanny and a cleaner...Imagine!

settled

It's all been a bit NUTS of late in the my little part of the world. A house move with 4 little people was just a little more challenging than I expected. Boxes were packed and rapidly unpacked, floors were cleaned then muddied again. Finally we got everything out of the old house, hired a cleaner (genius) and started the big unpack at the new house. Finally after what seems like ages, e're pretty much settled in. There are still boxes to beunpacked and things rehomed, but it's nearly there.

I must say I do love our new home. We now have a very big blue lake pretty much in our backyard, well three houses down. Yep The Blue lake, we live in mount gambier. Our house is two storey, with my space taking up the room which is the second storey. No views of the lake though, just the town but that is pretty nice though. Today I've been up there with my smallest two rearranging bits and bobs and finishing off a few softies that seem like it's taken me ages to complete.




Finally, finally they are ready and all set to go. Two long legged polly dolly's and two long legged olly dolly's, which is my very first stocking of these guys, along with some babushka's and hopefully an alien, who is currently only half stuffed, will make an appearance over on my made it store Friday evening. Time yet to be confirmed, so please check out my facebook page for more details.

That's if these two little champs let me photograph, upload and do all that stocking jazz without too much hassle.

and the winner is.......

I'm so sorry for the slight delay, but a beautiful sunny public holiday called for a trip to the beach for the pint sized folk. I hope your day was as spectacular as ours. Sun, sand and ice creams, gosh does it get any better?

Now without further ado, I'm very proud to announce together we raised $300! Wow that's so awesome and I'm so very, very pleased and excited! Thank you to everyone who donated and made this possible. Now I'd love to be techno savvy and show you the image of the random number generator and the lucky winner, but I'm not so you'll all just have to take my word for it.

I know, you just want me to get on with it right! Well ....the winner is .....
Cathy Rubin! Congratulations Cathy and thanks so much for entering. I'll be in touch tonight to get the lowdown on exactly what you would like for your custom polly dolly.

Once again a MASSIVE thankyou to you all and especially Toni and Carli for their organisation!

my creative space

With a rather largeish baby draped across my front, crafting is getting a wee bit harder. Add to the mix 3 more housebound children due to a run in with chicken pox, I've pretty much achieved zilch in the way of creative endeavours this year. So to make up for this lack of achievement, I've been dreaming up things I HOPE to do.




Long-legged Ollie Dollie is something I've been thinking about ever since my wee little Otis arrived on the scene. You can call a boy's toy a dollie right? hmmm might have to work on his name. Get a bit of testosterone in there.

Of course, the sketch is the male version of a long-legged polly dolly. Speaking of which, have you entered the raffle below yet??? You should you know. What else are you going to do with $5?

I know what you can do! You can head over to Tikki's blog and use it to enter the raffle we'll be having over there (well i think they will be raffles). Opps I have achieved something creative after all! I painted these wee little characters on some organic denim which I sent off for tikki to work her magic with. Go check out tik's blog maybe tomorrow?? and see what we have to offer.



In the mean time please check out the MASSIVE master list of bloggers with auctions and raffles and of course lots more creative spaces over here

A little giveaway to help those in need

After reading of Toni's wonderful idea of raising money for those effected by the terrible floods in Queensland, I had planned on having an auction on my blog. But then I saw Jodie's wonderful variation of a giveaway and decided that was the way to go, so here it is!



I am offering a giveaway of a custom long-legged polly dolly. A custom! Yep that's right. You get to design your polly dolly but there are a few limitations.

* You can only choose from the actual design, I will not alter hair, eye shape, etc.. Seems obvious right, but I have been asked to change the design when offering customs before.

* You may choose from the four hair tones available.

* You let me know what colour clothing you would like but I choose the print, coordinating stripes, apron and accessories.

* You will need to allow 3 weeks for completion of the polly dolly (I have 4 small children;)). I will cover the cost of postage to whomever, where ever

* This is one of the major points. You must donate $5 to the Premier's Flood Relief Appeal Yep that's all! $5!

* you may enter as many times as you like but each entry will need a separate receipt number. It will need to be a unique donation specifically for this raffle. Please, please be honest as this is for a very worthwhile cause

* The winner will be drawn randomly on January 24...Edit to change The raffle will now be drawn at midday Wednesday 26 January. This will give those who haven't had any luck winning an auction, a chance to donate



Please dig deep and enter. If you aren't interested in a polly dolly there loads of other wonderful raffles and auctions. Toni on Make it perfect will be publishing a master list this weekend. Tikki and I will also be offering a couple of special pikki tint collaborations that I'm busy working on at present. The likes that have never been seen before! So make sure you check out tikki's blog next week for more information. Ohh and for all you knitty ladies, I've just heard tikki will be releasing her new patterns, sorello and fratello, with all proceeds from the remainer of January going to the flood relief




Hmmm so is that it? Yep I think so. Please comment only if you are entering the raffle and if you are up there in Queensland, please take care, my thoughts are with you.

long-legged polly dolly love

I really love making these sweet little polly dolly's. From the chenille and vintage reprint fabric right through to their sweet little hand embroidered doiley aprons, they are just delightfully rewarding. I was pretty chuffed with these two little "yet to be named" lasses which I have finished off for the Jelly bean market, which incidentally is only 9 more sleeps away! (quiet little Ekkkkkkkk!!!!) So anyway, I thought I'd take a piccie of them to share......



And so it appears that I am not the only one quite smitten with them. My sneaky little assistant saw her chance for a bit of an inspection. You see they are normally kept well out of reach of all the little people of the house. Tully really couldn't give a hoot about any of my softies, but Sage on the other hand LOVES them.



Apparently they passed the inspection which pleases me.



We agreed (with a small amount of bribery) that dolly's could go back and we'd get out her own polly dolly's whom she preceded to swing by their legs and cover in kisses. ahhhh I love it!

busy fingers

Man it's been cold! So cold in fact, I thought it was going to snow the other day rather than rain. brrrrrr! So what's been keeping me busy? Well still getting ready for the market I've been going on about for ages. I really want to have lots of stock, so that's what I'm doing.

The last few days I've been working on pixies which i haven't done much of lately. In fact, i think i've only made one this year! After working on polly dolly's they seem so small! Weird really as I've always thought them to be a good size but maybe they could be a tad bigger.

I have this little miss just about finished sans wings, and a few more waiting for some stuffing. All are unnamed as I'm a bit lost for names at the moment which is definitely a reflection on the inability to find a suitable name for bubba in tum. Nothing! I have nothing!

What I do have however is quite a few polly dolly's, unnamed of course!



Some aliens, unnamed but waiting patiently for a few more friends.



And a basket full of monties.



See, busy fingers. And quite showing it too, i might have to brave the chill and head out to purchase some Burts bee's banana and almond hand cream that I've been promising myself. yum factor!

to market, to market.....

Yesterday I discovered a handmade children's market coming to Warrnambool which is just a couple of hours away and home to my sweet Mum. I've been lacking a bit of enthusiasm about selling my wares of late so this is just the kick in the butt I need. I already have a gazillion plans for it and am quietly a little excited, not hugely optimistic that my softies will be brilliantly receieved, but keen to see some faces and expose little old pint to a wider audience.

The market is only 8 or so weeks away, but thankfully I have been putting in some time and have two as yet unnamed long-legged polly dolly's, well nearly 2,just gotta finish the body on the little red head. Two more polly's are in the works, and some pixies will join them as well. Lots more plans are afoot, but lets be realistic ...8 weeks! If you are local to Warrnambool or interested you'll find more info here



Today is sewing day here, so off I go whilst Miss Sage sleeps. Speaking of the cheeky monkey, here she is in her new little duds. After a bit of a stuff up sewing wrong pieces together, they've been saved and I'm pretty happy about that. The denim is lovely and thick, perfect for the very chilly weather we have been experiencing. Thankfully, Lach rescued the little heater from his shed, and now my little sewing space is a warm one, hope yours is too!

Rose

So this is my 3rd attempt at writing this post. My wee little Sage thinks it's a great game to hassle out Mumma whilst she's at the computer. Hell if Mumma can press those keys it must be fun and she wants to have a go, of course she hits the button that deletes my post or better yet turns the computer off. So what do I give her to distract her? Well the closest thing being my camera, which she preceds to bash on the ground and the lens come apart. Oh shite, well i really did want a new camera, but gosh I'm a dill. Anyway's to help me get new said camera why not pop over here and check out the latest offering. She'll go live tonight at 10 pm, a time at which destructor babes should be asleep.

* And a small ammendment to this post for those with their own little cloth bummed babes, the very awesomely talented Lesely from Cherub's kiss has a giveaway over on her blog. Go and check it out right here, her naps are a fav around here and very hard to get hold of, so go for it enter her giveaway..I did:)

Lilac

Well, this post was going to be to announce that the first Long legged Polly Dolly Lilac was in the store and to please, get on over there to check her out, but the store won't let me in.... So instead I'm going to say that Lilac will be in the store ...soon. Hopefully sometime today, but who knows. I'll pop her on preview first so you can check her out proper like and then she'll go up live. Hope you all like her, Tully does, and has requested many times that this one be for her. Shame she has a squillion softie's made by me languishing on her bed, mostly unloved.

Lilac's friend Rose will be making an appearance in the store over the next couple of days, and then there's sure to be more. But first I must squeeze in some time to make something for my littlest misses 1st b'day. I had planned on making one of these dolls to go in the gorgeous wooden pram she is getting but I didn't get on to it soon enough and don't have any doctors flannel. I think a polly dolly may suffice.

The little poppet isn't getting much in the way of pressies, but what she is getting is awesome. Yesterday a truly wonderful little dress arrived from Belle and Boo. I just about squealed when the postie handed it to me. I think the little image of Belle scared him out of popping it in my letterbox. Now how special is that.



** Super happy yay** Ozebaby has finally come back on-line and Lilac is up previewing now. She'll go live tonight (wed 3/2) at 7pm SA time. cheers

Daffodil, the Long-legged Polly Dolly.

So here she is, the very sweet Miss Lily with her Long-legged Polly Dolly, Daffodil. I totally love this photo, what better compliment than to see such a gorgeous kiddie giving your work a loving cuddle. I gotta say a big "ta muchly" to her Mum tikki for the shot, she's got a new flash- arse camera that totally rocks.

The first polly dolly was made way back in Febuary last year, but I never quite got around to the second version. How funny that I just read that Tully had told me the next Polly Dolly would be for Lily, and I'm very pleased to see it that it truly was.

I tweaked the pattern a bit, used chenille for extra cuddle factor for the hair, reshaped the hair and feet and even lengthened them a bit. I've addded the apron separately and have been using embroidered doilies for it, which is proving to be way cute. She's been lots of fun and I'm so pleased she's much loved by Lily. Lily christened her Daffodil, which is so totally fitting and has inspired me to give the Polly Dolly's botanical names. Although I can't pronounce Daffodil in the exact manner as Lily, it's way cute!

The idea for Polly Dolly has been around for many years. I first started painting these on tee's about 3 years ago and like the pixies, polly dolly has evolved from the 2D to the 3D. Now with such long legs she is the Long-legged Polly Dolly and you're sure to be seeing more soon stocking over here. I've just finished Lilac and Rose has one leg half stuffed. I'm not sure when the stocking will be, but hopefully sooner rather than later. Gotta clear a few things of my "ahem" *to do really really soon* list first.

I hope she makes you smile, cause I'm a wee bit chuffed with her.

too bloomin' cute

Today I spent the morning chasing my sweet little Sage around the yard trying to photograph her with her handmade Chrissy presents, but she didn't want a bar of it. No way Mumma, I wanna go and eat that yummy tanbark instead! Of course this is her #1 fav thing to do at present and why not?

So there I was chasing the munchkin around, bringing her back from the bark, picking the grass off the dress..I wasn't winning. So here are the less than perfect shots. Firstly the escapee and the sad little toys she left behind. The gorgeous miss is wearing her gift from her clever aunt Tikki, a beautiful little bloom dress. This is one of tik's own designs and you can purchase it over here if your keen on the knitting craft. I have been waiting to get my hands on this little number for quite some time but now I have it's a wee bit hard for the little crawler to get about in so away it goes until she gets the walking thing sorted which, *damn*, won't be long, she's furniture cruising and has even taken a step! It seems little Toby has been teaching her tricks while my back was turned!

Sage didn't get alot for Chrissy (from us) with having a couple of siblings we already have our fair share of toys. So I decided to get her some special little handmade pieces, something a bit more you know ...well special.



Two very talented and kind ladies agreed to do a couple of customs for me. Holly Bunny, featuring Holly hobbie fabric *sqeeeee* came from Beck from dandelion and the sweet skittle girl came from sam at Jetta's nest Sage totally loves them and gleefully chews the bunny's ears any chance she gets. More to the point I totally love them, they are super awesome and I'm very very pleased to have been able to gift these to my sweet Sage. Today however, they were left behind in the pursuit of bark, now really! ooo and lookee there's a great write up on Sam over here and that's Sage's little super- fly softie.



Now I haven't given you a really great shot of the bloom but here it is with the bubba showing off her strong little legs



And her cute big melt my heart eyes.



A very wonderful thing about bloom and something I haven't mentioned cause I'm sort of presuming you know, is the reason for the knits name. Bloom "blooms" with your child, so whilst even though the knit was gifted to Sage, it also fits Tully. See... same knit different child. One 11 month and one 5.5 year old. It's obviously not a dress on Tully but a top but I haven't shown the full view as Tully wasn't being a super model today. Not like she was for tikki in these shots where she shows of her gift from the lovely aunt that she is.



My shots aren't nearly as good but here's Tully in her very own Rainbow dress along with one for her new friend Emily. I know, how sweet is that! Today we went down the street with Tully and Emily and received lots and lots of compliments. Super special hey.



I did sew up quite a few gifts for Chrissy, a few pixies, a little astronaut softie and a my very newest and fav at the moment design, the long-legged polly dolly. I started this design about a year ago and got it all sorted to gift to little Lily for chrissy. Silly me erased the pics I did have so I'll share those shots when I get them *nudge nudge* tikki;) I also sewd up some bits and bobs for the kids and will share those too when I can talk them into modelling for me again. Oh and as for the shop, it will be reopening shortly with a small to biggish stocking of the new fav, long-legged polly dolly. Keep posted I promise I won't be gone for so long this time.