Hey Plain Jane

This is my latest; two cats called Diabo (left) and Chuva (right). The two names mean devil and rain respectively in Portuguese, which is a loving nod to all the beaut Portugese craft sites I’ve been visiting of late. Chocolate e Chuva, (chocolate and rain), is the name of a great site that has caught my attention, and is the explanation why I chose such an usual name for a cat toy. Rain and cat don’t normally go together as concepts but his Euro-cool face just matches the sound of the word chuva beautifully.

The cats are a combo of hand-painted suede and polar fleece. The face inspiration comes from one of Jack’s books, a cheeky little story about a boy who farts too much, Smelly Bertie. (Boys love their fart jokes, and Jack is getting in loads of giggles early in life. Perhaps by adolescence he will be non-plused by fart jokes, but John informs otherwise).

And while we are thinking in that region…

Possibly more information there than you need, but I remember back in the 1980’s when I was watching all my Japanese school buddies making these miniature felt creatures, I recall being horrified when they included an embroidered sphinctre on the butt-end of their toys. Now, in my maturity, I see how utterly cute and necessary it is to include.

Still working on Lula#2, but I’m so pleased with the felted/free-motion quilted/vinyl-appliqued fabric that I just had to post the girl. I laboured long on the fabric for the body. It was an freeform experiment that paid off. I’m happy.

Arm and legs yet to be stuffed. Not so thrilled with the face, but that’s all part of the handmade unpredictabliliy of things.
I went and had my eyes checked by another optometrist shop which was able to squeeze me into the schedule. He put drops in my eyes to dilate the pupils, told me to wander off for an hour, then he checked them. Essentially, he doesn’t know what is going on with the flashing light business. There is no tear on my retina or sign of a tear happening (phew) but he’d refering me to an eye specialist. Maybe it’s a tumour….:)

John and I had our appointment with the psychologist today too, the final requirement for our qualification to adopt as far as the State is concerned. The psychologist is very relaxed and very keen to get the job done quickly, bless her. We both have been given a take-home personalty test (350 questions) and we have to go see her again tomorrow afternoon for an empathy test. Once this bit is done, and the psychologist puts in her report, we will be waiting for the state department to say yep, okay, and then our file gets sent to The Philippines, then another month or so, and then hopefully we will officially on the register for a child up to the age of four….oh, yes, being on the register means then the two year wait for child allocation. Oh boy. We are nothing if not patient.

I continue to be flabberghasted at the beauty of some Spanish and Portuguese sites I’ve been cruising. It inspires and humbles and just makes me wish for more time in the day to go exploring and go experimenting.

Not Beaut Things:

1. a twittering light in my vision, which an optometrist believes is unrelated to anything serious. I have an eye examination scheduled for next Thursday, which is way too far away for my liking.

2.The way Wordpress cannot keep my html formatting if I go to re-edit a post. It reverts to blob-ville.

3. The way the rear passenger door of my expertly made German precision 1988 Mercedes has suddenly decided not to play. It cannot be opened from the outside, only the inside. This is the door Jack exits the car, and if I had a piece of wherewithall I would make John fix it.

4. My jaw and skull still being bruised from running in to that fridge last week, and the way I keep thinking I must have a tumour. Incidentally the twittering light in my vision started before I ran into the fridge.

5. The fact that my architect is already having communication-failure with my builder, and the house is not even started. It would be really good if the architect knew how to use a phone.

Better Things:

1. Receiving the 30-page assessment report for our adoption by email today, ready for our comments. I read it with all due speed and I have just two comments. They spelt my name wrong, and they inexplicably believe John goes to The Philippines every two years on holiday…..erm, let’s have that one corrected, shall we? But go us! 

2. Beginning Lula#2 this afternoon, amid howls of non-interest from Jack who would much rather I play Transformer games with him than make dolls. Lula#2 has a felted dress, which is the first time I’ve cracked out the felt punch needle. Very satisfying.

3. Finally bothering to find out about RSS. I’ve known for years what it does, but always suspected it was not for me. I like surfing. I don’t mind it when I accidenatlly forget to check a site and go back to find miles of blog entries I haven’t read. I notice with raised eyebrow how the RSS feeds reduce the experience of a beautiful eye-candy blog to all the charm of a carpark. At least now I can say all this with the confidence of someone who has given it a go.

Oh, really really Beaut Things:

1. My husband, who says not a word when he sees the kitchen table yet again strewn with fabric scraps and implements of creation, but yet he remembers to note how sweet Lula#1 is. He nods sage-like when I impress upon him that I will need a studio space in the new house.

2. My son, who I allow to carry about my (kinda expensive and I must be insane) digital camera to take snaps of the cat, the door, the television, the floor, the fluff…..

3. And this new bit of sweetness from one of my new favourite blogs, Wishes and Heroes…

I’m discovering all these absolutely brilliant Portuguese and Spanish craft sites. They are blowing my tiny but well formed craft brain. So prolific, so alt, so obscured from the mainstream blogosphere by the language barrier. Believe me, with these sorts of blogs you hardly need any text to get inspired. The sensibility is quite Euro-Asian, and so much eye-lolly. Come on, look at this!

From the way beaut site called belula. It makes me want to learn Portuguese.

Introducing Lula, so named after a great-aunt, Talula Brentlinger, my grandfather’s much older half-sister who took him in after some sort of family kafuffle that nobody understands nor cares to comment on. This is actually Proto-Lula, but she turned out quite well. I started her yesterday afternoon amid constant, irritating and clamorous calls from husband and only child for attention. Seemed that every time I sat down to work on it, they needed something done. Consequently I didn’t finish stuffing and embellishing Lula until midday today. I have to tell you I found it all a bit nerve-wracking to be making something that I know will be going on sale in a gallery shop. Even though I’d mapped a pattern, I was winging it, as I generally always wing it with softies, and even though it looks all quite straight-forward as softies go, there are a few crazy tricks to the pattern such as with the hair. Usually with softies I feel okay about trying different things, but I’m afraid I got a bit precious and a bit intimidated.

I felt I had to be reasonably fussy with the stitching and the general shapes; even though it is a handmade object, a gallery shop object needs to possess a certain sweet polish.The end result is a farily conservative item with an A minus in technical and a C in creativity. For ages I was hedging on whether to just stuff her neck tie with a little filling and draw a snake face on one end of it….that will turn it about. Lula Wears A Snake. I’m hedging.

I’ve not seen a redhead dolly-softie. I thought it was time I did. My suede button embellishment worked well. It immediately excludes Lula as a toy for children under three, (chockey, chokey) but I think that’s alright. Perhaps I’ll make the smaller version of Lula for children under three-friendly. Oh, yeah, there is plan for a smaller version. Proto Lula stands about a foot and a half tall. Lil’Lula will be less than a foot tall.Well, I’ve finished just one of a planned list of ten softies for the gallery.

A pleasant Easter has passed us by. Some lovely friends, mountains of chocolate, and a very well behaved boy despite the inevitable chocolate rushes. I cooked Jewish Simnel Cake again seeing it was such a huge hit last year. We iced biscuits, we invited Susan’s daughter and boyfriend over to brunch, we had a egg hunt, we watched TV marathons….the usual fare.

My mind turns to business even though it is officially still holiday time. I have determined that I will make just ten toys for the gallery to see how they go. They are not a huge time investment, nor are the materials involved such a huge investment either. I have nothing to lose. If they sell well, okay, I’ll put in more. Today I sketched out some designs and developed a few patterns. Dolls, cats, wolves, squid, a Robot Cop, and things such as that. So, it’s not Art with a high capital A, but it’s creative pursuit and mildly entertaining. I long to have the money and wherewithall to print onto my own fabric because that would make the toys have more gallery credentials than what I’m about to do.

There’s been an interesting and heated debate online recently about the general credentials of contemporary craft as opposed to value of (capital L) Learned (capital C) Craft. Shoddy craftsmanship is one thing, but calling a stuffed toy craft or even Art is perhaps a grey area. For me, it depends largely on the materials and how they are employed, whether it is with some wit or originality.

I’ve been sliding about the web, a slippery and sticky place, gazing fondly at lovely things. It’s wonderful to just plunge in and click and keep clicking. It’s sort of like feasting at a large table, wantonly taking a bite of everything and throwing it down, moving on to the next dish of goodies while I’m still chewing a mouthful from the next. Some lovely things:

Whack on the kaftans, spin A Taste Of Honey on the record player, and paint us retro, we accidentally had a Margaret Fulton homage last night.  John has a habit of winning prawn trays at the pub on a Thursday night, and so we had a tray of lux cooked prawns just mooching about our fridge. We also (incredibly) also happened to have had an avocado, some mint, some tabasco, mayonaise, tomato sauce and lettuce. There was nothing else for it; we whipped up some very fine prawn cocktails as an impromptu starter to our Good Friday dinner party.  And you know what, it was mighty tasty stuff. 

We had Susan and a few other mates over for dinner. Later we had tempura fish and chips, which actually was pretty tasty but paled in comparison to the delight of just cobbling together the macabre combination that is an iconic 1970’s prawn cocktail. 

These two egg cups (they’re hardly cups!) are just ripping me up with their cuteness. I bought them from the local suburban mall gift shop the other day. They’ll be used on Easter morning this year and hopefully years to come. I remember cups, plates and special china objects like these from my own childhood. Remembering those long-gone pretty pieces fills me with smiles. I’m hoping these beautiful egg cups will do something of the same from Jack. But why did I buy two, not one? For that matter why did I buy only two, when there are three in our small family of Mum, Dad and boy? Surely I should have bought only one (for Jack) or three altogether (one for John, Jack and I each). My reasoning is, as always, about the second child, the long-time-still-coming adopted son or daughter whomever, where-ever they may be.  He or she will have one, and Jack will have one. So often I make allowance like this.

In any case, I have two of them and they are excruciatingly sweet. I found some pastel paper eggs as well, which you can see in the background, resting inside some antique egg cups my friend Susan gave me. Susan’s coming to town to spend Easter with us.

And yes, as promised, here above is the detailed fruit of my labour on mini bits of fabric last night. I sewed this one up today and put a little puff in it. I love the wee puff of stuff look, like a painted samosa, and to feel it’s soft spongey vulnerability is heavenly.

I finished two actually. The prototype is the round one, which was rather silly and raggedy about the edges. That’s what proto-types are for…..note to self; no round birdie num-nums, just square ones!

A quick note then. I’m a bit ragged, but that might have something to do with the way I walked into the side of a fridge this evening. Yes, walked into a fridge. How can you miss seeing a fridge? I managed. I was walking out of a meeting at the theatre, and was excitedly discussing the last play with a fellow board member, when thud! the side of my skull connected violently with the side of a fridge in the hallway. I have walked past this fridge hundreds of times in this same hallway. Yet tonight it all went crazy. Fridges are hard, man.

Fortunately so is my head. But it still smarts, hours later.

Today I’ve been working on painting on fabric. Itty-bitty birds on branches on itty-bitty bits of fabric to be exact. And I’d show you what I mean except the lights in my house are so dim I cannot get a decent picture of these tiny beauties. I’ll catch some on the camera in the honest outdoor light tomorrow. I’m thinking these little creations are way too much fussing about for the purpose of making some zipper-pull embellishments for my purses, but I’m also thinking they are huge fun to fuss with and why not.

I also talked with the gallery shop manager tonight, just as she was closing up. She showed me what was on offer there as far as artsy soft toys (not a great deal) and also mentioned with a glint in her eye that the softie artist is leaving town soon and the shop needs a new supplier. Oh. That…really. Ah. me? Oh, supplying. I could do it. I’d have to revisit some of my designs. Cool. I could do.

I have been working on gathering some embellishment-type motifs around me. The small suede buttons above are a quick treat for the eye. I make them out of all that free, yes free, suede samples I scored the other day from an interior designer’s shop. She literally has a mountain of old samples…..sneaky crafty person’s paradise, so it is.

The suede flowers will come in handy-dandy for various scarves, purses and pillows I’m making.

I have two friends, Danielle and Tia, who have been acquaintances for years but more recently we three have come together to form a bit of a crafty group.  We are all three actors and theatre-makers. We are all also mums of small kids, and theatre and motherhood is an awkward mix, so all three of us find ourselves at a certain idle-minded moment.

Why exactly we have come together is unclear to any of us, and although we meet every fortnight, we have yet to actually do any craft in each other’s presence. Our three hour meetings so far consist of elaborate show and tells, cups of tea and home made baked treats. We met today. One of the first items on the agenda for discussion as we stood about in my kitchen waiting for water to boil in the cauldron, no wait, the jug, was how much we all appreciate certain styles of packaging. Danielle noticed my Lyle’s Golden Syrup tin and Treacle Tin displayed on the shelf. She confessed that she will buy certain food items based entirely on their packaging, and Lyle’s Golden Syrup was one of them.

The tins are exquisitely shiny, and the design speaks of old-time grandeur, something of the British Raj perhaps. I have only rare occasions to use Golden Syrup, the odd Anzac biscuit or pancake topping, but I adore the tins so much I’ll buy them when ever I see them. At the moment in Australia I think they are only available from The British Lolly Shop.

I confessed I also only bought the Lyle tins for their beauty because honestly golden syrup always tastes the same no matter which brand you buy. I often buy supermarket items for their look, not their price or function even. Tia chimed in that she was a style over content shopper as well. Oh dear. Not exactly practical…. The point very much is that I thought I was seriously one of the only people in my circle of knowns who does this. Obviously no. Which brings me to this…..at New Year’s I despaired that I just didn’t have any friends who appreciated the kind of detail and art that I treasured. I got so upset that I closed my eyes and wished for such a person. Now, it seems, here they come.

I finally finished the baby crocodile floor quilt and play pillow, the project that’s been slowing cooking for what seems like a year.  IN the end it didn’t take long to put together.  Probably only about five hours with most of that spent on some crazy and intense free-motion sewing. I’m getting the hang of that. Quite like it, you know. I witnessed all the bother I went to to get it, so I better like it some. I particularly like the unexpected colours of the binding. I stuck in tiny strips of bright pink and 1930’s repro-retro eyelash design in candy pink. I think that’s going to work for a lot of floor quilts I do. The pillow has tags on it including a gold plastic on.We’ve been walking about the house tonight spouting gratuitous Irish phrases at each other in corny accents—Fiddlety Dee Potatoes!Begorrah Sinead! And such. Both John and I have Irish heritage. Neither of us wore a speck of green, nor turned up a pub with a fiddle, nor wished wish anyone top of the morning. We are however having Irish Stew with Dumplings and John’s sipping Guinness.