Purl Soho baby shoes

Check out these sweet little shoes!

I'd been meaning to try these out for a while. I made them in acrylic only because the colour I wanted wasn't available in wool.  The material usage is so minimal - you could get about 12 pairs out of a 50x90 cm piece of felt.  The best thing is that they are super fast.  It probably took me about 10 minutes from cutting to tying the final knot.

These will be a little pressie for our new little nephew Rhys.

You can find the instructions and template for these little beauties here.

Noromania

...and finally, the reveal. It's so much fun making gifts for the people you love, even more fun taking photos of the finished article. My lovely sister had a very special birthday recently and I thought she deserved some noro goodness. Add a sweet lace cowl pattern from Ravelry and I had a couple of perfect evenings knitting the luxurious yarn on bamboo circulars...mmm bliss.

I was quite surprised that it ended up looking so...well...hippie but my sis assures me that as she was born in the 70's, she's a hippie from wayback anyway.

Going Postal

I'm very partial to postage ephemera and I've started quite a collection for my paper-craft.  Imagine then, how excited I was to find some 'just arrived' decorator weight postage fabric at my local Spotlight.

I diss Spotlight most of the time in favour of Potter Textiles as they have up-to-the-minute stuff that local designers are using whereas Spotlight rarely has anything that I'm particularly looking for.  And I'm always looking for something in particular!  But...this time Spotlight came through with some good buys!

So, back to the postal fabric.  I immediately thought a bit of striped flat piping would go well and luckily had exactly the right colour.  I whipped some up and made a quick and easy zipped cushion.  I hope to sell this one and others like it for about 30-40AUD at some local markets

Pride of place on my radio chair

I'm not a piping superhero either but didn't do too badly with this project.  Practice makes perfect!

Air Mail all the way

The business plan for when you're not interested

Ok so I have lots of bright ideas but they very rarely happen due to my lack of planning.  It's just...all the businessy stuff bores me and makes me demotivated.  This time, because I REALLY want to be successful, I did some research and found support:

Thank you Amazon!  I WILL look inside

It arrived sooner than I thought on Tuesday so I spent most of my free time this week, dipping into the book and gaining some insights about How To Start.  It turns out that the best way to start is to make a nice collage and do some meditation.  That's the plan for this weekend!

Of course I never buy just one book from Amazon - I have to justify the postage or at least that's my excuse.  This one I am thrilled by and can't wait to rip out the stencils (included) and start printing some fabric:

I'm especially interested in this project...I'll try some old cotton pillowcases first.

Lastly, to indulge my new-found papercraft habit, I found this incredible book at Paperbark in Albany (I have to say, this is one of the best bookshops for crafters like me and I always find something new and interesting whenever I visit):

I love how the templates are printed on the inside of the dustcover:

And some amazing but easy projects in here as well:

The look and feel of this book is just spot on, so pretty/grungy and inspiring.

So I have a lot to do, including all the neglected gardening, resuscitating crispy lawns and mulching this weekend but I'll report back on progress!