Oh so CUTE!

Another recent purchase of crafty things was The Cute Book by Aranzi Aronzo. Today my friend and I tried making a few of the critters, with very cute results.

From Avid Crafter'...

Here they are all together. I made the two cats and the fish and my friend made the monkey, the sheep and the dog. The fish was a rather tricky first one to try and it didn't help trying to sew it up with too much stuffing in it! But by my third critter, the grey cat, all my stitching was much neater. I added the ribbon loops on the cats so that they can be hung off things.

From Avid Crafter'...

Very early on we decided that the french knots were much too hard work and used beads instead! I very much dislike french knots as they always disapear on me and turn into a straight stitch, evil little things! Beads are much more co-operative.

From Avid Crafter'...

As The Cute Book is translated from Japanese some of the wording is a little strange. This monkey is a serious monkey. He is a serious monkey because he is from Japan and isn't a chimp. That is why he has a short tail. It instructs you to craft him seriously.

I think there will be many more cute critters to come because they just so CUTE.

New skirt and some more cross stitch

A recent trip to sewing stores led to the discovery of a new skirt pattern, which Crafty Things and I tried out today.
The result:

From Sewing Stuff

It is Kwik Sew pattern 3513. We did view C with the front flounce in size XS and for once didn't have to make many adjustments to fit me! This is a full skirt with a roll over waistband and we added some elastic at the base of the waistband just to make it firm. The other thing we changed was doing a rollover hem on the flounce instead of a normal one. The fabric is a lightweight stretch with a pattern of stars on it that we found at Spotlight. This is only the first one! We already have another piece of fabric for the next skirt!
Thank you Crafty Things for doing the sewing, she is much faster than me!

I have finished another cross-stitch project. I found this kit that seemed perfect to give to a friend who is moving to another school.

From Avid Crafter'...

I put some pretty fabric on the back to hide all the ends! Now I just have to get it to her.

On all these trips to sewing and crafting stores I inevitably picked up some new kits. 'Summer Chic' and a Suzy's Zoo one that says "Have a Daisy Day". The picture is of a teddy holding daisies. Also Crafty Things discovered a small kit of a lorikeet buried in a box which she promply 'donated' to me. So I finished one kit to find another three!

A bit of cross-stitch and my to-do list

We haven't been blogging for a little while but we're still being crafty.
I've gone on another cross-stitch craze and have been doing nothing else! I have stitched up a pair of little owls, one is sheltering from rain under a daisy and the other is a saluting sailor owl. The designs were in an old issue of Cross Stitch Crazy. We have so many old magazines stashed away downstairs and all of them have great designs to be stitched. It would take several years to stitch all the designs in them by which time we would have bought MORE magazines! So I'm not even going to try to do that.
I've started stitched a little kit of two birds and the words "Forever Friends" on it. The kit includes a tiny hanger and instructions on how to hang it. It's for a friend of mine who's changing schools. I've done a couple of this brand of kit before but I cant remember which brand it is now! They use unusual threads in them and are all of small cute designs.
I also have some stitched things to be turned into somethings, one a card, one a bag and a few others too.
And of course I have a line of other designs to get started on as soon as I finish this one.

I recieved a knitting book too, full of quick designs which I love. I've picked out about 5 projects to do from there too. It looks like I'm going to be busy!

Crafty Things whipped up a couple of amigurumi ladybirds over the weekend which soon became missiles in the hands of my over-exuberant brother!

School holidays, hooray! More time for crafting!

Queensland

Our little Queensland holiday was great! The temperatures were wonderful and we did all sorts off touristy things. We visited Dreamworld and I was convinced to go on the Cyclone roller coaster but I wasn't going near the Giant Drop! I also got to go to Dreamworld which was excellent! A total of 8 rides on the Corkscrew roller coaster as it was slightly tamer than the Cyclone and I saw all the shows. We went to Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary and had lorikeets on our heads and even on the camera as I tried to take pictures! We kayaked around Wavebreak Island area and snorkeled too.
The Robotics went quite well, with my brother's team winning one of four encouragement trophies (made out of LEGO) and a pewter plate from the Singapore teams for the Spirit of Robocup or something, which was good. We ate lots of good food and were entertained by a member of the robotics team attempting to eat ice by using a straw and a lot of slurping power! We also went to Harbour Town and wasn't that fun!!!! As Harbour Town is full of outlet shops, many things can be got cheaper. I picked up a skirt from Esprit meant to $45 for $10 because of a broken zipper that Mum quickly fixed, and she had a gift voucher for Rivers so we spent ages in there and got 8 items and paid a total of 30 cents.
Coming back was a bit of a shock though, we got off the plane and it was only 7 degrees! Also it was raining which we'd not had for a week. So of course my brother had to say "What is this rain stuff falling from the sky?"
Unfortunately I caught a cold that made flying back really uncomfortable with my ears. Today has been spent mostly in bed and catching up on emails and blogs.