I am back again again!!

I think I have found another interest of mine! And I'm glad my husband and bestest friend has just as much fun as me :) he built this shelter for our veggies to grow in, he is so lovely :)



Our neighbour gaves us lots of packets of seeds and tips on how to grow veggies.
We were so happy when our first plants of the season started growing!

Now the summer season is ending, we're looking forward growing our winter crop..

A Red Toadstool at the Markets last Saturday

It was a slow market day for me, but I guess it's to be expected once in a while!
Here's some pictures from the day and some prep the days before!
I'm still deciding on whether another market day sooner rather than later would be better.

I started setting up at 6.30am! what an early start. It turned out to be a hot day though, so set up was nice in the cool morning.

I'm holding up material and crochet brooches.

Ladies Singlets with lace and handmade crochet flowers. Sizes 8-14.

My lovely vintage suitcase is displaying the crochet brooches and fabric/plastic covered purses.



Here's my table setup.

I upcycled glass jars into pin cushion tops, and the bottle to hold thread, buttons, needles, anything really!!

Pin cushion pears

Wrist cuffs

My other table setup

I have used pre-loved plastic knitting needles and reshaped them to be upcycled knitting needle bangles.

My stall, with my 'A Red Toadstool' bunting.

I'll have to make more bunting I think

Crochet brooches - $5

Purses - material and plastic covered - $9

This is recycled from a previous 'bathroom' sign. I made it into a 'recycle' sign.

Reusable crochet dish cloths and sponges. Dishcloths - $5 each, sponges - $2.50

2012 Diaries

A Red Toadstool at the Markets!!

  Are you free this Saturday to drive to the beautiful Blue Mountains?

I'm very excited about my first ever market debut at Glenbrook Rotary Markets on Saturday 19 November!! Starting at 9am until 2pm at Glenbrook Infants School Ross Street Glenbrook. There will be yummy food stalls and lots of handmade gifts by A Red Toadstool!! Please come along for some unique Christmas gifts and family fun. cuffs-singlets & t-shirts (kids & adults) with crochet flowers-kids t's-headbands-knitting needle bracelets-purses-earrings-crochet brooches-upcycled jars-pin cushion pears-reusable crochet dishcloths-diaries-andsecondhandthings I would love you to come along and support me xx

Busy creating for the markets

Would you like a cup of tea and cake with that?
That's what I think when I see these singlets with lace and flowers.

I added some flowers I crocheted to see how they look on the singlets, I think they look quite cute!

I'm in the middle of packaging and pricing!! any ideas?? maybe I'll look up etsy.

Markets!!

This is what I have made so far...

Eco re-usable dish cloths for washing up dishes. They're made from 60% cotton and 40% acrylic for easy drying. Pop them in the washing machine with the rest of your clothes every couple of days and they should last you years :)

Crotchet flower brooches:
These two were my first flowers, I've made a whole bouquet since then and added them to singlets with lace. Once I got the hang of making these I found they're pretty addictive and hard to put them down :)

Apple and custard Danish Pastries

I came back from holidays and wanted to eat lots of apple and custard danishes. So I made them!

Dough for the danish pastries, it rose in the fridge overnight.

I like to cheat and let Kitchen aid do all the kneading :)

Rolling out the dough

Folding and putting butter in the layers

Mmm...Custard

The danishes are ready for baking!

Yum! they're nice warm with cream.



Brunswick St and Gertrude St Fitzroy

I'm back from holidays again! I have been holidaying in Melbourne and Central Australia with my family, and caravan - pics to come!

While I was in Melbourne I HAD to visit the shop Meet Me at Mike's (63 Brunswick Street Fitzroy Melbourne Australia). Long before I started sewing I stumbled across the book 'Meet Me at Mikes' it has a lot of cool projects to sew, knit, crotchet, etc.

I fell in love with the book and the creator - Pip Lincolne, mainly because she had a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel ;). From there I began to follow her blog Meet Me at Mikes, her creativity is inspiring!



I was hoping to meet Pip that day but she wasn't in, her husband was there instead. Originally I wanted to get a picture of him in the store, but straight after I asked him I thought to myself 'is that weird?'. So before I left he kindly took a picture of me standing infront of the register with a picture of Pip and him in the background - as a consolation. He must have thought I was strange!

Gertrude St and Brunswick St, Melbourne are lined with vintage, second hand shops, arty shop, up and coming designers of fabric, clothes, ceramics, homewares, and lots of quirky little interesting stores.

A few that I stumbled across and loved were:
Leonard St Spacecraft Third Drawer Down The Fabric Store

Third Drawer Down is a quirky store that sells everyday things with an imaginative twist - bacon wallet, burnt tree scent air freshner, right and wrong labelled knitted gloves, swiss cheese door wedge.

Spacecraft had a lot of homewares made out of fabric from a local designer.



The fabric store had a heap of dress fabrics, linen, silk, merino wool, cotton. I was like a little school girl running through a field of cotton - literally.

Craft and Quilt Fair

The Craft and Quilt fair was pretty awesome this year like most years. My sister in law and I go every year to the show at Darling Harbour. In previous years we have bought quilting patterns, quilt kits and bag patterns. This year we've followed the trend and bought skirt and dress patterns. And lots of nice fabric to make them with - I'm loving the linen and Japanese printed linen at the moment. The Australian printed linen is fantastic too,  Lara Cameron prints some amazing linen.



We were glad to see that our favourite fabric store Kelani was there!

I kept on seeing this book - Make it Perfect - appear in stalls and Kelani had one, so I was flipping through casually. Closed the book and saw the authors name on the front of the book and looked up then saw the name tag of the person in front of me - Toni Coward! Of course I had to buy the book there and then and get a signed copy! She has a great blog too.

Quilting with Amy Butler fabric

Quilting is fun! I'm putting together a quilt -  'Twinset and Pearls', made of chenille and Amy Butler's Cozy flannel fabrics. It'll be 60"x63" when I'm finished and I can't wait!
I haven't decided if I'll add more fabric to fit my bed or if I'll leave it for the loungeroom.
At the moment I'm looking forward to having a cup of tea in hand and snuggling in a warm quilt by the fire with Tim and Millie :)

I've done a little more since taking photos for this timescape - all filmed of course! So I'm about 1/4 way through, it could be finished midway through winter. Hope you enjoy timescape number 1.

At the moment I'm knitting a black jumper for Millie and contemplating on knitting a cable beret, I first need to learn how to cable. Wish me luck!

Caramel mudcake

The wet weather, and Queen's Birthday holiday means I have been baking and sewing a lot more. I've finished a few projects I've been wanting to sew in a long time so I will post them up soon! A bag, a top, and laundry bag/ironing cover. I'm also sewing a quilt I bought at the Quilt and Craft show last year.

Here's a little caramel mudcake I baked to sip with tea and sit infront of the fire....mmm...

On another note, I'm so excited about the Quilt and Craft show next week!!

My crochet jumper and Millie in her red jumper

My crochet jumper is finished! It's nice and warm :) Millie wanted to be in the picture too so I said come on then, get in there too. She's wearing her own red jumper I knitted for her, she's so cute when it comes to putting it on, she'll lift her paws up one by one to put her legs through..aww..