Firefly Previews are up!

I went for quality over quantity with my Firefly Collective items. We were only allowed to put up 6 items, so I restrained myself with 4. And here they are:

Along with the rest of the Firefly Collective's and guest WAHM's offerings, they can all be previewed here, and can be purchased from 8pm, (NT time) on Sunday May 22nd from the Firefly Collective website. There is so much other beautiful stuff there - what a lot of talented handcrafters we have in Australia!

Firefly

I have been busy working on my items for the Firefly Collective stocking on May 22nd at 8pm NT time, at which I am honoured to be a guest WAHM. My items will be previewed next week (as will all the other WAHMs') so be sure to check it out. These stockings are really popular so you need to get in quick if you want something! Each month the Collective picks a theme, and the members produce wearable works of art inspired by that theme. This month's theme is "On a Wing" and here is just a little teaser:

In other news mangolime will be at the Childbirth Education Association's modern cloth nappy showcase on Friday June 3rd at Friday, June 3 at 10am in the Nightcliff Community Centre Meeting Room in Bauhinia St. If you are a local Darwinite this is a great chance to come along and see mangolime nappies in real life, as well as other brands that will be displayed and for sale. I did this showcase last year and it was so much fun meeting customers and their babies.

I will not be doing a regular stocking in May, as I have been busy with the Firefly stocking and getting enough stock to look respectable at the CEA showcase, but there will be a normal stocking in June, sometime....

Happy Sunday!

More customs

I have dresses coming out my ears today! Finishing off these custom orders.

2 dresses for Dan's little Scarlett.

The first is a grassy plains peasant dress. I am still so in love with this fabric. It never gets old. It feels to me like a weird and wonderful dreamscape that you can lose yourself in.

And the back is like looking up at the big night sky:

Do you like my new rainbow woolly nylon?

And this one is a Very Hungry Caterpillar dress.

I do like the candy cane armholes (if I may say so myself).

And here is a dress for Nadja's Maxie.

I have been starting to open up some custom slots on my facebook page.  I have decided to have about 5 slots open at a time, so as I finish off one or two I'll open some more. For those who aren't on facebook and would like a custom, you could email me your request and I'll let you know if there is space. There is currently a 4 week wait on customs.

In other news, I won't be doing a regular stocking for May because of the Firefly Collective gig. Will show you what I'm working on for that soon!

Random acts

Sweet Mr mangolime bought me a present yesterday. For no reason. (Except it goes with all my cups).

Its the jug. Not the toy TV. Arlo set this shot up. I swear he's gonna be a stylist one day.
Happy.

New baby = new quilt.

(Again, Libby, if you are reading this, stop! Go cuddle Zander......)











So last week I was the luckiest duck. I got to help my friend Libby give birth to her second baby. I didn't have to do much, just pass the Lucozade really, as Edward had it all under control and Libby was an amazon woman with all bases covered. Watching the slippery entrance of a baby into this world is always so incredibly awe-inspiring. No words can describe it really. So I'll not try.

I started on my first ever quilt in honour of baby Alexander a while ago but other things got in the way, so I worked on it feverishly yesterday in the hope of unveiling it at afternoon tea with our friends, but some mishaps with invisible thread and mitred corners completely thwarted me, and the sensible side of me (there is one sometimes) said it was just dumb to try to learn new things 5 minutes before you need to do them perfectly. I had some more peaceful time today and finished it off. Along the way I was lucky to have some help from some very special quilting queens (Andi, Bianca), but I think they may quietly tsk tsk at my cutting corners and haphazardness. You know what though? I love it. In that hard-to-give-it-up way.

Bright hey? When I went to the local quilting shop to get some embroidery thread and proudly showed the shop owner she said (barely disguising her wrinkled nose of distate) "ooh, its very ... modern (said in the same tone you might say something like, um, "faeces-like").

Here's the back:

It is a white linen base, with circles on one side, 3 of which are embellished with hand stitching. The back has a strip of fabric patchwork near the bottom. It is quilted with straight lines pretty eyeballed far apart (technical hey?), and bound with blue and white striped binding. The batting is bamboo. And the thing is I actually think I love making quilts! It all makes sense to me now! As long as i can do it my own way and not have to follow someone else's style or pattern, I reckon I may even make another!

(Yes that is unclipped threads hanging off it! Details!)

Can I stop taking photos of this quilt? I cannot. Here is one of those bundly photos, which I now understand the attraction of.

Ok. That'll do. Wonky stitching and all. Happy Birth-Day Alexander. This'll be yours to snuggle under for many years to come.