I'm giving livejournal a try.

http://troncraft.livejournal.com

quick update!

just a quick update before i start my day. lunching ladies picnic today! yay!

anyways some pictures of what i've been up to lately...


this is week one of my ripple afghan.


a skirt i made my sister, loosely based on one she already owned, mixed with my winging it style.


a scarf i made for my sister.

beret

i made a beret.
i crocheted it using a pink, purple and berry acrylic i found at lincraft today when i needed cheering up.



my webcam doesn't really show the colours properly. i intend to take better ones tomorrow.

i've been busy, sewing skirts for my sister, i also made a scarf, and i've started my first ripple. i love the wool (it feels wrong saying that, cos its not even wool, but yarn sounds wrong to me too, i've always said wool) i'm using right now.

it reminds me of rainbow paddle pops.
ripple photos tomorrow too.

my etsy store

Finally I've put some stuff in there.


Felix, Brice and Gerald.

Available now in my etsy store.

99 muffins because Gary ate one.

My friend Gary told all of the guys at the car dealership he works at that I make the best muffins they will ever taste and then went on to tell them I'd make 100 muffins for them for today.

So I spent yesterday baking. Its a good thing I like baking.





hmm gooey chocolate!

it only took 4 batches to get 100 muffins too. However the guys at work only got 96, due to a few hungry mouths eating some as they were done. Ah well. I'm told they went down very well and that there are only about 10 left.

I haven't been doing much sewing, I'm currently working on some skirts for my sister to wear to art school and I have made a few little stuffed critters (a cat and a furry blob thing) but overall I look at my sewing machine and go "oh yuck, I think I'll just watch some more Grey's Anatomy."

whats this?

I made another softie of my own design tonight. Its a fluff worm monster. Thats what I've decided it is anyways. I made him out of some craft fur that i found in my stash and some more of that leftover corduroy. once again, only using things I already own.

I think I might have to buy some more polyfill though.



oh look its me and my fluff worm monster.
he really needs a name.

better pictures tomorrow when i could be bothered grabbing my camera, for now its all about the webcam.

use what i have

i found this post not even five seconds ago. use what i have. i'm pretty inspired. i'm also the same as the original poster, i find i have so much fabric, so much lovely fabric and it never gets used.

recently i've been trying to use what i have. however i must admit i have actually bought some new felt. oh no. but that was in march. so its ok.

so i'm going to try and follow this challenge. for the whole month of april i'll only use what i have.

i have an idea for today, i've even picked out the fabric i want to use, but there is a towel in the bathroom that has a seahorse on it, and thats what i'm thinking, big, soft, seahorse.

if i do have to buy anything this month it will probably be hobbyfill. but i think thats ok. thats not really part of the stash.

decorating

this is my notebook that i've started to carry with me on a daily basis. i write down notes. things i need to do, things i need to remember, ideas i have. stuff like that. its quite lovely as it is, but i decided tonight after browsing many a craft blog it was time for me to do something crafty instead of just browsing.

i've been so uncreative lately. thinking about it, but not actually doing anything.
*yawn*

so i whipped out a trusty craft helper.



biscuits?



nope. even better. its part of my button stash.



so with a little bit of glue and craft buttons the decorating begins.

and thats where i stopped. originally i was going to cover the entire thing in buttons, which would look rather awesome. but i've decided against that. i think i'm going to try and do a few different things to it, i'm just not sure yet. so i've left it for now, letting the glue dry and i'll add a little more to it tomorrow.

and just for fun...



my feet! sparkly red shoes! this is what my legs looked like when i went out last friday night for the first time in ages. hot huh??

dead birds

so i made a dead bird for my housemate luke. it was his birthday earlier in the week so this was his present. luke and his friend gareth often take over our living room with their guitars and i swear the only song i ever hear them play is one with the line "a dead bird in my hand" and according to luke its supposed to be some kind of creepy romantic gesture. its amusing. so it inspired me to make a little dead bird for luke to hold in his hand.

and now its got me thinking about other dead softies i could make. like fish.

dead bird in my hand...

i've got dead birds on my brain.

mad hatters tea party tomorrow! (well today actually! since its just past midnight!)

happy birthday naybubble!

broken futons and picnics

i'm lying under my doona on my broken futon bed, if you saw it you'd be amazed that i actually slept on it, but for the moment its all i've got. it only properly completely broke last night while i was sleeping.

i didn't really make much at all today.

i went on a picnic with my friend viv, her cousin nigel and her friends em and kim. viv , nigel and i also went and saw the andy warhol exhibition at the gallery of modern art. finally. its only been there since december and i haven't managed to get there. after a quick pitstop at the 'bucks and then woolies for more snacks we headed off to the botanical gardens where viv and i continued with our knitting, nigel attempted 'scary-gami' (horror themed oragami with bad instructions) and em sketched nudes.

kim joined us later and he helped untangle viv's wool and made a little plait.
a nice fun afternoon. our second one in a month.

i love the botanical gardens.

a beetle bug

I'm continuing with my daily updates. I didn't mean for this to happen, it just sort of has, so I'm going to see how long I can stick with it. Hopefully it means i'll be at least starting something everyday just so I've got something to post.

Today's post is in honour of the beetle bug. The first of many softies I plan to make from my new book.



This is the original beetle bug, from the book as made by Carly Schwerdt of Nest Studio



And this is my beetle bug. A little different. I stuffed the legs and the eyes and scrapped the wings. Mostly just because when I started making this little guy late last night the wings were pissing me off. The fabric is a linen blend that I've had in my stash for so long and I don't even remember where the brown cotton came from.

Here's to more softies and the reduction of my stash. :D

The Purse of Frustration

Today I made this purse, it was a bit of a pain. i had to unpick a bit which i really hate to do, and then it didn't quite turn out how it looked in my head anyways. i'm not totally unhappy with it though.



Its lined too! Which is pretty much what caused most of the grief. You can't really see in this picture but theres a few tucks and it just got to the point where I couldn't be bothered unpicking and fixing things up so I just finished it off.

I didn't spend any extra money on any of the materials (except the unpicker I had to buy today, I always lose them). This purse is just made out of some of the leftover corduroy from the skirt I made the other week, the lining is from a remnant and the buttons and the zipper just come from my stash.

The Easter Bunny visited me yet again today. Fourth time too. Everyone keeps buying me chocolate.



Today I was given a chocolate Lisa.

painting the roses red

its my best friend's birthday next week, so since she is alice in wonderland mad we are having a mad hatters tea party. we've got all that stuff covered, however we decided it would look awesome if we had a heap of alice inspired paintings around.

so onwards to the paintings!


nay, the birthday girl, starting her portrait of alice.


and this is alice getting a few finishing touches added to her. we were joking that she's on acid.


and i couldn't get the idea of the queen's roses out of my head, i'd been telling everyone i was off to my sister's to paint the roses red. so this is the queens garden.


and i painted the roses red. we were joking that i painted the roses red with blood, since it looks rather sinister. which i wasn't aiming for at all, but i do like it.


my sister is an art student, so she had her's all planned out, unlike nay and myself who kind of just started painting. she did a wash type thing, and she'd already done a rough sketch of alice on paper, and now was pencilling her in on the canvas.


i wasn't allowed to take many photo's of jo's work, she wasn't too happy with how it was turning out. i like it though. its just not finished yet.


so she took a step away from it and started on the cheshire cat. we're putting this one up in a tree.


while she did this, i painted tweedle dee and tweedle dum. i didn't mean to cut out most of their faces, i just didn't really plan the painting and i didn't really have room. i'm glad i didn't have to paint their faces cos i'm pretty sure i would have stuffed it up.

we used all acrylic paints, supplied by my sister the ever so organised art student, and cheapo canvases fromt he junk store since we're all poor. we'll probably paint up a few more before the day. we're all dressing up too so its going to be a heap of fun.

sock girls and going away presents

Yesterday was my last day of work at my job. The girls I work with all put in and bought me some presents, which I was very suprised to recieve. It was very nice of them, especially considering the past few days haven't been overly nice for me.

Tracey made me a sock girl.


They also got me this book:



AND! a body shop of smelly niceness, a bottle of wine, some hair dye and a beesting cake. so nice of them.

for added cuteness here is my cat sleeping on some wool while i was knitting and watching grey's anatomy the other night.


and now i'm off to paint the roses red with my sister and best friend!

forgotten

this blog was forgotten. not that anyone probably noticed because i don't think anyone out there reads it.

i'm still crocheting, even had a little knit and crochet picnic in the park with some friends awhile ago. i was under the impression that at least one other person knew how to knit. i was wrong. i had to show them all. still fun times. cupcakes and truffles. YUM.

i'm told we're showing viv's cousin nigel how we craft in queensland. so that should be fun.

i've been painting a little too. but not a whole lot.

it only took me almost a year but my sewing machine is fixed. so i've been sewing again. not terribly well, but i've had some time off so my skills are a bit rusty.

so far all i've made is a stuffed felt penis (for a drag party that i never ended up going to) and a cord leopard print skirt.



it didn't quite turn out how i planned. i was mostly making it up as i went along.



the zipper is rather botched and bumpy so i added the ribbon to hide it.
i think its an ok effort for someone who has made nothing for almost a year. its comfortable to wear and i like it. please ignore my bed hair. i've pretty much just woken up.

i'm currently procrastinating cleaning.

i finish my job on wednesday, so hopefully i'll use this down time to create more. as always this seems a little disjointed. but thats me.