Totoro vs. Bender

Finally got around to making "O" Totoro but he looks more like Bender than Totoro! I modelled him the same as Chibi Totoro but it hasn't worked quite as well on a larger scale ...

I have since straightened up his smile but his whiskers are giving me all sorts of bother. Anyone with good tips for adding stiff black whiskers to a needle felted creature? :(

He's still very huggable tho' :D

I'm also desperately missing Bruce ... think I'll make a horde of them in coming weeks ...

Desperately Seeking Sewing Prowess

Some other felt things I've been working on on/off recently. Finished a batch of 6 "macaro(o)ns" at a mate's request and also a couple of 'cakes'. Although my stitches are uneven, I do pride myself that I now know a whole FIVE different stitches!

I'm pretty tempted to buy a whole lot of felt off an eBay seller I've been eyeing off now that I know my sewing skills are not a total loss. Plus I still have 200g (maybe 198g after these felt foodies) of polyfil to use up ...

The Very Huggable Bruce

My Spanish teacher (as in I am taking Spanish lessons, she is actually Mexican!) is going to hospital next week so I made this little guy to cheer her up. I gave it to her tonight and I think she liked him! I made his hands extra big for extra hugs. She's not going for anything serious but she's a really entertaining and great teacher so I just wanted to give her something anyways.

Needlefelted Wool and Steel Wire

I finally managed to successfully use steel wire to make his arms posable (I've had some poor attempts at getting the wool to 'stick' to the wire) so I'm pretty chuffed with that ;) Especially since I bought about 20m of wire from the bead shop way back when ...

Confessions of a 28 Year Old Something

Dearest Blog,

How have you been? I hope you haven't been too lonely and I'm SO sorry to have neglected you for so long but I've had an interesting couple of weeks!
After all the hub-bub of moving, I started a new job! For the first time in 28 years, I have to work full time! Getting up at 7:30am when I'm used to waking up at 10:30am is quite trying but the job itself is relaxing but challenging at the same time. I just find it so AWESOME that I get paid to play with a Wacom all day. The only downside is that we have to use Flash CS4 which crashes A LOT, but otherwise the days pass quite quickly which is a nice change from any previous jobs I've ever held.
I'm also cycling to work everyday which makes me feel a little more removed from the rat race that I've now finally become a part of! And perhaps this will help remove those stubborn 2 or 3kgs that have been hanging around since Christmas X_X

Anyway my dearest blog, I hope you can forgive me my absences and I promise to be a better friend from now on.
xoxo
Your Prodigal Pal, Jo.

PS I drew this picture yesterday, I hope you like it. It's another card for Postcrossing, just a warm-up from weeks of idleness so rather simple!

Pitt pens & watercolour pencil

We Are The Bears In The Real World

Headed down to St Kilda the other day to checkout my bears in action! They are in a newly opened boutique called Rude Health, helmed by the wonderful Julia Pound. The shop houses a collection of all that is cute and quirky manifested into clothing, jewellry, crochet dolls and other knick knacks (including felt anatomical parts in jars!). It's just off Acland St for all you Melbournites (and visitors to Melbourne! Hello!) so why don't ya'll just mosey on down and have a gander? :)

Almost Done Moving

90% of the way there with the whole moving thing *phew* Still need a coffee table and then some art for the walls and maybe a few plants. But yesterday was my first relaxed day in the new place (no getting up for 8am calls from delivery men, steam cleaner men, rubbish collecting men ... why are they all men?) so I sat down with a nice ole cup o' miso and did a sketch to warm up these tired drawing hands.

The left one I actual did a couple of months ago but never posted (?) I remember being struck by the beautiful strokes of her hair in the photo was what made me want to draw her.
They're a bit distorted because I couldn't be bothered to use the scanner (which is hooked up to the boy's computer ...)

Ink, Copics and regular markers

Moving House Hiatus

Sorry for the lapse in posts! But I have been building myself a boat bed and other bits and pieces from IKEA lately :D All should be done by this weekend so hopefully it's back to regular programming then!

A Different Kind of Felting

For my birthday, my extremely cool and talented friends Kat (check out her amazing architectural photos here: www.adarkroom.com) and Matt gave me a book of felt patterns purely of sweets (cakes, cookies and chocolates!) and despite my poor sewing skills, all the photos looked too good not to try out! So after a quick trip to Lincraft for polyfil, embroidery thread and some felt sheets (they don't have a huge range of colours though, mostly very bright, bold ones), I put my neanderthalic sewing skills to the test.

'Rustic' edges are the new 'smooth'

First up, I tried what I thought was the simplest pattern in the book: macarons. They only required 2 different kinds of stitching (prior to this, I didn't know there was more than one kind of stitch ...) so I thought "No Problem!" Plus they looked sooooooooo cute in the photos.
However ... mine ended up looking like burgers and not the cute puffy cookies in the photos. Cutting circles with scissors is HARD people!!!
After 2 disastrous macaron attempts, I then tried to make a fortune cookie (a special request inscribed by the gift givers onto the front page of the book, I LOVE book inscriptions! :D) which also looked easy on the pattern but took me a good 30 minutes to figure out what the instructions meant! No matter how hard I tried, I could not get the stitches to disappear from the cookie's 'bumcrack'.

Left: Sir Oinksalot II contemplates My First Macaron. Right: Bad photo of bad cookie!

Despite these disasters, I am not all too discouraged (not MUCH anyways). I mean what home is complete without an assortment of felt cakes and petit fours? Not mine, that's for sure!

Lesson of the day: keep on trucking people!

On a side note, we have found an apartment that we really like ... in the building right next to our current one! It is one bedroom but has an extra 'study' area which I am hoping to turn into a dedicated 'mess-making' area for all the crafty, painty stuff that we plan to make. Very excited about decorating esp. about the imminent trip to IKEA!!!

On Turning 28

I started a Doodleblog over with the friendly people at Shuttercal. It's a site meant to be a photolog but they kindly let me use it as a doodleblog :D



Besides the getting-old-a-phobia, I'm really looking forward to being 28! Juan and I are moving into our place in the next few weeks (rental applications pending *stressed to the max*), I start a new job in a month, I'm feeling quite fresh creatively and can't wait to get myself more organised and focused! Power to me!!!

(Cue deflation in 5...4...3...2...and...pfffffffffffffft...)

Moly X Portrait 3 - Rose's Moly

A THIRD moly arrived today and I felt awful guilty about not having done anything for this group for so long. So I managed to slay the procrastination monster, gave myself an extra good kick up the bum and just got down to it.

Rose's moly has the theme "Found Objects" but I've been trying not to hoard too much stuff anymore (despite leaving two rooms full of stuff at my parent's house!) so I was at a bit of a loss as to what to do when I first got her book (like ... 2 months ago ... bad Jo ...) But then, on a fateful Melbourne evening in a certain Spanish class, I found a fortune cookie slip on my table that read "God has given you one face, you make yourself another" and *BAM* inspiration!

Pitt Pens, Watercolour, Pencil

Felt good to be drawing after so much felting (and much less painful on the fingers *poke*poke*poke*bleed*).