Christmas orders

Happy New Year! Just a little eye candy for my first post for 2014, here are some of the guys I made up for Christmas orders, hopefully they made their way into the stockings of a few good children...

Extreme Darning and an Aussie Afternoon Tea

Yesterday at the markets, probably my last before baby arrives, I did a spot of extreme needle felt darning. A young gentleman had holes all through his favourite jumper and requested my darning services. The holes were enormous and required traditional woven darning before being reinforced with some spotty needle felting.

I say extreme because of a number of circumstances, namely the gale force winds, the cold, the rain, the time pressure and the large and numerous holes in the fabric. Not to mention my extremely pregnant state! Just two weeks to go!

Anyway, it was a bit of a challenge for my still new darning skills but I liked the results, definitely more interesting than before. I just hope the jumper remains a favourite of his! 

---

Today it has been raining all day and lately we've all had a bit of a taste for crumpets since it's winter so I decided to try the homemade variety. 

I didn't have the traditional circular crumpet rings so we ended up with crumpets in the shape of Australia, a koala and hearts. 

To go with this very Aussie afternoon tea we had Native Roasted Wattleseed Tea (delicious!) and lashings of butter and Aussie bush honey. All very comforting on a cold wet Melbourne afternoon. 

I'm back

Well finally the dust is settling. We have made our move to Melbourne and things are starting to find a bit of rhythm. We're expecting a new baby in July, have set up a lovely new home and have begun tapping into the creative Melbourne scene. There has been much making since my last post and I hope to find the time to post a little more regularly.

I have a new Melbourne business selling some beautiful organic Merino wool clothing from Germany alongside my handmade woolly items for babies and children. http://www.woollykins.com.au


I just love Disana clothing, they are such a wonderfully ethical company with affordable and totally natural and colourful clothing for children, I simply had to bring it to Australia because I couldn't find anything so adorable here.

It's getting cold here in Melbourne and so I've been making some additional woolly pieces for children out of some wonderful offcuts of Welsh woven wool blankets. They are small pieces but just enough for a cute but smart and warm waistcoat for a little one.

 

My winter toddler pantaloons are made from some beautiful 100% worsted wool suiting fabric that I picked up at a London carboot sale on a recent visit back to the UK. I just wish I had more time, I'd make pantaloons all day long, they are so popular on Etsy.

 

Since we're expecting a new winter baby in July there has been a bit of baby knitting going on of late so I'll post some photos of these too soon. Who doesn't love miniature knitwear!

Broadway Market Saturdays from 9th July onwards and upwards

We had a really good first day selling our handmade children's clothes and gifts at Hackney's Broadway Market yesterday. So we'll be there every saturday for the foreseeable future and it's inspiring to talk to customers and get feedback. Here's our stall. The dolls are made by the lovely girls at Dalston Dolls, who I did the Steiner doll making workshop with.