and the winner is....

All the entries were hand written, snipped, put in a bag, shaken about.
And with my eyes closed I popped my hand inside, felt around and pulled out...
....the name 'chicken willow'! So congratulations Hannah!

Your prizes will be on the way toot sweet!

Thanks very much to everyone who entered
xKate

last chance...

to enter today...go here...

xkate

Waking up. Village life market.

The mornings have been beautiful here the past few days.

I am not often up and outside at 5.30 am to appreciate them.
Even the dew drops on the large, verdant, healthy,err.. slightly unwanted plants
(ahem-ever present weeds) look pretty.


I had my first go at the Village life market at Northey street on Sunday.

It was freezing in the morning air as we set up but Angies felt creations looked so fuzzy and warm in the sunlight. It rained before the weekend and its raining again now, so yay for market clear skies.

We had an excellent time, the space and people were as sweet as could be.
Lovely Anaheke-thankyou...turning up to find the tent set up was simply wonderful-wouldn't it be great if every market you went to was like this?!
And if every customer was this cute?!
xKate

Down the end of my street

Down the end of my street there is a complex of various buildings, housing hundreds of amazing women.

Smithy is 97 and has a long list of things to make as she has nearly 30 grandchildren.
She likes her young friend Margaret(8o odd something), who she says keeps an eye out for her.

They are generous with their experience and tell me the key to living a good life is to be happy, to make things and to be with friends.

They love seeing babies and we reminisce together about when our kids were young.

We knit and drink cups of tea and all is good.
XKate

My creative space

You can still enter my giveaway here, so do that, then read on...

All of us women in the back row of this photo are wearing a scarf...one very long scarf!!
We all contributed to it, part of our efforts towards the Close Knit project,
for the Brisbane Festival.
(I am fourth from the left wearing a a black top and happy grin!)

Brisbane readers may want to keep the 25 of September free because we will be presenting our crochet creations as yarn bombing artwork at the 'Into Africa' event in Yeronga.
There will be a market, dancing, a choir of 200 singers, cute sleepy babies in slings to fuss over and more...I can hardly wait!

And with her big blue dancing gumboots and blue crochet hat on Petronias' angelic daughter sure looks excited and ready too!

On the dash robin crafting side of things I am heading in for the Village life market at Northey street in Windsor this weekend.
I love the place and am rapt to be able to attend. I will be there my lovely friend Angie, who some of you will know from the Avid market.

Over the next few days I am going to use some more of the caramel coloured wool (dyed with gum tree bark) to make more brooches to take in.
I have been busier than ever and thought I might like a break today from crochet, an actual day off from all work related pursuits...

but the beauty of loving what I do means I still yearn to do it in my spare time too.
I am absorbed by the fun of coming up with new ideas, trying different techniques and I get to keep myself busy, contented and my creative mind active.


Oh and Brisbanites also keep an eye out for an upcoming TV special-its a Great South East episode on the close knit project.
I may possibly be in it, in a blink and you'd miss it kind of way, the real draw card is the lovely women of a Sandgate aged care place.
I have been volunteering there and enjoy working beside these amazing women, some in thier nineties, striken with arthritis yet the knitting they do makes me green with envy. Hopefully the show will highlight how thier beautiful, wrinkled, soft and delicate hands can still wield knitting needles or crochet hooks with amazing results.
xKate
P.s-if you do watch it let me know what you think...I have no interest in TV so never hooked mine up, ha, ha, irony!
I also slept through my abc radio interview (it was on at 5.30 a.m) so I have to rely on more reliable viewers to keep me up to speed...:o)
more creativity here

pictures...

To enter my giveaway go here...

The big launch and market way over the other side of Brissy, in Ipswich was wonderful.

As the sun set the grounds of Precious packages just looked magical with Vanessas crochet bunting lit by the fairy lights.

Thanks to all who came and all who visited my stall and had a chat.

Thanks also to all of the lovely supporters who bought my brooches, scarves and hats...I was absolutely chuffed with how many people stopped by! I think Cas was too!

And big thanks to lil' sweetie Sky, you posed so shyly for this piccy in your new dash robin beanie-and you look adorable!
xKate

mumatopia launch today! Enter my giveaway! Yay!

Go here to find out all you need to attend the mumatopia launch

and here to enter the dash robin giveaway,

cheers Kate

my creative space

My creative space....

my place this week...

Green ants

Tiny funky orange fungus.

Weeds.

Flooded lawns.

Fruit eaten by bats.
(don't you dare suggest rats!)

Weeds.

and lastly weeds.

'been busy, thanks for asking, crochet workshops and yes, okay, I will get on with it'

dash robin giveaway
One of you will receive mailed to your door;
2 dash robin brooches(a felt bird and crochet granny square)
an oven mitt made out of repurposed denim, linen and Japanese fabrics,
a clutch made from repurposed fabrics with crochet strap and vintage buttons...
and a couple extra bits n bobs...
PLUS
A copy of my favourite book, My Place, by the wonderful Sally Morgan.
'tis a 2nd hand copy but in perfect nick
if you are the kind to turn your nose up at a second hand book what are you doing here ;o)

Oh, it's much more fun giving things away than weeding!!

To enter -leave a comment and share your favourite book and something about your place.
Follow and get an extra entry.
People already following get an extra too!
xKate
P.S- Winner will be randomly selected on the 25th August
p.s-more creative spaces here

mumatopia launch

Isn't this just the most lovely photo?
(by Louisa Jenke, of Vintage by Lou- not mine)
It's Bec and Cas and Bella.
You can meet all three of these ladies plus see wonderful mother and child items and information at the Mumatopia launch at precious packages in Ipswich, 4-8.30p.m this Saturday...Loads of wonderful stalls and free goodie bags(!!) and you could win a one hour massage!!
Oh and yep, me too, there with my toys and baby sized crochet beanies plus maybe some nice things for mums...cos we like nice things don't we?
Now for a tea...xkate

meet me monday

Welcome to a meet me Monday mini interview.

Meet Jack, a young artist fascinated by science fiction, mythological creatures and crytpozoology.
'I do lots of drawings, I have a box full of more drawings than you would see in any gallery, so I only have time to share a few.I made a colouring book once and this one didn't fit in.

Its a cryptozoologic creature called Kongamato, which in African language is the overwhelmer of boats. I love reading about creatures like big foot and Kongamato and the search to find them. This one is flying over a waterfall.

I drew this one last Christmas and it is a hunting scene.

It is a fight between a carnivorous alien deer and vicious raptor like creatures. The blue areas are the gaps of sky between clouds. I felt really happy how this turned out!
Most of my pictures now are of aliens or monsters but I started drawing years ago, when I was very young. I drew lots of animals, especially Bilbies.

This picture is a cyborg dragon with metal horns and a gun on his paw. He comes from the future and his time machine is too small to have built in controls so it has a remote control. It was a lot fun drawing.

I once saw an exhibition of Ron Mueck. He makes sculptures of the human body out of silicone. Some of his artworks were so real looking you'd expect them to come to life and start walking around, you could see wrinkles on the fingers they were that detailed!

The only one that didn't look realistic was an enormous face which didn't have a back, like a mask.

Another artist I really like is Patricia Piccini. I have seen her works on the Internet. She does work sort of like Ron Muecks' but she makes sculptures that are half animal-half human. The pair I like most are of 2 half human-half meerkats.

I would love her to make one of half-animal-half human creatures protesting against animal scientific experimentation, maybe protesting against growing ears on mice.


I love to read and love my imagination. I enjoy thinking about creatures and I would like to make sculptures of aliens and write stories.
xKate

my creative space

I checked my google stats last week for old bloggy and gosh,
there's quite a few peeps checking in...so...'hello all' and thanks for visiting.
Do leave a comment won't you, and I will happilly check out your blogs too and get back to you.
Now for my usual ramble...I am doing a toy making workshop soonish with teenagers.
I needed to provide some images of toys, however mine were thought to be too sweet for promotional poster....
The words emo and such were suggested so I came out with this safety pinned creature...

but was advised I had gone a bit too far into the emo style and needed to soften him up...

and give him a cheerful background...

The guidance given to me about styling was patient and kind but by the end of the process (changing button colours, positioning of things, etc, etc) I feel as if I have no clue what teenagers want and my confidence is shaken.
Hopefully between then and now I will lose the nerves and get some excitement back for it.

I have been working hard this week, picking up some extra stuff, paid and unpaid which has been creatively challenging, fun but in a word; tiring.

So I have also been enjoying my down time at home, making small intricate things which can absorb me and help me shake off any stresses.

I have been doing some furniture re arranging, I suppose nesting, and although these photos are terrible I thought I would share some very 'un-home-beautiful'
snaps of my real space and what works for me. Books and favourite pieces.

T.V not given centre stage placement.

Little collections grouped by colours.

that's all for now,
happy crafting,
xkate
here for more