Baba Yaga

Concept: crude leather amulet with crusaders cross - must look old, preferably medieval
Materials: vegetable tanned leather, dark brown dye, gold fabric paint, leather conditioner

I feel like I may have made the cross a little too crude but I'm happy with the worn gold effect

Birdsall Leather is a funny old place. In a big warehouse in the middle of Botany you find this elaborate wooden door with a carved leather mailbox of a cowboy attempting to make love to a keg of beer .... which leads you into one of those old style stores where everything is hard to find, all their customers are known by nickname and nobody asks if you need help. But they also sell large leather offcuts at 5.50 a pop. Check out my haul!

3 new designs for leather neckpieces inspired by Balinese and Javanese crowns

New earring design.
Although I'll have to source more of these antique Czech glass beads if I want to make more as these were the last of them

Next commission is done!
A pair of fancy earrings for a stylish young lady who recently got her ears pierced.

Rainbow Rob #1 is done!

I used wadding rather than loose stuffing for padding as I didn't want it to turn into a choking hazard. I then sewed a cover for the wadding out of black polycotton (reeeeeeally don't want any choking hazards).

Then stuffed him and sewed on his little footsies.

I still have to finish his identical twin but I might leave that for tomorrow.

The eyes are the windows to the SOUL!
And as such it is vitally important that the eyes on a toy are exactly right.
They need to be kind and happy or you will be responsible for lifelong trauma.

They are also really hard to get right ... as I found out with Señor Rainbow Rob.

At first I tried crocheting the eyes but the results looked more like fried eggs so I gave up and decided to try felt.
Several attempts, 100 swear words and two stabbed fingers later I think I've got a fairly good resemblance.

Next stop: Stuffing Town.

It's been a bit quiet here.
Mainly because I was diagnosed with advanced cancer and have been undergoing treatment. The whole thing's been a bit ... rough.
I've been talking about the process on my personal page (Ran Domllama - most of it's locked to friends only so you'll have to add me if you want all the gory details).

I've had to give up my classes at Sew Make Create and I miss it enormously but I'm still doing commissions.

My current project is a commission for a Rainbow Rob toy.
Rainbow Rob is a character in a children's book. He is a penguin who feels that his personal colour palette is somewhat lacking and tries other animals' colours on for size. Finally he reaches a zen like level of self acceptance.

The project specs are;
*around 20cm tall
*flat with a little bit of plush padding
*rainbow on the back
*flappy arms
*happy eyes
*a second, identical twin was required for the inevitable moment when the first toy gets damaged, lost, etc.

While a penguin toy is pretty easy and there are lots of patterns available online, Rainbow Rob looks nothing like an actual penguin. He's more like a burly, asymmetrical trapezium with eyes.

This increased the difficulty level a bit but I always like a challenge.
So I drew him on a sketch book and measured out the proportions. Then I redrew him to actual size and covered him with 5mm grid.

I decided on brightly coloured Pima cotton for the fibre as I could get all the rainbow colours from the book in this yarn.

So far I've done the silhouette of both sides and joined them. Now comes the fiddly little details that have to be done just right so Rob and his identical twin Bob look happy rather than confused, insane or maimed ...

Trying to teach myself to crochet left handed, I suddenly feel great affinity with my beginner students.

So. Frustrating.

Just wanted to share the gorgeous blanket Rachel, one of my students, made after attending a beginner crochet workshop!
So proud!

This definitely brightens the room! Here's Rachel's finished granny square bedspread! (You might remember seeing her stack of granny squares previously). What a fantastic job! We

To raise money for the winter issue of Tension Magazine, Josi and Art of Crochet are offering their entire collection of patterns for only $19.99 (25 patterns in all).
http://www.iamintheloop.com/shop.php?choice=collection

In The Loop : SHOP The Entire Collection

Also, can't resist.
Hey Girl, heard you liked beards.
So I got you twelve.