Last Market of 2010

Tomorrow I will be heading into Morabbin to the Monkey Markets. This will be my last market for 2010, and there will be some absolutely gorgeous stall holders, including myself, there is about 79 stalls!! Definitely something for your last minute Christmas gifts.

One of these things would be my gorgeous blanket and nappy sets... great gift for a new bubba...

or one of these luscious red minky nappies would be fantastic for a gorgeous Christmas bottom!! 

or you could simply indulge in some gorgeous fluffy goodness for your bub!!

Some of the other stall holders are zee and me, Fuzzy Creations, Narelle, Mulberry Tree Organic, and many others!! So head out to the market and grab some gorgeous, handmade goodies for Christmas presents, or just for you!!

Groovy 80's (apparently I'm a youngen)

I was just reading Cam's blog, loving the old black and white photos from her childhood, I decided to share my own. (Although I don't think I have any black and white ones...)

as you can see, I was a cloth bub too :)  I swear my mother had those cushions until I moved out when I was 18 too.

I'm on the right here, doing some serious important reading.

And I was super glamorous!

and I only ever dined on the best cuisine.

I love the dress here (I'm on the left) I think that we were probably just sprung doing something naughty.

Glamorous me here, can't be seen in the bathtub without a hat!

Head over to Cam's to join in :)

Off they go...

Off to Fluffy Buns they go... 

Ive been working hard this week to make sure Misty's order is on time! I really love creating when the fabrics I use are just so beautiful :) I definitely wont tire of making nappies any time soon :)

Make sure you head over to the fluffy buns store and check out the beautiful stock :)

The Shop is also now in sale mode ahead of Christmas shutdown this weekend. So if you want your nappies before Christmas make sure you head on over and get some now! I will express them to you to make sure you get them on time!! You'll get a nice little discount too :)

Some of the new beautiful nappies Ive been working on and that are on sale right now in the shop!!

The Dress

Today I finished off Ruth's Christmas dress that she asked me to make her to wear for Christmas. I think it turned out pretty well and she looked super cute at her school christmas carols tonight. 

Excuse the flash photography, there wasnt much light about!

The front... 

I used the corset style back for something different. I originally was going to use a zipper up the back, but despite my measurements I stuffed up the bodice size, but I think it was an alright save.

So now that is over, my little miss only has 2 days left of prep! **tear**

Tuesday...

So today is Tuesday... or if you ask the wiggles, it is Taco Day (yes, I watch far too much wiggles with my son). I have been working on orders and also getting ready for the market all whilst looking after my beautiful kids who seem to know when I get up super early to be without them and sew in peace and get up at the same time to bug me!!

I've been playing with some of this beautiful red minky, it is so so soft and delicious!! I want to play with it all the time!!

On the weekend, I also took the kids in to the shops to visit the man himself... SANTA!!

At this point, he was receiving strict instructions to bring trucks and a DS for Christmas. Very important stuff here. 

And then after the formalities were over, the kids both gave him a cuddle. This is the first time Oliver has actually met Santa without screaming his head off so I was pretty proud. He might actually enjoy all those presents this year, although wrapping paper is such a fantastic toy!!

I have almost finished Ruthie's Christmas dress too! very excited about this as it is just gorgeous, I will hopefully finish it off tomorrow as we have school christmas carols tomorrow night!! So I will post pics then!

Until next time...

Market Prep Day...

Today is my final day of prep for the Fairy Floss Market in Doncaster tomorrow, so I am madly racing around between the many jobs I need to finish. 

I have sewn together a bunch of AI2 shells and am currently overlocking the soaker pads. I am amazed at how much quicker it is to make an AI2 nappy, I definitely would be packing it if I had all AIO's to make before tomorrow!!

I am also racing back and forth from the fabric shelf... surely I can throw together one more designer combination before tomorrow right?? right???

We will see, I want to do some more unisex nappies as I feel like everything is pretty much girl or boy orientated.

Anyway, must get back to work, lots to do! lots to do! Make sure you head into the market tomorrow and have a look around, there are just the most beautiful products at this market, if anything, I just love going there to drool!!

Tuesday's Hidden Treasures

I am very excited to have been featured on the Fairy Floss Markets Blog as one of Tuesday's Hidden Treasures.

I will be at the fairy floss markets this Saturday in Doncaster as well details below.

Fairy Floss Markets

Manningham Function Center

Doncaster Rd, Doncaster

9am - 2pm

Make sure you get along and check out the gorgeous new nappies, blankets, bibs and wipes I have been working on. I now even stock All In Two Nappies!!

Its been too long...

**blush** it has been almost 6 weeks since I posted. I have been so incredibly busy that I have hardly had time to come up for air.

I've recently started selling my nappies to a store called Fluffy Buns. The lovely misty is now stocking my products in her new online store. Head over and check her out!

I have also been doing a lot of markets and making custom nappies, which is taking up alot of my time. The boy has been very unsettled of late, he seems to have allergies which we are unsure of what they are, lactose it seems which for my cheese eating, yoghurt loving little man is a tough habit to break!

Anyway, I hope to be in more often from now on... I am slowly getting a hold on my time, mainly by getting up at 5am to sew, it is actually very nice at that time of the morning with no kids around to bug you and it is just you and the machine humming away.

Ive also been buying LOTS of new fabric lately, which is lots of fun for the production of bibs etc. I also acquired some Alexander Henry fabric recently at my local sewing shop for a highway robbery price of $3 per meter. I still have no idea what I will do with it, but I couldn't let designer fabric sit in a shop at that price and not buy it! I will post about that another day, because I actually got a few gorgeous things that day all from the bargain bin!

Until next time :)

Busy Lady...

I swear I am still around among the many things I have to do. Perhaps I am buried underneath the piles of nappies, blankets and bibs that are to be sewn.

A piccie of my stall from Friday night to keep you entertained while I find myself somewhere in the to do list ahead of this week's market :)

My Creative Space

Whoops! Skipped another day! 

 I mentioned on Tuesday that I am working on some super secret squirrel things for the markets as gift ideas for Christmas. So that is what has been happening in my creative space lately. Lots of sewing, cutting, and thinking of what I am going to do next! LOL!

I have made the decision to go with a little something that looks a little like this...

I will be making baby blankets to try out at the markets and will be taking the first run of them to Eats & Treats tomorrow night as well as to the Monkey Markets on Sunday.

This one is white cotton with a feature strip on the front with minky on the back and is so beautiful and soft. I will be making up a few, mostly with chenille or flannel on the back, and only a couple with minky on the back for now as I am awaiting a shipment of minky at the moment and don't have many big pieces left :p.

They are a beautiful weight for the coming warmer months and are the perfect size for swaddling or using as a cuddle or pram blanket. I am still unsure how much they will be, I am leaning towards something between $30 & $45. Not sure yet, but I will have to decide soon!!

I have a bunch more that are ready to be sewn as well...

So I will have a nice little pile of them with me at the markets this week to see how they go. They are so beautiful, I hope that they go really well so I can keep making them! 

I have also spent the last few weeks dealing with a little problem that we in the nappy world call "wing droop". I had a few comments from one or 2 of my nappy testers and reviewers lately that there has been some small issues with this on their tester nappies, and of course, the perfectionist in me says "AHH, FIX IT!!" So I have spent a couple of days testing out a new front design of some nappies to deal with wing droop.

As usual, the easiest solution tends to be the best, I simply cut the wings off! I am still deciding whether I will reduce the amount of snaps on the front of the nappy to 6, I probably wont as it will reduce the amount of use it gets. (Ignore my pasty white leg in this photo by the way)

What are you doing in your creative space today? Why not head over to Kirsty's and join in with everyone else and share your creativeness with us all :-)

Amy xo

Naughty Little Blogger!

So I have been MIA the last 6 days. No excuse other than busyness, markets and fighting off the millions of snails in my back yard whilst I ripped out an entire garden bed in preparation for a veggie garden.

I DO have some very secret squirrel thinks that I am thinking about for Christmas which I will reveal later in the week. 

I went to the Nappy Expo on the weekend. My stall was right next to the door, which was great because I got to talk to pretty much every person who came through the doors! It was good to talk to people about their perceptions of cloth nappies as well as what they want to do in cloth nappying their child.

I am working on a little display book as well for my market stall to show off what kind of nappies I have made as well as what I am working on. And also the story of how WeePantz came to be and where we hope to go in the future. It is nice to think about and refocus your energy and attention on what you are doing, 

I find that lately I have become exhausted as I spend the whole day attempting to get work done around School and Oliver so I am also changing my working hours. I had a slight melt down towards the end of last week, about the same time as I went AWOL. As I stood a blubbering mess, my beautiful partner and supporter Mick said to me "you can only do what you can do" and this is completely true. As a perfectionist I tell myself that is a weak excuse for being not good enough in my own eyes. (oh yes that might be pretty harsh, but as i said, I am really a perfectionist, and I wont settle for less than what I expect of myself most of the time)

 I think that as someone who has suffered depression in the past, I need to make sure I work hard to ensure that I stay better! So from now on I will do emailing, take phone calls and do minimal actual crafty work during the day, aside from buying fabric, doing pinning and when Olly decides to nap, doing some website work as well as some cutting. Sewing room time has now become 7pm - 10.30pm giving me the ability to nap when Olly does if I need to, I am going to enjoy motherhood which is why I wanted to stay home and work from home to start with.

I am working on alot of things for the coming week. Along with the secret squirrel stuff I mentioned earlier, I am preparing for 2 markets (I know I just said I was exhausted but once again... work-a-holic and perfectionist).

The first of which is on Friday Night in Carlton, and is a beautiful night out at a cafe called Birdie Num Nums. The market is called Eats and Treats and is donating proceeds to the Royal Childrens' Hospital Foundation in Melbourne. I will most likely donate some of my sales to the hospital as well from orders and sales over $100 as having experienced the wonderful staff at the children's when Olly was in there, and having have met a few of the patients and their parents, it is SUCH a good cause. Tickets for the market are $25 and must be pre-purchased so that the organisers know how many people to cater for! There are a bunch of beautiful stall holders and included in your ticket price is a meal (6 courses I hear) and also a drink of either wine/beer/softdrink. Its actually such a good price for the meal! For more information head over to the Eats and Treats site and email the girls for ticket reservation.

The second Market I am doing this weekend is a Christmas Market run by Monkey markets and is in Eltham on Sunday, I am really looking forward to this market as the other stall holders' items are so so beautiful, and I just stare all day! Its also nice to be in an environment where little babies are coming past your stall :p Baby Gazing Day!!! For information on this Sunday's market, head over to the monkey markets website.

Anyway, so I had best get back to making dinner, Bed time is now 7pm sharp so I have to get dinner finished and the kitchen cleaned before I go in to work. Tomorrow I will share with you some of the other things I have been working on in my hibernation almost week.

Amy xo

Sew Up Wednesday

Today is Sew Up Wednesday. So I am currently TRYING to sew some things up! But right now I'm still cutting.  Does anyone else just get sick of cutting? I have cut for the entire day today, soakers, microfleece, PUL for under Minky and I'm about to cut into some more of the cotton from the other day.

The best part of my day today was heading into Spotlight. Desperate need for more boy fabric... again... And was horrified to not find the clearance bin where it was the other day to get some more of this fabric...

I reached desperation point, cursing myself for not getting more of it last week, and eventually chose a different print that I really wasn't happy with. I was on my way to pay for the other fabrics in my hand and then I SAW IT!! Hidden underneath some random poplin on a shelf nowhere near where it should have been. (Do you think someone else was trying to hide it?) And I snapped up the last 2 meters. Now I have plenty to do some cute little things with and it was still $5 per meter. 

What a wonderful day. Now how to get these children to eat their dinner and go to bed... ARGH!! 

Another Day at my place...

Today I'm off to get some xrays done on an old knee injury and also get a checkup of my spinal fusion.

Most of you who read my blog aren't aware that when I was 11 I was diagnosed with severe scoliosis and around 11mths after diagnosis I had a spinal fusion with poles inserted so that I would be able to live a normal life. 

This morning I was gathering together all of my old xrays (there is a massive pile as I had to get xrays done every 3mths) to take with me for the xray people to compare today's xrays with and I had a little look through them to make sure they were all in the right envelopes and came across my MRI images from just before my operation.

At the age that I was, I don't remember much about the severity of my condition, I remember being told that it was very bad and not having surgery wasn't really an option. I remember the pain, it was pretty painful as the curve in my spine would get worse all the time. But it just happened, I have never really seen it as a massive big deal. People go through worse right!

So tomorrow I will find out if everything is still as it is meant to be. Sort of something like this....

I have poles inserted from T1-T12 and the front of my spine has been fused also, this was done in 2 seperate operations 1 week apart. I am of course super proud that I was the very first person to have this operation who walked after 10 days (it was only like 50m, but I walked!) I was also the first person not to need a wheelchair for a short period of time after going home (I remember them telling me this and saying it was amazing, I didnt think it was so amazing, I just did it!)

It's pretty scary to go get a checkup done as I am unsure of what to expect, the positive part of me is telling me not to stress out about it! Hopefully tomorrow I will hold in my hands very positive results from that!

Anyway, that is completely not sewing related, but I thought it might be something interesting to read for all of my regular readers, rather than hey look at my new fabric!! Perhaps I am grasping at straws to make sure I have content for Blogtoberfest!

So other than having photos taken of my insides today, I am working on nappies for the Casey Cloth Nappy Expo on Saturday. Some gorgeous little boy nappies with some of the fabric from here. 

I am also looking after a sick little miss, although I think she may be faking it, I let her stay home because last time I thought she was faking she had a really bad ear infection!

Until tomorrow...

Her First time in Cloth

I thought I would share a photo with you that really amuses me. This photo was taken of Miss Ruth when she was 1 week old, had been home from hospital but a few days and was in her very first cloth nappy.

VERY BIG!! I had no idea about the cloth options available to me, in fact they were probably not even being sold yet by most of the sellers that are around today. This photo still makes me smile 5 1/2 years later. I remember how much I was laughing and how hard it was to keep the camera still when I was trying to take the photo! She was so tiny too! and definitely didn't talk back... 

Too Glad that there are gorgeous cloth options available now. As much as this photo is so amusing, pants were definitely not an option that day and I'm glad that now there are nappies available that do fit under pants! (especially living in Melbourne in this cold... yes it is still cold!)

Wordless Weekend

Saturday...

I've just finished getting ready for the market. Now for a couple of glasses of red before a good nights sleep!

Sir Oliver decided that last night wasnt one for sleeping, so I am pretty exhausted. Make sure you head into the market tomorrow and grab some gorgeous wares!

Until then...

Today is....

WET!!

The rains are here (hee hee that reminds me of the corn ad), so we have opted to hibernate for the day.  

I was supposed to get up at 6am, but opted to stay in bed and listen to the rain pouring outside and cuddle my little boy Olly who had joined me at 5.30am.

I was booked into the gym this morning and I ditched in favour of cleaning my house and sewing bibs and nappies.

Oliver was meant to nap, so I can get some work done, but he seems to have missed the hibernation memo, all he wants to do is run around like a mad man...

Tomorrow I am meant to go to the market... I am hoping this rain clears up so I can!

My Creative Space

Okay so I missed another day... more RNW things to do yesterday, but relax everyone, I am back, I am done with RNW for this year :-)

Today in my Creative Space I have been cutting, pinning, sewing, ironing, washing and buying fabric for bibs and nappies ahead of Saturday and Sunday. (yes, I realise i am completely crazy organising 2 markets for a weekend, but alas, I thought one of the markets was last week and miscalculated my dates... eek!! All is good, I have done this before, and will most likely be crazy and do this again,..

So I bought this fabric today (along with some blue stary fabric) for bibs. I woke up this morning, started organising my work space for the day before breakfast and the school run occurred, and then realised something horrid. I only had about 20 bibs!! now when you generally sell out of bibs in every market you 20 is simply just not enough for 2 markets! So off I trundled to Spotlight. The middle fabric is Michael Miller (from the discounted $5 bin). At least I am assuming it is Michael Miller, It had MMF in the selvage.

I also finally cut into some of this...

Some of these lovely boyish fishies will be gracing my products too. :)

Anyway, off to tend to children, dinner and baths and bed to do. And then more sewing!!

For more spaces head over to kootooyoo

So So Busy...

So I haven't blogged for a few days for Blogtoberfest. I am so incredibly aware of every second, but alas I have been very busy setting up displays for Reusable Nappy Week. 

Proof I hear you ask??

Ignore my handbag in the bottom photo. These photos are of the static display at the Werribee library.

This is the display at the womens hospital.

I will also be running an information session / morning tea at the werribee library on heaths road  (in the werribee plaza shopping center car park) tomorrow at 10.30am if you would like to come along and have a look at some cloth nappies in real life!

If you are not in Victoria, and would like to find out what is going on in your state for RNW, click here.

I am also preparing for 2 markets this weekend, and the casey nappy expo next weekend, but more on that tomorrow, when I am not in RNW mode!!!

Hope your Tuesday is awesome, well what's left of it!

A Day Off

Today I made the decision to take the day off from WeePantz. I have been sewing my little heart out lately making nappies and bibs for the various markets I do around. So with an unexpected free weekend I decided to make a dress for Miss Ruth, simply because I haven't done it in a while.

As soon as I mentioned that today I was going to make a dress, Miss Ruth's ears pricked. I asked her what colour she would like it to be "pink" came the reply. So out I came with 3 different shades of pink fabric, and she picked the one she liked best. Light pink, ahh this girl has taste, it is the perfect colour for her skin tone.

So with pattern in hand, and some cute pink fabric along with some white to add my own little flair to it, off I set to make a cute dress. Around 2 hours later I emerged, dress in hand, to have it snatched to be worn immediately. I'm guessing that is the tick of approval!!

As usual, I don't know how to do as I am told. I left the front pockets off the dress and added white to the top and bottom to match the store bought bias binding I already had in the sewing room. I also made a yo yo for the front and finished it off with a little button, just the right colour. (p.s, I'm not too flash at yo yo's, so don't look too closely!)

So it got the seal of approval, she skateboarded up and down the street in it for hours today. 

DOH!

 

Source

Haha, so today I was sitting here thinking and wondering why my market email hadn't arrived yet for tomorrow. After checking with the bank that the payment went through I decided to call CMA and ask if it was running late.

I just started to say that I was a stall holder at tomorrow's market in Werribee Park when the lovely lady on the other end of the phone told me that the market wasn't tomorrow at all, it was in fact NEXT Saturday. Oh well, more time to make more stock right? And a well deserved day off tomorrow! I wonder what I will do with myself? Probably sew :p

So if you were intending to visit me at the market tomorrow, don't! Come next week instead :) I will have some gorgeous new boy nappies!!

My Creative Space

Well this morning I started cleaning up my creative space, that would be the sewing room, its a complete and utter mess in there most of the time! Sorting out fabric (oh wow! I have so much fabric by the way, I will have to share a photo of that soon) and finding alot of pins!

Anyway, I was almost finished cleaning up and was about to jump on the sewing machine and do some nappies when my posters arrived for RNW so I sat for a few hours preparing them for the MCH offices, shopping centers and library around about to promote the information session we are running on Wednesday next week.

So we are running the session at the Wyndham City Library on Wednesday, all of the info is on the Nappy Network Website. Would love to see you there!

Now back to this...

... massive pile of nappies, I have gotten through some of that now. And will finish it off tomorrow I think ;)

For more creative spaces head over and visit kirsty.

See-ya tomorrow!!

Sew Up Wednesday.

It's Sew Up Wednesday again on Crafty Mamas. Last night and today I am (once again) working on a banner for the front of my market tent. 

I have already got a big vinyl banner that I bought at the beginning of the year (before logo changes, so I am close to replacing it) which is great for the front of my table at indoor markets etc. But I want people to see who I am from far away. I do believe that there is something about the name "weepantz" that gets people coming to your stall just so see what on earth you are selling.

Anyway, this is the beginning of it, I have the letters cut out of microfleece and the back is just some poplin I got at Spotlight that was just the right colour. Mind you, I have started this banner 3 times now and not been happy with the end result so it ends up folded and in the corner of my sewing room. 3rd time is the charm right??

This weekend I will be in Werribee for the market by the way, why not head in, details are over on the side ;)

A Strange Occurrance...

Okay... So yesterday, I had my "new post" thinggy open and the strangest of things occurred, I was abducted by aliens and didn't get to post for Blogtoberfest. 

(Source)

Thankfully, the aliens have now returned me unharmed to my home surrounded by crafty goodness. Now if I can keep those pesky aliens at bay I might be able to get some work done around here :-p

Market Day Wrap Up!

This Blogtoberfest has given me the motivation to actually blog a bit more about what goes on around here.

YES, its a mad house for the most of the time as I am ALWAYS preparing for a market and this week was no exception. I didn't, however, spend as much time as usual in the sewing room as it was school holidays and a special man's birthday.

But I was ready, after late night sewing and ranting at my printer which has decided to print lines of colour that somewhat resemble a disjointed version of my images in my information brochures. Any advice here? Perhaps I need to run the print head alignment thinggo that it keeps telling me to do! :p (oh yeah, I'm super tech savvy!)

So off I went to the market this morning. Yes, it was early, and yes, I remembered to wind my clocks forward before I went to bed, and my STUPID considerate phone decided to wind itself forward ANOTHER hour at 2am after I was in bed and ahh, yes tragedy, I was awake at 3.30am, well in Daylight savings time it was 4.30, but nevertheless, it was still an hour earlier than I intended to wake up, and only 2 hours after I went to bed. ;-)

So Off I went, and the market was just wonderful. This was one SUPER organised market, I was very impressed with the Fairy Floss Markets team and the work they did to make the day a complete success. I even had one of the helpers offer to unpack my car for me! They were just so so very wonderful! I arrived upstairs to a cookie on my table, in the shape of the market logo (oh what a clever tactic, delicious cookies will keep me coming back) and beautiful stall holders all around me who were all so very very clever. I find sometimes its easier to close your eyes than it is to open them as you save alot of money! I will be doing my Christmas shopping at this market the next time I am there, as it is just FULL of GORGEOUS things that I want to be in my size.

I am finally getting used to the smaller space that I have to display my nappies and bibs. I am used to having a 3m x 3m space and this was just one table, but I think I really did a good job of display this week as I used all of those hours I wasn't sewing to think and research how on earth I was going to utilize my space in a better way. I'm finally nailing it :)

And I had a very good day with lots of babies and their parents walking past and stopping for a chat, and me of course getting clucky over them all! (A girl can look and cluck right?) and of course lots of new customers, creating lots more sewing for me this week! Meaning that yes, I will have something to actually write about on here other than the fact that my kids are just gorgeous. But who gets tired of looking at MY gorgeous kids right?

Speaking of gorgeous kids... I bought them both one of those delicious cookies from the market. (who can resist yummy cookies right?) I wanted to get Miss Ruth something sweet as a reward for being such a good big girl over the holidays (even if her mummy is a grumpy bum slight work-a-holic and worries too much about how much sewing, cleaning, and paperwork ISN'T being done while we are playing together). 

Anyway, off to finish bathing my children and finish the many beers I intend to drink tonight as a relaxation before the big week of market prep for this week's market in Werribee Park.