Pork Chop in frankie magazine!

Look who's in issue 37 of frankie! I'm quite proud of my little self because:

a) It's my favourite mag
b) It's the first time Pork Chop has featured in print
c) editor Jo has written a lovely little blurb about my bunting (reproduced below), and;
d) I can wave it in maniacally front of my husband and say "See?! Craft is not so lame after all!"

It reads:

HELLO DOILY

We learnt a new word the other day: tchotchke. It's Yiddish and it means 'cherished knick knack', and we couldn't think of a better description for the little dangly piece of bunting fun you see right here. This particular tchotchke is made by Sydney crafter Pork Chop out of vintage doilies (some from her nanna) and bias tape, so it comes pre-cherished and ready to cherish some more. A bit sweet, isn't it? $38, www.madeit.com.au/porkchop

PS - Note the pink and white candy striped one featured has sold already but I'll be listing a couple more soon; or contact me for a custom one.

"Now when we go out for lunch today, I want you to be good in the restaurant..."

...as if that ever happens for more than 5 minutes. However, with this nifty little roll-up car case I made for Tyler, he is happy to play quietly for at least 8 minutes.

I used a modified version of the long thread's kids drawing case pattern, available on Ellen's blog. I don't think I modified it enough to pass it off as my own(!), so I won't be making any for sale.

What I can do though is tell you how I made this one. Instead of making the case 13 x 10 in, I cut it to be around 20 x 12 in. The chequerboard pocket piece was half the height when folded, ie: about 6 inches.

Each car slot is about 3 inches wide and the case fits 6 matchbox cars in total. I made sure to position the velcro tab 3/4 of the way down the side of the case, so that I could fold the road part over the 'garages', then roll and velcro it, otherwise the cars would fall out.

For the road, I used two strips of 2 inch wide black cotton twill tape sewn as 'lanes' alongside eachother, although if I had an old seatbelt at hand I probably would have used that instead. I considered getting fancy with different shades of green ricrac 'grass' placed at the edges of the road but settled for a yellow line down the middle. In hindsight I probably would have used one length of black 'road' and made the other side look like train tracks somehow, seeing as how I realised Ty's die-cast Thomas trains can fit in the case too.

Give that gal a medal

Big thanks to Kelsie from In Favor of Fuzz for featuring my brooch on her blog. She certainly sounds like a girl after my own heart with a obsession passion for textiles in all their beautiful forms.

Inspiration: Lisel Ashlock

Based in Brooklyn NY, Lisel Ashlock's acrylic works have a beautiful, stately air.

Her haugty dames and upright gentlemen share studio space with landscapes and natural history themes.

Her drawings span a range of styles from line drawn figures to grungy, charcoal-scratch sketches to almost neon abstraction which brings to mind Reg Mombassa.

More inspiration here. Oh, and she has an etsy shop.

De-cluttering

After a major emotional meltdown today I've decided I need to stop overstretching myself to the point where I am crying at the kitchen sink due to the sheer load of crap I have to get done.

I have started by:

• Culling my RSS feeds from 35 down to 15 - leaving just the ones I read religiously (etsy's daily finds, pikaland, the long thread), and the ones that give me a laugh (regretsy, clients from hell). It was getting to the point where I'd sit down for a moment to 'check my mail' and still be checking it an hour later.  
  
  
• Deciding to blog once a week, rather than just randomly trying to write something of interest every second day. Hopefully(!) this will mean better quality posts for you and less waffle for me. Although I do enjoy a good waffle.
  
  
• Deleting my facebook pork chop account, which I never really updated or used much.
  
  
• Costing out each product that I make down to the small details - if it's not making sense financially, then it's got to go. Perhaps this is a no-brainer and something I should probably have done when I first started this whole gig, but hey. You live, you learn.
  
  
• Homeshopping - for groceries via Woolies online. Dragging one kid around for an hour trying to dodge repeated requests for freddo frogs was never fun, now with two kids it's even more challenging. I even tried giving Tyler his own shopping list with pictures of a banana, a milk carton, a toilet roll etc. Despite my forced enthusiasm for this, the novelty of his own special list has worn off. I'll just suck up the $9 delivery fee and order from my desk, thanks.
  
  
• Cooking up a storm - thankfully, I was in the cooking mood earlier in the week and after dinner one night made a stack of stuff to freeze: a tuna and rice bake, some salmon and corn patties, and some lovely healthy muffins that I kind of threw together without a recipe - all cereal and yoghurt and pears and such. I am going to try and do this once a week or even once a fortnight just so I don't have to stress about dinner every single night.
  
  
• Making lists - starting with what both children need to take to daycare. Until I get used to what goes in the Thomas bag and what goes in the Pooh Bear bag, this list puts my mind at ease during the morning rush. I've always been a big list fan anyway but now they are stuck on the kitchen wall, in my office, on the fridge, and you can usually find a shopping list written on my hand.
  
  
• Using my diary religiously. Scheduling EVERYTHING. This includes marking out me-time every now and then. Whether it actually happens as planned is another matter!
  
  
• Having a bed time. No more late, late nights thinking 'I'll just finish this then I'll go to bed'...

I'm sure I'll be making more changes too. I'm so over spreading myself so thin that I'm doing ten different things and feeling like I'm not doing any of them justice, including the most important job of all. More energy to play with pork chop and muffin top all day is the ultimate goal of this whole thang.

Feel free to post suggestions! Anything that will help me get 'all my poo in one sock', as it were. 



Image credit - thanks to the closet entrepeneur