Library Bags

A new range of library bags have hit the Kaos Shop.

Firstly the traditional Black with red Kaos star ...

Then I had some black gingham that was feeling lonely ...

Then a library bag inspired by my daughters help in the kitchen (I couldn't find an image of her splattering food down the front of the cupboards).

I hope you like them! If so I will make more ...

A little bit of sickness

We have indeed been suffering a bit of the flu here in Melbourne, Australia, and whilst it isn't swine flu, it has knocked us around a bit in the Konstant Kaos household. Three days in bed isn't my idea of fun, especially when there are so many crafty adventures to be had. The only person not affected so far is Tori!

For a while there we were hoping it was Swine Flu as the government sends you free food if you get it ...

A friend in Germany sent me this image. So I apologize if I don't appropriately acknowledge the original creator of it. Enjoy!

What's a Dirndl?

A friend of the family was in Germany earlier on this year. He bought for his grandsons some toddler lederhosen and for Tori he bought her a traditional german dress (Dirndl).

If you haven't realised already, my hubby is German! So we were very excited about Tori having her own Dirndl! Here is a picture of Tori's Godmother with her Dirndl on (and a very young Tori).

If you want to buy one there are plenty of shops online like Ernst Licht that have them for purchase (make sure you have sound on when accessing this site!). If you are itching to make one for yourself Burda Style have a pattern you can download for $4. Also, Weekend designer has a pattern breakdown of a Valentino Dirndl that hit the catwalks in 2008. Ageless Patterns have another pattern one for $14.95 USD

But if you don't want to pay for pattern and you want to make a Dirndl for your toddler, you could could alter the following Toddler Dress pattern to have a fuller skirt and a deeper neckline. Make an apron to match and voila! If you didn't want to embroider flowers on, dimensional paint or iron on flowers could work really well.

Go on, you know you want a Dirndl!

Distractions from Sewing

Something new and shiny ...

We played around with something new for the Sonny and Coco market .. using the skills that we learnt doing the larger pendants and my already established jewelry skills we made these little charms that can go around your neck or attached to a charm bracelet.

What do you think?

Sonny and Coco autopsy

When you apply for a stall at a new market, you take your chances. Many of the established markets around the circuit have a specific focus. Vintage, Handmade, Trash and Treasure. Sonny and Coco still have to work out what their focus was. for me the first half of the day was very busy with many out-of-towners coming to visit and buy things as they had seen the editorial in the local paper.

But the afternoon was very quiet and the congestion of too many stalls in one place was starting to get on my nerves. As with most markets, many mums come along with pushers. The layout of the market has to allow for the pushers, wheel chairs and other pushable objects.

I tried a few new things in terms of layout of my table. I borrowed Mum's multi-hanger to hang my bags and baby swaddles on. It worked well as emergency hardware, but I have to get something more professional and sturdy. I have to re-think the shoe layout. I didn't like the box... I need to get more vertical to allow space for other things to be spread out.

Since the market chose one of my pendants as it's picture we made a real push to get as many pendants ready on time.

In addition to the simple pendants I made a few charm pendants from some of our resin experiments, charms and some beads. I thought they looked nice! I'll be popping what's left of those up on etsy shortly.

Not sure if I will do the next Sonny and Coco, depends on where I am financially and what other markets I am doing. At the moment I am just getting a feel for which markets work well with my products. I'd love to do Yarraville or Rose Street to see how they go with my bits and pieces!

Next Market is the Sisters one on 1st August and I am looking foward to the rest before that market!

Tori's Technicolour Granny

My blanket for my daughter is coming along quite well, but I do have to get more wool as I want it to be big enough for both of us to snuggle under while watching such classics as "Monsters Inc." and "Bear in the Big Blue House" (in german of course!).

... but then I discovered that I might have to make it a little bigger as both the cats seem to have taken a liking to it (Anastasia snuggled under the blanket and Natasha on the right trying to attack her and become Top Cat).

I am averaging about 2 squares a day when I drive to work. Stationary at the lights is when I do my crochet, oh and when I am stuck in peak hour traffic on Punt Road.

I also have another scarf to crochet for moi and another beanie that Tori can wear to childcare. Everything gets wrecked that goes to childcare and I don't want her lovely one that Oma and I made to be covered with paint or even worse ... lost!

What is on your crochet to-do list?

Business Mums Conference

I am waiting in anticipation for my conference pack to arrive for the Business Mum's Conference on the 20 - 21st of June at Homesglen.

Since starting on the Konstant Kaos roller coaster, it has been hard to find the time to completely focus on my business and where it is going. Generally this happens in the wee hours of the morning when the house is silent, the cats are sleeping and I don't have anything else to do ....

The theme of the conference is Recharge Your Business and the presenters look quite good.

Perhaps I will see you there?

Map Quilts

I love maps and stumbling across this entry on craft gossip got me thinking that I might put a "Melbourne quilt" down on my "to do list". Having tools like Google Maps makes it even easier to do a map quilt.

via Haptic Labs

I was trying to think about how I would "map" something and I as thinking about finding a friend with a data projector, project it onto the cotton and then make sure that the stipling is done ina geometric design to have the streets of your favourite town displayed.

Head over to Haptic Labs to see what else they are making.

Crochet Tea Cosy

A call went out to the Brown Owls to see who had a tea cosy pattern.

I have this pattern, below, from an old crochet book ... but I would imagine that any hat pattern would work, and wherever you want your handle and spout, you would leave a gap (hope that makes sense).

It mentions the use of Turabast which I believe is a metallic yarn, although I have no idea what ply the yarn is. Have fun!

Op Shop Granny

My mother stumbled across this gorgeous single bed size Granny Blanket for just $6.99 at her local Op shop.

I love the colour combination and the way in which the red just pop's out at you. I tend to have a leaning towards the good ol red/black/white ...

Speaking of Op Shops, if you haven't stumbled across "I op therefore I am" then head over and take a look. It is a collaborative blog, with all sorts of good stuff like a list of Op Shops listed by Suburb.

Who is up for an Op Shop crawl ... just like a pub crawl, only with tea and scones rather than beer and chips!

Sunday Morning Waffles

If you have been fortunate enough to visit the St. John's German Church Bazaar, then you might have tried the waffles for sale there. Waffles bring back many happy memories of the mountains of waffles my hubby's Oma used to make us, whenever I stayed the night at his parents place. That was long ago!

Years later, we finally got ourselves our own Waffle machine (a little bit like this one - we have a sunbeam, but they don't make them anymore) and we tend to drag it out on a sunday morning ... German Waffles are not as deep as the Belgium Waffles, they tend to be thin, more like pancakes.

Last Sunday the hubby and I had a TFM (Tori free Morning) and we made waffles for breakfast!

Traditional German Waffles

Ingredients

• 175g margarine/butter (room temp)
• 175g of sugar
• 1 packet of vanilla sugar (or 2 caps of vanilla essence)
• 4 eggs
• salt
• 200g self raising flour
• 50g of corn flour
• Sploshes of Milk

I make my waffles in my benchtop mixer, but you could do it by hand if you wanted to.

Recipe

1. Cream sugar/butter together then add the eggs one at a time. Mix until creamy with no lumps. Make sure that the butter is at room temperature or you will get lumps.
2. Add your dry ingredients (flour/cornflour/salt) one table spoon at a time until smoothly combined.
3. Add 'sploshes' of milk until the mixture is runny but not too much. If it gets too runny, just add more flour.
4. Heat up and oil the Waffle maker. We generally use melted ghee, but you could use spray oil or butter if you wanted to.
5. Experiment with how much waffle mixture you have to add. We generally use a ladel to pour it into the waffle maker.
6. Once cooked, remove from waffle maker, dust with icing sugar and devour. Alternatively, you could serve with icecream and fruit ...
   

*yum*

Footnote: I have not tried this recipe as a gluten/soy recipe. If you do, please let me know how it went.

Sonny & Coco Market

Konstant Kaos are very excited to have a market stall at Sonny & Coco Market at Preston Town Hall this Sunday, 24 May 2009.

Preston Town Hall: 10am - 4pm 284-286 Gower St, Preston,
(Melway Reference: Map 18 G12)

Yes my markets tend to be over the North side of the city, that is probably because I am a Northcote Girl! Come a long and heckle me!

I have some lovely new fabrics and also some new bags for sale!

Awesome Foursom Bag

v2 of my "College Bag" design done in Beatles fabric.

This was a custom job, made for someone who loves the Beatles. The customer bought the fabric for me, and I then added cotton drill and other bits and pieces to finish the bag.

Because it was a custom job, I took the liberty of experimenting with pocket and bag construction. The bag has way too many pockets and compartments! The bag slider and template plastic for the bottom came from You, Sew, Girl. I bought some bag feet to put on it, but then decided at the last minute not to.

If I have time I might make one or two of the cut down version for the market on Sunday!

Crochet Zig Zag Blanket

I am busily doing my granny a day for Tori's Technicolour Blanket. I discovered that peak hour on Punt Road can produce two granny squares. I find myself wanting lights to change to amber and for traffic to be busy just so as I can do a few more stitches ....

From Comfort Stitching

I have decided that my next crochet wonder will be a zig zag or Afghan blanket for the back room. In black, grey and purple. Once Tori's blanky is finished it will be off to Camberwell Market one sunday to visit the Yarn Man for some Merino wool.

In my travels I came across the Comfort Stitching web site. You must take a look at this talented lady and what she is creating. She also has a tutorial for a zig zag blanket.

Mothers Day wrapup

We had a lovely Mothers Day at the Collingwood Children's Farm.

We met for lunch and then had a leisurely afternoon strolling around the farm with Tori discovering a whole lot of new things, including feeding the goats.

For the first time Tori also said "Nanna", so that made the day extra special! The one characteristic that I have inherited from my Mum is the ability to try anything once.

Whilst my Mum doesn't see herself as a crafty Mum, I can clearly remember when I was young her making dancing costumes, fancy dress costumes and easter hats for us. Perhaps she has lost her crafty way ...

For Mother's Day I embarked on a marathon sew-a-thon and I made Mum a patchwork scarf with some of my Kokka Ouka Japanese Linen blend fabric with a faux fur backing to it.

I made my Mother in Law a fabric basket to keep her crochet and crafts in from linen and a Moda Fabric. The idea for the fabric basket is from the Zakka book that my hubby got me.

Granny a Day

Slowly crocheting along for A Granny a Day. Using the pattern in the Meet me at Mikes book, my goal is to make a nice bright multicoloured blanket for my daughter to snuggle up under while watching TV. The nice bright colours should be good for her as she is learning colours at the moment. Each crochet square is framed by a row of black.

I have been using the 8 ply "Sports Support" range of wool/acrylic from spotlight and I get up to three squares frome each ball of yarn and then I do the black row for framing purposes. I went for the blend for Tori as I wasn't sure if she would get all itchy with pure wool. Plus the acrylic means that when I wash the blanket, it will keep it's shape.

Although not sewn together, these squares area ready to go!

A hat for Tori

A few weeks back while tidying out my crochet stash, I came across some wool that I originally purchased when I was pregnant. Not knowing the gender of my baby, I bought some generic red and coloured wool and embarked on sewing a cap. Unfortunately it was a bit small for my newborn's head, but it did the job!

September 2007

Uncovering the stash I decided to make Tori a new hat for winter, she had grown out of her old ones. I started to crochet a simple circle and then decreased the stitches until I got the crown section, and then I just kept on crocheting around in circles. It took me several time on unravelling and re-stitching and it probably would have been faster to find a pattern and stick to it!

No real plan really, but it worked out. Then Tori's Oma then did the scarf and rosette for the hat. Wool used was the Cleckheaton Merino Bambino wool.

A few people have asked me how I have made it, unfortunately I didn't follow a pattern ... so I went a hunting for some free crochet patterns:

• Cleckheaton web site has some free crochet patterns for hats and scarfs.
• Head huggers has some groovy patterns for hats. One of my favourites is the Emeila Earheart Aviator Crochet Hat!
• Modern Flapper hats have some interesting patterns.

My next crochet job is to make Tori some fingerless gloves ...

Granny Square Cloak

At Camberwell market last week I came across a collection of Golden Hands focusing on crochet.

Can you imagine making this Granny Square cloak?

Crochet Projects.

I started doing a few squares with the wool that I got from Camberwell Market a few weeks back trying to do a patchwork style scarf with different sized granny squares. I thought it looked like crap so I pulled it apart and started again.

I ended up doing a big long string of chains until I got bored and then I turned around and a row of treble, and then a row of doubles. To finish off I crocheted two rows of doubles along the bottom to frame the colour in the scarf. The grey colour is wool and the reddish blend is a mohair/wool blend.

Voila, one scarf for the husband! Now I should get back to A Granny a day!

Destination Information ....

Finding out a little bit more about Margaret...

Choose a picture of yourself and explain when and where it was taken ...
Taken at the 2008 Labyrinth Ball in Northcote. Wearing my husbands mask, I also entered this into our camera club as a piece called "Human Inside". I can't remember if it won anything ...

What’s the last thing you read or are currently reading?
Currently trying to read Trudi Canavan's The Magician's Apprentice. I loved the Black Magician Trilogy and she is a crafty lady as well ...

What have you been listening to lately?
Flogging Molly - great Irish punk band. I also finished a piece on the weekend for someone using Beatles fabric, so lots of Beatles (but mainly Abbey Road and Peppers).

Do you nap a lot?
I sleep deeply, but tend not to have naps during the day unless I am feeling sickly. I am generally a late to bed, struggle to rise type of person.

Who was the last person you hugged?
My daughter when I said goodbye to her at her grandparents this morning.

What’s your current obsession/addiction?
The Blog bug has bit me at the moment. Getting good content onto my blog is important to me at the moment as I build my business.

What are you wearing right now?
Jeans, top and necklace by Ecomorph Designs that I bought at Rose Street Market a few weeks back.

What was for dinner?
Dinner tonight is at the German Grandparents, so something yummy with gravy (if we are lucky there will be dumplings!)

If you could have any super power, what would it be?
Probably to make time stand still, I could really do with about 10 extra hours a day to do all that I want to do.

What is your favorite weather, and why?
I love spring, the blossoms starting to appear, the smell of warmer days in the air but still cool enough to do things without breaking a sweat.

What was the last thing you bought?
Camberwell market on Sunday Morning, some Golden Hands magazines for a few dollars.

If you could have a house- totally paid for, fully furnished- anywhere in the world, where would you want it to be?
I'd love to live back in Carlton, within walking distance to the city. Unfortunately, I would also want a back yard - those houses are super expensive!

Favorite vacation spot?
Japan definitely! Followed by Dunk Island where you don't have to do anything and young tanned men bring you daiquiri's by the pool!

Favorite pair of shoes you keep going back to over and over, even though your closet is overflowing with a zillion others?
Firstly, I am not much of a shoe person. I tend to live in my doc martins. Comfort every time!

Name one thing you cannot live without?
Music is pretty important to me, listening to something while working and sewing. Much rather be listening to music or a podcast than watching TV.

If you could wake up anywhere tomorrow, where would it be?
I am happy right here in Northcote .. but Paris would be nice.

Tag someone to complete this meme ....
I am not too good at tagging people, but I would like to know more about people on my blogroll ... complete this if you must!

Wekstatt Muenchen

Cravings Frocks reminded me of a special gift received at my first Christmas after Tori was born, a beautiful Werkstatt Muenchen necklace.

There is a small shop that was located across from the old Royal Women's hospital in Carlton called Eastern Market. They have the most divine selection of clothes and accessories, you must visit them and look a their range. Eastern Market is the only store in Australia that stocks this range of jewelry.

Since being given it (what a clever Tori) I have worn it to death. It is just the right length for Tori to fiddle with while breastfeeding and it looks good too!

I love their range of necklaces and their cufflinks are gorgeous as well. I like industrial or organic feeling jewelry. I would love to do a jewelry making course and forge out some of my own designs .. I'll add it to the todo list ...

Morning Distractions

Stumbled across some lovely things to make and goosh over lately ..

• This Embroidered Alphabet Quilt is so gorgeous! I have never done the whole "freeze" paper through the printer thing, but it looks interesting ... or how cool are these crafty organisation cards?
• Aesthetic Outburst is a blog that I check regularly, and they have this lovely post where they featured altered books byPamela Paulsrund
• I have also been spending hours crawling through the "All this happiness" blog. Loving the images and the commentary, if only I was that stylish!
  

Whenever I come across a new interesting blog, I will spend days just clicking through the site and reading the articles - soaking it all in!

Pay it Forward

In my sickly sickliness yesterday I stumbled out to the letterbox and found a little package addressed to little old me!


Dear Fii had sent through her "Pay it Forward" pressie to me. Can't quite remember when I signed up for it, but what this means is that I have to pay it forward to the people I promised gifts to!


My reward was a lovely pouch and some postcards. Tori has already claimed the pouch!

I had better get sewing!

Fitzroyalty

While we were building Nash Street, we lived in Palmerston Street in Carlton. We could see the corner of Johnston and Nicholson from our front door. A stone throw from Lygon and Brunswick Street - what a location!

So I was very excited to stumble across the Fitzroyalty web site. It brought back a whole lot of memories of wandering through the streets of Fitzroy. Sometimes I still like to do that ... park in front of Palmerston and go for a wander off to Brunswick Street.

Thornbury Market .... part 2

It feels like a lifetime ago that I did Thornbury Market, but it was just last week! I have been down with a virus and so I haven't even done a blog post :(


One of the reasons that I started this blog was to document my journey in starting my own small business. So posting pictures of market stalls, product developments and ideas is important to me.


Made n Thornbury was a great little market to do. I am getting better at the set up and pack up and enjoy the whole interacting with the customer process, getting feedback and discussing possibilities. The thing that was good about this market, was that all the stall holders were women who were in similar circumstances to moi!

There were lots of other lovely designers and crafters there such as ...

• The girls from Pepperberry and their lovely book coverings.
• Gorgeous Handmade accessories by Finki Handmade.
• Curlypops and her wonderful handbags.
• Buttons by Lou Lou were there with lots of lovely hair accessories.
• And the wonderful W Class Tram Cushions and Brooches by CravingsFrocks.
  

Thornbury Community Market

A reminder about Thornbury Community Market that is on today.
From 10am - 3pm.

Come and heckle me!