Sunday 2 November 2008

Unhealthy obsession


























So I have mentioned yet my obsession? It's only a small one, I do not (as yet) collect newspapers or cats, although I do worry about MWH (my wonderful husband) who has put rather a lot of flooring down in our roof so he can keep his collection of school and uni notes, clothing worn when he was a lot younger & fitter, records (that's "LPs"), spare chairs, old suitcases... need I go on?

My obsession is frogs, I have no idea where it came from but the shape, colour and general cheeriness of frogs is what I like. My all time favourite came from my wonderful Aunt, and is made of Welsh slate. I have them in everything from wood to stone, to plastic, glass from Venice and brass from India... and now I've started making them in some of the scrap fabrics I've bought on Etsy.

Do you know about Etsy? I feel I should apologise for introducing people to Etsy, because it's become a bit of an obsession for me, at first I just wanted to buy things (lots and lots of things) but then I became very keen on the idea of selling something I really love to like-minded people!

Well, then I started casting (sorry!) about for yarn, and at the same time I was talking to my good friend, who happily is lulu carter's mother, about her lovely blog ... and Etsy came up in conversation. Anyhoo, long story short... now I'm sewing things to sell. Actually, I'm giving away a bunch more than I sell, but lavender bags make great gifts, especially if they're in groovy funky channel 27 type fabrics... (sorry, that's a Red Dwarf reference, go look it up) and then it dawned on me - I could make frogs! I could sell the frogs! I could combine the groovy fabrics on the frogs with the lavender!

Man, I was off! Safety eyes, fabric scraps, a kilo of lavender from Young, NSW (which is gorgeous), yarn, assorted christmas bits & pieces, stuff for kids, stuff for grownups... anyway, the frogs had to go through a few iterations before I got them to the point where I was happy with them. They were listed, delisted, and now are listed again. I've even made a bride frog in figured satin, with nice smelly stuff in a pouch inside, so the lavender didn't show through the satin. She has a nice tulle veil, held on with pearl buttons (completely obsessed? Yes, possibly).

Anyway, judge for yourselves... and if you have the name of a sympathetic shrink, don't tell me!