An Echidna on a Swatch

Recently Spoonflower offered a free swatch of their new faux suede and I thought it was a good opportunity to try to make a small animal toy from one swatch. In the past I have made tiny bears from ultra suede so I wondered how the faux suede would compare. I used the existing design of Banjo the Echidna and reduced him down to fit on a swatch.

I was very happy with the end result. He is hand sewn however could be done on a machine and the faux suede only frayed on the little paws when I turned them through. It is a nice little project to do when you have a few hours of free time and the faux suede was easy to work with and hand stitch.

Cosmic Adventures

Just a closer look at the fabrics from my Cosmic Adventures collection with some additional designs and colourways. They are all printed on the quilting weight cotton, after the contest this week I will make them available for sale on Spoonflower.

A Visit to Cambrai

In the school holidays we went for a drive up to Cambrai and the surrounding towns. This is the area where my mother grew up. I love to drive up this way, lots of memories of coming up here for Christmas dinner in summer when it is hot and dry. It was very cold on this particular day, we visited my aunt and then on to Towitta, the home town of my grandmother. We drove home on a dirt road over the foot hills where we found many kangaroos and lovely views with the longest stone wall I have ever seen.

Adelaide Botanic Garden

Each school holidays we go to the Adelaide Botanic Gardens and this time we spent most of our visit at the historic palm house and surrounding cacti garden. I remember coming here as a child before it was restored, it is very neat and tidy now but as a child it seemed like an overgrown hidden garden.

Adelaide Zoo

This school holidays we visited the Adelaide Zoo, it was so cold but we had a great day. We arrived just in time for the panda talk and got a good look at Funi as she was eating bamboo. Alex's favourite the red pandas were very sweet. Later we had a great coffee with a panda face.

Jimmy loves the monkeys and the baby monkey was so sweet. Another favourite with Alex were the otters. It was their feeding time and the boys got to throw them some fish which of course they loved although they were not so happy having stinky fish fingers.

We were also walking past as the giraffes were being fed. They started galloping around the enclosure with excitement when the zoo keeper gave them the branch of lush leaves. 

Sneak Peek - Cosmic Adventures

Here's a little peek at some of the designs I have been working on for the Fabric8 finals that starts this Thursday. I decided to work on a variety of designs and colourways, and have them all printed before I decided on the final four designs, one of which is the original Cosmic Adventure. The final designs I decided to use were selected based on the guidelines for a collection supplied by Robert Kaufman fabrics.

Mannum Waterfalls

We were near Mannum recently and decided to visit the Mannum Waterfalls. We parked in the bottom car park and walked up the trail to the falls. The boys enjoyed climbing over the rocks and the scenery was lovely, there were also more Black Kites soaring around above us.

Pelicans

We visited a little town called Caloote near Mannum on the River Murray at the beginning of the school holidays. The boys and I went down to the landing by the river to kick the football around while Charles was doing some photography. We enjoyed seeing the Pelicans and watching the Black Kites flying overhead. I don't know if they were attracted to the yellow football flying through the air but it was amazing to see them soaring just above us. Of course the batteries in my camera went flat so I didn't get any great photos of them.