Bowerbird Bazaar

On Saturday afternoon, my husband and I drove into Adelaide city centre to check out the 'Bowerbird Bazaar', Adelaide's design market. Held at the 'Queen's Theatre', a restored sandstone heritage building in the heart of Adelaide city. The place was packed with so many stalls selling everything from clothing and fabrics to jewellery and fresh flowers, the classic old building really served as a great backdrop to the handmade nature of nearly all the creations on show.

It was very busy; the queue to get into the Theatre flowed out onto the narrow street, extending nearly all the way back to the main road. We waited in the queue, shuffling along for about 20 minutes before we we're lucky enough to get inside. Unfortunately it was so packed with people it was hard to walk around and have a good look at some of the stalls at times, let alone have the space to take photos, still it certainly showed just how many people were interested and excited to get a chance to browse through all the stalls.

There were so many beautiful things on display, it made choosing what to buy and take home so much harder. However I did make a couple of purchases, one being at Thea & Sami's stall. She hadso many beautiful printed fabrics I didn't know where to start! I bought this 'Cottage Garden' print tea towel and I ended going through her entire basket of scrap packs, deciding on a pack that included these gems ('Pets & Bones', 'Mushrooms', Spoon &Whisk' and 'Bird'). My mind is already full of ideas of what to make with these, so stay tuned for the results in a later post.

The other purchase I made - well it's technically going to be my Christmas present :) - was from the wonderful crew at Mattt. They make the most awesome, practical bags and I have been eyeing them off for quite some time, dreaming of when one will actually be mine. Seeing them for real, and checking out the great craftsmanship and styling only increased my desire to be the proud owner of one. I could have taken one of the many that they had for sale however I decided to order one to be made, allowing me to select the fabric panel, and the colour of the straps and zips. Now I will have to wait a couple of weeks before receiving my order, but I think its well worth it to have exactly the colors and design I liked, with a panel from Ink & Spindle.

After an enjoyable couple of hours going round and round checking out the different stalls, we finished off with a freshly squeezed fruit juice from the stall Juice Junkies and left for home. My head awirl with lots of great craft ideas and thoughts based on some of the fantastic creative items I had seen, it really is a great experience to be able to see so much of so many different people work all in the one setting.

Monte

Meet Monte the monkey! 

Made especially for my dad's birthday, as he has always wanted a monkey of his very own, a somewhat impractical dream. I designed him based on my experience with a few previous Amigurumi; his body and arms are fairly standard, but his curly tail took a bit of fiddling and I especially like the way it turned out. I really wanted to give this monkey a cheeky personality (to match his future owner) so I gave him a contrasting white face and hands for dimension and a wicked little grin.

To go with Monte I also whipped up this matching card showing him swinging around and having fun. The card is constructed in my usual style; I like to draw a couple of rough sketches first to get approximate shape and proportion, then using a scalpel free-cut the shapes out. For this particular card I used both scraps of green patterned fabric and a nice embossed cardstock that gives Monte's body a bit of extra texture and pop. The next step is to build the subject up with a few layers to give depth and draw any extra features, backgrounds etc. Finally some birthday wishes on the inside and it's done.