To market, to market...

Last night was the market in Adelaide that I sent my bunting to. Most will be coming back here to Melbourne to decorate my house, but one string of bunting sold. Here's some photos of my kids' stall.

So pretty! Meanwhile I am still sick and even sick of being sick now. Back to bed I think!

December...(and a market)

 It is December! Today I made a little bit of Christmas bunting. White and gold. I think it's very sweet. It is destined for Adelaide and the market my kids have a stall at next Saturday. Hopefully I will finish some more bunting for their stall too.

Picklesticks (my Jess) will have softies, upcycled books, and other gorgeous things. There will be dreamcatchers, jewelery and my bunting. And my Joe will be there with his reconditioned rotary telephones that you can actually use on current telephone lines if you are looking to get your retro on.

The market (It's called Christmas At Our Place!) is at the Charles Sturt Civic Centre, 72 Woodville Road Woodville , from 4pm till 9pm. There will be food available and entertainment as well as the market, so if you are looking for a night out next Saturday night (December 8) check it out!

To Market, To Market.......

But not to buy a fat pig! This is how our stall looked on Saturday at the MarionLIFE market. (Yes! That is grandson peeking out between the table and Picklesticks' great bags on the righthand side!) It was a great day weather wise and thanks to my Bradley we were well set up with shade for the day. (Nevertheless, I still managed to get burnt! No-one else under our shade did. I just have very fair skin I guess) Grandson only lasted about an hour. Markets are NOT for 2 year olds. Not for the grandson kind of 2 year old anyway! He went home with an Aunt to spend time with his Pa. (My Bradley)

A closer look at our wares! Mrs P from Quilting in My Pajamas came to visit and bought a monster (My only sale for the day! Thank you Mrs P!) I, of course, had just gone to the supermarket in search of lunch and missed her. My girls thought that was really funny! Both Picklesticks and Miss 24 made some good sales and were pretty happy with the day. I was also pretty happy cause I did get to meet Pip from Rest is not Idleness! She is a lovely person. Not a shock really cause I think most craft bloggers are the best kind of people!

These are Mr 16's birds that he made. People liked them and touched them, but nobody bought them. It was a really interesting day to people watch. So many people touched our handmade things! They really were drawn to them. We had lots of compliments which was a real confidence booster for us all. Picklesticks has already loaded some of her market extras onto her etsy shop and I will be doing the same later this week. I am glad to have done the market, but also glad for it to be over! This week I will be sewing whatever I want!

Market Monsters Today

No, this isn't a monster! This is grandson at sewing day today. Miss 24 and I went to Picklestick's house for sewing day. We all sewed monsters for the MarionLIFE market we are going to on October 23rd. Grandson drew while we sewed. Granddaughter played and was juggled between us all. (Seven month olds are like that!) It was a lovely day. I managed to sew three monsters. I came home and stuffed and stitched up the six monsters that we got finished.

These are my three monsters caught in the garden in my parsley. I don't have much of a garden, but I can grow parsley anywhere. It seems to be a talent of mine.

So, if you are in Adelaide and at a loss on Saturday October 23rd come to the market, introduce yourself to me and maybe pick up a monster or two!

I can cook. I just don't do it very often.

Pink meringues, made by my own fair hand. (Using my sunbeam mixmaster if you want to get technical!)

• Three egg whites
  
• One cup of sugar
• One teaspoon of vanilla

Sometimes I put cornflour in too, and sometimes I don't. This time I put some red food colouring in and no cornflour. That's cause my Mum might have eaten some of these and she has celiacs disease and can't do gluten. I know that true "corn"flour doesn't have gluten, but very often cornflour is wheaten cornflour which does have gluten. So just to be sure I omit it altogether. Oh. And I never ever just make a single batch of anything. (See the profile. Eight children. Two grandchildren. I cook for crowds.) When I make meringues I use 9 eggs.

This week seems to be rocketing by with very little productivity on my part. I noticed Picklesticks has just posted a free tote pattern with tutorial on her blog. Miss 13 made herself a new pencil case. So my kids have been productive! I have just been out of sorts I guess and haven't done anything. We did find out today that our application for a stall at the MarionLIFE market in October was successful. So, I will have to get out of this funk and sew something I think!!!

So tired.

This looks so relaxing, doesn't it? Miss 22 and Mr 19 at the Botanical Gardens on a day unlike today. Today is a cold and windy day with what the weather bureau would call "a few showers". I call it "spit spotting". Today was also the Fullarton Market. What a contrast! Last month it was 38 or 39 degrees, today was forecast to be 17 degrees. Very chilly. For us anyway.

I sewed last week, a little.

I sewed some more makeup bags which I am hoping to sell at the Fullarton plant and craft market next Saturday. (If you are in Adelaide come see us!)

And I did the binding on the "Daisy Blue" doll quilt. This was fun. I used cotton batting in this little quilt and fell in love with it. So nice to work with!

Not sure what I am going to sew this week. Bunting has been on my mind (strange statement! I love bunting and I do spend time thinking about it, strange to say.). I have my SSCS (secret santa christmas swap) to finish off and send. (BIG SECRET!) I am desperate to show you some bits, but this must remain secret until after December 25th! (And I can't be trusted! I'm not good at sneak peaks!) I also could sew for the market on Saturday. So I have lots to sew. It's not so much if, as what I will end up sewing. I also have a million emails to catch up with and a trillion posts on bloglines that are screaming at me. And my blog needs updating. I have discovered heaps of really exciting blogs lately that I read all the time, but haven't put in my blogroll yet! I need to share them with you! Hope your week is as wonderful as mine appears right now! A week of sewing and internetting! (Who could ask for anything more?)

Where I'd like to be.....

At the beach! Yes, that's where I'd like to be. But I'm not. Having a bit of a sulk this week because I don't live near the beach. (Miss 18 says that's a good thing! She doesn't like the thought of Tsunamis!) Hmm... I could be happy if I was holidaying at the beach, but I'm not even doing that! Haven't done any sewing. Just feel grumpy! I guess I'll get over it.

This is the market we did on Saturday. Mrs 24 was pleased with the market result and we will be back at the market next month. Miss 11 sold some things too, so there were smiles all round! We were all stressing a bit (we are a bunch of worriers here), but next time should be easier. We won't be so worried! It was a great market. Such a lovely setting, and a great variety of wares for sale! Hmm... Maybe I'll sew something tomorrow to sell at the market.

Art at the Hart

This is us at "Art at the Hart" on Saturday December 1st. We discovered the details for this artist's market in the Advertiser some time ago. It is a 2 day market that runs in tandem with "Celtica", a Celtic music festival. We initially enquired whether we could just come for the Saturday because Sunday is our Sabbath and we don't engage in commercial transactions on the Sabbath. The organisers really wanted artists who could be there for the 2 days so we asked them to keep us in mind if they got anyone who wanted to be there just for the Sunday. A few weeks ago we got a call! Mrs 23 (Picklesticks) had her toys (and sold heaps), and Miss 17 had her photography (and sold none), I had some bags and postcards (and sold 1 postcard). Mrs 23 was very happy. Miss 17 and I had fun!


The day started out with quite a few of us there. We brought a tall boy to help us with our setting up, which meant we had to bring a small boy too, because you can't leave 7 year olds at home on their own!!! Miss 10 came too because she had her basketball game at 8:30am. Fortunately her game was at Port Adelaide and you can see the stadium from the Hart's Mill complex, so even Basketball SA was smiling on us that day! As the day wore on we dwindled in numbers because Bradley came to pick up any children who were bored.

This was the view from our stall. I'm refering to the water view here, not the guys!!! Hey! Miss 17 is a photographer, and we gave her the camera. She's 17, there were always going to be photos of guys! Don't you love the fly on the lens!!! There were so many flies in the morning. They thinned out as the day went on (perhaps they got bored too!)

It was an interesting day on the Port River. There were yachts racing and rescue craft and dolphins.

Now that it's Tuesday (ie a long time since Saturday) and the photos look so beautiful here on my blog I remember the day as a lovely day! On Saturday afternoon, however, it was HOT (38 degrees) and sunny and the flies were buggy and the music got louder and louder as the day went on and my head hurt! (In fact it hurt Saturday night and Sunday and Monday too!) All of us decided that we are not outdoor market kind of people. I remember a fervent discussion we had on the way to the car after packing up. We discussed the idea at length and came to the conclusion that we are etsy people. Cause you don't get sunburnt (aka skin damaged) from the light of your computer, and all the people you meet online are so nice, and we decide to open an etsy shop instead of doing another market! We just aren't outdoorsy people!

Of course, that's not to say that we didn't meet truely wonderful people at Art at the Hart, cause we did! It was a wonderful day and next year (Yes! It's on again next year!) I'm definitely going to go. As a customer only. There were so many beautiful handmade items there. It's a brilliant place to go Christmas shopping!