One of the perks of being back in my home country is the ENDLESS op shopping to be had. There were no op shops in KL, at least that I could see. Thankfully I've landed in a small coastal city that is awash with treasure troves of used goodies. Mostly goodies. Often you come against someone's well worn pilled trackies. Or feather yarn. Sometimes Roxette tapes. Once in a while there's an old high school art class painting that makes you look twice, "Is that mine?"... Although I had ample opportunity, I picked up none of these things. I got a blooming good book called 'Flower Arranging in Colour' by Betty Massingham (image). A kilo of zippers. Some sweet sheets and pillow cases. A teeny yellow saucepan. And a nice chat with the woman behind the counter about the virtues of a good haberdashery collection.

Oh gee, I've been back in Oz for a week almost, and this is only my first post. A little slack, huh? It's been family a-go-go here. Booze and food. Fish and chips on the beach on a cold windy day. Rediscovering old clothes. Patting the family dog. Shoe shopping with my mother. Drinking coffee with my dad. Cutting my sister's hair. Wearing two t-shirts, leggings and socks to bed. Asking if the heating can be put on in the morning. Cripes, it's cold!

I haven't made anything yet. These are images from some cards I collaged in KL. Oh, memories!

Tomorrow I'm off to visit old friends and new babies. Hurrah!

Hello you, you like cherries right? Oh my yes. Did you know you can get yourself a sweet cherry brooch from the made by maude shop? But there are only three available! Quick, quickly run to maude’s shop and pick a cherry. They’re sweet and oh so very affordable ;)

No Coffee Blues

Yesterday our little gas bottle ran out of gas, which put our stove out of action. So here I am, waiting for the gas man. No gas means no coffee this morning, which is harder than it sounds. Yeah, you may scoff. I would, if I had coffee this morning. But I didn't. So instead I've got one of those slight, dull, no coffee headaches, wishing the gas man would hurry up. Ok ok, it's not all self-indulgent. I played around with those little giraffe's a bit and resolved the balance issue. Hurrah! Now they're a happy little tribe of giraffe brooches.

giraffe dilemma

A little while ago my neighbor went to China for six weeks and left me in charge of watering her plants. Those leafy friends survived and as a sweet thank you she bought me back some bits and pieces she thought I might like to use in my work, amongst them a bag of teeny painted wooden giraffes like this...



Oh no! I'm sorry Mr Giraffe, but your not totally my style. Yikes! What's a crafter to do? Well, they hung around for a while, I picked them up and put them back down, pondered their possibilities. I started painting over them, but without much success. Then in a stroke of freaking genius Thistler suggested covering them with paper. Flip!! Why didn't I think of this? I've covered so many things in paper already. Old tins, dodgy diary covers, cardboard boxes...



So I covered 'em, and covered 'em good. I used paper from a pack of offcuts we got here a few months ago. I was going to turn them into brooches, but they don't sit so well when pinned (a bit unbalanced) so now I'm thinking fridge magnets...

A Few Small Things

Last week I bought some fabric and gouache. Since then I've made myself a grey skirt (totally anticipating my return to Victoria!) and have painted a few little colour studies. Oh boy, the return to painting is difficult. I seem to have forgotten all the rules. Try, try again huh?

Hurrah!

Thank you so much to cuteable who have featured this little fellow on their blog today. Great start to the week!

Deep Sea Adventure

Hola! Had a little fun with some vinyl and fabric scraps that I bought over (over the sea, on the plane) with me this week. Decided to go with a nautical theme, as I'm missing sea side fun. Haul anchor kids, and pin it to yer shirt. I've made some jellyfish, a whale and even a ship's wheel. Photos of those are coming, once I clean the camera out...

Cat brooches recently made for a friend. Never ever made a cat brooch before!

Gifts I'm working on for a newly arrived little friend ;)

ETSY

Yes yes, it's true. I DO have an Etsy shop. It's awfully quiet over there, perhaps because I haven't gone in for a lot of self-promotion. I quietly popped an 'etsy mini' in my side bar and mentioned the shop a while ago, but haven't yelled it from rooftops yet. It's a bit intimidating, peddling your wares. Still, it must be done so I'm holding my breath and jumping in...


Bird Brooch - available in my shoppe.


Horse Brooch, also available in my shoppe.


Oh look! Bird brooch, available...yeah, you guessed it.

You think I'd be a bit more forward, that I would have made more noise about the shop. This is the made by maude blog after all.
What happened maude? Stage fright?
Yeah *whimper* ...

This weekend Malaysia celebrated Merdeka, or independence (from British rule). There were many many flags adorning houses, buildings and cars. A car covered in small flags is quite a sight, each one flapping gleefully in the breeze. There were lots of thing happening in KL (many sales, of course) and on Saturday Thistler and I headed down to the Annexe Gallery in Central Market for the Art for Grabs market they hold there every so often. The gallery was also putting on a programme of films and lectures about Malaysian identity (and constructions of) that looked pretty good, but our love of craft won out over intellectual curiosity...
Lots of handmade goodies to see, here are a few we bought home for ourselves.


This little critter is a handmade softie constructed from a glove. Rather in keeping with my own sock kitty. Below is a set of hand cut perspex brooches. The black fruit is a durian - a beguiling fruit that stinks to high heavens but is heavenly to taste, apparently. Never eaten it, but have certainly smelt it at the markets. That and the umbrella are perfect Malaysian souvenirs!



We totally made it up to our intellect this afternoon though. We were hanging out in the city when, surprise surprise, it started raining. We thought we'd pop in to see a film. 'Don't Mess With The Zohan'. Yes, it is as bad as you think it may be. At one point Zohan says he's from Australia (hiding his true identity) and another character says 'Oh, it must be nice there now that Apartheid is over.' We must've been the only Aussies in the cinema, cause no none else chuckled. Now I've told you the 'funniest' part, you don't need to see it.

sock

This is the latest edition to our household. He is fashioned from a pair of socks. Look at him. He seems a little nonchalant to me. Thanks to The Orange Tree for sending me this and many other patterns! Orange Tree, do you know the name of the book this pattern came from?

Lauren Williams Handmade

Look what was waiting in the letterbox for me this morning! Lauren Williams and I did a little swap, and I scored two beautiful brooches and a ring. Thanks Lauren! You can see more of her work on her blog and on her etsy shop.

Fun With Cut and Paste

Four collages I've made this week. Fun fun fun. All the paper is recycled too!

A Tardy Weekend Post

Saturday was 'let's go somewhere new day', so we trooped off to Central Market. It's in the city center and a tourist trap for sure, a bustling indoor market selling primarily Malaysian arts and crafts. Still, it was nice to spend a few hours fingering batiked cloth and woven shawls. There were also lots of badly designed t-shirts featuring KL landmarks. Our favourite spot was the antiques and collectibles area, where we found a box of ephemera - old used envelopes sent from Chinese migrants working in Malaysia back home. Or so the stall holder told us. We'll have to go back when we have spare cash and sharper bartering skills. Attached to Central Market is the Annexe, where all manner of 'fine art' is housed. No, it was pretty cool. There was a street full of portrait artist, each with a small studio where you could watch them work. The quality was pretty darn good, and we chuckled over the idea of commissioning a family portrait. (Like the one of the Kennedy family hanging over their mantle in Neighbours.) The real reason we made the trip to Central Market though was for the Annexe Gallery, a great contemporary art gallery. We saw a wonderfully tactile show called 'Please Touch' by Simon Keogh. So we did, and it was good fun!

After lunch we wandered out onto the street and eventually stumbled across China Town. I was quite excited about this, but it turned out to be full of knock off designer goods and sweaty people sneaking up to us and coyly opening a vinyl wallet saying 'DVD for you? DVD?'. Not very exciting. Still, not much compares to soaking up the energy of a city and you know what, we didn't buy anything remotely tourist-y. Except for a bottle of water...


Can you believe we didn't take any photos in either Central Market or China Town? All the above images are from the streets in between these two places.

Right. I'm doing this for the first time. Participating in a 'meme'. Lauren from lauren williams handmade has tagged me. It goes like this...

The rules are:

1. Link to the person who “tagged” you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post.
5. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know your entry is up.

Here are six random things about me.

1. Yesterday evening as I walked to the supermarket to gather food for dinner a man on a motorbike yelled out to me, "Hello, nice dress!" I was too bemused to yell anything back. I wasn't wearing a dress.

2. I am going to commit the Malaysian word bodoh to memory. It means idiot.

3. In the town where I grew up there was a shop called 'Bali Bagus'. I used to spend a bit of time there, looking at the exotic housewares and batiked clothes. They had a novelty section. You know, rude novelty. There were also lots of framed prints of Bob Marley and traditional American Indians. It was the only place in town that sold incense. Malay (with dialect variations) is spoken throughout Indonesia. In Malay bagus means brilliant, cool, fantastic. Fantastic Bali! Naff shop!

4. I am home sick.

5. I am working on a series of paintings called 'I Dream of a Beautiful Home'.

6. I have an etsy shop. I set it up a little while ago. I should have told you I know, but I was waiting until I got more products on there. You can have a look, just don't laugh at the lack of variety, ok?

Hey Lauren, I know it's illegal, but I'm not gonna tag anyone. I uh, don't know enough bloggers...Is that sad? Maybe if your a blogger and wanna be tagged let me know, I'll tag you.


I can, however, introduce you to Frank and Iris. They're finger puppets, although here they're featured as pencil warmers. They're pretty versatile. You'll find them at my etsy shop soon.



edit: LilliEve has been tagged. I'm gonna tag you too Thistler.

New Softies

Here they are, my new softies. This is Rabbit. Golly, I like this fabric. Unfortunately I only had enough to make a rabbit, dog and bird. Oh well.



Here's Rabbit in two sizes. Big Rabbit is dressed in Falling Leaves fabric and Small Rabbit is dressed in Sunny Day fabric.



Now this is Cat. Cat is turning out to be more troublesome than Rabbit to make. This version of Cat has a straight tail that I just didn't like once I'd stuffed the fellow.



This version of cat has a curly tail, which is much better. However, somehow Cat ended up with a big head and, when hanging out with Bird, Dog and Rabbit, it looked silly. So Cat's head is going to be a bit smaller.



Here they are, sleeping on the job.

It's Been Raining All Day

It has. It's so nice. Things have been a little slow here lately. Or, well ordinary. As in I don't have any ker-azy KL adventures to report. Thistler had a cold/flu thing, so our last few weekends have been spent at home, snuggling up under the air conditioning (?!). I've been expanding my softie family though and now have a rabbit and cat to add the made by maude gang. I'll show you later, ok? July has started off in a technology loving fashion. We've got an XBOX 360 and a camera now! Wow! So, no more phone camera shots. We have a boatload of games also but that's not really my department. Ahem, I only play the cute ones...
Anyway I know I've been absent ALL WEEK from this blog but I have been looking at other nice things. Here are two that made my heart beat a little bit faster...



cabin and cub made this beautiful mixed media collage, 'girl and bird'. Is it the pink gingham that got me? The cabin and cub etsy shop is full of more of these sweet, funny, beautifully designed pieces.



This is Raspberry Beret by truffle. Apart from making me hum the song, it reminds me of a piece of vintage cross stitch Thistler gave me the very first Christmas we had together. I sewed that piece onto a vest and it's one of my favourite tops. I can't wear it here cause it's too warm for woolly vests, but I could hang Raspberry Beret on my wall. Of course it helps that it's a blooming great piece!
Have you seen or experienced anything that has made your heart beat a little faster this week? Too much coffee, great art, labour pains, good cooking, paint fumes?

delicious escape

I have spent the last half hour or so in wonderland. 'But Maude, you are an arty type', you say 'you are always in wonderland.' That may be so, but this time I was in a wonderland not of my making. I was in the wonderland that is delicious. magazine. I used to buy this mag as often as I could back in Oz, and salivate over the recipes. Often I'd be so inspired I would make something other than toast for tea. I haven't looked at a copy since before Christmas, so I was a bit excited when I spied the latest edition at the newsagents this afternoon. It has a picture of dripping, dreamy fondue on the cover and the insides are full of winter fare like roasted chestnuts, baked treats and slow cooked wonders. Considering I'm ovenless in KL most of the recipes are impractical, but a girl can dream can't she? Maybe I'll make some art about food...

Now this is a sneak peek at something I'm making for a little friend who is waiting to be born. In fact, there are two of these friends on the way (not twins but two friends having babies) so fear not little friend #2, I'll be making something for you too!



Back on the food theme, you know what else I really miss? Ready Steady Cook. Nothing like a bit of stitching while watching smart arse chefs on daytime telly.

This is a post about art and craft.

Today was spent mostly being a consumer. Don't worry, it wasn't a worthless pursuit. I'll be starting a new art project about it soon. I'm thinking of calling it 'my life as a consumer'. It will be the companion piece to this body of work:



These are two more pieces from this series here. This project is a slowly developing thing, and is experimental at this stage. The two images here are called 'chair' and 'sofa'. Catchy titles huh? I never ever used the word 'sofa' until I worked at a sofa store a few years ago. I thought it was a terrible Americanism. Now I can't bring myself to say 'couch'...



Run misty, run! Guess I couldn't leave the horses to the blog banner. Here are the first in a new line of brooches. 'Horse Brooches'. Do you think I'm to literal with my titles? I haven't made any bird brooches for a while. Do you think the bird motif in craft has had it's day? I've heard cries of 'Enough with the birds designs!' around the traps, but ya gotta go with your instinct when you make stuff. If your crafty insides say 'bird', then make birds! My crafty insides say 'horse' right now, but I have been making a few of those bird softies lately.