Booktown + Giveaway

We went to Booktown at Clunes on Sunday and I'm finally posting my finds!


I bought some books for my nephews.....the first one is an Australian History book.
Kids don't seem to be learning much about our history at school these days.


A kids bible (for Catholic school homework)


....and a book about insects!


These ones are for me.....a cool 1970's Golden Hands book


and an old Mc'Calls sewing book.


I found this dolls pram at the Clunes Op Shop. It was $10, but I only had $8.70 cash left so I asked nicely if I could have it and the lady said Yes!


...And now for the giveaway!
I found this Australian Womens Weekly knitting book from 1951.
I can't knit, but I thought that someone out there in blogland would love it so I bought it anyway.....

It has lots of lovely knitting patterns.....

.....and lots of cool 1950's ads.....


If you would like to be in the draw, leave me a comment by next Tuesday 5.00PM Melbourne time!

Read the Instructions

It's been a busy weekend so far, and tomorrow we're off to Clunes to check out Booktown.

I'm hoping to find some interesting vintage books.....

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In other news, I've started making another Mirabel Softie. I've never been able to sew stretch fabrics and I have always tried to avoid buying them thinking that I was doomed if I ever tried! But ages ago, for some unknown reason, I actually found some really weird silver stretchy material in one of the remnant bins at Spotlight and bought it!

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I found it yesterday afternoon and had a brainwave about making a spacey / astronautey softie. So I did a quick sketch, made a paper pattern (if you can call it that) and cut it out of the stretchy silver stuff. Then I remembered that while I was perusing the instruction manual of my sewing machine earlier in the week (while swearing and making buttonholes), there was a section on sewing stretch fabric. So for the second time in 3 years, I read a page from the instruction manual.....it's quite amazing what you can learn from an instruction manual.....for all of these years I had no idea what the S.S. setting on my machine was for. Now I know it means STRETCH STITCH! And guess what? I sewed the 2 pieces of stretchy silver fabric together with no problems! I am still in shock.....

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Anyway, I decided to give my spacey / astronautey softie some ears because he was looking a little bland, and he ended up looking like a rabbit. Mr CurlyPops thinks he looks like a rabbit at a rave party.

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I haven't quite finished yet.....Now that he looks like a rabbit, I thought I would make it look like he was actually supposed to be a rabbit all along. I was making him a pom pom tail but I had a disaster and the pom pom fell apart so I came up with a different solution. I'm just waiting for the glue to dry and then I can stuff him full of polyfill, stitch up the side, and send him off merrily on his way to Mikes!
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Oh, and I almost forgot, the moral of the story is READ THE INSTRUCTIONS!