I swear there is just not enough "usable time" in the day for me atm. But here I am posting after another long dry spell.
I have been busy making dollies and have even sold a few on www.facebook.com/misspollysdollhouse

here are some of my new ones.

triplets waiting at the hairdressers



Beautiful ballerina with my new style of gorgous long hair which takes 3 hours to put in!

such a little cutie- this is one of my new tuttus with glimmer and sparkle tulle and a ribbon tie up , so you get a lovely bow at the back

So many people want skulls but I want my dolls to be pretty- so pretty and skully :)

Lara is my first doll to have long loose hair(takes a long time to do but so worth it!) she is not even close to finished as she will be a "Look at me" but this is a new dress pattern that I have created "Indian Princess meets Pinup girl" I have ordered the fabric in several colours that will arrive in a few weeks so look forward to a few of these dresses.

I love Abby- she was inspired by Abby on NCIS and she is a groovy "Look at me"

Luc just looks like she is going to run up and hug you! Just a cutie pie!

This is Sid the first of my new boy doll range. I hope to have a few for sale at my next market night.
I wanted to make a masculine looking boy doll as I just felt that most looked a bit girly. So I hope he is cool to boys too!

Heidi is a cute little "Play with me" doll with hair made from Australian hand spun Merino wool. Her hair can be worn up as in this picture or in pigtails. She has lovely hazel eyes and a cute smile.

Things have been a bit quiet on www.facebook.com/craftwerxsales too as I got a bit disheartened after the last sale when over 50% of the buyers didn't pay- it's such a waste of time when that happens. I don't understand why people buy things if they know that they can't pay for them and it stops other people who can pay being able to buy. But anyways, I plan to have another sale in the next few weeks to clear out some fabir cbefore we move the craftroom to the new studio room(can't wait) which has a great view, sun most of the day and a slow combustion stove too!

I have also found a wonderful friend in Sarah who started off as a customer of www.facebook.com/craftwerxfabrics only a couple of months ago and lives in Snowtown which is really the closest town to us here in Lochiel. Sarah now visits at least once a week and love to help out with orders(she thinks it's great fun playing in all the fabric). We really are a great influence on each other too- she stimulates my creative flair and I have encouraged her to make a range of different things for her store www.facebook.com/misfits she make sParrot Tents- she is a parrot nut! Loves them to pieces and her house is full of cheecky birds! plus she has now started her own range of character dolls which are too groovy!

Anyways, enough for me, time to go have a rest- silly body is not my friend right now!
Hope you are all well!
Cheers, Teesha

Such a bad blogger but here is why:) Miss Polly's Doll House my new FB page!

Just a few of the dolls that have been taking up my time! All hand sewn and decorated in Country SA to buy one or have a look at more please go to www.facebook.com/misspollysdollhouse

Latest Love products

Yes, I have been a slack blogger again but in my defence I have been in the process of huge clearance sales on my FaceBoo page www.facebook.com/craftwerxsales and opening my new dolls page www.facebook.com/misspollysdollhouse

Anyway this post is about some AWSOME products that I have found lately - I wonder how I managed to make anything good with out them!

The first is curved needles! You know the ones that you see them use to stitch up people- well now I know why. They are amazing for quilting and doll making. If you want to give it a try, I have  3 packs of 4 needles in various sizes in stock for $1.50 each plus postage- so give be an email craftwerxstudio@gmail.com and I will invoice you.

The second one is Fray Stop - OMG you can cut and clip you seems so short! add a little dab of this stuff - runs like water so is really easy to apply if you just stick a pin in the nozzle rather than cutting it. I swear you can cut right up to your sewing put on some Fray Stop and you don't need to worry about the seem popping. I have 5 bottles in stock for $5.85 plus postage so shoot me an email if you want one.

My third discovery is Wonderfil thread- I am so in love with this stuff! I do a lot of hand embroidery on my quilts and dolls and just around the house and I hate having to pull apart stranded cotton. Well Wonderfil has these great threads that are 2 7 3 ply that can be used by hand or machine for embroidery and are wonderful to use!
I love the dazzle as it has a twist of metaclic through it. I have found that it doesn't tangle and runs super smooth so you can use longer lengths without  worrying about it getting ratty.

Unfortunately I have to buy a box of 5 of each colour and they are expensive threads- but I am happy to order in colours as needed. Just email me for a PDF colour chart and price per spool (varies by type and colour)

Here are the specs of each.

Accent
2 ply, 12wt rayon. 40 solid colours. Exquisitely finished with great sheen & softness. Strong & easy to sew in any machine. Perfect weight for decorative stitching. Adds dimension & accent. Use #90 embroidery needle. Home sew and long arm machines.

Thread Accent Multi 400mt2 ply, 12wt rayon. 20 multi colours. Exquisitely finished with great sheen & softness. Strong & easy to sew in any machine. Perfect weight for decorative stitching. Adds dimension & accent. Use #90 embroidery needle. Home sew and long arm machines.
Razzle & Dazzle
Heavy rayon thread. 3 ply - 250 yard spools (razzle), 200 yard spools (dazzle). 46 rayon colors. High natural sheen. Silky hand feel. Comparable to no. 8 crochet cotton. Home sew and long arm machines.
Suggested Uses:
Razzle is rayon only. Use through bobbin for bobbin sewing, couch on top of projects. Use for knitting, crochet, tassels, fringes.
Dazzle is rayon and has a twist of glitzy metallic.
Sizzle
4 ply heavy metallic. 13 brilliant colors. 180yds/spool. Runs well in bobbin. Home sew and long arm machines

I hope that you have fun sewing this week! I am having another clearance sale on www.facebook.com/craftwerxsales which runs until the 21st Feb with new items daily so I will be busy.

I will have some ready to buy dolls very soon - so keep checking to have a look.
Cheers for now,
Teesha

competition update

I forgot to add in the competition information that it is only open to Australian residents as international postage is just too expensive.
Cheers,
Teesha

Competition- What did you make for Christmas gifts?

Ok so I have been thinking about a competition and as I was up until 5am Christmas morning finishing off my handmade gifts- I guess a lot of other people were doing the same- so I thought that it would be a good topic for a competition!
So here is how to enter-
1. Like the Craftwerx Studio Fabric Funhouse page on Facebook www.facebook.com/CraftwerxStudio
2. Upload a picture of your handmade gift to the page with your name and the name of the project.
3.Share a link to the competition on your profile.
4. Email your picture to craftwerxstudio@gmail.com with your name, address and the details of your project and the person it was made for ie I made this quilt for my Aunt Dora as she really loves purple.
5. Follow this blog to find out winners etc.
6. Sorry Australian resident only.

The competition will run for 1 month and you can entre as many projects as you like but each time you must share a link to www.facebook.com/CraftwerxStudio
The 5 best entries as decided by me will be chosen at the end of the month and posted on the wall and this blog for you all to vote for. At the end of 1 week, the winner will be the person who's project gets the most votes.

Now what is the prize I hear you ask?
First prize will be a 10 pack of FQs as chosen by me personally for the winner
Second prize will be a 5 pack of FQs as chosen by me personally for the winner
Third prize will be a 5 pack of Eigths as chosen by me personally for the winner
There will also be a prize for the most entries and the most interesting project.

So I look forward to seeing your entries soon!
Happy quilting!

Here are some of the goodies that I made :

A table runner for my MIL

A table mat for Daniels favourite Aunt

A giant cushion for our georgous cousin!

Windmills in the Garden Quilt- the next step.

The next step in my Windmills in the Garden quilt was to add the die cut shapes. Before sewing them onto the block, I added som embroidery and as I wanted a slightly 3d effect, I also put some batting on the back of them before embroidering.  I use pre cut die cut pieces but you can also make your own by prining out clip art and then cutting the fabric with it to make a shape.  Once I was happy with the die cuts, I then used the sewing machine on zig zag stitch to sew them onto the blocks. I also varied the thread and intensity or width of the zig zag depending on the die cut size.  The next step is to add sashing, I wasn't going to originally but as part of the organic quilting process, it became apparent that it would look good as the quilt progressed.  Until next time..

How do I design a quilt? A very common question

As promised, another post although a bit later than I hoped- we have had an awsome heatwave that has knocked the wind out of my sales. But not to winge, I thought that this post I would talk about a question that a lot of new customers and quliting newbies ask me.
How do I go about designing a quilt or project?
I thought that my current mega project would be a good example to  use.
I know that a lot of people have a grand design that they work out on paper first but for me it is a more organic experience. I do all of my patchwork by hand while I relax in front of the TV.
Firstly I had some left over pack of 2.5" squares that I really liked and some great new white on white fabrics and just started making my little triangle blocks with 2 2.5" squares and sewing 2 paralell diagonal lines just off centre and then cutting down between the lines to make one square made of 2 triangles. I use coloured and white and cut the white by eye as I am a huge fan of liberated quilting.
They looked great, so I spent a few nights making those while I was watching TV and relaxing, until I had a big pile.
Then I thought- hmm what if I was to do the same thing but across the square- so I did this and made rectangel ones that were cute too- another couple of nights and I had a pile of those too!
I ironed them all and then played with the different shaped blocks that I could make with them. I made lots of windmills which made me think of how much I loved those kids coloured foil windmils that you blow on when I was a kid. So I spend some time sewin together groovy windmill blocks. and then wondered what to do with the rectangle so basically did the same thing with them and this gave me a sort of plus sign(probably has a quilting name but I don't know it)
I also made some other groovy shapes and then wondered how to put them together, so I kind of layed them all out on the floor and tried some different fabric strips between 4 blocks and then chose the 2 fabrics that I like best and started sewing them together.
That took a while!
I layed them all out on the floor again and thought now it looks like someone has put a whole heap of windmills in the ground, so I thought "Windmills in the garden" it needs some flowers and so the name came about and by adding some 10" funky floral blocks I got my base quilt.

So now I thought that some cute bird and butterfly applique would be a good addition and I am in the process of adding them to the plain blocks. Once that is done I will add sashing between the blocks in a dark colour and then see how it looks.
I will keep you posted on the progress, but I hope that this rambling will help some of our new quilters understand that a quilt doesn't need to be a major production, it can be easy fun and organic in it's design.
Sew until next time! Have fun quilting and don't let it be a drag!