Herbert and Friends - Handmade Softies by Torunn

This week has been all about getting stock ready for the Finders Keepers market. I'm stressing out that I might not have enough stock so I've been in full-on production mode. I haven't had time for anything else, just sewing, cutting, threading and stuffing! Here are a couple of photos of work in progress and some finished friends.

In the last few weeks I've also been working on some new tags and a new stamp! I can't wait to see how they've turned out, hopefully they will arrive in the next couple of days. I'll share them with you as soon as they do. Time for me to get back to making, I'll be working on a herd of giraffes.

I had an impulse to make some bears, so here is how they turned out. On the left is Knut and on the right we have Alena.

Knut is a cheerful character. He likes to eat cake and all things sweet and sugary. He has a wild imagination and loves to entertain by telling stories about far away lands and adventurous bears.  

Alena is a slightly anxious and clumsy kind of bear. Luckily she's good at laughing things off when her clumsy side comes through. She likes reading and star gazing because not too much can go wrong when your sitting still.

Earlier this year I had a custom order to make Shelvbot, a colourful character from a zine called The Adventures of Shelvbot, created by Luke Bartter and Stephanie Peters. I have just finished making my second order for Shelvbot so I just wanted to share some photos of the lovable robot.

After making Shelvbot I was in the mood for making some more robots. Here are the two I've made so far. Luckily they get along very well and are good at different things. The one thing they do have in common is their love for Tetris.

The Finders Keepers Sydney designers profiles are up! Here is a little image of mine, it's very exciting to see it there together with such an array of fantastic designers. To check them out click here.

In other news, I've started a basketball team with some friends. We found out yesterday that we were accepted into the competition after being on the waiting list for a while. We're having our first and possibly our only training session in a few hours. It's been such a long time since I played basketball that I'm a little nervous while I also feel like a child waiting for Christmas. I'm uncharacteristically a bit of a sports freak. I play netball on Tuesdays and Thursdays which I never get sick of and now I'll be playing basketball on Wednesdays. I can't quite get my head around how playing sport can bring me so much joy, but since it does I may as well do it! I don't really get into watching sport and I don't like any kind of football. Our new basketball team is called The Drop Bears.

Lately I've been reading a lot of teen fiction which I've come to realise is a fantastic genre. The books are thrilling and full of adventure, dabble in romance and have underlying morals that seep through the storyline in subtle and sometimes less subtle ways. The first series I've been reading is the Chaos Walking series by Patrick Ness. The books are set on a planet called New World where Christians have settled to find a new and happier life, which doesn't exactly work out. I guess it's a sci-fi, but I'm not usually a sci-fi kind of person so don't let this put you off if your not either. It is a fantastic book, full of suspense, adventure and talking animals!

The second series I'm reading together with Toby, my partner, is called The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. These books are set in post apocalyptic times in a place called Penem which used to be the united states. There are 12 districts which are run as a dictatorship from the Capitol city. There was once a rebellion where a war was waged on the Capitol by the districts but the districts were defeated. As a result of this each district have to nominate by lottery one girl and one boy to appear in the annual hunger games, a reality TV show where the contestants fight to the death and the one winner returns home. It's an amazing read! The suspense is really intense, and since Toby and I are reading it together I have to use all my self control not to read ahead while he's at work! I highly recommend both these series if your looking for something to read.

Yesterday I had a stall at Glebe markets which was lots of fun. I met some really great people, both customer and other stall holders, I bought some new fabric which always gets me excited and I made some money. It was such a different vibe from Bondi which was really refreshing, it's always good to have a change. The draw back with Glebe is you have to book a month or more in advance. Since I haven't been organised enough to do that I won't be having a stall there for a while, unless I try to get a standby stall (which I'm told involves getting to the market at 4am and waiting in line for 4 hours). I might just book a few in for January.

Here are the fabrics I bought yesterday. The first one I bought from Riyo who has a stall with her friend Ako, two super lovely people with a fantastic stall. Unfortunately I don't have any photos of the stall but you can check out Riyo's blog here.

The second fabric I bought from another great stall that happened to be opposite mine at the market. This stall belonged to Wasabi Chic and you can have a look at her blog here

At the market I also met Rebecca from Blinking Flights, another softie maker. I've been reading her blog for a while and finally met her in person. I felt like a bit of a stalker but she was really friendly and it was great to see her softies in person too. You can have a look at her toys and read her blog here.

And last but not least I met Karen from Red Ruby. They make fantastic clothes that I've been wearing for about 7 years. I'm quite shy so I never had the courage to speak to her before, I would simply buy something and leave as quickly as possible. But now that I'm a stall holder and maker of things I actually spoke to Karen, who was really lovely. Red Ruby has a website on the way and you can catch them at Glebe markets every week.

Here are some new promo photos I've been working on. They are for the Finders Keepers website, I'm not too sure when they'll be uploaded but I'll keep you posted because I'm very excited!

I'm very excited to announce that Herbert and Friends will be sharing a stall with the lovely Eight Sparrows at the upcoming Finders Keepers market at Sydney's CarriageWorks. It will be open on Friday 4th December, 6pm - 10pm and Saturday 5th December 10am - 8pm. I hope you can all come and check it out, should be loads of great stalls! You can check out their website here.