After not making it to the Summer season last year i was determined not to miss The Finders Keepers Markets this time, especially when it is only 300m down the road from my house.

I made up for it this time by making 2 visits, Friday night after work (along with hundreds of others) and on Saturday afternoon with more of a pram brigade and a hungover Miss Cath.

There was a Brown Owls rendezvous' at Badskirt's Friday and Shelbyville's stand Saturday but i didn't quite make to either although i did spot a few Brown Owls about.
Here are some of the highlights that Mr Blue-eyes captured. I'll try to link to as many stands as i can match up...

In need of some basic white tees i managed to nab a Finders Keepers tee before the sold out, $35 seemed reasonable for a nicely cut white tee with a pretty print.

Back side of the Made by White stand featuring their wall stickers. Loving the deer with the forest in its antlers. Made by White also have the only instance i've seen of a sloth as a pendant.

Pretty sure these are by Sally Mac, assorted lovely japanese silk decor and baby bits.

Fresh citrusy colours and natural sillouettes from Redberry Designs

Sweet kidlet clothes in fun designs with no pink and blue to be seen - yay from Honeyants

Rebound Books have all your old favourites including Golden Books repurposed as notebooks, diaries and journals.

Delightful birdcage with gift tags and other stationery by Mulberry Muse

Assorted brooches, canvases and other charming objects by Prado-Marin

And fellow Brown Owl sewer/crafter/blogger extrordinaire, BADSKIRT. I saw a number of folks wandering about with hippos and other critters in bags, including my colleague Besty who is debating keeping her hippo instead of gifting it on.

Dashing and dapper bicycle wear from the happy Rocket Fuel

Berlinski with her handbags and clutches from tasty vintage materials

Edit: This is Allison of Six and a half stitches who was sharing a stall with Kristan Doran
I've been reading Kristan blog for months and had to grab a panel of her squirrel print

I liked the clothes at Sunday Morning so much i had to come back and get a 2nd top. I bought a black long sleeve top with a flattering boat neck that had been trimmed in a vintage pink/green/blue print and a soft blue tee with a silver owl print (as worn below. They also do nice textiles and jewllery too.

We were enchanted with Holly Chalmers frilled with a twist, tailored pieces, am kicking myself for not grabbing something from her as i don't think she is stocked in Sydney yet.

Part 2 of Finder Keepers to come shortly...

I caught up with a girlfriend last night for a lovely dinner of nibbles and fabulous mussels at Fix St James
As a little belated b'day gift she gave me this gorgeous Mor Marshmallow Lip BalmInside is a lovely sweet soft pink lip balm with a yummy marshmallow flavour. Thank you Nicky, I have to have it on my desk and am constantly playing with it as the tin is most delightful.

So when i heard that i could earn a Brown Owl Badge for knitting i dug out my knitting needles and unraveled a long abandoned few rows and set to knitting this tea cosy
However i hadnt really taken into account how much wool i had on hand. I was also a bit rusty when it came to my tension being too tight. So combined with many rows spent trying to remember what purl stitch was i ended up with a 2/3 sized tea cosy that was too wide for my small tea pots but too short for a full size tea pot.

So it just wasnt going to work as a tea cosy and i unraveled it all to start again for the 2nd time.
I started quite well and after a few rows of purl i realised it was curling under and remembered the need for knit1/purl1 to create ribbing. However i was a bit distracted and the time and couldn't always recall if i'd knitted one or purled one so there were a few rows of half-arsed ribbing. I then realised that i had been a bit carried away with casting on and after a few rows i could see that it was going to be too wide for a tea-cosy.

With a bit of help from my Meet Me At Mikes Crafy Projects book i casted off a few stiches and ended up with those interesting curly bits. Then the more i knitted the more i thought that it just isnt going to be a good tea-cosy but it will make a fun scarf.
So i've got enough wool to make purple/red/chartreuse scarf that will have a few curly bits as i cast off but i'm making decent progress to be able to wear it this winter.

I have been in love with Rob Ryan's papercuts for sometime.
I was especially thrilled when Frankie featured his work last year with a pullout poster. He does amazing commissions that appear in magazines all over the work and installations and packaging for Fortnum & Mason.
He has a small store in London and a smaller store in NY but one can always get find him on Etsy where he sells screenprints and ceramic tiles of his papercuts.


His work always has amazing heartfelt, sweet passages that are filled with ooey gooey love in the best way.
I think i'll have to be content with the poster from Frankie at this point but i can dream of having one of his pieces full size.

It has been a busy month, an Easter trip to Canberra to visit my special chic yoga teaching aunt and her daughter Pearl - with side trips to Braidwood & Bungendore.

3 Birthdays at work with lots of cakes and pressies, Sussie the Swede got a voucher for Tessutis as she is quite the sewer of free-from clothes that i can only aspire to make. DC the designer scored a neat pack of felty goodies from Kikki-K.
And last but least was my birthday on Sunday the work gang bought me a subscription to Frankie which i was very excited about. I have weened myself off my magazine addiction but i think i can make an exception for Frankie in all its warm, crafty, quirky, cool goodness. All my desktops now have Frankie Wallpapers on rotation.

I made sure i the whole weekend to celebrate, with a delicious ducky lunch at Glebe Point Diner. I've been trying to get here for a long time and could never coordinate a booking and dare i say it was worth waiting for.
We shared a fragrant, meaty duck sausage and a silky smooth duck pate for entrees and both were wonderfully done. I dithered for a moment on the duck with pears and brussell sprouts as a main but when the helpful waiter confirmed it was a medium rare breast there was no question. I shall have to return to explore the solid balanced wine list further and to sample the rosemary and honey panacotta.

Miss Cath bought me the Meet Me At Mikes book of 25 Fun & Crafty things to Make, I don't know what i was more excited about Frankie or this. I've already cracked into it to help me earn my first Brown Owls Merit Badge for knitting. My tea cosy is nearly finished (pix to come soon), it is a bit wonky but considering it is the first knitting project i have come close to finishing i think it is a pretty good effort. I just need to sew it up and add a lil pom-pom on top.

not my choice and it was everything i dreaded and worse, Patricia Fields costumes hindered any credibility it never had

cringe and groan

lurid slapstick dull

a muddy moral

I blame the boar head - on the door of the most delicious smelling deli just off the campo in Siena.
Filled with rustic wild boar salami, truffled pecorino, pickled artichokes and all manner of delights in between.
After doing our best to sample everything we settle on some slices of proscuittos, salamis, cheeses, bread and a bottle of chianti to wash it down with.
45euro later we found a step in the campo and started piling up tasty morsals on the crusty bread. We did manage to make it last for lunch the next day at least.

Half way between Florence & Siena we stopped for lunch in Panzano in Chianti.
This is the view from the trattoria where was supped on panzanella and crisp white chianti under vines whilst watching clouds slide over the valley below.

As Mr Blue-eyes is the designated photographer i don't often take the pictures around here so my camera and cable had kind of fallen to the wayside.
Over the weekend i finally found the missing camera cable and uploaded a whole bunch of pictures. Some of these date back to our honeymoon in Sep/Oct which was Vienna/Venice/Tuscany/Corsica/Rome.
So over the next little while i'll be digging out some of the better ones.

The first one was a great piece of street art in a underpass in Florence.