First Block

A new day, a new quilt in the making. Block one is complete. Only 12 more to do.

Bearfest

On a recent train journey, myself and a colleague knitted the same bear. They are technically twins as they were created in the same day. Look how different they turned out! I think it's the stuffing techniques myself. Can you guess which is mine? The clue is that I think my bear looks rather froglike. With that in mind I shall name him Monsieur LeFrog. He is a swash-buckler and if he had a moustache, he would tweak the ends into find points. I think my knitting has come on leaps and bounds and the smaller needles really helped this time. He's half the size of his older brother. I might try and create the same bear in crochet now.

Quilt Show

I am still recovering from the quilt show. So much material in one place. It was great. So many great things people had made. I decided to make two new quilts on the spot based on ones I saw, then went and bought one of everything. Ace. You don't have to be a quilt person to go, there is so much fabric there that anyone interested in making things could find lots of great things. I wish it was on more than twice a year, although I would be very very very poor.

Make a Baby Ball!

For your attention and delight. If you want to make your own baby ball, download the PDF and get going. It couldn't be easier. If it all goes horribly wrong then you can hunt me down like a dog and give me a chinese burn.

Filling in the Blanks

I made three of these for the coldest flat in London. They all performed perfectly. The material was really nice suit fabric I got in a smokey bargain bin on Berwick street one rainy day. It was too nice to be on the floor really. That and the raw silk mouth from Broadwick Silks made them the most decadent draught excluders ever.

Amigurumi Bears

Amigurumi is the Japanese art of knitting or crocheting small stuffed animals and anthropomorphic creatures' according to Wikipedia. I am hooked. I decided to try knitting one first. So off I went to Etsyand found a great pattern by Amy Gaines. It took me ages to make it and compared to the lovely blue bear in the picture, my bear looks like it's a tramp. I made it with a friend who knitted hers in half the time it took me. Mine came out huge! I mean HUGE! I thought it was all about tiny, TINY animals. My bear is the equivalent of a 10lb baby when you've been assured it'll be 5lbs. He's like the tallest kid in school. He's full of holes as my increasing was very very poor. But he doesn't mind, he's bright pink and he doesn't care. He's the kind of kid who if they fell on you in the school playground, you'd have to be hospitalised. In a way this makes him tough without trying. Poor hokey bear. The moral of the story is 5mm needles are just far too big to not have big gaps where the stuffing shows through. I blame the needles see, not myself.

Today I went out and bought the thinnest wool I could find and the smallest knitting needles. Round two commences. After this I plan to try those funny round knitting needle thingies just as soon as I can trap someone in a corner who knows how to use them. Then I plan to crochet it. By the end I shall be ready to dive headfirst into Amazon.jp and buy these beauties

His vs. Hers

The End

The ball in its finished form. Baby three pipped all other babies to the post by arriving four weeks early. I'll put up some instructions when I have some time.

Feathers

Here are my feathers I collected from the sand dunes in Camber. I picked all the distressed, battered ones and was planning to wind silver wire on their ends and hang them all together, but I quite like the pile I left them in on top of my block of wood I found.

I'll post up the finished ball soon. The builders came on monday and so I had to hide the finished thing away to protect it from the dust pile I now live in.

Day Six

The last design. Now I just have to put it together.

Day Five

Only one more design to go then I can start cutting, backing and sowing. It's all coming together nicely. A great project to do in front of the TV, even if it does sound a bit sad and domestic.

Day Four

Another day rolls by, another two sides of the ball come together. The deadline draws closer. This ball will be finished by the weekend oh yes, then it's a Russian roulette game to see which baby I am invited to see first. In this season of baby production there can be no favourites. It's first see me, first serve. Although they probably won't even want it and will wish I'd bought them a teddy instead. Will it be Baby A, Baby B or even Baby C? Time will tell. I might post up a pattern once I am finished if anyone is interested.

Day Three

Slowly everything is starting to come together. I am officially half way through the ball. The ball is basically two sets of 6 hexagons sown together. I have just completed two versions of the third pattern leaving three sets left before I can start sowing it together. I hope it's not a garish nightmare by the time I finish.

Day Two

The baby ball progresses slowly. My mother is making one at the same time. She has a pile of muted, space dyed felt. I have a pile of neon, rainbow coloured felt. I am interested to see the results. I know I will like hers more and have to make another. It's always the way when other people make things.

In other news: The Christmas fair has been cancelled so the stall is dead. I find this very sad. It seemed the collective of illustrators who organise it decided it was a lot of effort and thought they'd concentrate on moving studio instead. I think the fair as a whole still goes on, but it means that we can't latch onto the discount they get for being impoverished illustrators. This probably means that only the bigger name people will show which I think will change the nature of the fair as a whole. The thing I loved about it was the fact everything was so cheap, yet homemade. It was just very creative and exciting. Plus the fact that you know most of the stall holders means that you can spend all day drinking the mulled wine and laughing at each others produce. It just wouldn't be the same without them. Such is life. Stall production is officially at a standstill.

Baby Ball

So I have 4 weeks to make this quilt. You might think this is a long time but if you work all day then it becomes quite a race. As if that wasn't hard enough I am also making a traditional baby ball. It's really easy. the kind if thing you can do in front of the telly. Basically you draw 12 hexigons on calico and stitch 2 lots of 6 designs on each then sow the whole thing together to make a ball. More as it develops. I plan to do some every night this week and have it finished by the weekend. Brave words.

Quiltmania

Another baby is brewing so a new quilt is called for. The yellow plan has been abandoned as the material just nver showed up and time is running out. So I made all the blocks today.

Things I have learned:
The special flower quilting pins do make life easier, they lie flatter and are much finer and sharper.
Measuring at the beginning is the key to having it all line up. More next weekend as the project continues.

Happy Birthday to Meeeeee

The new Jano. It used to be the Jpod, but I gave that away. Then I had the juffle, but I mislaid it. Now, specially for my birthday, Simon bestowed the Jano on me. This latest nano from Apple has no covers for it yet as it is soooooo hot off the press. So without further a do. I made one out of a sock. It took minutes.

Snowballs

This is called a 'Snowball Nine Patch' quilt. My mum made this and I love it. I forced her to give it to me. I have been trying to start making a mini version in yellow and white for a baby, but fate it out to thwart me. eventually I got my act together and ordered the material. two weeks later it hadn't arrived so I rang up the mail order place to check my delivery. It was delivered they said. Lost. All my yellow and white. So now I am back to square one. I might, just might have to drop by the Amy Butler concession at Liberty's and splash out. The saga continues…

Floral Decay

I tea died some big floral material some time a go with the aim of making some rough n ready monsers who looked like they were brought up on fine bone china and walks along the promenade, only to fall into disrepute and debauchery. This is my mini test pilot: Alfonso. He is in denial, I'm nost sure about what, he won't say. He turns the light switches off and on three times upon entering any room and likes crooning love songs quietly to himself. Can you see his blotchy tea stained arm? I am very happy with that.

Making a Mess

So it's been a while. I blame the good weather. It hasn't really been a time to stay indoors making things. But this weekend was different. I spent the day in Ray's workshop getting covered in paint, trying to emulate the great Kurt Jackson by painting, sticking, bonding, gluing, ironing, anything that involved a great deal of mess. I think we ended up just making mess, but oh how we laughed doing it. Maybe Ray will post her results on her blog. Here are mine. I would like to add, many of these fine works would have looked far better if I had stopped at certain time, but we like to think it's all about experimenting after having been out of practice for a while.

How To Make a Sock Monkey

In lightening speed with the help of The Pony, technology has once again been restored. The link at the side should work now. Or simply click here. Let me know if you have any problems monkey makers.

Sorry the link expired for a while! I have updated it. Check my label on the left called 'Sock monkey' to see what these instructions make. Then check out the 'sock monster' label when if you feel brave.

Sock Monkey

So Jackie from Canada kindly informs me that my sock monkeys are famous after having been quoted in a Canadian Newspaper which menioned I have a sock monkey tutorial. This is true. I have a link to a PDF you can download on the left hand side. Of course the minute I started to bask in the warm glow of fame, the internet broke and the link to the PDF went funny. I'm sorry to all you frustrated Canadians who can't download it. Hopefully I will have fixed it by the time you read this and all will be well. As compensation for this shoddy internet breakdown I will endeavour to put up a photo story showing the stages. Thanks for giving me the heads up Jackie, more sock monkeys in the world can only be a good thing.

Another Cosy

It's time for another tea cosy me thinks. I am getting much quicker at them now I am on number three. I have started being able to recognise what stitch I have just done and unpick stitiches without twisting them. The wool was my best bargain. Electric pink and purple both found in a £1 bargain bucket outside a wool shop. What a winner. I have stopped now as I can't decide what colour to make the cherry on the top. Maybe white or plum? I really am not sure. Maybe I need to sleep on it. I think soon I might move onto a new knitting pattern now I feel I have suitably mastered this one.

Maybe this or this or maybe something completely different.

Bag One

So here is my first bag. I did lots of things wrong, it was quite complicated, but it's made. Bag number two is in the making.

Bag Making

I went to Liberty's and saw that they sell Amy Butler fabric which I found so exciting I proceeded to try and buy the whole shop up. I signed up to the loyalty card, and found out the material sale starts next week with 20% off everything.

I think this is the beginning of an expensive love affair. I started making this bag, but it could take some time. It's a bit more complicated than I thought. I am also eagerly waiting for my Sublime stitching pattern to arrive so I can embroider my bags. In the meantime I have been practicing with the help of my mum's really old embroidery books which are right out of the 70's. Some of the designs are probably right back at the height of fashion.

Three of Kind

Meet the gang. Persius is the leader. Snitch and Hortense spend most of their time following Persius around sniggering. Together they like to sit on the roof terrace smoking cigars and patrolling the grounds for slugs. There on-going mission is to rid the world of the slug scourge. In fact they meet in Marble Arch every tuesday to pamphlet their cause.