Antique Shop Find

Some things I bought with Rachel when we spent a rainy day in Saffron Walden

Quilt Progress

Things are progressing in quiltland, slowly but sort of surely. I've now reached the bit I'm really rubbish at so it might all grind to a halt now like all the other half-finished projects. Let's see. If you look at the last post where I laid the squares out, you can see how at that point I had them in the right order but by the time I finished they were completely in the wrong order which means I really screwed up the pattern of light and dark squares. I don't quite know what happened to me; another bout of mindless stupidity again I'm sure.

7 Random Things

So Annie asked me to do the 7 Random Things test. I think Annie's first one is my favourite. I just got a very vivid scene of her on the sofa with a baking tray of oven chips. I am now looking forward to Rachel's response.

1. I always have cold feet. Any opportunity I get to not wear socks and shoes I take. This often means I wash my feet at odd times of the day, but I hate grimey feet. When I was really young I spent a summer trying to walk up our back lane over the stones hoping that my feet would get tougher the more I practiced, then I'd never have to wear shoes again. My feet never made it.

2. I always have to tidy up before I start making something as I make so much mess. Sometimes though, I spend so long tidying up I never get round to starting the project. I secretly love tidying. I could tidy all day long every day. This does not make me a tidy person you understand. I am a messy person who just likes ordering their own stuff and warring with myself over my inability to throw anything away.

3. I wish I could touch type. For a long time now I have been thinking that if I could type quicker and more accurately I would have more time to improve what I say and notice when I spell things wrong. I have been toying with the idea of taking a week off work and enrolling in an intensive course, but then I always talk myself out of it by thinking I could spend that time and money on the beach.

4. I found a wholesale place selling giant rick-rack the other week and I am kicking myself that I didn't buy any. I decided not to buy things if I don't have a specific project in mind. I am starting to regret such a rash decision.

5. I am a great starter but a shit finisher. I pile bags of half finished things into any space I can find. If you were to open my cupboards you'd probably find a family of tramps living in there. This all stems from the problem that I can't throw things away. I always think things might come in useful, even if I haven't touched them in 10 years. I endlessly sift through my stuff throwing one or two things away a year, then I secretly mourn their loss. I wish I could throw away huge amounts in one go. I think it would lift the burden of knowing I have so much useless crap around.

6. I love storage boxes and Tuperware. I have a problem. If you let me loose I'd buy them all the time. I bought 6 last week. They are full already. One day I will have a cellar full to the brim of all my rubbish in neat see through storage boxes that I'll probably never look in.

7. I wish my friends lived nearer to me. I wish we all lived on the same street and could spend evenings knitting and drinking wine together. I don't know how it is that we manage to be so far apart, but I sometimes dream we all live above MacDonalds.

Here is a picture of my latest purchases from the Quilt show I went to with Rachel and the project I bought them for. It's time to relearn applique. I did some applique on a my first proper quilt I made for Rowan, but I never took a photo of it. One day...

Face Off

Phineas is feeling far more expressive these days.

Faceless Monkey

An absence. A blank canvas. A monkey with no past. A monkey with no future. Phineas gave nothing away. Every thought was tightly encased in a blankness that others found disconcerting. They were drawn to him, drawn by the chasm of possibilities, the need to know the enigma. But they were also scared. Where were the feelings? the expressions? the vulnerabilities that made him a monkey? There was so little to know that one had a chilling feeling that Phineas wasn't even there. A ghost, A phantom, a creature lost in the shadows, touching you with featherlight digits which disappeared as soon as they were registered. Just who was Phineas? Had he once been whole? Had his face been taken from him in retribution for some dark deed? Were his thoughts too vile, too depraved, too unthinkable, to trasmit out of that blank expression? Or was he too new? Full of possibilities? Caught mid metamorphosis? Who could tell? All they knew was that he had decidedly funny ears.

The Unfortunate Incident

So I came downstairs on Valentine's Day and found this dead racoon. The Pony said it must have got runover in the night. It came with its own bodybag and everything. I like positioning my dead racoon round the house in his mock death pose. He is a great comfort to me. What a great idea he is. He is THE BEST PRESENT EVER!

Dinosaurs

I am making a mobile. I just need some sticks and green ribbon to finish it off. It is based on one I bought from John Lewis which I liked so much I kept and decided to try and make myself. I have changed a few details and added spots. Any good, self-respecting dinosaur should have spots I like to think.

Another Christmas Present

From my mum, isn't she cooooool? This quilt rocks. It's double sided quilt as you go.

Wot I Got For Christmas

Hello 2008. Here are a few things I got for Christmas to fuel this year's craftorama. Here are some spotty things I got my sister and my dad. I was really chuffed. They are all perfect.

My existing button box was so full that you could no longer sift through them. The new box was also full of antique buttons from my sister, but with plenty of room for my larger buttons which mean more space all round.

The needles are a different size in the same set as the orange ones I got a while a go. I just think they are lovely to hold and great to look at.

The pin cushion is soley for the tiny white quilting pins. I never thought I'd be the kind of person to have a variety of pins but I have fully converted. I now have a pin cushion for needles, one for yellow flower patchwork pins, normal pins and the new mini white pins. I am pinned to the max.

Review of the Year

So as the New Shiny year approaches I thought I would do some tidying up and reviewing of the previous year. I am very impressed with how many blog posts I have put up. All in all I feel quite creative with my output. I remembered that last year I had resolved to knit and I feel that I've come along way from that first small scarf. I plan to keep on going and maybe embark upon a crochet course just to get me back into the swng of it.

In other news, I have been archiving all my pictures off my computer which I do every year and I found a few things I hadn't posted, or if I have, then I can't find them. So behold, here is an old one I dredged up which was a birthday invite I letterpress printed using very very transparent ink so that really all you saw was the embossing which I acheived by deampening very bulky watercolour paper. I was very pleased with the results.

Love Monkey

A new monkey for a Christmas present for a baby. I thought I'd experiment with eyes that you can't pull off and swallow. I think he looks a bit blind, Maybe black would have been a better colour.

Xmas Wrapping

This year it was bags and spots. Last year was period drama purity. The year before was glam opulence. This year was more sweet shop. The bags were bought for the stall. If anyone needs any bags, I've got a hundred. A quick hour with the John Bull printing kit and behold, you have instant Christmas spirit. I thought this was a good use for them.

Christmas Stocking

I had one with pink toes which used to make me laugh but when I went to find it I realised it had become a thriving habitat for moths. It was disgusting. Such a shame as I thought it would live on year after year. Pah!

Pigs on the Wing

Behold! I attempted to make the brilliant Wee's Wonderful pig as a Christmas present but unfortunately I made two big mistakes. 1. My gusset was not long enough. 2. In order to make up for it I added a bit more material and ended up sowing the nose up wonky. I didn't make the car for him as he is not perfect. Only perfect pigs get cars. I shall now attempt to make the perfect pig. This pig, I shall call, Hephaestus. He's terribly posh, likes to read Surrealist fanzines whilst listening to Iggy Pop and drinking overly strong orange squash.

Click the link in the post title to make the pig yourself. Go on, he's ace. I am going into pig production.

Slow But Sure

Things progress slowly on the new quilt. it's a lot more fiddly than I had first realised. I expect this is a good thing. It is a great lesson in accuracy as if the begging 4 squares are even slightly off, the rest of the square fails to come together very easily. There has been a lot of unpicking already.

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.