Sunday, December 30, 2007

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.

Thursday, December 27, 2007

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.

Monday, December 24, 2007

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.

Sunday, December 23, 2007

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!

Sunday, December 16, 2007

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.

Sunday, December 09, 2007

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.

Sunday, December 02, 2007

First Block



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

Monday, November 26, 2007

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.

Monday, November 12, 2007

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.

Thursday, November 08, 2007

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.

Wednesday, November 07, 2007

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.

Saturday, October 20, 2007

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

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

His vs. Hers


Tuesday, October 09, 2007

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.

Saturday, October 06, 2007

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.

Saturday, September 29, 2007

Day Six





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

Friday, September 28, 2007

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.

Thursday, September 27, 2007

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.

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

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.

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

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.

Monday, September 24, 2007

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.

Friday, September 21, 2007

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.

Thursday, September 13, 2007

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.

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

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…

Monday, September 03, 2007

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.

Monday, August 27, 2007

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.