Why is it...

...that the best ideas come to you when you're a million miles (metaphorically speaking, anyhow) from a sketch book? Last night cost me over an hour's sleep with fabric patterns floating around my head - I would have got up, but one of the mogs was determined to come up and be a pain and I'd had quite enough of barricading the stairgate so she couldn't! And I've just had to practically run down the stairs after getting K off to sleep so I could scribble down the perfect doorstop idea for her bedroom. It will match her picture book shelves and I need to practice ribbon embroidery to do it - just a very simple set of daisies and some nice buttons for the centres and some butterflies, and it absolutely positively has to have a green handle with a pale yellow and white polka dot ribbon along the middle. I like these Injabulo Fair Trade buttons, for example.

I'm so glad I got a nice big sketchbook and had the courage to get scribbling. There's not much in there yet but when inspiration hits, it's brilliant. I must dig out my little sketch book to go in my bag...


I've been furtling through my fabric boxes recently. I seem to have the most amazing amount of voile/organza stuff - not a vast variety, it must be said, but yards and yards of the stuff. I haven't the faintest idea what to use it for. The plain blue is the remnants of a cloak lining, the pale blue starry fabric has a half-finished Egyptian dance coin belt made out of some of it, but the blue-green and the silver are completely uncut. What can I dooooooooo with it? I thought about bag linings but no way is it strong enough for that, and I don't have any need for lots and lots of favour bags. Our house also has a severe lack of natural light due to the way it faces, so even net curtains are out (not that I'd be able to persuade the cats not to climb them) What else is it good for? I'm almost tempted to paint on some of it, see what happens, but I am trying not to spend much atm and that would involve a fatal trip to Hobbycraft for paints. Even if I did come up with a good pattern on it, I still have no clue what to use it for. Damn my magpie instincts, and damn .Abakhan Fabrics for having too much nice stuff. Crumbs, I haven't actually been there in years, not since probably 2000 or so when we lived in Manchester. That's how long this stuff has been lurking for!


Woodwork is happening in the kitchen; the cat-sized Swahili bed begins to take shape. I want a Martini but I'm too scared to go in there!

Nervous Anticipation

Well, I am eagerly awaiting an order from the delightful u-handbag.com as we speak - rather gobsmacked at the email I received apologising for not having seen my order at the fairly insane time of 10pm Friday night and only posting it on Monday...damn, girl, it's the weekend, lol. That is customer service (and someone, I suspect, who truly understands the NEED to HAVE STUFF to MAKE STUFF NOW)! Still, can't wait to get it, I'll be snatching the postman's hand off when it does arrive. I've got magnetic clasps, O rings and all sorts of other metallic bits and pieces, and a couple of Amy Butler bag patterns to use as ideas and fodder for my own designs. I tend to be pretty rubbish at following patterns and templates, and besides, given that I'm reconning - turning coats into bags - having exact amounts of fabric to a pattern is never going to happen. So yes, nervously anticipating the arrival of those because it means I'll actually have to do some cutting out, rather than just thinking about it...and that's the bit I find really scary. Once it's cut, there's no going back.

On a bit of a tangent I was looking at purseblog.com earlier, and good lord...designer bags are really bloody ugly to my eye. Impractical, for the main, all horrible hard shiny leather or fake leather in garish colours with a ton of ott metal...yuck. Nope, it just doesn't do it for me - give me velvets and tweeds and soft, felty-woolly fabrics, or cheery cotton prints any day.

I'm also awaiting my registration for Craftster after finding an insane number of tutorials I want to have a go at...besides, it's good manners to go and say thank you for the shirt->dress conversion, too! I do think this may become a dangerous time-sink, though...


Craft has been going on elsewhere, too - I bought A a subscription to MAKE as an exceedingly late birthday present, and many and varied bits of electronics have appeared in the house. He was also very tickled by the Swahili frame bed, which he is currently reproducing out of timber and strapping for the cats. And whilst he's doing that, he's knocking up a little 11x11" frame for me to FINALLY have a go at silk painting with. Scary. Biscuits.

Garage

How cool is this!

Progress Report on toy garage

I am so impressed.

Been so busy!

And yet, I have no pictures...sorry.

Recently I have:

- Painted three Christmas Trees, two snowmen and a snowlady for my S&S party (which went down very well, pleased with that!)

- Embellished a purple pashmina for my mum's xmas present

- Completed the roof and three sides of the 3D-cross stitch Nutmeg Company house for the tree (I am a bit cross about this one because the threads supplied were nowhere near enough and given that I'm exceedingly conservative with thread, I'm cheesed off about it)

- Completed just over 1/3rd of the Xmas Westie for my sister's present (not going to get that finished, sadly - a week of flu for us all put paid to that)

- Designed two cross stitch stockings (tree ornaments, not big ones) which I hope will kick off a kit designing relationship with a wonderful Xmas site. I have ideas for another two but I don't think I'll get them down on screen tonight. I've bought all the threads and will be stitching them up once the Xmas Westie is done - so exciting!

- Watched in fascination as K's garage takes shape. A is taking progress pictures which I hope to put up soon.

Oh, and all my shopping is done, the gifts are wrapped, food is ordered for delivery, the meal is planned...I just need to grab a bottle of wine and make some peppermint creams and we're all set for Christmas!

The Family Arty

Tut tut. I couldn't hold out any longer - I've opened a new kit and I am having so much fun! I was enjoying Blessed Samhain but there are a lot of thread colours, which is complicated to travel with (they're not all carded, unfortunately), and anyway, I needed a break from all the orange on the pumpkin. Six shades is no joke!

Coming on, isn't it?



Anyway, I'm sure it'll be complete by Halloween this year, there's not all that much left to do. In the meantime I am working on the Bothy Threads Row of Fairies, which is ever so sweet without being terribly twee and Victorian. This again is for K's room, which has a jungle theme at the moment but I just couldn't resist this one. I think it'll be nice to have in for when she decides she needs a change, and there's a lovely matching number sampler which I just might get if she really likes these. Three out of seven fairies done in just three-ish sessions so far, so assuming I don't get too side-tracked I should have it done by next week sometime.


That was the sewing update, anyway! Over the weekend we visited family in Newcastle and went to the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, which was enjoyable not so much for the actual exhibits but for the responses they elicited. K particularly liked the Dazed & Confused vs Andy Warhol exhibit - well, actually she just liked the big video projections, which is about all you can expect from a 20 month old! The open spaces of the Baltic are very good (although I believe the centre was heavily criticised by my civ eng/architect BIL for poor use of natural light and so on); it certainly felt less cramped and "busy" than what I recall of my last foray into "modern art", the Tate Modern, when I was still at school. There was actually space to step back and get a feel for the scope and size of exhibits (and still conclude they were derivative, self-referential hogwash in the main, but that's just me). It's certainly a place I'll keep an eye on for future visits (and the chocolate sauce muffins in the cafe are rather nice too, even if the staff are in dire need of a spell checker).

Actually the thing which most inspired me at the Baltic was in the shop (ok, ok, stop rolling your eyes, this is important). They had some of the most beautiful Marimekko design items in stock; I very nearly fell for a black & white flower print scarf in the Pieni Unikko print. But my "small aubergine" complex kicked in when I saw the price and I realised that for the price of an "art" print on a rather small piece of cotton, I could easily buy a silk painting kit and reproduce something similar myself, thereby not only getting a nicer scarf but learning a new skill in the process. I am quite fired up about fabric design as a consequence and need to dig out a sketch pad shortly before the ideas disappear again.


I am not the only one feeling artistic at the moment. Dear Other Half has recently bought The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain and the accompanying New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain Workbook: Guided Practice in the Five Basic Skills of Drawing. As a neuroscience postgrad I am naturally sceptical about anything claiming to tap into hemispherical skills, but the word of mouth so far seems positive. So much so that we will be paying a visit to the nearest art shop at the weekend to collect some basic equipment (pencils and the like). Drawing is not something I've ever had the natural knack for and is a constant source of frustration, so it will be interesting to see if this technique works; I'm sure I'll give it a go sometime.

Finally, given the horrendous weather, K has also been flexing her creative muscles in learning to scribble in different colours, stick stickers and stamp stampers. Here is the current display: