Much sewing

Oooo, it's been busy here. I've finished my postcards for the ihanna swap and sent them off. I've finished my 'ribbed for your pleasure' socks and published the pattern on ravelry as a pdf download, I've turned the ingenious heel on my first skew sock, and knocked out 2 lovely jewellery pouches. But to start, check out this woman on the bus the other day. 

That's her actual hair. 


Moving on. I saw this great tutorial on Thimble's blog to make a travel jewellery pouch. I had been meaning to make one for a few weeks and so this morning I whipped up these two in about 90 mins. The bees and chickens are for my friend Louise, who is very fond of both. The strawberry shortcake and hearts one is for me!

The tutorial is excellent - very clear. 


Pooch has been on good form this week. I tried papping him while he was in the kitchen....

....but he caught me at it....

I was really only trying to get a shot of him in his first ever sunglasses. 

Raybans no less. I've got new ones too. £6 from Next. We're very different people. 


I've been writing the talk I'm giving at my old school in a month's time. 40 minutes is really a long time to talk about yourself and it's all making me feel old. So I've been trying some more mature hair do's. French plait. 

I got 5 on it. 


In the knit arena, Skew socks. Now I have knit the baby surprise, and an adult version, and I've knit the debbie new tam and a few other weird things but never before have I had to pause so many times to check what I'm doing because I can NOT believe this is very going to be a sock. It just looks weird. But. I turned the heel this morning and I am impressed. The design is ingenius and I suspect could only have come from a twisted and warped mind. But she's probably really nice too. Behold!

That line on the right is the little seam, which I three-needle bound off instead of kitchnering, as Byrne don't kitchner. 

That's the other side of the heel with absolutely no seams, picked up stitches or anything. Amazing really. 


Finally, Pooch and I went to the Decode exhibition at the V&A yesterday. It was *amazing*. The website doesn't give an indication of how interactive it is. I'm so used to exhibitions where you go along and look at the stuff on the wall and then go away again. Not that there's anything wrong with that - but this one starts with a corridor or LED bullrushes that sparkle and make music as you brush through them. Awesome. The whole thing was brilliant in fact. I'd recommend it, and also if you have children over the age of about 4. There's one particular installation that is a mosaic of about 24 videos and you can record yourself on whichever of the squares you choose. It's just a 3 second clip on each screen and it repeats over and over. There was a dad with 2 young boys who had been on it before us and they had filled every screen with one or more of them doing something and it was such a happy thing to look at. Pooch and I recorded some too and generally had a great time.