Can you tell I'm proud of this?

I made the pattern up, but based it on the a-line skirt pattern from the book "Sew What! Skirts". Brilliant book. 

I especially love the buttons on the side....

Happy Easter!

Or anything else you happen to be celebrating at the moment. I love Easter. It's the chocolate. At no other holiday is there such a good reason for filling yourself with so much lovely chocolate. It's started well as my MIL has sent me this. So cute!

I'm trying to decide what to keep in it afterwards. Or rather, now. Since the contents....

....sadly didn't make it through the night. Nom nom nom.

It's been an odd week. Frazzling and yet with many good points too. All the good points have been non-work related while that part of life has provided all the frazzle. I've never been so glad to have a 4-day break. The only good thing about work is playing dress up. This was my take on Grotbags.

And then this was Morticia Adamms - my first outing with an Obi belt, and I liked it.

Lastly, this was Jessica Rabbit.

I was wearing these when I got into a discussion with my boss about when to send a letter. I took them off just before she uttered the memorable words "Just do what I tell you to." It's the second time she's said that to me. Unbelievable. I am sure she has contributed to my increase in grey hair. Maybe. Not really. But it has definitely increased.

I half like it, and I do look forward to when I'll look all distinguished with it like my muvver, but for now I am long overdue for a dye job.

I have been making an apron dress over the last couple of days - just a few hours at a time so my back doesn't play up. It's looking pretty fab if I say so myself but no photos til I've finished. For now, I've just got some patchwork to show.

They're so cheerful! Looking forward to sewing them all together and seeing what they look like all as one.

Lastly, the new Twist is up and contains lots of really lovely things. One of the articles caught my eye - a knitted alphabet but with a historical and artistic element. Very interesting. More here.

WWPD?

When I was serving time on the inside, one of the things they stressed was that it was perfectly normal to be unhappy. Most people were unhappy for more or less of their lives. The aim therefore was to be healthily unhappy rather than unhealthily depressed. Which makes sense in a very depressing way. Having recently had a bit of a blow to the old mental confidence, I find myself back in familiar territory – trying to work out whether I am healthily or unhealthily unhappy. In these situations I, like many others, turn to religion. I have talked about my beliefs before and this is where Pastafarianism comes in very handy.

A Christian, when asking themselves this kind of question, might say “What would Jesus do?”. Jesus could be fairly moody (see money sellers in the temple) plus in many ways exhibited symptoms of schizophrenia (hearing voices), so in many ways it's hard to use him as a reality yardstick. This is where Pastafarianism wins hands down. Because, as every FSM devotee will be able to tell you, at moments like this you ask yourself one simple question:

So simple. Which is how I ended up looting these.

And now everything is fine. Sorted.

Just for good measure, here are some inspirations for the week, all from Flickr.

1. Kit 50 Botões, 2. knitting, 3. The Cheshire Cat - an ornament in beads and wire, 4. "Knit" & "Purl" Ambigram Chart, 5. I heart mustache bag detail, 6. Raiffe , 7. Lova Revolutionary Brooches Clouds Sunshines Rainbows Eco Felt & Hand Embroidery, 8. Um mimo!!!, 9. MonsterSocks
All so beautiful. Hopefully my own patchwork will feature on someone else's inspirations one day. Not at the moment though!

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work

I've just started reading Alain de Botton's latest book (The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work) in paperback. I'm only about 60 pages in but I'm already really enjoying it. I went to a talk by him about his architecture book at the V&A a few years ago and so as I read it I get a real sense of his voice saying the words. I know a lot of intellectuals dismiss his books as pop psychology but I find them so well written and so approachable, and I suppose that's all that really matters since I'm not making anyone else read it.

Once again it prompts me to think about my job, especially as my appraisal in on Monday and I suspect I'm going to get a talking to about positive mental attitude. My boss asked me to draft some stuff for it and when I sent it to her she sent it back to me telling me to make it more positive. She suggested I do this by talking about all the exciting things I'd like to do. I pointed out that there was no scope for doing any of them because there are no resources, and she said to put that in too. So there's me motivated.

To cheer myself up I blinged my keyboard. Metallic Markers. Awesome.

Pooch was a little concerned since the keyboard is company property, but then they're water soluble. And keyboards react really well to water - so no problem!

No knitting to report this week since I have been mainly patchworking. The polka dot quilt is progressing still, and I've also started some hand sewing using 1" hexagons. It's a very satisfying way to use up small bits of fabric and so I've started a swap on swap-bot for remnants. One for April and one for June. Anyone can join so take a look if you're interested. I've also been finally putting pictures up.

Ideally I'd have them in a rough band all the way round the room, but Pooch seems to think that is enough for now. Rotter. But then, he is known for being grumpy. In fact...

Yay, iPhone. That's from a free app called "Framed Lite". Awesome.

I heart iPhone

I got my iPhone 2 wednesdays ago. I totally love it. Because of SkipNorth and being so hectic at work I've only just got a cover for it and, naturally, I wanted it to be polka dot. It was proving pretty hard to find a suitable one and so it occurred to me to let loose with the shoe paints on a plain one. So I found a cheap leatherish white one and....

Step 1: Take some address labels and hole punch them. Then spend ages trying to get the buggers off the backing sheet and place them strategically on your plain phone cover. Alternatively find some circular stickers the right size and use those.

Step 2: Coat with 3 coats of lumiere jacquard paint in metallic red.
Step 3: Peel off the stickers, and discover a number of them have let paint in at the edges.
Step 4: Use cotton buds to remove excess paint up to a point.
Step 5: Seal with two coats of flexible varnish.

Step 6: When dry, add iPhone.

Love. Love. Love.

I am really enjoying discovering the many apps. I've only paid for one so far, which is called Toodleoo and is an amazingly useful to do list. I've got KnitCounterLite which is basically a row counter but also prompts you on increases and decreases, a camera one that lets you upload straight to ravelry, a ravelry hotlink, a knitmap hotlink (which tells me of any knit shops within 1, 2, 3, etc miles of my current location - it works out exactly where I am itself), and others that tell me how the tubes are running, tracks messages on twitter and link to my email. Awesome. Pooch is still very annoyed and thinks me disloyal, but as I said to him, as soon as he trains to be a chartered landscape architect, I'll buy a Sony phone.

I've spent a fair bit of time in the last few days finishing my lecture for my old school which I'll be giving on monday morning. I have managed a bit of knitting though, and also made a new strap for my watch, since the old one, which was plaited wire, was catching on my connie's henley cardigan - which is definitely not to be tolerated.

Purty.

SkipNorth Epic

Though I say so myself, I think this was a good one. It all went to plan, everyone seemed pretty happy and there was some good shopping for all. All criteria for success. Full photos are here but here are some selected highlights. 


Wicked treat on the drive up:

Haworth high street (it's actually the first time in all these visits I've ever seen this):

Just a hint of the epic yarn swap:

Now that truly was immense. I have never seen so much yarn outside of a shop. It looks like our combined donations (on behalf of what we all took from the swap) amounts to well over £300, all for p-hop. Hoorah for all of us!

My own personal gain from p-hop was firstly these amazing vintage embroidery cotton organisers. 

Aren't they gorgeous? I also got some random yarn and some other embroidery bits. 

I didn't buy anywhere near as much as I have in the past during the weekend, but I did do very nicely. One of my best purchases has to be the alpaca from County Alpacas, the farm owners who came to talk to us on saturday night. 

They told me the name of the alpaca it came from but I've completely forgotten - may have been Irene? Beautiful stuff and a tiny carbon footprint seeing how the furthest it travelled was to the other side of the county to be processed at the mill. I bought it for an interweave wrap that Knit theKnits modelled very nicely during the weekend. In fact there were many amazing FO's being modelled which were all inspiring, but I think it is the emerald beaded bracelet that I've seen queued most often since then. It was even more amazing in real life than it looks on ravelry.  


BTW - Ravelry would seem to no longer be 'beta' and has a nifty new homepage. Very nice!

Dot dot dot

My sewing machine is fixed - hurrah! It broke mid week and is now whole again. It took the man at the shop all of about 2 mins to spot the problem, unscrew it, fiddle, screw it up again and test it. Genius. I can not praise that shop enough. If you need a sewing machine and are in London, definitely check out this place.

It means I've cracked on with my polka dot circles quilt. I am now just over half way through with the circles. I really love them. I treated myself to some more fabric to add into the muddle. 

Which means I now have this many different fabrics in the mix. 

Awesome. 


Meanwhile I have finished the skew socks. 

They have turned out very nicely so I am very pleased with them. It's definitely not a beginner's pattern but I enjoyed it and like the end product. I'm trying to decide what to cast on next. It could be sun ray ribbing jumper, or maybe another pair of socks. Not really sure. 


Pooch is in san francisco this week and it is SkipNorth in just a few days so lots to do!

I am shrinking

I've been trying to lose some more weight, mainly by eating too much rubbish. So when I went to weigh myself this morning I wasn't expecting good news. 

BUT....I wasn't expecting it to be as bad as this. According to the machine I've shrunk another 0.2 of an inch! I've drawn a graph to illustrate why, at my current rate of shrinkage and by the time I turn 59, I will only be a metre tall. That's about 3 feet 3 inches.

I'll be a hobbit. 

It's all very upsetting.

Look at my pants!

I did the Knicker Making Workshop that Pooch got me for christmas today.....AWESOME! It was at the Make Lounge which I'd read about on Jane's blog but this was my first visit. My pants are, frankly, amazing. 

I also got to use an overlocker for the first time too. Now that is one mean machine. So useful for almost everything ever. I need an overlocker. No. No, I don;t need an overlocker. No. Don't. 

The teacher was brilliant and the course was very well organised. The range of fabrics to choose from were lovely, as wear the elastic and threads. Facilities were good - I'd definitely do another course there sometime. In fact the owner mentioned one on screenprinting coming up which sounds very tempting. 


I managed to come out of the shop with just one or two little things. Two of which were these lovely fabrics, which will fit very nicely into my dotty quilt. 

All my knitting this week has been on the wedding blanket and I've finished these two as well as the plain circles. This one is like a paper cut out lou and joe made for me and pooch one time showing the four of us lined. up.

The other one....can you see what it is?

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.