Crafty Week

It's been quite an astounding week. Highs, lows, triumph, disaster, knitting, sewing...you name it, it's happened.

Office life was disrupted by the departure of Sam who has left to go back to Uni. We had a great send-off for him but it is going to take a while for a new equilibrium to form. Luckily his replacement, Jonesy, is shaping up well but still, it;s not the same. Luckily I had Dave's first strawberry to console me. It tasted delicious!

Nick, the brother strawberry plant, is yet to fruit. Bit of a slow starter.

Meanwhile my big project has had its contract signed so that piece of trauma it over. Just need the damn thing to be built now. It makes my other office success seem a bit less impressive.

Template is on my tutorials page here.

One bad thing about Sam leaving is that he was organising the cake world cup - started solely because he wanted others to bake cake for him to eat. It's the semi-finals and while the group stages were country based, based on the office sweep stake in which I got England, so I cruised in with a Victoria Sponge, the semi's are free-choice. So I have invested in this.

It's a giant cupcake! I've put the top on the bottom so you can see the shape, but you cook the two bits separately and then sandwich them together. Om nom nom nom.

My project coming together meant I could take Friday as a sneeky day off so I did a little shopping.

It was the box rather than the embroidery threads I bought. I didn't realise how many I had until I saw them all sorted like that. Wheeeeeee rainbow!

It was lucky I wasn't in a rush as the Jubilee Line was all messed up. It meant I ended up at Mile End station. I'd never realised before how much like a New York subway station it looks.

The underground does have such an amazing mixture of styles. On the same line way out west you go so far back in time that you end up with this...

...wooden escalators!

Coming back home was sad as they have been trimming all the trees nearby. Some of them were ENORMOUS!

I know this will be good for them int he long wrong and they'll grown back stronger, but it seems such a shame. Arriving back home I got on with my flower child top. Doing the front in one piece instead of 5 and seaming was so much more sensible.

The colour isn't showing properly - it's the deep purple by Secret Pal got me. Yummy.

While shopping I also got some new scissors since sharpening my old ones seemed to finish them off.

They are weird because they are spring loaded but it actually makes it much easier to cut. My first project with them is covering these nasty plastic tape measures.

I cut a circle big enough to wrap it in. Then marked a place where the opening would need to be to get the tape measure through. Then I made a buttonhole along that line and ran a line of stitches around the edge of the circle. I pulled the stitches tight and stitched a few stitches to secure it. Then I used my birthday glue gun to attach a button to either side.

Not the neatest glueing ever, but only my second time using it. Glue guns are awesome.

So quite a crafty weekend so far and still a day to go. Crafting is so therapeutic. So relaxing and reassuring. Makes it much easier to get through the funny little things life throws at you, like a sister who consistently makes your life a little harder. Half an hour sorting buttons and contemplating what to do with 8 rainbow polka-dot FQs and suddenly she fades into the background. Luckily Pooch is pretty good too. Even when being cutely grumpy.

When your day has been ghastly...

...your only choice is to print a page of nonsense onto a sheet of iron-on-transfer-paper and get busy with your pants.

I even remembered to reverse the text. I'll let you know how they turn out.

Knowing that it pays for my crafting is sometimes the only thing that keeps me from nutting people at work.

Bethnal Green Craftacular

The Craftacular at Bethnal Green yesterday was spectacularly well attended. I got there at midday, which was when it was due to open, and the mother of all queues was already in place.

That was just the bit that went round the corner. When you got round it there was a whole another bend to get round.

Has there ever been such a queue to get into a craftacular?

In any case, it was worth the wait, and the £2 entrance fee, as this is what awaited me.

Stand after stand of crafty goodness, plus cakes and drinks. They sold out of iced tea in an hour (20 gallons so I heard) and anyone making fans would have been minted as I must have been asked a dozen time where I'd bought mine. (Luckily I always carry one, as you do - so handy on the tube, and got my panda encrusted one from Artbox. Love that place and excellent online service.) Truly they could have done with some air conditioning.

You know how in the consumer craft world there are trends and then everyone is suddenly doing them? Here it was screenprinting and shapes cut out of acrylic.

Plus moustaches. The days when Erqsome was a lone moustachio'd warrior are no more, and in fact someone told me tattoo artists were now accustomed to people asking for them to be tattoo'd on their fingers, so they could assume a moustache at a moment's notice.

(Can someone please tell me how they will explain a tattoo'd finger to others in 10 years time? But then I guess some things never get old, and the grandkids are going to love it.)

There were also some highly inspirational things too:

Love those pillows, and the pincushions below likewise.

My actual purchases were modest and consisted of a little leather hairclip,

......a free copy of Bust magazine (feminist mag combining lady porn, music, films, interviews and etsy) who organised the whole shindig, a zine, a few greetings card and a snazzy pair of handmade pants.

I also gathered tonnes of business cards for when I am a bit more in the money. So pretty.

Special mention must be made of the cakes. Polka dot heart shaped lemon tarts anyone?

Or edible glitter covered rose water cupcakes?

Sadly a bit beyond my budget for the evening, so luckily I spied a branch of Percy Ingles near Whitechapel tube and made away with 9 of their best for my evening with friends.

Om nom nom nom.

Happy Byrne-day To Me

I have two birthday portraits, bit like the queen. This is the official one:

Taken at the urban farm nearby. Here is the second:

I am modelling my birthday present from my MIL - a beautiful blue cardigan. It was just crying out for embellishment.

It's a vintage embroidery transfer I've had favourited on Flickr for ages. Freely available here, along with thousands more.

This is certainly a brilliant birthday. Dim sum goodness this morning along with more presents, this time from the Pooch.

I've read the first chapter of Genesis and it is lookind gud. srsly. kthxbai.

It has been jolly hot this week, which looks set to continue. The pig had the best idea.

 

Secret Pal Goodness

My second parcel from my wonderful Secret Pal. Just the outside of it promises so much goodness. Beautiful box.

Inside did not disappoint! Gorgeous wool/silk and the most perfect red, wonderful chocolate smelling soap, and blueberry flavoured licorice - I never even knew such a thing existed. I have reached the age of 31 and 364 days without realising you could get flavoured licorice.

Isn't that yarn gorgeous? It is enriched with aloe vera and jojoba too just too make it even more perfect. Meanwhile I have been busy with the first lot of yarn she gave me and have finished the back of the flower child top. Except I think I've made a mistake with part C as it doesn't seem to match D. Ah well. Plus of course there's the seaming. May do the front in one piece.

Of course SP isn't all one way - I have my own pal to spoil and so I made her some stitchmarkers from some of the beads I bought in Istanbul.

I've made a matching set for myself. I always used to find the eye thing a bit freaky but I guess seeing it every-single-where in Turkey has cured me of that and I like it now. Small ones at least.

While making stitchmarkers I also whipped up this bracelet using some flower beads I got months ago.

It seemed suitably summery. And then I played with the safety pins I got along with the beads.

I've never seen such beautiful ones!

It is of course the big 3-2 birthday tomorrow and I've been very lucky to get some presents already. This is one I bought myself.

It's the Crafty Leftovers zine which I saw when I was reading Tangled's blog. She's contributed some things to it this time. You can order one here. It's not cheap but I rather like it. Then I've received some excellent books from my lovely m-i-l and s-i-l.

I loved the Freakonomics book and regularly use examples from it in random conversations. So I'm looking forward to reading the follow-up. Then the bead book is a brilliant "learn the techniques" one and the Knitting Green one I didn't know at all but is full of knittery goodness.

I also got a fabulous Cath Kidston bag with a perfect card of a me-a-like surrounded by beautiful presents. Someone has been spying on my dreams.

And I've got even more to open tomorrow, including ones from Pooch and another from my m-i-l wrapped in the most perfect paper.

Isn't that awesome!

So all that's left is to show you the socks I did based on the Impasto Shawl from the last Interweave.

They weren't what I intended but they're fine and Pooch likes them. Then there are the ones I am doing for me using the free Aquaphobia pattern.

Very beautiful and I love how it breaks up the yarn.

Beautiful Patchwork

Long, long ago I saw this quilt on Flickr. It was love at first sight. After a year of work it is finally coming together. This is it laid out on the floor without the quarters sewn together.

Then with the corners of the squares placed in the right places.

So exciting to see it like that. Just look at some of the individual sections.

The colour of the surrounding corners really brings out the colours of the fabrics in the circles.

I've started sewing them together and have the first two with all the paper removed. This is my first double-bed sized fabric quilt of this complexity so it is wonderful to see it coming together.

Knitstanbul Part 2

I left off just where things were getting interesting - the knitting section of the Grand Bazaar. I scored. Not too much because I had to get it in the suitcase, but still pretty well. No ball was more than £1.25 and some were 25p. Good stuff. Firstly 5 colours of sock yarn, of which these are 2.

Then some acrylic but very soft and lovely colours. I would have got more, but space demands constricted me. Such a shame.

Some lovely metallic (plus another of the sock yarn colours).

And lastly some ribbon yarn which I thought might make another floaty scarf.

Elsewhere I also got a load of beads, gorgeous rayon embroidery skeins and other goodies.

One of which is these lengths of beautiful flowers which I saw made into necklaces.

And last but not least, my fabulous shoes.

At this point we moved to hotel number two, which was very modern and luxiourious.

Sadly it coincided with us both getting stomach bugs. Poor Pooch.

We still managed to enjoy ourselves though and especially at the Pere Museum who had a huge exhibition by an artist I hadn't heard of but who I definitely love - Fernando Botero. This is a sample:

I just adore the face of the clown on the right. His paintings were quite astonishing, especially when collected together. I especially loved the pastiche ones like his version of the mona lisa and of course this one.

The most memorable part of this second part of the holiday for me was undoubtedly the turkish hammam scrub I had in the hotel's spa. It was an unusual experience. I started off with a kind of sarong round me but that rapidly vanished. It really was an amazing experience. I was sitting on warm marble next to a little fountain running with warm water. The guy had a silver bowl and kept using it to ladel water over me. He scrubbed me all over with a loofah mit which removed a horrifying amount of dead skin. Then it was face down onto hotter marble covered with a towel to be literally covered from head to toe with soap suds which he then massaged into me all over. Then back to the warm marble seat to be sloshed with more water and he washed my hair too. I came out literally floating and feeling like I was high. Since we got back I've been looking for a place in london for a similar experience and darling pooch has got me a voucher for one for my birthday. Huzzah!

Since I've got back I have been patchworking and adding to the tutorial page of this blog. Having used my travel jewellery pouch extensively on holiday I am thinking it is a perfect place for handmade present inspiration as well as rainy day moment.