Walking in the Rain

It was raining on Tuesday night so I decided to do a Gene Kelly and walk down to the river and get the boat home. It would have taken about half an hour to reach the pier if I had gone direct but I meandered and took twice as long. And I took photos. But only on my phone, so don't judge the quality.

 

It always amazes me the variety of architecture, textures, atmospheres you can find so close together in London.

Making Monday

A little bit of making...

I've been meaning to make machine embroidered bookmarks since I did a Make Lounge workshop on it last year. Or was it this year? Doesn't really matter. I woke up early yesterday and cut these out before I left. The afternoon saw them finished.

I tried stitching patterns and following the outline of the fabric design, but ended up liking the writing best. The others were still quite sweet though.

I used some of the liberty fabrics PurlPower gave me in a swap. The one above is one of them. So pretty! I need to keep some of the others hidden for christmas. But then one more won't hurt.

I do like machine embroidery. Like a lot of things I had always meant to try it but lacked the courage/knowledge to just go for it. The worry was that I'd break my sewing machine by doing it wrong. That's why the workshop was so useful - as with the metal purse frame one. It showed me how and now I'm not worried. It's really very easy, your machine won't break and you just need the right foot for your machine. It's going to be so handy for when I start quilting my patchwork quilt - if I ever finish it that is.

Meandering

I love living by the Thames.

Not right by it of course. One is not a gabillionaire. But within 2 mins walk. The sunset yesterday was really lovely - eighties blues and yellows faded to blues and greys such as The Guggenheim is made of.

This morning I went to a really awful boot fair in Rotherhithe and on the way back meandered along a bit of the Thames Path I had not been on before. It was the bit after the Hilton on the south side as you make your way towards the City. There was a lovely pebbly beach along most of it.

There were juvenile seagulls poking around which blended into the pebbles beautifully. It was very peaceful but also made me feel sad - quite a few couples walking with prams. If I hadn't left Pooch and we'd carried on trying for a baby it would probably have been born by now. Left me feeling a bit like this guy.

Bleh.

I came home, had a nap, and got a jump on tomorrow's Making Monday aka YarnYard's blog thing. I can't really do 'making mondays' since I have to do 'working mondays' so I think it's ok to cheat. Teaser:

Can you tell what it is yet?

Cranford-A-Long

I am hosting a Cranford Mitt-a-long on Ravelry. Hoorah! The Cranford Mitts were one of the first p/hop patterns and have now been knitted almost 500 times.

The more the merrier so come along to Ravelry and join in! 

Craft Catch Up

Iza bin busy.

Pooch was very much your Star Wars aficionado. He had an impressive knowledge of the planets, species, languages, abilities and so on of the characters. Therefore when I left him one of the things I told myself was that never again would I watch any of the films or use any Star Wars references. Oh how naive was I? It is impossible to go for more than a few days without someone quoting from it somehow (just today CM Punk - yeah you know who I mean - said he would only respond to tweets that were star wars links and within seconds had 100's of "it's a trap" replies) and so I have given in and just now, when thinking of how to start this entry, found myself thinking in a Jar Jar Binks voice. The shame.

But I have been busy so enough beating myself over the head with an R2D2 plushy. I actually made some of this stuff quite a while ago but other stuff like, oh yeah, getting divorced, interrupted me from posting it.

I made a series of these back in july - because who doesn't make xmas decos in a heatwave? I got the idea from Pinterest and had a rummage in the bargain bin of a second-hand place on Charing Cross Road. Cue a copy of Adam Bede with half a cover that no one was ever going to love again.

Normally nothing would persuade me to take scissors to book but as it was already beyond repair...and they do look rather sweet. Tutorial here.

When I did my Make Lounge workshop I bought a lampshade kit in the shop. You can do a workshop on how to make them which I assume is a bit more complicated than "open kit, assemble" but I figured the kit was enough for me and at Festival of Quilts I found the perfect fabric.

Here it is in detail:

I am thinking of getting some more and making a skirt. Of course that would involve me remembering which stand it was from. Er....

While coughing it out on the sofa the last few days I've managed to start and finish a christmas present which I can't blog, and also tried out the Kanzashi maker I got at the weekend. Let me say immediately that in no way does this gadget replace Sister Diane's book, which is awesome. But it does make the whole thing amazingly simple if you just want to produce one size, one shape petals out of thin cotton.

I made the two murky green ones on the right of the picture in about 40 mins including cutting out the fabric. I am going to add buttons to the centres and then glue them back to back with a loop of ribbon in between as a xmas deco (murky green fabric has gold holly pattern printed on it).

Keeping with the 'glue' theme I have had the fabric cut out and half assembled for another metal frame bag (such as I made at Make Lounge) since the day after the workshop. Thing is, it was a frame I had had for ages and been meaning to try and it wasn't the same shape/size as the ones I had patterns for and so...well...all I'll say is it's best not to use a fabric with a horizontal stripe on a first solo attempt.

Tad wonky. Not to be put off though this frame was a doubler and so I now have a purse within a bag resting on my dinky dining table as the glue dries.

Well what other lining fabric was I going to have used? Just need to decide on the handle/strap.

I find being ill very frustrating as it means I suddenly have the time to do extra crafting but the inclination and necessary brain power are inevitably missing. I've ended up working to near completion on my ripple blanket, which now resembles a toxic rainbow double bed-spread.

It is now just 4 rows and a tidy-up away from being finished. Having had a temperature though it wasn't great having the blanket on my lap as I hooked so I looked for a knit project to get on with. Alas - brain could not come to any conclusion and it is only now as I have started to feel slightly more human that I have decided on the fall-away cardigan although I am no nearer deciding whether to go for dark brown alpaca from a past SkipNorth swap or purple wool from a distant trip to France.

Being ill and living alone without even a cat called Smackdown is a recipe for loneliness. The only person I spoke to yesterday was the plumber who called in to give a quote for a new shower (the previous one having exploded the week after the washing machine flooded the kitchen but the week before the hoover caught fire). We had met once before when he isolated the exploding shower so I could turn the water back on. 

"Hello" he said. 

"Hello" I said. 

"I can't kiss you because I've got a cold" he explained. 

"Fair enough" I replied. 

Oooo, it's just started raining. Got to go....

Almost Quilted Out

If you sew then Festival of Quilts ought to be on your 'must see' list each year. This was my third visit (last year is here on this blog) and I think it was bigger than ever, regardless of the recession.

The Quilts were once again extraordinary and I took a tonne of photos, all of which are on Flickr here. The ones in this post are just highlights. As usual there were categories and winners and commendations in each category. What always surprises me is the ones that don't win an award. This for example.

It's about double bedsized and made entirely from hexagons in black and white novelty fabrics.

And that didn't win an award? Amazing. There were hundreds of quilts and hundreds of stands and I was with Mater which made it all the better as I always prefer having someone to share things with. She is not keen on photos so here is a rare reverse shot.

You can see where I get the hair from although she is only about 5'2". As Mum remarked several times, it was very busy and you couldn't help bumping in to people but everyone was just so polite. There was a real ambience in the hall at the NEC because everyone was pleased to be there and knew that they shared their interest with everyone else. Bumping elbows with someone you apologise only for the other woman to say "Don't worry - wonderful isn't it?" with a huge grin on her face.

Union Jacks proliferated but it was a number of the small quilts - 12"x12", circles from quilting groups around the world, or the actual 'miniature quilts' section which really caught my eye.

The stripes in this one are each about 2mm across. The whole thing was about 14" square.

I came away with some lovely fabrics....

Plus some goodies. The Kanzashi tool is one I have seen Sister Diane use and I thought I'd have a play.

Then lastly I brought home this little guy who is less than 2cm tall.

 

Got to love a chinese china chicken. 

Good blog comments are hard to come by

I got some humdingers to my last post though. I therefore declare the first round of Lixie Hug Awards open.

Virtual hugs are going to...

• Doodles
• Amy
• Sal
• Purlpower
• Ynot
• Melissa

You've all taken the time to comment and it really has helped. Thanks xx

I am angry

I have been feeling angry since I wrote the divorce statement last week.

It's not fading away. If anything I am more angry now. 

I am aware that it also has something to do with PMT but I do feel pretty ill used at the moment. 

Writing the statement made it obvious how many chances there had been for it to be ok. I gave Pooch a second chance and he cocked up again. I said if he gave up drinking we could try again but he wouldn't consider it. Then I think about what we had planned and even though it never existed I feel like I've lost that too. The flat we had just saved enough deposit for, the cat that comes with owning your own place and not being dependant on the whims of a landlord. The shared living expenses meaning I had so much more disposable income, the child we had already started trying for. The hugs, the shared experiences, the friendship. All gone. 

I really hate dating. I hate the meat market aspect of it. But then I also hate being single. I want someone to share things with. I don't find dating exciting or liberating. I find it tedious and boring. So this also makes me feel angry. 

The final thing making me angry is that I am 99% sure that living your life believing in pay-it-forward is bollocks. I give up my seat on the tube, I hold doors open, I say 'hello', I unjam the printer, I am willing to talk things through and listen, I do favours, I share food, I give to charity, I offer help, I act as intermediary and I even lend money when asked to. I do all this without asking for anything in return because I have up until now believed that it encourages others to be the same with other people.

All it does is lead to me being treated like I'm stupid or soft or don't matter. People don't say thank you because they assume I will help them. "Alex will know" becomes a motto at work while others snigger behind my back.

The thing that worries me about this anger is that I am not sure how to express it. I feel that I can't because it's not socially acceptable but at the same time suppressing feelings is a really great way to send myself cuckoo again.

I wish there were a real Fight Club. 

I Owe Crazy Aunt Purl an Apology

When I first started blogging one of my favourites was Crazy Aunt Purl.

She is still utterly awesome and I just read her recent post on online dating and point four in particular:

4. It's actually much more fun to go shopping at Amazon or Zappos or Etsy because you find something you like, you give it your address and it shows up and doesn't try to murder you or tell you you're fat. No wonder online shopping feels so good. It's practically therapeutic.

She got divorced after her husband said he needed to 'find himself'. She did a lot of drinking during it all. She beats me though by having had three cats (now sadly just two) to help her through.

At the time I thought she was occasionally being a bit self-indulgant with some of her from-the-heart posts. I now wish to withdraw all such thoughts unreservedly.

On Thursday night I finally wrote the statement for the divorce papers. They are now in the post in duplicate with the marriage certificate and cheque for £340 for the court fees - which is more than it cost to get married in the first place. While writing the statement I was, I estimate, the third most upset I have ever been in my life (while sane). It was only just less upsetting than realising the marriage had ended in the first place. For about two hours I bawled as only a toddler denied sweets or a dumped teenager usually does. By the time I had stopped I looked like Shrek but on the plus side and half a bottle of Tia Maria later I didn't care anymore. Yesterday was spent wincing at daylight, noise and life in general until about 4pm when the pain lifted and I was whole again.

So that's done. I don't kid myself that those were the last tears but it will apparently take about 3 months to get a court date so I have a slight reprieve til then.

It seems like a good time to take stock so I am going to have a bit of a tidy up at the flat and also get the stash out. You always read stats about how we only wear a small percentage of our clothes because we forget we own the others because they are not stored properly. (At least, I seem to read that kind of thing quite often - it might just be me.) I strongly believe it is the same with stash. Part of the reason for reckless stash acquisition is not realising what you have and not thinking sensibly about how you will use it. For instance, I have enough sock yarn for about 50 pairs.

I *think* that might be enough.