Lovely Post

I got something wonderful in the post today! My pouch from my Pretty Little Pouch Swap.

The front is paper pieced and hand stitched, and the back has an extra pocket on it. I love the colours and the fabric - polka dots! And my lovely sender included four beautiful fabrics with these chairs and armchairs on. I love the colours!

It didn't take long for it to be put to use. I just started picking fabric scraps for my mental paper pieced quilt. It is perfect! The scraps go in the big pouch and the neat stitched and plain pieces go in the smaller one. It really couldn't have been any more perfect if I'd designed it for this purpose!

Thank you Guilty Quilter!

The Weekend is A Distant Place

Work continues manic. Combine that with a delightful weekend with my new niece and I haven't been home much recently. Here she is:

That is her Mum holding her. This is her with Dad.

She sleeps pretty much 23 hours a day. Clearly related to me since that is my natural inclination. My offering was this:

The pattern is Norwood Monkey and so clearly written anyone can make it. I knitted many of the bits in the round rather than seam them afterwards. The banana skin isn't attached and I am half way through a banana that will be velcro'd into it for play once she is slightly more mobile.

Thank goodness this next weekend is a bank holiday one here in the UK. I haven't had a chance to do any sewing for a week now and have only done a small amount of vanilla knitting.

Next Paper Pieced Project

I have been admiring this design since I first saw it on her blog and more so since she made a giant one with her sisters.

So mid week I crumbled and bought it. I spent part of this weekend glueing all the sheets together and cutting out the pieces.

I would say no two are the same size but I suspect there are two, possible four, of each size but still, that's a lot of pieces. You get a colouring sheet with the pattern and after much thought I decided on what I wanted.

Hence why all the pieces are in bags grouped by colour. It is going to be completely scrappy so will be a complete mish mash once finished. I won't be hurrying this though. It's going to be WIP for quite a while.

Meanwhile the NIP (niece in progress) has yet to make an appearance - a week late now. Fortunately that gives me time to get on with the monkey.

With just one leg left to go I have run out of stuffing. I've had that bag of stuffing for at least 12 years and have been gradually working through it. End of an era.

And lastly - hexagon jewellery.

I like the bracelet but worry the necklace is a bit too shiny-cheap-silver. Time will tell. And tarnish.

Kaffe Fassett at the Fashion & Textile Museum

I have been meaning to visit this place for about nine years so was very happy to finally get here today with Liz from Knitting on the Green. This is the second exhibition we have been to together (the first being the A-Z of Crime) and it is so nice to have someone who knows what you mean when you remark on what he did for introducing large motifs into fairisle. The exhibition itself was quite splendid.

You started downstairs with a small room of historical bits from his early years and then were straight into the good stuff. As Liz pointed out, they hadn't been precious about grouping his work by when he did it or by which collection it came from (or from which book it was in). This was a celebration of his work and the only groupings I really noticed were that downstairs was more the warm reds and jewel colours while upstairs was more greeny. Quilts hung alongside knitting and embroidered panels. Glass cases showed waistcoats beautifully made up alongside professionally handmade slippers.

Huge pillars downstairs (no idea of these are always there or were there for use in this way) were delicately wrapped in panels demonstrating his designs, such as these beautiful wonky mitred blocks.

You could also see both sides of a lot of pieces. Years ago I read a criticism of a V&A exhibition of his knitwear saying you couldn't see what he'd done with his ends. Well, none of that here.

Liz said how it was like he'd left that cardigan on the back of the chair and would be back with it in a minute. This section was my favourite - a few 'props' like carlton ware teapots and layering of the textiles made it look extremely voluptuous.

The exhibition was a really good size. You didn't find yourself getting used to the beauty and the curation has been done so that the feel upstairs is very different to downstairs which is very effective and engaging. It was definitely inspiring and a good way to start the build up to the Festival of Quilts in August.

These were hanging downstairs and the next two photos are closeups of them. The backs were all visible too - lovely machine quilting. 

This one was a tapestry hanging and about 2 metres tall. 

This one greeted you on your way in. I think most of us can imagine thrifted men's shirts being turned into a bit of this. 

Lastly, what really caught my eye - so silly when you consider the size of some of the things - was this tiny pin cushion tucked inside a slipper!

I adore all the colours on it. I would definitely recommend this to anyone with 2 hours to spare near London Bridge. £8 to get in and on until 29th June.

Crafting Tired

I came home last night and picked up a pin cushion I was halfway through making. I sewed the back and front together the wrong way round, so I unpicked it and put them the right way round and sewed them again. This time I forgot to leave a gap so I unpicked some of the seam and turned the buggery thing inside out. Then I realised I'd forgotten to add the hanging loop. I put the pin cushion down and walked away.

Today I am even more tired and only had half an hour to craft. I decided to stuff and sew up the hole in the pin cushion. The nice oval pincushion is now a kind of kidney shape. I'm just not intended to include this thing with the pouch swap parcel. So instead, here is that handbag I made a few weeks ago.

I put *a lot* of work into this and have put it through a test drive following which I can confirm the frame has a fatal flaw and it is too small for my use.

The handle being on just one side means it is liable to flop open if there is too much in it. Whch there will be because it's not big enough for even my minimum swag. Plus, behold the reason I hate sew in frames.

So messy. Not like my nice glue ones. But despite this...

...I really do rather love it. Hand sewn hexagons with my favourite pebble style machine embroidery on top.

Two different variegated threads - one on each side.

Nice.

I am so tired because this week is epically busy at work. I have to give a talk tomorrow too. Put me in front of a group as the sole trainer for a training event and I'm fine. Put me in front of a group of people as part of a panel each giving a talk and I'm much less fine. Plus it's streaming live on youtube. Now who's bright idea was that? Oh yes, mine.

Man, I'm awesome. Craft on mofo's.

Sunshine and Nature

It has been a warm few days but with only small amounts of sunshine. I did manage to capture this though on my way to the station.

The trees along the road are in full bloom and while these don't smell very strongly there are other smaller plants that do so there is a little sensation zone as you progress down the road. I was also stimulating my sense of taste at the weekend with my first ever Frittata.

It looks fairly ghastly but tastes delicious. I used goats cheese, sun dried tomatoes, salty black olives and then aubergine and shallots oven baked in olive oil beforehand. Six eggs and a glug of milk and voila! I made it in a bread tin to get the depth without having to make a huge quantity.

When thinking of sunshine and light I remembered that I invested in a cheap one of these...

...for Knitting and Crochet Blog Week where you were supposed to do a day on a skill. Mine was going to be photography since I've long noticed that my iphone photos were looking better than the ones with my proper digital camera with all sorts of settings. Having read a few tutorials this seemed like the best option and was about £9 on ebay. I used it to take some of the photos in yesterday's post.

I need to play some more and practice but it does help with the light. Here is another of a WIP.

I am knitting the Norwood Monkey for my niece-in-progress. That is the face, in case it is not clear.

My last thoughts on light prompted me to take a photo of my Succulent Garden which has now been settling down for a week after planting.

Those two succulents I planted which had been all closed up are bow open and looking beautiful. I love the range of colours! But I do feel I need a small dinosaur or two. Very small - like railway person sized. I will keep an eye out for one.

Bank Holiday Weekend

I haven't put so much thought into a swap since Secret Pal had it's heyday. I signed up for the 'advanced' category for this Pouch Swap and then got the heebies about whether I was good enough or what I was planning was advanced enough. I'm almost done and hope it's ok.

I laid out my arrangement for the clamshell side then did needle-turn appliqué to secure them. I haven't done a lot of this so was worried it didn't look neat enough. So some Perle 5 and chain stitch later...

For the other side of the pouch I wanted to continue the scrappy theme and the linen but try something different. I drew my design on some scrap cloth and then sewed the pieces straight onto it - like paper piecing (but not 'english' paper piecing like I do with hexagons).

I had a lot of scraps to choose from. My partner seems to like rainbow colour schemes so red yellow orange on one side meant blue green purple on the other.

The green's weren't working though so I ended up with this.

I appliqued a linen circle, this time using the freezer paper method which wasn't as time consuming as I'd thought, and chain stitched with more variegated Perle 5.

I really hope she likes it! And that just leaves me with the lining - which will be a plain fabric - and adding the metal purse frame. Phew!

I had a lovely time with the Romford Knitters yesterday which also meant I got hold of the last of my SkipNorth haul which I'd managed to leave at Nickerjac's house.

I also got a box frame from Hobbycraft while I was there so will finally have a chance to do the button display I've been planning since at least February. Which reminds me. I pinned this earlier:

Good idea huh? I'm tempted but then home is where I relax so I don't want to feel pressured with a to do list looming over me. Will think about it though.

Thinking About Japan

It is 70% likely I will have the chance to go to live in Japan for a year - in or near to Tokyo. This is clearly a big thing. I have known about it for a week or two but I only started taking it seriously yesterday lunchtime. There's a lot to think about.

I have never been there myself but know the sorts of things most people know. 

The biggest stumbling block is being dependant on someone else for a year. I am not psychologically compatible with the idea of being a kept woman. 

I would really like to be though. 

If you heard it was 70% likely to rain, you'd take your umbrella. They have umbrella lockers in Tokyo. 

And umbrella vending machines. It makes you wonder - they don't even have those in Manchester, and it's always raining there. 

Pretty Pouches

My partner in the Pouch Swap seems to be an expert at this kind of applique.

So I'll be avoiding that. I am quite taken with this kind of thing:

But it is a bit simple. Plus I've been thinking of this kind of patchwork.

But then I also like the idea of a pocket on the outside. Plus I was thinking of having embroidery on one side. See what I meant in my last post about over-egging the custard?

But there are so many cute ideas in my head...

Or maybe I mean on Pinterest!

But then that is exactly why I like Pinterest. You can tuck those inspirations away for when you need them.

Oh but then maybe this?

Or...

Pinterest - angel or devil?