Yay for secret pal!

I love secret pal. This round is a bit weird but I'm still having fun. I got my first parcel from my pal today. Yippeee!

300g of lovely soft cotton in that divine dark purple, 4 big buttons to match, 2 BEAUTIFUL heart=shaped ceramic buttons, nail varnish in the exact same shade as the yarn (!) AND a massive block of delicious chocolate that is about.....half gone already. Om nom nom nom. Thank you secret pal! I am very very happy. I am thinking this maybe for the yarn, as a short sleeved version. But I think I can wing the pattern without paying since it looks like the estonian button stitch from these socks on the body, and I can do the yoke no prob. No wait....this. Yeah baby.

Work has been as zany as ever recently. The boys have been on fine form, and never more so than when my free sample frames arrived from Glasses Direct. Very impressed with them, but that's by the by. I tried on my frames and have gone for these ones:

Which left the boys with the other three pairs to play with.

From left to right is Sam, Jac and Steve. They're the ones who spent an hour debating which should donate their sperm to me. Sweeties.

I've long been a fan of vintage necklaces and have amassed quite a few. But for the last few years I haven't worn that many since they have, ahem, shrunk (i.e. fat neck) or broken. Here is the sorry spectacle of those needing attention.

I bought some chain the last time I was at a bead shop and some slip rings later we have...these 5 extended.

And these three fixed.

Some of them really are beautiful.

Apart from all that I have finally started stitching the patchwork flowers together. I have gone for the rainbow, against your collective advice. So whites first (apologies for sounding like a BNP supporter). I think they're looking rather lovely.

The cutest bowling ball in creation

This is Pooch with our beefy nephew.

 

He's 7 months but already into 9-12 month clothes and is one of the best-natured children I've ever come across (possibly almost as lovely as Nickerjac's Pete was at that age). We had a lovely weekend up North with my in-laws and had far more food than is good for anyone as well as great company. I also scored Wrestlemania 21 in a charity shop and you don;t get much better than that.

I knitted like a demon while i was up there. Mostly because I do not like knitting socks with the sockenwolle stuff.

It looks nice enough with the long colour changes but it is just too woolly for me. So I knit like a monkey to get them over with, and surely they were. I think I'll put these by as a christmas present for someone. Finishing these meant I could try an experiment with some self-striping regia I got in a swap. I love the appearance of slip stitches and I love zig zags. So the Impasta Shawlette in Interweave was always going to be a winner. But I don;t really use shawls so I went for socks and was hoping it would make a self-striping yarn look like zigzags.

As you can see no discernable effect but I think if the stripes were narrower it might work ok. These socks will be going to Pooch at some point, if he deserves them. He got a stonking bonus last week and as yet no presents have appeared chez byrne so we'll see.

My fingers are sore today but not because of the knitting. It is pater's bday today and as he is such a keen bird watcher I decided to get a hat and personalise it.

The quote says "My favourite weather is bird-chirping weather". In retrospect I am hoping this isn't a euphemism but it was on a bird watching website so fingers crossed I am ok!

My last point for this post concerns blue and green and grey. I love the colour combinations you see between green fields and blue skies, especially as the sun is going down or when the weather is turning. I snapped these from the train on the way back from Manchester.

If you know of yarns in these colours let me know!

Tutorials

I love tutorials. So inspiring. These are just some I've spotted this week.

1. Pot Holders (I'd like these for placemats though)
2. Amazing illustrations
3. Button Bouquets. Not a new idea, but reinvented here with the addition of paper!
4. Making Bias Tape (via Craftzine)
5. Visual Tricks with felt-tips
6. Macaroon recipe - must try for Pooch!

What a difference a day makes

The last few weeks have been really busy at work as I've been running 90 oral exams in 2 locations over three days using about 30 examiners. So I took today off and have had a really wonderful time. It makes me wish a 4-day week lay somewhere in my near future. But sadly not. Weekend first though - went down to muvvers in Somerset and had a wonderful time. Blissful weather, very relaxing, lots of time in the garden, great food, and a cat you can't help but love....

We were hanging out - not something we usually do since she is a prolific hunter and barely spends more than an hour a day at the house during the summer.

Of course my favouritest animal was also there.

He was on excellent form. He got to eat crab, and got driven around by me in the custard car - the brightest yellow car you ever saw which belongs to my sister.

We had lunch with my parents at a beautiful house with an amazing garden. I adore poppies.

So beautiful.

And it meant I had a lot of time to knit while I was relaxing. This is my old shale pattern cardi which I'm doing bottom-up in Ty-Dy cotton.

So that brings me to today and my wonderful day off. I headed straight to the V&A Quilts Exhibition. On Nickerjac's recommendation I got the iPhone app for it and I'm very glad I did as it was really handy. Not only do you get the commentary, you also have the option to look at some details on the screen as the nature of the quilts means that they're too delicate to get too close to. This is one of my favourites which luckily they had a postcard of.

Union jacks made out of liberty prints. So clever and so beautiful.

After that I headed off to Covent Garden and Artbox. I love that shop. You can buy online too. This was my haul.

Little ankle socks with ducks on. Awesome. And then a little something from the Bead Shop.

And then Cyber Candy was just round the corner so it would have been silly not to get some Cherry Ripe bars. Goddamn I love those things. If only they'd make them in the UK. Although considering my waistline it's probably best they don't. 

Days off rule!

Pimp My Chair

I love my chair. Which is just as well as I would resent making new covers and the rest for it if I didn't. I worked out how much the fabric would cost me from spoonflower, and it came out as more than the chair cost, so I went to rolls and rems in lewisham and got some cord. Red for the arms and a lovely aubergine for the seat and back. I've only got the arms done so far but they bode well.

The cord has a little stretch to it so they fit nicely, despite my bodgetastic approach to soft furnishings. I also found a suitable hook for hanging scissors on.

Awesome - happy snoopy dance once I'd screwed that into place. And then there is the pin cushion. I decided to go all out on this and make a bespoke one. I always loved these segmented ones and found this tutorial for making one.

I absolutely adore it. I chain stitched around the edge to hide the dodgy seaming I'd done too.

Poifect. The only down side is that I don;t have any velcro handy to attach it to the chair with - I am going to velcro it to the arm of the chair so it can be removed for when I'm knitting rather than sewing. My final 'to do' is a small box or tray to go on the other arm (again velcro'd) for holding spools or thread, stitchmarkers and so on.

It was pay day this week and so I finally cracked and bought the alice in wonderland tie in necklace from Swarovski.

It was a major blow out but I have been lusting after it for at least a month and I only have so much willpower.

Heeeee!

Baby got a brand new chair

Behold! My Chair!

My physio suggested a nursing chair would be good for me as it is a solid structure with good padding and support. I tried out some mucho expensive ones in John Lewis and spent a very happy 10 mins rocking away before noticing the one I liked most was £380. Not going to happen, so online for a cheap replica. One grumpy pooch later, ta da!

Pockets for knitting. Nice touch.

Of course being a cheap knock off the covers are nasty polyester although perfectly fine for now. But naturally I am already planning to recover. Which has made me think about material. I'm going to need a curtain weight cotton and so my mind has turned to Spoonflower. If only there was a UK version. But still, there are some lovely fabrics on there. All of these link back to the creators for ordering. Thousands of other to choose from. I do like those buttons though.

Such an amazing chair naturally needs some accessories. Here are the first:

Except I can't have my new chair with that tatty old ribbon marking these as 'fabric only' so I made a new tag.

Hand embroidered chain stitch on dotty red then zigzagged with some shiny variegated thread and lightly stuffed. Fabric on the back is...naturally, cats.

Crafty goodness

It has now been 2 weeks since I knitted a stitch. It's a bit odd since that it the longest I've gone without knitting for at least 5 years. I'm just so into the patchwork instead. I've now done 94 of 225 flowers, each consisting of 7 hexagons with 1" sides. I am sure I'll get bored any minute and fling it into a dark cupboard for 6 months but at least by the time I come back to it I'll be half way through.

I went to Friday late at the V&A with Nic and Jackie last week. It was really nice just spending a couple of hours crafting with them. This is the photo Nic tweeted during the evening:

The V&A had underestimated the level of interest so kits ran out fairly early but we managed to get some for us and made a variety of weird and wonderful and, in my case, ugly things. I made more out of the paper bag in the end than the contents but Jackie made this amazing dragonfly:

I scored a tea towel for Pooch from their shop:

And also a top hat for me. I've always wanted one, and a cardboard one is easier to store than an actual. I wore it all the way home from the V&A.

It's been a very nice bank holiday weekend. Seen friends, done more patchwork, been out for dinner, plus have started crafty plans with Nic for something a little bit like SkipNorth but with a different angle. We're formulating cunning ideas at the moment so watch this space for more once things are firmed up.

Nom nom nom

Flesh and juice of a lime, spoonful of sugar, slug of bacardi, top up with ginger beer and strain.

Looking forward to Friday Late at the V&A tomorrow with Nickerjac and others. Still haven't got to the Quilts exhibition so hopefully will get a peek at that too.

A terrible quandry

I got my hexagons out when I got home as I've been longing to start sewing them together. BUT...do I sew them randomly, which would give this kind of effect:

OR do I sort them into colour groups and go for a bit of a colour wave, like this...

quandry...quandry...quandry 

Great word that. Help me decide? I've put a poll in the sidebar (on the right).

My mini-me and mini-pooch are progressing well. Here is the current status:

I mistakenly thought the deadline was today but of course it is 26th June. So loads of time to get crafting. The details are here and the finished articles will be in an exhibition at the Science Museum!

I have unexpectedly made contact with a good friend from school who I hadn't heard from in 15 years. I wasn't sure it was him from the photo online and so I rather tentatively emailed. A few emails later and he asked me to send him a photo and it made me realise I don't really have many of myself. I always tend to be the one behind the camera. So I made an effort and this is the best I could do.

Bit rubbish. I am just not photogenic. Meanwhile, despite having bigged up Rigby & Pellar to everyone who looked like they had a minute, I am almost regretting my visit. I wore my favourite bra today - an old friend with polka dots and everything. I Could Not Wait to get home and take it off. It felt so uncomfortable! It's rather a shame as I'll have to ditch it but it did make me wonder - are there any projects for upcycling bra's? I've seen some disgusting bags and purses but that's it. Anyone got any ideas?

Hold the phone - this charity take them and redistribute...