Flibbertygibbet

Git me some learnin' with my guilty pleasures

It's always a case of 'in for a penny, in for a large quantity of money'* with me.  I've signed up for three courses for the autumn (shudder - where did summer go? I feel gypped).

Two casual encounters** with The Make Lounge - morning or evening courses - how to make the 'Naughty Knickers' pictured above; and making a leather cinch belt which solves the issue of trying to find the perfect one in the shops (oh lordy, ICouldMakeThatitis strikes again.  Just this time it's with a qualified teacher and all the materials provided, woo-hoo).  I realise I even have some of the wide lace above, found a couple of years ago in a dead end/end of bolt store at the sketchier end of Broadway, though now secreted in some box somewhere.  Somewhere in the recently tidied craftroom.  Somewhere. 

You know, just don't do it kids.  You tidy your workspace and ok, you get neatly packed boxes of crafty potential, stacked in an orderly fashion that allows you easy access to all those rediscovered treasures. But you also get Stash Guilt.  Guilt akin to Carrie Manolo v's apartment moment at the eye-popping amount of $$$ tied up in twinkle-of-my-eye projects, and the unfulfilled promise contained in glitter, sparkles, textiles and yarn accumulated over weeks, months, years across neighbourhoods and continents, on road-trips, foraging in bricks and mortar shops the old fashioned way, lurking on Etsy and trawling blogs for inspiration. 

Soon you gleefully  - desperately? - grasp any occasion to bust the stash by 0.002% to justify an entire room full of craft supplies.  And you replace the used supplies with four new items, usually completely different ones.  Possibly even for different crafts. But don't you just love the feeling when you can definitively say "Oh, I'm pretty sure I have some fold over elastic/vintage bakelite buttons/a medium purse frame/a packet of origami paper/Swarovski crystals in Palace Green Opal/a letterpress/silk ribbon at home that would be perfect".  I can't be alone in that, surely.  Nor would I change it.  I am the definition of 'all the gear no idea' and it's fabulous.  Yeah, I'm a material girl, or in fact a fabric girl who's spending too much time knitting at the moment. Or lying on the sofa, blogging***.  I'm guilty of too many knitting WIPs right now, more anon.  So tell me, what is the most obscure or prized item in your stash - inspire me to use some of mine?

And a slightly longer relationship with the possibly less glamorous Hackney Community College  is also in the offing - on a well-regarded course in Corset Making.  Sweet friends think that I will be taking custom orders - ah, how lovely for people to have confidence in you!  Mind you, I did see a wonderful red top hat today - perhaps I need to make a matching corset and create an occasion to wear it to - might even be willing to dress all the party-goers!  Could also be stored up for the Wedding Event of the Year 2009...

*ok, these courses aren't so spendy - but that's without factoring in the supplies.  I probably have the silk but not the busks, boning, laces, eyelets... more shopping!  There should be some spare silk from this dress lurking around somewhere...

**  I could have said brief encounter.. but I held myself back, I did

*** Typepad is behaving slightly better.  I'm trying to do my part and blog more often again.  I thought I didn't have much to report lately but this outpouring seems to suggest otherwise.  If you're new, (you're brave) say hello.  Or 'hellp', as I just typed.

How it comes together

Recently I mentioned cutting: for ages I've been contemplating making a quilt for myself.  (For "contemplating" read "accumulating lots of fabric and supplies") One of the most useful things I bought was long quilter's pins - though I wouldn't recommend the online supplier I used as they only tell you after you've completed your purchase that they take 3-5 business days to ship, and in fact they take two weeks.  Harumph.

It starts here.

 

With some supervision.

I think it was Manda at Tree Fall who suggested using a fleece blanket as a 'design wall'.  I pinned folded half yards and fat quarters of fabric up there initially using the long pins, but it also works brilliantly for free form design when you have cut strips or pieces; as the fabric adheres to the fleece and you can reposition it easily (who else had Fuzzy Felt as a kid?)

This is trying to factor in neutrals.

And then I sort of abandoned that.  Now it seems like 1.5 inch strips will be the way to go.  Somehow it always comes together on the ironing board.  I realised the missing element was my most favouritest fabric ever, the Denyse Schmidt Flea Market Fancy that's hiding at the back.

Tomorrow we cut - assuming that I can repossess the cutting mat.

To live for a day

I went to the movies tonight, before this particular picture, as they used to be called, disappears from the screens. 

Miss Pettigrew lives for a Day  [beware, sound!] But the sound is one of the best elements - the music is toe-tappingly good.  I'm not sure how faithful the adaptation (terrible jacket) is.   Jen, I miss our cinema afternoons, when we were 'freelance' or in my case mostly unemployed.  Before I got a job and you moved to the other side of the world (was it something I said?  Only kidding hon.)  I really hope you've seen this movie - I think you will enjoy.

Booteeful

So many lovely people having babies at the moment - too many to link to, even!

A work colleague that I am very fond of is having a little girl (actually, of all the bumps, anyone who's found out and has revealed it is having a girl... are any of you having boys?)  I said I'd teach her to knit and make this to entice her.  Then agreed to do the second one because let's face it, with tension issues, they would probably have come out vastly different sizes.

I proceeded to knit the second one, as per the pattern - and then realised I must have knit the first one on 5mm rather than the 3mm specified in the pattern.  Oh, the pain of the irony, like an aluminium knitting needle to the heart.  But at least there's only an hour's knitting to repeat.

The other project on the needles was Roxanne Seabright's Vertical Drop Stitch Scarf in Knitwitches yarn.  Then I decided when I came home from the pub  the other night that it was a smashing idea to do a row of knitting.  The drop stitch row.  I actually fell asleep during the process.  It took a long time, as you can imagine.  And I made a mistake about a third of the way across, ending up with four stitches rather than three, which I located this morning.  Bah.  Also decided to weigh the progress and worked out that I'd end up with a shawl about 21 inches long, according to my calculations.  So I've frogged that to save the beautiful yarn for something else, and will cast on again in the sumptuous Art Fibers Tsuki that I originally bought for the project.  I mean, if it ain't broke...