Craftin along on the bus, yeah baby...

I have so many things to do at the moment. I'm curating an exhibiton for Fringe, plus designing, building and rehersing for a seperate show, I'm studying full time (and you should SEE the amount of procribed readings, let along all the other readings I'm doing on my own) and I hardly have time to sit down.

However, i saw this the other day from the Big West Festival and couldn't help myself:

Calling all knitters…
Big West will be staging a large-scale knitting project as part of its 2009 Festival that will transform the landscape of Footscray from November 20 - 29. So we need to get knitting! We welcome anyone with a passion for knitting, from beginners to experts. Individuals and groups are welcome.

For all those interested in taking part, there will be two information and registration sessions:

Venue:	Dog Theatre, 42A Albert Street in Footscray
Information Sessions:	Monday 27 July, 2009 at 6pm - 7pm Tuesday 28 July, 2009 at 10.30am - 11.30am
RSVP:	Please RSVP your attendance and which session you will be attending to: General Manager Narelle Sullivan at narelle@bigwest.com.au

How could I say no? I didn't get to the info sessions, but I did email and recieve replies from Karen, the festival director. So I'm busily knitting in all my spare time. Which is pretty much on the bus and walking to class.

Check it out:

This was walking to the bus, travelling to uni, walking to class, walking back to the bus stop, travelling back and then walking back home. Look how much there is! Travelling, people, it's wasted crafting time! I'm telling you!

I love the bottom right hand corner, it's hard to see (damn missing camera cord again! I swear, I'm going to superglue it to the freaking computer, so this is a camera phone image again) but I grabbed some spare wool and there was less than a metre in a random green, so I knitted it in and was really, really pleased with the colour combination. The large amount of what I'm going to call 'tinsel green' is left over from some grass I knitted for the play we took to Edinburgh Fringe, although I'm not sure it was ever used.

And I'm also crocheting an orange and brown small rug for that 70s retro feel. So hilarious!

Teaching the young

So yesterday was my second day of doing a Grad Dip in Primary School Teaching. I want to become an art teacher for kids. I'm really looking forward to it, every time they talk to us about curriculum in the lectures, my eyes widen at the thought of teaching this to children. I love it! I love the idea of helping them learn all of these subjects. But closet to my heart is art.

The Grad Dip is a general course, teaching the 100 or so students how to be a regular Primary School teacher, teaching all the usual subjects, maths, English, science, humanities, so I figure that I just have to do some extra curricular studies to keep pace with what I'm learning but from an art related angle. So yesterday I took out a couple of books from the library about being an art teacher and what to teach and I'm reading them every chance I can get.

One of our assignments for Humanities is to go on excursion with a couple of other students to an excursion venue of our choice. Then we come back and during Expo Day we make a stall and report on it to everyone else who in turn have gone to other places and will tell us all about it. We've chosen Soverign Hill, which I haven't been to since I was a child. As well as the photographs, teaching resources, posters and fliers we'll bring back from our day into History, I also want to plan out a couple of art related activities you could set the children. As an art teacher would teach across all years, I want to come up with a couple of different art-related tasks that different ages could do.

There is lots of teaching related learning (how to be a teacher, how to teach) and a number of these are obviously across the board techniques, so they'll stand the student teachers in good stead whether they want to be a PE or art teacher or a general Primary School teacher. One of the things we were set as homework to do was read this article by Sir Ken Robinson. It talks about how creativity is neglected in society and especially in education, and how that needs to change. He wrote a book about it, which I went and bought from amazon. The link in down in a new section called Teacher Resources on your left.

When I first thought about going into teaching, I went and looked for blogs to let me know what it was going to be like, and dishearteningly, I found very little out there. It seems that a couple of people wanted to keep blogs as to what it was like


I think that he's right that the education system doesn't seem to foster or even appreciate creativity as it did/does subjects that are more 'intellectual'. It does seem to me, however, that Robinson uses 'creativity' and 'artistic' interchangeably and I don't agree that they're the same thing. Creativity is about thinking outside the box, coming up with new ways of thinking about things, and that has applications right across the board. To invent new things, come up with new ideas and theories, you need to think creatively about a problem. You can't invent something by following the same path as those who have gone before. Somewhere you have to turn left or right and forge a new path. And that requires creativity.

It's a huge change but it's really exciting!

This is an imagination I admire

This is wonderful, one of the best softies I've seen in a long time. Welcome to chouette treehouse network, a collaboration between Cat Rabbit and Ghostpatrol.

I've always loved Ghostpatrol's work, he seems to envisage a world that no one else had seen before, populated with children with horns and huge beasts, drawn delicately on pasties around the town. I've only recently discovered Cat Rabbit and I love her softies. There are a variety of softies out there, but somehow she captures a mix of weirdness and innocence, they seem to inhabit their own inner world, looking peaceful and open in their oddness, rather than the uncomfortable softies out there. You know the ones I mean, they end up looking furtive or unhappy that they've been called into exsistance by artists who don't care that their softies are awkward in their ill fitting skins.

Cat Rabbit, on the other hand, captures amazing experessions with a skill that others should envy.

Below is one of my current obsessions, an owl, veiwed through Cat Rabbit's eyes


I'm so glad I found her work! All images found on Cat Rabbit's website, here

Yesterday Jude and I attended a High Tea in Kyneton. It was organised by the Zetland Masonic Lodge up there for charity, raising funds for the Starlight Foundation. I'd never been to a High Tea before, and I was delighted by the experience. To your right was my place setting, note the beautiful tea cup, the little gift wrapped in a delicate lace handkerchief, the pile of cakes on a cake rack and the flowers.

There were about 150 ladies there, the event was for the ladies of Kyneton, and it amazed me to find out that each and every one of the tea cup, saucer and small plate sets belonged to one lady, the lady who organised it all. What an incredible collection! Each table of 10 also had a beautiful embroidered tablecloth, this shot is detail of one of them:How beautiful is that? Here is another setting, with a range of beautiful crockery in the background:

The treats served up were spectacular. As well as the cake stand packed with sweet goodies, there were home made scones and cakes that came to the table.


There were a number of raffles and auctions to raise money, I bought some raffle tickets but as we left before the drawer I gave them to a friend of mine. I wonder if she won anything! The auction prizes included some beautiful craft, quilts by local ladies, several art dolls and a number of hand made cushions as well as donated items from various businesses such as gardening gloves and gumboots (all decorated with painted roses), jewelery, pajamas (printed with flowers), tea sets (painted with roses) and more. There was much hilarity as the gentlemen of the lodge came out to parade the items one by one, often wearing the dresses/scarves and other items.

There was also numerous cups of tea and coffee drunk by one and all. There was at least one tea pot on each table which was quickly and constantly replaced by the gents as the pots were drained dry. I burnt the bejesus out of my fingers by accepting a metal teapot by spout and bottom (the earnest young man was holding the handle) and managed to only spill a little of it on the table as my fingers blistered. Below is one of the amazingly beautiful tea cosies, this one had a knitted black body and was covered with crocheted pansies.

The lady who organised it was wonderful. She explained that although the teacups ranged from the 1880s to the 1950s, she loved the fact that they were being used. She doesn't mind if occasionally one gets broken by someone, because the joy they bring people is worth it. Also, she argued, these were all built to be used, so hiding them away in cupboards negates the very object.

Her collection has been shown at the Melbourne Museum, and will be on display in the Kyneton Museum in Feb next year. I'll keep you posted with dates and addresses!

The most beautiful thing she said was that bringing out teacups like these frees up people's stories. Older people reminise about High Teas they attended, and pass stories down to the younger generation. I thought this was a wonderful thing to note, as it had jsut happened at my table! The oldest lady had jsut finished telling us how as a very young girl she would go to High Tea at her grandmother's house in the 1940s. Monday was wash day, Tuesday was baking day and Wednesday was High Tea. I had read that in The Gentle Arts, but I was thrilled to hear confirmation in person! She told us about the sponges that were made and consumed (jam and cream in the middle or passionfruit icing on top) and that all the ladies would be in their finest. And that was the wonderful thing about this High Tea, all the ladies were in their racing hat and fasinator finest. It was so beautiful to see!

I highly encourage anyone who has the oppitunty to attend a High Tea to do so! It's such a wonderful tradition and a beautiful specticle.

so naughty, and yet totally work safe!

Oh, oh, OH, I love new projects. I love the excitement that builds as I contemplate the things I'll make a do for a new project. I love the exciting 'new'ness of a new project, because I'm so used to the older projects I'm currently working on. I love everything about a new, good exciting project. And I always want to drop everything else and leap into the new one. Which is always dangerous, because older things need to be finished too.

But so I have a new project in the making. Can you tell? :) I can't tell you ANYTHING about it, not a thing, because it's way too new yet, but I DO have to show you an image I'm working on for it, because I think it's beautiful, and way too good to keep to myself. Plus, it's not the finished product, so it's a BIT like not spoiling the surprise, but still, it's a bit naughty. Can I jsut say, how much fun are photo booths?


Oh my god, I am so in love with this image...

New art

So it's finally finished. A while back I was commissioned to make two artworks on the theme of HEART. Due to a huge bundle of red tape, I'm still awaiting payment for one of them.

Payment is often a difficult thing. People don't seem to understand that art takes time and materials, and these things cost money. Some buyers demand the art NOW and don't seem to care when the money will come to you. In the mean time, there's still rent and bills to pay and food and more materials to buy. I can't imagine another industry where an invoice can be 6 months outstanding and still no movement on it, while the client already has the work.

But so anyway, complaining aside, I've finished the second HEART artwork, the one that still hasn't been paid for, and it's at the framers now. I'm going to deliver it on Friday to the client, it's always a bit of a danger handing over the work before the money has appeared but it's been such a long drawn out process that I just want it finished (ok, so maybe I hadn't finished complaining about it quite yet :)

But please welcome to the stage: Big Ol' Black Steam Train, a framed embroidery piece with antique lace and silk.


The heart image itself was pretty easy to source, I google imaged HEART and found a big anatomical drawing of it, printed it out and there was my image. If you go onto etsy and type in HEART, you'll see really only two images over and over, and this is one of them. Funnily enough, when I was researching heart designs in Feb, I notices that a number of etsy sellers made sure to say that the heart they're selling has been hand drawn by them and is unique, when it's clearly not.

And that's a fascinating thing about the internet. Plagerism is as easy to spot as a google search is to do. And that's where most people will have gone to get their image/essay/article whatever. They forget that if they can do a search to find information, that everyone else connected to the internet can too. In student essays, people forget that the teacher has probably set this essay before and students have already done the copy-and-paste method of essay writing and handed it in before. I have to admit, when I was at uni and the internet was only for freaks, weirdos and geeks, and even they didn't understand how to use it properly, I went online and stole bits of writing from all over and wove it together as an essay, I was lucky, this was a long time ago, when computers had tiny monitors that were black and orange, and my photography lecturer didn't spot the cheatery. As I recall it was only one essay too, because then I figured out the best way to learn was actually do it myself. Which is something parents and teachers tell you for years but you have to wait for your own blinding flash. Why is it so hard to accept other people's wisdom dammit? It'd make stuff so much easier...

Anyway. So I'm also working the props for the play, and I figured I'd do a casual My Creative Space for you. I live in a tiny 2 roomed cottage and I've only jsut gotten my desk here. So before that, it's all about what you can do on the floor. So to your right is My Creative Space. In the photo is my grandmother's huge range of embroidery thread I inherited, all carefully wrapped in seperate colours. My grandmother recylced everything she could, so most of the threads are wrapped around old Christmas Cards she cut to size. There's also a design for embroidery on the paper, mt little black sewing box, a small upright wall with windows (awaiting wall paper), some feathers, a Radical Cross Stitch pattern for a bike that also lives in the embroidery box and, of course, the essential snacks. It's back aching work, working on the floor, but sometimes you jsut gotta work where you can.

now, it's Art Selling Girl!

Everyone has a superhero name, and mine changes weekly. This week it's Art Selling Girl.

One of my works sold from my Gallery Obscura show! One Shot, at your right, sold unframed. Yay! I love, love LOVE selling work for a number of reasons. One, the money is always nice. Two, it's always uplifting that someone likes your work enough to buy it, take it home and put it on their wall, and Three, the more stuff that sells the less art I have to take home, which is great. One of the things about being an artist is that you end up with a hell of a lot of art. It's good, because art is a wonderful thing to be surrounded by, but god damn it takes up a lot of space!

I also sold an artwork on etsy, since I've been moving I'm having a sort of art garage sale on etsy, I've put up old works I don't really need anymore but would hate to throw out. I did toss a bunch of artworks too, but some I know will find someone out there to love them. So one of those has gone too. One less in the storage container, which is great.

Gallery Obscura is also having a VIP night and they want me to to a talk on digital art work. I don't know a lot about digital stuff, so I have to now do a bunch of research. But that's fine, I'm ok with knowing more about the artforms I use, as you've probably guessed! But it appears that although digital stuff is usual for the advertising and computer game world, it's not anywhere near as wide spread in the art world. So it'll be an interesting adventure to learn about it.

Art Selling Girl... aaaaaaaaaWWAAAAAYYYY!!!!!

How things all connect together. And how things are lovely

I went to Brown Owls last night, it's such a wonderful thing. Sitting in a room filled with people who are jsut as interested in craft as you are. The lady next to me was granny squaring her away towards a beautiful white, gray and dark gray scarf. The lady next to her (the noise in the room meant I missed their names) was sewing little magnets to cute pear covered kitchen curtains so she can fold it up during the day. It was nominally an embroidery night, so I took the peacocks I bought the other day from Kristen Doran. After 2 hours, they're coming along.

Last night's meeting was filmed by Anna Brownfield, who is making a documentary called "Making it HANDMADE" and I ended up talking to her at the end of the night for quite some time about craft history in Australia and about her film making adventure. She was really interesting and I'm so glad I got to chat to someone jsut as interested in craft history as I am!

There was also a number of sort of raffle prizes given out at Brown Owls, So at the right is a huge piece of blue and white material i won (won! me! I've never won a raffle in my life, how lovely is it that my first was from Brown Owls!) which is big enough for a skirt, so that's what it's going to become. There were also printed embroidery patterns from (I think) Sublime Stitching, so I bought a simple one to do.

Anna was telling me about a knitter she'd found who used to knit huge bedspreads, but not with knitting needles but with PIANO WIRE.

Read that again, just in case you missed it. She wanted very, very fine knitting, and she couldn't get needles thin enough, so she knitted it on piano wire.

Mind boggling. I'm too impacient to knit big things with real needles, let along with such small needles! Imagine the stitch gauge she would have gotten with those!

This morning I'm back to making props for the Fringe show. It's with small puppets, so everything has to be small. I need to knit a balaclava for a character who's about the size of a GI Joe or Ken doll. I had in mind some crochet cotten I've got, maybe 2 ply or so. I tried rummaging up my smallest needles (and then using kebab stitcks.) but it still looked like fishnet. Toothpicks wern't an option because a) they're too short, the knitting would fall straight off the end, b) they're often cheap wood so they split and splinter easily and c) we don't have any. So instead I went to the Cupboard of Fun and grabbed out some wire. I did this once before, I was knitting a martini glass in the round and I wanted to be able to reduce the size of the circular part of the needle as the glass got smaller towards the stem. So I bought some thin plastic tubing used in jewelery and inserted wire into each end for the points. As the glass grew, I'd take the wire point out of the tube, snip a bit off and put the point back in. It worked, not elegantly, but it worked. The problem with using wire is that when it's cut, most of the time there remains a sharp lip in the middle of the wire where the cutters met. That can catch, stab through or even cut through the yarn. It's not a great solution but it's the best one I have at the moment.

So that's the balaclava, knitted on wire. It's now finished and looks great. I'm now making the two main characters a couch, out of polystryne, stuffing and material.

And this is really what I want to use this blog to show, that props and art dept of film, tv and movies is really just about craft.
And anyone can do it.

A fleeting second of Knitta Please

Becclebee of Marjoryjane went to the National Gallery in Canberra this weekend and wandered around an exhibition of Knitta Please.

Knitta Please, for those of you who haven't come across them before, are a group of American crafty guys who looked in dispare at all their unfinished knitting projects laying around and wondered if there wasn't a good thing they could do with them. So they went out late at night and started sewing them around trees, to door handles, around street signs and public art, anywhere they could find.
From street tagging, they now exhibit in National Galleries around the world:
How incredible is that work? If you click on it to see it bigger, you'll see that each stripe is about scarf width. Mind boggling amount of knitting, even if they did knit in on a machine. It's awe inspiring!

More of Becclebee's photos can be found in her original post here and Knitta Please's website is here

Oh, surprises are so hard to sit on!

So I've been making a lot of stuff recently, but it's all for an upcoming Fringe theatre show, so I can't really show you. Otherwise it wont be a surprise and a joy for those of you who see the show itself. I know I shared Totem dolls as I found them on the net, but I figured that with 130 dolls in the show that even if I shared 20 dolls, it still wasn't even a quarter of the eventual exhibition.

So instead I'll talk about something I found in a craft book. Bet you didn't see that coming!

The other day I was reading The Regency and Victorian crafts by Jane Toller. It's an interesting little book about the slightly less well known crafts the Victorians engaged in. It was published in 1969, which means all the photos are in black and white, which is always a little frustrating when the author is talking about the colour of the item, but that aside, it's an interesting read. Toller, an antiques dealer at the time of writing, described the the crafts of Shell Work, Paper Work, Feather Work, Hair Work, Felt-Work Pictures, Fluted Embroidery Work, Wax Modeling and 'Drizzling' or Parfilage.

Drizzling was one I hadn't come across before, it started in France before the revolution and made it's way to England. Participants in the craze worked with a simple tool to unravel the brocades, galloons, laces, tassels and braids of the earlier decades to extract the gold and silver threads. Often the precious threads were then sold, but only for a pittance. It seems that the addiction was not in the profit but in the amusement value. Imagine how many incredible pieces of material were unraveled and thus distroyed in this process!

The other interesting thing about the book is the theory Toller shares as to why it was considered correct for upper class ladies to be constantly absorbed in doing things. She writes that 'the grace and beauty of a woman's hands could be shown off to better advantage when empolyed with some suitable occupation. The proper movement of hands was an important part of the education of young females...' She goes on to note that everything young women were taught including the correct way of pouring tea and coffee, how to hold and manipulate a fan, embroidery, tatting, basically all their occupations were not created to ensure there were no idle hands for the devil to make mischief with, but instead to show off their dainty hands.

I've not come across that idea before. Pretty much everything I've read about why people crafted things in previous generations subscribes to one or more of the three following ideas:
Things that are Needed
Things that are Decorative
Things to Keep Busy

I found that really interesting, I always love a good theory.

Fast punch history lesson

A friend of mine asked a question about doileys over email, and I sent her a Rambling Fast Punch History of Craft Lesson in reply. So I figured I'd share it.

___

The traditional spelling of doiley is actually D'oyleys. It would be a great comfort to me if you could use the correct term from now on.

AHAHAHAH
ahems. When I first came across the old spelling of it, I thought it was quite pretentious. A quick search on the net reveals that people think that it either comes from French or that Mr. D'oyley is credited as the first person to make them. I find that claim dubious, doilies are embroidered bits of cloth with crochet edges, and since they can't pin point where crochet comes from, the first printed examples of it are crochet patterns from the 1800s, and since they're already quite complicated, that suggests that people already knew how to crochet. And if they can't pin point when crochet happened, I'd think it's dreadfully difficult to then pin point who came up with the first doiley. Interestingly enough, the oldest surviving knitted items are amazing socks from the arab world with very complicated patterns, you can find photos here: http://home.earthlink.net/~urtatim/EgyptKnit1.html the one of the left is the historic one, the one on the right is the site's owners attempt at reproducing it. The bands of Kufic script on the toe, ankle, and top say, "Allah". Which is pretty cool. Nothing like knitting God into your socks. There is a theory that people knit right to left, even though we as a society write left to right, because we inherited the tradition of knitting from the arabs, and they write right to left and thus knitting would be natural to go that way too. But they also don't really know a lot about the origins of knitting. The history of knitting is hard to pin down because before people used two needles to knit, they used to knit with one in a process called nalbinding which arguement still rages wether that should be called knitting or whether it's the precursor to knitting (ooh, hackles rise and the blood flows in the craft world. It's a dangerous place to dwell, I'm telling you!). I've got a book in which the author claims that it's one of the earliest crafts, and has identified what he claims is the oldest surviving knitting needle, which is "probably pre Bronze age". However, it's very difficult to correctly identify an object as a knitting needle, because it's basically a long thin rod with a point at one end, and there's a bunch of things that fit that description including hair decorations and cooking implements.

____

And I just received The Subversive Stitch , Embroidery and the making of the femine, By Rozsika Parker so I can't wait to get started on that. I found it via a footnote in It keeps me sane: Women, craft, wellbeing by Enza Gandolfo and Marty Grace. I love how it's an adventure, finding clues and hints in one book to lead you onto the next. I'm a big fan! they call me Craftianna Jones...

Awesome finds from the outside world...

I was racing around like a mad thing yesterday, going into every op shop and photography shop looking for frames for an artwork that's been commissioned and can I just say, if you want to see some bizarre artwork and weird photos, not to mention the boring long stitch works framed and then thrown out. But in the middle of all the weirdness was this. At first glance I thought it was stained glass in a frame, which at the next moment I figured was silly, because stained glass needs light behind it to illuminate the design, which if you framed it would obviously go dark. So curious, I pulled it out and had a closer look. It's actually felt, and the black lines that make it look like stained glass, was black wool glued to the top. I thought it was a beautiful idea, and I'm going to utalise (read: knick) it. I'm not sure what for yet, but everything sinks in and comes back out when needed.

Sometimes you find the most wonderful things in op shops

ebay find for those of you with crafty libraries of your own...

OOOOOOOOO! I've just found the Gentle Arts book up on ebay! I'm not selling it, but I thought I'd flag it for anyone who is interested in it and can't find it.

go HERE to check it out.

That's so exciting! If you're into the history of craft, and the history of Australian craft, you should really consider buying it. It's an awesome book and I'm delighted to have a copy in my library. You can read my thoughts while reading it in this post.

Fly, my friends! Fly and buy!

shucks

The guys over at Fandomania have found via craftster and showcased my K9 tissue box holder along with three other Dr who related tissue box covers at Fandomestic: Time Lord-Approved Tissue Boxes. Thank you guys!

Pop on over and check out the other ones listed, there's some beautiful work going on there...

Home Made Help book on presale now!

I've just got this email and I'm so excited I wanted to share it with you right away!For those of you who don't know, the Handmade Help blog put a call out for family recipes to combine into a book for the victims of the Black Saturday bushfires. They've lost everything, including treasured old family recipes. This book is a way of giving them some back. So purchase one for yourself and as many as you can afford for gifts, as for each one purchased another is dontated to families from the ravaged areas. I was delighted to be a part of it, it showcases the sense of community we share and I think that's a wonderful thing.

Hi All,

As you know, The Handmade Help Recipe Book evolved as part of handmadehelpsout.blogspot.com by a group of crafters and artists who wanted to contribute to the bushfire recovery effort. Your recipes have made it what it is, and after months of quiet and intense preparation, it’s at the printers and about to be launched!

From Grandma Polack's ice cream to Margaret Fulton’s Rigatoni carbonara, the cookbook is packed with over 100 delicious recipes that have been tried, tested and treasured through the ages. This not for profit initiative brings together recipes from home cooks and well-known chefs including Greg Malouf, Allan Campion and Michele Curtis.

For those who have lost all of their possessions the book is a gift, helping to replace much loved recipe books and raise funds to rebuild affected communities.

Limited copies of Homemade: the Handmade Help Recipe Book will be available for sale. Printed copies will cost $15 (plus postage) and a downloadable PDF is available for $8.

For every copy that is sold, a copy of the book will be given directly to people who have lost their homes and belongings in the fires, distributed through relief and local organisations. All money collected will be donated to the Salvation Army, to assist them in their continued good efforts to help families through hardship.

We have been up to the bushfire-affected areas to show them the gift we have been preparing, and your recipes and inspiration will be received with delight and cherished for the useful ideas you’ve donated to the book. We would love to be able to give all of us a copy to keep, but we’ve had a limited print run donated to us, and until we know what sort of demand the book will provoke, we haven’t increased the quantities.

Contributors get first go! (But please get in quick)
Visit handmaderecipebook.com to place a pre-order for your printed copy (printing throughout the month of July) or to order a copy of the PDF. Payment is via secure Paypal shopping, or you can visit your local Homemade committee member to place and pay for your order in person. They won’t last for long, and we’re looking at ways to print more, but it would be wise to reserve your copy before they’re gone!


Homemade: The Handmade Help Recipe Book
Over 100 family recipes from contributors from Australia and overseas
136pp, August 2009

$15 paperback (plus postage); $8 PDF

When you really focus on something...

So I've become obsessed with Peacocks, since I made that peacock for my swap partner, and I was reading the Meet Me At Mikes book, which had a project by Kristen Doran in it. Kristen was one of my Totem artists, so I popped along to her blog to see what she was up to. From that I wandered over to her shop blog to see what she had on offer and right up the top, the very first item I saw, was an embroidery pattern for two peacocks. So I bought one.

It arrived yesterday in the post. God bless the internet for first taking away the need to send letters and then giving us so many more reasons to post things around the country and indeed the world.

At the top is the pattern, and since I'd had a chat to her over email about the aforementioned peacock obsession, she popped in a fat quarter of peacocks in gardens too. How nice was that? I'm so happy, I can't wait to start it. As soon as I finish moving and finish all the other half done projects I'm currently mired in. I see it as a late night telly in front of the heater kind of project. Thanks so much Kristen!

The other thing I've been thinking about a lot lately is the CWA. I've read the 50 years book and asking around, I've got this idea that I'm currently thinking a lot about. I was in a retro shop yesterday and on top of a pile of folded teatowels i saw this

So I opened it up curiously and found this
I didn't buy it, but it made me think of Curlypops and her beautiful aprons made out of retro teatowels. What could be cooler than an apron made out of a CWA tea towel?

Which jsut all goes to prove that if you're thinking really hard about something, it usually turns up in some form or another...


In totally other news, I sent my contrubution off to A Book About Death. It's now on the website, with heaps of other entries. If you're not going to be in New York over Sept/Oct, go check it out online!