Awesomely exciting exhibition opportunity !

OOO people! There's a seriously exciting thing happening on the other side of the world! The awesome guys at Stitch London have organised STITCHED SCIENCE, where people can send in their knitted/crocheted/sewn science items. Dinosaurs, Bunsen burners, rocketships, skeletons, whatever you can think of that has a science theme. 


How awesome is that? 

I'm sending in my heart and brain... What would you make? 


You can find out more about the whole thing here.


Come play with science!

Have yourself a merry handmade christmas...

Finally all my christmas presents have been received, so I can share them with the world! Buying handmade is a wonderful idea, but making handmade for those you love is so warmingly satisfying as well.

I made up a number of hampers that included homemade chutney and treats, and a few of the hampers had some crafty presents as well. After learning the magic of the crochet star chain, I made a number of them including this rainbow one for a special family.

Continuing the crochet theme, I wanted to make some wine bottle cozies for several people as well.

 

And last but not least, some dolls. Firstly, a Alice bunny girl for a special little girl.


and due to a relatively new in-joke about russian Babushka dolls between a sister and I, here is her Babushka  on the left and her partners' matching-but-talored-to-his-favourite-film Babushka on the right. 

Peg Dolls

As part of of my teaching degree, we had to go to an excursion venue and then make a presentation about it in a little Expo at uni.

We chose Sovereign Hill and headed out there, it was a fantastic day filled with heaps of cool things to do and see. For those of you who don't know, Sovereign Hill is a small historic village constructed entirely to mimic the goldrush times in rural Victoria. If you ever have the chance to check it out, do so! There were a number of old and beautiful crafts on display including knitting, quilt making, embroidery, blacksmithing and more.

When we were putting together our display for the expo, I decided I wanted to make a little craft station where people could make peg dolls. I remember making them when I was small, and about half the students remembered them too, so it was a great nostalgic thing to do. A couple of students who swore they couldnt sew to save themselves had a go and were really pleased with the results!

This is the writeup that went with the activity:

Toys and games in the past

The tradition of making dolls out of wooden clothes pegs comes from a time when most families had little money to spend on things like toys. During the 19^th Century, peg dolls were very popular, even among the rich. One of the best-known collections of these belonged to the young Queen Victoria, but because they were relatively cheap, they were well within the reach of even the poorest families. Remnant shops often sold fabric scraps which were sometimes a floral design, or off cuts from curtains, rolled into bundles and sold for 1/2d. These scraps were then lovingly sewn by hand by the children into clothing for their peg dolls. Some families made them into peddler dolls adding little trinkets to the finished doll and sold them for pennies on the street.

Suggested activity: Make a peg doll

You will need:

• A wooden 'dolly' type peg
• A pipe cleaner
• Scraps of material and wool
• Scissors, glue, sharpie pens

Wind the middle of pipe cleaner a few times around the peg just below the 'neck'. Bend out the two ends to make arms, and twist the ends under to make hands. Wrap the material around the peg to make clothing and glue down. Glue the wool on for hair and draw a face with the sharpies.

This can be done as part of a 'history of toys' lesson, or a 'clothing of the past' lesson or simply a fun activity during the goldmining unit.

Below is three peg dolls made during the expo. You have a serving girl to the left, a convict man in the middle and a lady to the right. All in all a fun and highly successful activity to do!

Cute crafts and exciting craft book news

Friends of mine have an adorable daughter who turned one on the weekend, so a present was in order! Her favourite hairstyle is what my mother used to refer to as Whalespouts, and since she's so horribly cute, I figured I'd continue my grandmother's tradition and make her a portrait doll.




I loved the upside down bows and the heart. And her parents recognised it instantly as a portrait doll, which is always heart warming!

In other, exciting news, Garth Johnson (of Extreme Craft) long awaited book 1000 Ideas for Creative Reuse is almost here! Featuring a bunch of artists and their crafts from totally reused materials. I'm in it, somewhere, so grab a copy when it's released, or preorder it from Amazon... EEE!!!!

When you have the day off...

When it's no longer raining outside,

(another prop for Everything Will Be Ok, our Fringe puppet show. More details here, from the Fringe website)

When the sun is shining and it's the weekend, the wearing of loudly patterned clothing is required, to announce to the world that you are indeed on your day off.

Items such as the following is approprate:

This was made by Becclebee of Marjory Jane from an old 60s curtain she found in an op shop. How good is the material? It closes with a wrapping motion to the front of the skirt, which is decorated with buttons Becclebee inherited from our grandmother. It's an awesome pattern that she copied from a skirt she bought in Nepal. I'm a big fan of the skirt and the pattern, which is why I've ended up with it. Becclebee and I have a continuous flowing wardrobe between us.

And once you've annouced to the world, all day, that you're having the day off, what could be better than cooking yourself a delicious dinner? Because I wanted to try something new, I turned to the Handmade Help recipe book, and picked the Butter Chicken recipe from Karen Roberts (page 60 for those of you who already have the book).

The dinner turned out beautifully, and I'm really happy with it! I added in mushrooms and tofu, because I'm such a fan, but the recipe base is awesome. I'm not going to tell you how I made it however, the whole book, stuffed full of loving family recipes, will only cost you $20 from the website, and you'll also be supporting a good cause. All profits from the book go to the victims of this years bushfires. So go buy one and then you'll have the ability to make these wonderful family recipes for yourself.

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.

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

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

One Lovely Blog award

I got tagged by Tracy from Dust of Enchatment with the One Lovely Blog Award. How nice is that?

The rules are:

1. Accept the award, post in your blog together with the name of the person or people who gave
it to you an a link to their blog.
2. Pass the award to other 15 blogs that you have newly discovered.
3. Contact the bloggers you award to let them know that they were chosen.

So I guess it's sorta chain mail but without the badness consequences. I'm happy to pass that on! I've chosen 6 out of the millions of blogs out there... So without further ado, My One Lovely Blog Awards go to (ohh! I feel I should be in a glittery dress and have a golden envelope!)

1. Ethel Loves Fred
2. Marjory Jane
3. Little Brown Sparrow
4. Clutterpunk
5. Tinniegirl
6. Veronica Darling


Congratulations lovely crafters, I think your blogs are wonderful :)

craft book quicky

Surely the whole of the Australian internet craft community know of the great and wonderful Pip Lincoln and her Meet Me At Mikes - store, blog and book. Plus, she runs Brown Owls, a crafty community who come together to make, eat, drink and be happy, of which I am a proud member. Pip is one of those community hubs, like the middle of a spider web, who connects so many people with each other. So it's no surprise that her first book is another example of her skill in that. It brings together 25 crafters from her community to share cute and easy projects for people to make.

Her project is a How To of granny squares, which she has been doing on her blog as well, and hosting the Granny A Day I was talking to her at a Brown Owls meeting a while ago and she was telling me that she set out to learn how to granny square for the book. That's commitment!

Of course, it was through Brown Owls and Pip that I learned to crochet, and thus made the rug I've just finished.

But back to the book. Although I have a number of pattern, tutorial and How To books, usually I only talk about the craft theory kinds of books. But Pip's book fits into my world view on crafts for her introduction, which jsut reiterates the fact that anyone can do it. And that's always been something that's attracted me to the craft world. It's so encouraging and supportive and is all about sharing tips, tricks and knowledge. Pip writes "Making is one of life's great joys. The sweet simplicity of producing something with your own hands is pretty unbeatable... You don't need lots of experience. You don't need to be an artist... You don't need to spend lots of money or have heaps of equipment either.(p7) And that's so true.

The project part of the book showcases crafty types such as Johanna Monte Aranez of One Red Robin, Shannon Lamden of Aunty Cookie fame, Gemma Jones of Kaotic Kraft Kuties and Totem artist Kirsten Doran and if you're looking for a project book of cute things to make, I'd suggest this one to be at the top of your list!

craft finds

One of the things I like is coming across craft in the world outside. Not in shops, where you expect to find it, but in other capacities, like decorations, memorials, utalities, whatever. It makes me happy to come across craft that someone has made and is using for a purpose. And that happened this weekend. Jude and I were at a retirement village for a presentation and on the wall was this:



I went in for a closer inspection, and found it was a stain glass tree with leaves inscribed with names. A little framed printout on the wall explained that this was commissioned from one of the resident's sons as a commemoration and thank you for people who had significantly contributed to the retirement village.



After the ceremony, they had tea and cakes and scones, made by one of the residents. I watched the lady behind the counter spread jam from a big bowl on each of the scones, which had also been clearly made by someone at the home. It was heartwarming to watch.

And earlier that day we had gone to a cafe for breakfast and hanging on the door was one of the best open/closed signs I've seen:

I love finding craft out in the wide world...

Updated photo

It's not finished, so that's why there's a couple of ends hanging off it still, but I'm impressed on how big it's getting, so I figured I'd share it with you. I've run out of wool (again) so I'm waiting until I can get back to the store. I've lost count how many balls are in it, but by now, it takes about 1/2 a ball or more per circut/row.

Post inspired by the amazing Gemmipop's finished Granny Rug, which you can admire at the Meet Me At Mikes blog here.

Rock on with the granny craftin!

craft quicky pics

I found my camera cord again, I swear, I'm gunna superglue it to my computer or something. So here's some things I've finished since I last saw it.

To the right is a pink and white crocheted dolls blanket I made for my niece's birthday. I was really happy with it, only took me a couple of nights to crochet.

Below is a photo from the shoot I've just worked on, I have to say, after all this time I still love the magic of film. That infront of you is a huge pile of lights and cables and people and gaffa tape marking spots and a big stack of props jsut around the corner, but you look at the monitor and see what the camera is seeing and it's always so beautiful. There's something about the way the film camera sees things that's always magical.





And the last thing I'll show you today is a embroidery work that my grandmother did when she was 16 that I inherited. I'm packing a bunch of stuff into storage for a while so I wanted to photograph it while it could still see the light of day. Nan was always fond of the 1800 style of huge dresses, and obviously it was a life long fondness!

I love imaginations

Hello!

I am going to re-iterate the title, because it is so true. I LOVE imaginations! And I'm going to tell you the story of what happened the other day.

Some background information: One of the many jobs I have is working on the record days for Deal or No Deal (ok, so I outed myself, but this is such a lovely thing I want to tell you that I have to explain it) In Deal, people play against the banker, Walter P Smythe. No one's ever seen him, or talked to him, but he's the guy who makes the monetary offers to the contestants. This is the first fact you need to know.

The second is that often people in the audience want to stand out from the crowd so that they up their chances of being picked as a contestant. And this often involves craft. Sometimes they'll be wearing home made tshirts that say DEAL with either NO DEAL on the back or on the chest of the person next to them. Sometimes they make posters with glitter and textas, a lady even once made a briefcase cake with a little host sitting on it (see right). It was an awesome job, and not only that, but it tasted amazing too! People come up with no end of ideas to grab attention, some more successful than others.

Now I'm telling you all this for a reason, and it's not just to parade around how cool craft is. The other day there was a 20something man in the audience with 2 little things pinned to his shirt. Curious, I went for a closer look, and found two little Lego guys safety pinned to his shirt, one on each side. One was a little guy in a suit holding a briefcase, again it was the host, and the other was this guy at the left. I know it's hard to see, I only ever have my phone on me as a camera and the light's often bad, but it's a little grimacing guy holding a $100 bill in each hand, and wearing a little waistcoat that has more $100 bills stuffed in the pocket. It was this man's version of Walter, the banker. And for some reason, that made me ridiculously happy. That someone had spread a bunch of lego out (probably not all his lego, he told me he was a collector) and carefully put together his image of the banker. And that made me realise that imagination is manifest in many different ways, and that people create with whatever their interested in.

And that made me stupidly happy. And then the fact that someone had come in with two little lego guys pinned to his shirt had made me happy also made me happy.

And if you followed that, you'll understand that I'm a simple girl, really.

holidays are so nice

So we went on holiday. A 3 day whirlwind tour of the antique stores and wineries of Tasmania. Weirdly enough, with lots of craft.

First antique store we stopped in, I found this:

I've never seen an old crochet hook. Loads of old needles, and loads of those hook-y things for latch rugs, but never an old crochet hook. So I bought it, and it was exactly the size of the one I was using to crochet the rug with, so I swapped over. The rug is getting huge, it's got about 6 balls of wool in it. I've got 3 more of each colour and then I'm hoping it's done. It takes so much wool!

In Hobart's funky arts and crafts region, I found these awesome needle felted owls in the window of a closed shop:I love the expression on their faces! Makes me want to start needle felting right away! But I'm already working on several projects for different exhibitions and theatre shows and I jsut can't pile on any more. But I SO wish I had time!

We also found this in a gallery:
Machine quilted artworks. I love the textures, and the range of colours!
At Port Arthur, there was an interactive museum and in it was a schoolroom. At one end were these:Apparently when an overseer of the young boys would fall asleep on duty it was not unusual for the urine bucket to be emptied over their heads. This was the modern day, genteel approach, you were encouraged to throw beanbags at these guys. Unfortutanly someone had nicked all the beanbags, so instead I took photos. They're filled with bean bag pellets and they have painted faces.


And lastly was this. A machine stitched Duck in a small folk museum in a tiny Dalesford like town. The whole thing is created by machine stitching. I was blown away. Imagine trying to stick the duck's body under your machine foot! Ok, well, it was probably stitched flat then assembled, but still it's pretty damn impressive.

There was also an amazing quilt in four huge panels done by the YARN collective, which was four different vistas in different seasons of the town. It was really beautiful.

These things were double the height of a tall man. I know, because there was a tall man standing next to it at one stage. The amount of work was mind boggling, and it's now there in the folk museum for generations to come. It's mainly silk!

The frustrating part was that we were there at the same time that an old trio of people were there, and although there were stern signs not to use FLASH photography, these guys happily flashed everything they wanted to photograph. The lights in the special theatre/veiwing room were bright enough that you could photograph without flash, but they kept doing it. Even going way close up to photograph individual things POP the flash would go. Now, firstly, you're jsut going to blow out the image with flash that close, secondly you dont need flash, the lighting is good enough and thirdly, you were asked a number of times before you entered, NOT TO USE FLASH, because it'll slowly fade and thus destroy the very thing you're Ohhing and Ahhing over.

People boggle the mind at times.

There was also much wine tasting (not so much for the driver, of course) and then wine buying, cheese tasting, buying and eating and in between, some lunches, dinners and breakfasts. And much coffee.

And can I just say that, as a vegetarian, going on holiday anywhere that's not Melbourne or Sydney kinda sucks in the food department. Room service on the second hotel had NOTHING without meat in it, and most of the restaurants and cafes we walked into (and then back out of) had one to none veggie dishes. We had a nice time, but it's nice to be home where the food is good, plentiful and actually able to be eaten.

Thus endth that rant.
For now.

Gran-gran-grannying along

Last night I went to my first Brown Owls meeting! I know, I know, it's May already and I've not been to any yet (apart from the very first meet-and-greet one) but I've been so darn busy. But they had a Granny Square lesson, so I signed up. I turned up to the Carlton Library, biscuits and wool clutched in hand, and off we went.

There were some lovely ladies there, I don't know which blogs they own, but I found out about the ladies themselves. There were 2 Special Ed teachers (I couldn't see their nametags because of the angle I was on), a primary school teacher at a Stiner school named Kate, a children's book publisher (again I missed her name) and another lady, Sophie, who worked in TV as a floor manager and camera operator. There were some other ladies but they were further down the table and I didn't get to talk to them.

I found it fascinating that the jobs I did learn of are all sort of nurturing or creative. And don't get me wrong, I'm sure accountants and lawyers craft too, but it was so lovely to sit in a room full of lovely ladies and craft along.

Cheers to the wonderful Pip and Kirsty who took the time to show us how to Granny Square. Although I'd sort of taught myself from YouTube, it was good to have someone show me how the hell to hold the yarn and hook (I was doing a weird thing involving all the wrong hands) and how to go from row to row, which I'd sort of worked out myself but it seemed to be spiralling out rather than the nice neat squares you're used too.

To the right is my granny square. I crocheted to the outter gray row at the meeting, then came home and did some more. I love learning new things, but it's always a danger to other work I've got going on. Artwork A (it's still a secret) went by the wayside as I started on Artwork B for an exhibition, which has been sidelined as I crochet this granny square. I need more hours in each day dammit!

Nerdy obsession?

On the weekend I attended a fancy dress party with the theme of Nerdy Obsessions. In between the storm troopers, star trek uniforms, miriad of Dr Who's and random Lord of the Rings characters, there was one girl in blue jeans, knitted cardigan, with beanie, scarf and clutching double pointed needles which had the beginnings of another project on them. Who would have thought that I would have met another girl knitting at a party? I went up excitedly and asked her what she was making, which turned out to be a matching beanie to the one she was wearing, which she'd finished that afternoon. We had a quick chat about knitting in general and then suddenly, a horrifing thought dawned on me.

"Did you bring your knitting because you carry it around or because it's a nerdy obsession?"

She grinned and said, "Because it's a nerdy obsession."

My heart sank. Not only because craft is kind of a nerdy obsession, but also because inbetween all the geeks chatting to each other about their favourite star wars villian and arguing about the best Bab 5 episode ever, that I'd spotted a knitter and rushed over to talk about knitting in exactly the same way. Also, because I had my knitting in the car purely because I carry it around to do when there's a couple of minutes of downtime.

Needless to say, Jude found the whole thing hilarious.

I sat down for a minute and then decided that if she could knit at the party, then I'd go get my knitting and do it too.

After a couple of hours we decided to leave, so I packed up my knitting and started the rounds of goodbyes. I went up to the young craft lady and asked her how many rows she'd done. She replied that she'd been mostly talking so not many.

I'd been talking all night, and still did 47 rows.

Sighs.

Never mind. We all have our obsessions.

Speaking of which, I'm most of the way through No Idle Hands, the social history of knitting in America. It's an awesome book and I've really enjoyed reading it. There was a quite a lot on pioneer women and children, and necessity knitting, blankets, stockings ect, and how during the Civil War and then again during the first world war, it was considered a lady's duty to knit as many socks, jumpers, helmets (balaclavas), scarves and mittens for the boys overseas. It was all the rage to hold Knitting Teas where all the ladies sat around and chatted while knitting. Aside from those nation-wide orgainsed knit-ins, it also talks about fairs and markets where knitting and craft work was sold, usually for charity, and how after the families needs were met, that ladies often got together to create things for those less fortuntate than themselves. Just like in Pollyanna, Ladies Aid societies sprung up all around the country.

Although it's strictly an American History book, I do think that a lot of it would be true for Australian women too, and reading it only feeds my desire to find out more about Australian craft history.

busy knittin' up a storm

I know people flock to Ravelry, and I have considered it, but my understanding is that you log in and list all your wool and all the patterns you want to knit.

My problem is that I don't work that way. I have 6 clear plastic tubs of wool and yarn organised according to colour, but there's only ever one or two balls of each and I never know what brand they are. This is because I buy most of my yarn from op shops, at 50c or so a ball.

On the up side, it's cheap and I always find interesting wool you can't find in shops, but on the down side you can't knit whole jumpers or anything because there's really only ever one or two balls of the same type. But since I really only knit little dolls, 1 ball of wool will do anywhere from one doll to many, depending on what I'm knitting. So really, that's another up side.

It's all coming up Milhouse...

Plus, I never knit patterns. This is partly because my ability to read patterns is only slightly better than my ability to read music. Playing anything on piano via reading music comes out all stilted and the musical equivalent of SEE JANE, SEE JANE RUN, RUN JANE RUN. But mostly it's because I think of something to knit and then knit it. I don't need a pattern to know how to knit a burlesque girl, and I think I'd be hard pressed to find one. I just make it up as I go along, and then I keep bowling along.

I'm telling you all this for a reason. Which appears to be that I've jsut finished knitting a number of doll prototypes for this semester's Knitting Club workshop which I'm quite happy with, but more details of that soon. I then ran out of things to knit breifly, so I'm now halfway through knitting a little pirate (currently he's naked and sans his rowboat, so I can't put photos up yet. This is a family show after all.) and I'm also finally finishing off the Vampira and the Medusa I knitted a while ago.

Again, no photos at this stage due to the highly technical reason that I've misplaced my camera cord. But soon my pretties, soon.

Until then, check out about the cutest thing I've seen in a while, which I found through a google image search of MEDUSA to check her regular facial expression for the doll.

I present to you How to have mythological children:

I found it here, but no details as to who did it or anything. But how cool is that! And such a serious expression on the child's face.

Rockin thing to go out on tonight, don't you think?

So you blink and another week goes by

I can't believe it's Thursday already!

Tuesday night I went as a proud new Brown Owl to the first meet of the year at Dante's. Brown Owls, for those of you not in the know, is a crafty meetup organised by the amazing and lovely Pip from Meet Me At Mikes.

It was so lovely to be in a big room packed full of crafty types. In my own circle of friends I don't have a lot of crafty people, so it's lovely to be able to meet many, many others. We met, chatted, had a drink or two and also managed to pack over 100 Re-Stash packs for the bushfire victims. That's being organised by the lovely guys at Handmade Help.

I also handed in two of the dolls I've made for the kids in need up there. These are they at right (poetry! pure poetry :) They look a little weird in the photo, but they're really cute in real life. I was really happy with them.

Today I posted my craft swap for Susan at Isabella Golightly. The swap was my first, and lots of fun to make! I can't wait for her to get it, and then I can post photos here.

And finally, I found this call out in a newsletter from the Bundoora Homestead
May 14 - May 24 2009
Art in a Teacup
Artists and craftspeople are invited to make and donate an art work inspired by the ritual of tea making and drinking as part of The Cancer Council’s Biggest Morning Tea Fund Raiser. The exhibition includes paintings, drawings, ceramics and the indispensable items necessary for any tea party - tea cosies and tea towels! All works are for sale and the proceeds donated to The Cancer Council Victoria. Please note the afternoon tea party will now be held at Bundoora Homestead at 2.00pm on Saturday 16 May 2009. http://www.bundoorahomestead.com/pages/show/3

I thought that it sounds like fun. So I'm currently knitting a teacup. I love how so often I have about a million ideas in the back of my head that I haven't gotten around to doing and then I'll see a competitionor call out that one of those ideas will fit perfectly into and everything falls into place. When one is so busy, it's much better to have an actual goal to work towards rather than producing heaps of work that just lies around gathering dust. I know that a lot of people make work specifically to sell on etsy or in shops, and that's totally fine, but I'd rather create for specific things.

Having said that, I've just this minute been commissioned! I answered a call out from Arts Hub for 2d work on the heart, so I sat down and created Contradictory, Corresponding (at your right) and sent it in. I've just got an email back to say they want it for their gallery! Thats so ace.

Jude and I have a tradition that when either of us gets a new job (or commission, gig or any other money making adventure) that we go have a cocktail to celebrate. I'm a big fan of cocktails, there's something wonderfully vintage about them. And I'm currently wearing a vintage 50s dress, so I think that just further indicates that it's totally cocktail time!

Must dash :)