… so i was gone a while.

in the interim there was drinking and dancing and camping (i think those are the latest pix in the side bar) and running and tattooing and lots of laughing and far too much message boarding and just a bit of going a bit loopy. pretty average kind of year really

there was a wee bit of knitting, some life drawing - which was fun, will try to upload some - but otherwise not masses of arting/crafting going on. but we’re approaching a bit of a watershed, G starts playgroup in the new year, so i might just be able to snatch some of that stuff i believe they call Free Time.

i’ll be doing a bit of dusting around here, will be moving the furniture about again no doubt (apols in advance for broken pics, links etc.), and hopefully bringing some new craft content to the place. if there’s anyone still out there reading do please say hello

i have a tendency in all areas of life to switch on and off like a light, no happy mediums here. i pick up something new and eat, sleep, breathe it for a few months, then just as suddenly i’ll switch off (usually because something newer and shinier has caught my attention). this flitting from one thing to another leaves huge gaps in the development of my knowledge and skills, but because i want to get into everything up to my neck as soon as possible, the people i look to for guidance and inspiration are generally those people who’ve stuck at it for a long time and developed in a much more rounded way.

(coming to the point, promise) so this leaves me with that ever-familiar feeling that i’m racing to catch up. the world is turning without me and all those incredible projects in my head aren’t getting made. and i get frustrated with all the things that are standing between me and my making time, and that’s when it stops being fun.

i just finished a quilt and my first thought was “okay what next”, in the hope of clearing something off my mental memo board and making some space, without even stepping back and looking at the project i’d just finished. i forget it’s possible to make space between and within projects, that it isn’t a race. that, even though i have a shiny new work room to play with, free time can still be spent away from the sewing machine. that a rounded family life leads to a rounded creative life.

and while being online can be motivating and inspiring, tbh the last damn thing i need right now is any more inspiration, at least until i can check off my half dozen current or imminently pending projects. and reading blogs gives me a serious case of keeping-up-with-the-joneses-itis too, so i’m pledging here to trim my bloglines and spend less random web time too. i doubt any difference will show here tbh, my sporadic drive-by FO posting will continue, hopefully at a sustainable pace.

quilt teaser…

words to follow…

i’ve been out of the loop for a long time. when i’m not in a crafting/blogging phase i don’t read other people’s blogs at all, so i miss all the exciting developments. so i’m sure this is old news to the rest of the world but i’m still squeeing in delight over spoonflower and the possibilities it raises. i’ll be interested to hear more about the inks and durability of the prints as per the comment on this post.

as my brain fizzed with excitement a realisation dawned: i’m not actually that interested in fabric for a purpose, my excitement comes from the fabric itself. i’m not full of ideas for prints that i just can’t find in order to complete that perfect *insert FO here*. when i sew my joy comes from working with (and acquiring, natch) fabrics, rather than the construction of a garment. i suppose that’s why quilting appeals to me so much, as it’s the creation of a new fabric from existing ones. and why i love blankets and tea towels too - there’s nothing standing between you and the fabric. i’m endlessly fascinated by the structure of fabrics, and the techniques and materials used to create them. (oh dear i feel the inevitable pull of a new weaving category again ).

so i think the urge to create fabrics for their own sake - to sit in my cupboard of cloth, neatly folded and beautifully co-ordinated - will be a strong one, that i will need to resist. but oh! the possibilities…

here we are again, flickering back into life (although not flickring, no time to post pics). i’m stupidly busy at the moment, but i can feel an end in sight. we had some work done on the house which entailed moving out for nearly a month and weeks of painting before things can get back into place. but it’s finally coming together at last.

the upshot of all this work is a gloriously peaceful new bedroom (even with piles of bags and half-made furniture it’s pretty calm) and - squee! - a play/work room, which is to be shared, but means i’ll finally have a dedicated place to work. i’m still putting the flatpacks together, but when that’s done i’ll have a proper home for all (i hope!) my materials (it’s a very big cupboard ) instead of everything being stuffed into random nooks and crannies all over the place.

and the prospect of a work space is sparking off all kinds of new projects and ideas. the 365 is still ongoing although i’ve stumbled badly recently, but the fibre and fabric is calling again. so i should finally have blogworthy news.

baby G turned 1 10 days ago. life moves on

i’m still here, despite appearances

i was really hoping to get the chance to reply individually to everyone’s kind comments following the feature on my house quilt at sew mama sew. but since baby G is turning into toddler G at an alarming rate of knots i now have about an hour to myself over the space of a week. she’s totally wobbly and doesn’t have the sense not to hurl herself backwards head first when she loses her balance, so i’m literally hovering behind her ready to catch her most of the time she’s awake.

so here i am at least acknowledging all the comments - and those that trickle in from people who are making/have made bender or boo - it’s so lovely to hear that people are drawing inspiration, no matter how little, from something i’ve done.

click is a bit less dusty than it is around here, although nowadays i’m finding it even harder just to find the time to take a single picture in a day (let alone develop/scan film or write a blog post) i’ve totally forgotten twice in the last fortnight. still, i’m ploughing on with the 365 project. i think i’ll prolly extend it to 365 pictures in total, allowing for the odd gap (3 so far in 120-something days).

grabby hands

it’s such a joy watching a baby turn into a real person. G has just started sitting up and her manual dexterity has correspondingly jumped forward, now there’s no stopping her with her leaning and grabbing. nothing’s safe, she broke her first glass last week.

i’m not sure whether i’ve made my job harder or easier by trying to describe motherhood without including recognisable pictures of the girls. i hope it makes me think more, steers me away from the obvious, the crowd pleasing adorable kid shots (of which i have bucketloads), it certainly makes me try different angles. but i hope their usual absence doesn’t leave too much of an empty space, i’d like to think their constant presence just outside the frame (generally grabbing at the camera) makes itself felt.

spoons

catching up on pictures i took but never posted 6 months ago.

thirty

i remember this being a horrible grey day with much too much walking.

in about a month our second baby is due. while i envy those women who are driven/able to keep working on their own stuff with a very small baby, i’m also very much aware that i’m not one of them. our experience last time (of a very unsettled baby) combined with my understanding of my own limitations tells me that i’m unlikely to be rocking the cradle with one foot while working the sewing machine with the other, or crocheting during feeds. actually the latter sounds more possible, but i think it’s unlikely that i’ll be together enough to be planning projects, yunno. and besides, i want to turn the focus onto being a full-on mum for a while at least.

i have 3 works in progress - one crochet, one knitted, and a quilt - at least 2 of which i hope to have finished before junior arrives, but otherwise i don’t expect to have much craft to show over the next few months. i will undoubtedly still be reading so will probably have links and ideas to post, but my guess is they’ll be sketchy and sporadic.

i do want to keep some kind of momentum going, though, as i’ve found the blog a really valuable motivating factor in pursuing a rewarding crafty side to my life. so i wondered whether a photo diary might be a good low-key project for me during my “break” (ha ).

i really enjoyed the colour week exercise and a single photo a day isn’t too onerous. it’s a good excuse to play with the polaroid (haven’t got my hands on it yet…) as well as the nikon, which i haven’t yet really come to grips with, although it’s turning out some nice pix for me. and while i won’t be posting baby pics as such (cos i feel i have no right to post pix of my kids in a public space until they can give informed consent) i’m sure junior will get his/her share of attention once the camera is out. everyone says you take fewer pics of your second (and subsequent…) so i figure this should level the playing field a little.

now i’m not promising to post a pic every day, but i will try to take one. i understand this totally changes the focus of the blog for the reader - and these days i appear to have quite a few, which alarms me more than it really should - but it’s totally consistent for me as this has always been my journal/notebook for whatever i was pursuing at the time, it just so happened that those interests overlapped in a semi-coherent way. but apologies to those who demand craft content, although i’m sure normal service will be resumed in - oooh - a year or so? perhaps sooner.

and maybe there’s one or two of you out there who are taking first/second steps in learning how to take better pictures who fancy coming along for the ride. (heh, what this post could really do with is a few pictures…)

i was very taken by an interview i heard earlier on the radio 4 arts programme front row with the scottish design team timorous beasties on the history of toile de jouy. they’ve produced modern toile fabrics and wallpapers in the original spirit of social documentary (as opposed to the more recent twee sentimentalism they pin firmly on the victorians). i also love the sound of the casino carpets they’re producing in vegas.

for the next week you can hear the interview here, around 5 mins 30 sec into the programme (link launches bbc radio player).
guardian interview here.

i love my garden, it makes me very happy. it’s repaid many times over the effort that went into planning and building it, even though it’s been sadly neglected over the last few years. it’s also gradually filled with various odds and ends, tiles and bricks, and discarded kitchen utensils, that might be planted, or used in planters at some unspecified future point. personally i feel it adds to the charm, to the feeling of a victorian garden gone to seed. even though the only things that are as we found them 5 years ago are the boundary walls/fences, shed and washing line, parts of it look as though they’ve been here forever.

we did all of the work of breaking concrete, laying paving, mixing mortar and building walls ourselves. we had an optimistic plan of work that had us sipping g&ts on the patio on day 10

we used reclaimed slates and tiles and handmade bricks throughout. the tiles are the victorian ones used in all the houses around here - we have them on our dining room and hall floors, not as extravagant as the colourful encaustic ones in the bigger houses, but easier to live with i think. my textile fetish shows a little in the variety of patterns incorporated in the brick and tilework everywhere. i deliberately planned the paving where possible to be porous - to conserve water and to allow mosses and other plants to seed in the gaps. this worked a treat although the recent dry weather isn’t seeing them at their best. to echo this we laid fireplace tiles in the paving gaps in the section nearest the house - i figured then something would always be green in the garden. it’s planted partly for produce - we have an appple tree, rhubarb, grape vine (which had grapes last year! a single miniature bunch, about 3 inches long ) and a succession of various herbs, most notably rosemaries which grow like a weed around here. the remainder of the plants are mainly what i think of as typically victorian - ferns, ivy (which does it’s own thing, but i actively encourage it in places), honeysuckle, lilac, many different clematis, jasmine and roses. there is an oversized white/pink rambler that grows over the pergola and shed that blooms at my birthday, only for a few weeks but prolifically. nearer the house we have a few plants with a spikier, almost tropical feel.

when we took out the previous plants, many of which were well established i wanted to replicate the shady corner down by the shed created by a large (unidentified) shrub. so we put in the (now rusted, natch) pergola, with a permanent seat underneath. this is such a wonderful place to be, now the mosaic of scented plants have grown over it. there’s room to put a table and chairs or spread out a blanket on the tiles, and it’s totally secluded and calm.

M has her own amenities too - a sandpit and playhouse, the latter rather grudgingly at the expense of my little camomile lawn which had begun to establish itself well. we even have space for a decent sized compost heap, which goes back into planters and raised beds twice a year (or when i remember…). we’re totally organic, with a healthy and varied insect population, although most years we seem to get a plague of some sort - last year it was caterpillars, the year before aphids, and we’re constantly battling slugs, hence the copper tape on the planters which is patinating beautifully.

more pix.

i just wanted to post a quick roundup and thanks to julie for the chance to play. it’s introduced me to a whole slew of new blogs and given me the motivation to go out and take pictures just for the hell of it (even completely exhausted, the challenge moved me out of my early bed to get the day’s shot). it’s made a refreshing change from documenting either my crafts or my family life, which is what i do most of the time. i love just making pictures, they’re never going to be groundbreaking or really say anything, but when i get it right i find them pleasing. they’re quiet and i like that.

and i just have to mention maditi who i found through this challenge (flickr | blog). i’ve mentioned before my love for weird and wonderful cameras and film formats with their quirky characteristics and atmospheric colour casts. maditi, who works in a variety of formats, not least polaroid, just excels at exploiting this so perfectly. i don’t think i’ve seen a single one of her pictures i wouldn’t hang on my wall to keep looking at for years. happily you can buy signed prints, posters and postcards of her polaroids in her etsy shop.

and now i’m off to find out what the web has to say on the sx-70

where have my pictures gone?

it looks like a glitch with the gallery plugin - normal service will be resumed very soon i hope!

UPDATE: all better now
A change up at flickr broke our Falbum wordpress plugin - if you have a similar problem, see here for the (simple when you know how) fix — Dick

colour week.

you could be forgiven for getting totally the wrong impression about the amount of housework i do.

colour week.

laundry.
colour week.

fresh new apple leaves in the garden.

colour week.

my favourite party dress.

a little murky, but i only found out about colour week with the fading light.

this book is taking over my life, i swear.

ginger cakes (you use the syrup from the stem ginger in the icing).
new york cheesecake. luckily the inlaws arrived and helped reduce it to these (just about manageable) proportions.