My Creative Space

What with the (currently stalled) Knit Along, and this lot 'ere, I am behind in the Bead Journal Project.  But I feel an urge to bead returning and will catach up sometime soon!

I finally had some time, and some courage, to pop into Open Drawer (see last post) and hopefully they might be able to sell some of my things.  And I was asked to make some more things, which I took in at the start of the week.  These are they - my creative space for the last couple of weeks:





Patchwork scarf - a variety of yarns of completely different textures and weights, with some of (now specially named) Mazey Patchwork on the bottom.  Because I was running out of time (this was the last one I finished) most of the embroidery on that was done on the tram, the train and in the Melbourne Central food court at lunchtime.  It got a few weird looks, but who cares!





The first of two feral hats.  This one has some of the ends pulled out through the top and tied with big beads.  It is a floppy tam-o-shanter type of hat.





The other feral hat.  Again floppy.  This time the ends are like a fringe down the back seam.






This blue hat is what you do when you find half a scrumbled hat and don't have the time to finish making it properly.  You knit a tube, using a hat block and pins to judge how long it needs to be, then you carefully sew down the scrumbling to the tube.  Add an extra row of stitching underneath the scrumbling (repetition, and tying the design together) and hey presto!





Simple scarf knitted lengthways in a variegated yarn, and some crocheted bits sewn down in a viney pattern (plus I needlefelted the long ends of theyarn in a similar pattern).  Finished off with Suffolk Puffs and cute buttons.






The final, blue, scarf, knitted lengthways and the ends turned into a feral fringe.  They were lightly needlefelted crossways for the first third or so of their length, so hold them together but still keep them defined as separate yarns, and then I sewed buttons and beads all over the ends of the actual knitting and the start of the fringe.

These were fun to make, and all my own designs.  Currently working on a prototype new design which I might try to sell through my new Made It Shop.

For more yummy, inspirational Creative Spaces, pop over here.

Me-Made-June Whenever It Was...

I have been a bad blogger.  I did finish Me-Made-June without any duplications, though I only made one item instead of two.  But I haven't felt like blogging recently.  Now ... I'M BAAACCKKKK...

Because it was a while ago, I can't remember which day I wore these things, but I did have them marked down as the last week of MMJ so here goes.



Good old Entre Chien et Loup!

This brooch was part of my Graduate Exhibition for my Diploma.  This is a shocking picture!  I take terrible pictures of my work :(  It was part of a set called Full Fathom Five and is meant to look like coral and seaweed and pearls (those are seed pearls that were his eyes!)

This cowl is the one I blogged about earlier and, because it took me an unneccessarily long time to finish it, counts as the one thing I made in June, to wear in June.  It is the Tilting Tardis cowl from Revelry (too lazy to look up) made from a Wendy sock yarn that is mostly bamboo and is silky and soft.  It is meant to be buttoned up.  When I was sewing in the ends I used them to sew up the seam without thinking, and then, as I could get it on over my head, just left it be!

A ubiquitous Clapotis of much Knitty and bloggy fame.  I made mine longer and narrower to wear it as a scarf.  It is one of the few things I have ever knitted in the recommended yarn, splashing out of Lorna's Laces Lion and Lamb, if that;s what it's called?  Anyway it is utterly luscious and I wear it a lot.

A pair of Jaywalker socks knitted in , I think, a Regia wool-cotton blend.  Again too lazy to find a link.  Hey, it's taken me over two weeks to write this post at all!

And that, I think, finished Me-Made-June.  It was fun but towards the end I got a bit distracted, at least in terms of recording it, as must be pretty obvious.  Sometimes life you actually have just gets in the way of the life you want to have.  That's happening a lot at the moment.

On a lighter note - I have just formed a hopefully fruitful relationship with the gorgeous textile art shop Open Drawer  (to which I obviously can be bothered linking!).  Whether they actually sell any of my work remains to be seen but at least they were willing to give it a go.  And that has given me a bit of a kick in the pants to do some other stuff.  I have had a couple of Etsy shops at various times, and set up the framework of a MadeIt shop earlier in the year, but have never really achieved anything with them.  I am inspired to start all over again with a new name, new goods, and, well, watch this space!!!

My Creative Space

I haven't done a Knit Along (KAL) for yonks, and in fact I don't think I have ever finished one really!  This one attracted me because of its freeform, oddball nature.  See Jane Thornley's site here to see what it is about, and while you are there, have a browse - even if you don't knit, or don't like stuff like hers, the site is a riot of colour and texture and FUN!!!

From top to bottom - the collection of yarns that I grabbed to make the freeform vest - mostly purples with touches of greens and other colours.  And a variety of textures, too.  I may not use them all, but I like to pick a palette and work from it, picking them out from the pile as I go.

The first couple of inches - a chenille yarn (from Lincraft I think - most of these yarns have been maturing in the stash for quite a while, and not many are complete balls) and moss stitch.  Jane recommends moss stitch (only she calls in seed stitch) as good foundation stitch because it adds strength to the overall construction, and I have to say that I like that idea.

And then more progress.  As you can see I moved on from the chenille yarn to a bit of leftover Lincraft Prism, to some stuff I picked up in the Bendigo Woollen Mills backroom years ago with a boucle thread in black and brightly coloured slubby stuff wound in with it.  And in that picture you can barely see it, as I had only knitted about two rows, but now I am using remnants of a yarn I spun and dyed myself several years ago, which will make up the rest of the back.  I am almost up to the neckline now and will post more progress pictures next week.

To see more creative spaces, please pop over here for a riot of colour and amusement.

Me-Made-June Week 3

Another chilly week.  But not quite as bad as last week!  It did however start with a scarf.

This is knitted from Lincraft Prism and is 70% wool and 30% soysilk.  The pattern is from Knitted Shawls, Stoles and Scarves by Nancie Wiseman and it can be knitted either as a shawl (my MIL has a lovely pink and purple one) or a scarf.

I had to get my favorite glass brooch in somewhere this month!

Then it was a wet day and I had to catch the tram to work, which means walking through a park (which is pretty at sunrise, but gives you wet feet), and so I wore waterproof shoes and carried office shoes in the felted bag I made for Me-Made-May. 

This brooch, made some years ago, sits on the lapel of a designer denim blazer that I bought in an op shop about the same time that I made the brooch. 

A cold Sunday meant hand knitted socks.  These are Jaywalkers knitted in a mixture of wool and cotton.

I've worn very little of my own jewellery this month, mostly because I have had the perfect opportunity to wear the handknits!!  But I did wear these green and blue coralled earrings.

And finally, as Arctic blasts assailed Melbourne, I wore my Fetchings, knitted from the same Prism yarn as the scarf at the start of this post.

I haven't been doing My Creative Spaces for the last couple of weeks, because of the planning and photographing, etc, of Me-Made-June.  but I am going to this week, because I am participating in a KAL (Knit-along, for those who are wondering) and I want to show some progress pictures, and it's pretty much what I have been working on all week.

Me-Made-June Week 2

It has been a cold and mostly wet week in Melbourne, so it's been all about the handknits.  First off the rank, beautiful underwater colours in Noro Kureyon in a vest.  This was knitted to a Patons pattern for Zhivago but is obviously a bit different - less drapey but much more beautiful.  I use a fake kilt pin to pin it together - fake because it came with a cheapy cardigan years ago and has fake diamantes on it, I think any self-respecting kilt would give it a Glasgow Kiss!

I got over the whole noveltry yarn phase a LONG time ago but I do seem to have hung onto this bluish fluffy thing, and it was quite nice on a bitterly cold morning. 



I made this scarf as a project when I was studying for my Diploma of Textile Art.  The brief was to do something with grapes.  I made this scarf!  The grapes are large, faceted acrylic beads, and there are knitted leaves needlefelted onto the crocheted scarf with twining vines, and dangly bits. 

Then it was Casual Friday, and a long weekend, and it wasn't a warm one at that.  So socks and an old jumper were very comfortable.  These are an Opal with a silver thread running through them, giving them a subtle glitz.

These two pairs are scrappy socks, made from leftovers from all the other socks I make.  I like scrappy socks!

And last but not least, an old favorite.  This is an old Rowan kit inspired by the Bayeux Tapestry, and I love it.  It is thick and heavy and warm and, by now, going slightly felted.  I started it a year before Baby Bear came along, and she is about to be 18.  (I finished it about six months after she arrived - there were periods in the middle when the brain couldn't cope!)

Bead Journal Project May

I actually finished this just after the end of May but it was inevitable that I would fall at least slightly behind at some stage!

This was a lot more planned than April's and I actually think I prefer the more spontaneous look.  Though I am pleased with this, certainly.

The face is such a pretty, delicate one (from my collection bought from various vendors, sorry I can't acknowledge your beautiful work) that I wanted to use a similarly delicate found object with it.  And not to biuld up beads around the face like I usually do, but just to do one round.  the found object is a piece of fine wire that I found lying around that I twisted randomly.  When I had finished I decided that it looked vaguely like dragonfly wings and I thought of the creature from Pan's Labyrinth and that sort of informed what I was making.

It is finished with the usual encrusted edge. 

Me-Made-June Week 1

So starteth Me-Made-June.  I upped the ante a little from Me-Made-March by vowing to try not to repeat any hand-made-by-me accessories or clothes during the month, and by making two new things to wear.  No repeats so far in the first week!  There may be some in the next few days as it is really cold now and the vest I am wearing today is very cosy, but I will only count it once and wear another things with it on the days I repeat it.

This scarf was made during MMM, I think, as was the one I wore later on in the week.  They are just lengths of chiffon zig-zagged around the edges to provide a quick and easy wardrobe boost.  I wore this with a green top slightly lighter than the olivey green leaves, and black trousers.

Day 2 saw these earrings, made from seed beads with a chip of Venetian glass at the top of each one.  The colours aren't great in this photo but they are all autumnal reds and greens and browns and oranges.  I can't remember what colour top I wore them with but I know I wore black trousers (well, I often do!)

Friday is Casual Day at work and I wore this Samurai Shirt that I made years ago.  So long ago that it was a lot of kilos ago, too.  Consequently it is rather too big.  I don't often get to say that!  I am going to try and insert a few discreet darts to make it slightly more shapely.  If I do manage to do that appropriately and soon, I will count it again for wearing this month because it will be, sort of, new/refashioned.  It's made in a blinding batik print that I picked up in Spotlight years ago.  It got me lots of compliments, which was nice!  Worn with black jeans for contrast.

The weekend was quite cold, so I wore handknitted socks both days.  These ones are a pretty stripy Opal I bought in Wangaratta one year, in a pattern of my own design - a very easy one admittedly, toe-up socks with the leg bit in feather-and-fan.  Because they are knitted from the toe-up, the feather-and-fan is upside down, which makes it a bit different.  (To say nothing of noice, and unusual...)

Sunday's socks were made from a wool and cotton mix, maybe Opal, maybe something else, I can't remember, but in pretty pastels.  Actually, you'd never guess they were clean, looking at them, I must have worn them in wet boots at some point and because they are so pale the bottoms stained!

And yesterday the idea was to wear this scarf with a white top, charcoal grey skirt and a new cardigan.  But it clashed with the cardigan (which looked great with the skirt - a printed lace-like pattern in dark beige on a cream background, and trimmed with lace and diamante buttons, which sounds awful but looked very pretty - this is the cardigan, not the skirt, which is also very pretty in a flirty French sort of way) so I ended up tying it onto my bag instead.  I used to wear silks scarves tied to my bag in London in the mid 1980s.  Maybe I could reintroduce the fashion!!

As for the making two things to wear this month - well, the cowl I showed in my Creative Space a couple of weeks ago did not get finished until this month, so that is going to count as one.  (I started it in late March - can you tell I moved house during the making of it!)  And I am trying to repurpose two tops into one, but whether I wear it or not depends on if it looks better than it does at the moment!  It is only at an early stage but I frankly have my doubts.  Maybe darting the Samurai Shirt will do instead.  We shall see!

Me-Made-June

After the fun of Me-Made-March I have signed up again!

'I, (Judy, also known as Sheeprustler, of http://www.sheeprustling.blogspot.com)), sign up as a participant of Me-Made-June '11. I endeavour to wear one hand-made-by-me item each day for the duration of June 2011, and attempt to make at least two new things during that month, and wear them. 'Item' includes clothing, accessories and/or jewellery and repeating items during the month is allowed but I will try to avoid it!'

Want to know what I am talking about?  Go over here and find out!!

Not a very exciting picture!

But that's because this is my May Bead Journal Project piece, and it is almost finished, and I don't want to show it off properly until it IS finished!!

So this is what I am working on tonight :)

For more creative spaces, pop over here.

My Creative Space

I have been wanting to do My Creative Space for ages but the whole going back to work thing stymied that.  By Thursday night when I get home I tend to be so tired that I might do a few minutes of something crafty after dinner and then resort to playing Tetris on my phone because my brain hurts so much.

But I decided that it would be better to make an effort sometimes at least.  So here is my first My Creative Space.  I have been working on this cowl for some time now.  It is is Tilting Tardis from Ravelry (sorry, no link to hand, and typing this while pasta is cooking so not much time to look it up!)  I am knitting it in a Wendy sock yarn.  It is mostly bamboo with some nylon and is soooo soft, just right for my poor neck which finds almost anything scratchy.  I bought it to knit socks but didn't really like it for sock knitting, it was slippery and splitty.  So of course I choose a lace project instead ... actually, on larger, wooden needles it was less slippery and splitty.

It's almost finished, I just have to knit a few more rows of garter stitch, cast off, sew the ends in and find some appropriate buttons.  That should be fun.

For more creative spaces, here you go

Bead Journal Project - April

I didn't quite ex[ect to finish my April piece by the end of the month, because of the house move, but I did manage to do so with a couple of days to spare.

I deliberately kept it very simple this month with no bead patterns or anything, just a bead soup embroidered around a striking image.  This time, while sticking to the Faces and Found Objects theme I had set myself, I mixed things around a bit.  The Found Object is the Face!  It is a button that I have had in the stash for a couple of years.  The 'body' is a piece of polymer clay left over from an experiment, so it is also a found object of sorts.

It is finished with the usual encrusted edge.

Seasons of Mists and Mellow Fruitfulness

When we bought this new house we inherited a productive vegetable garden.  Over time it will probably be expanded, at the moment we are working out what to do with what is in there.

There was a lot of basil on the verge of going to seed, so of course I turned it into pesto.  That was fun.  The jar (please ignore the label, it did once have commercial pesto in it, but be assured that that green stuff is all mine!) is approximately one-fifth of what I made up last weekend.  The rest is in the freezer.  This jar is now almost empty, having gone into soup all week.  (A favorite Italian-inspired cafe I visit frequently put me onto the idea of a decent dollop of pesto in many soups being a wondrous thing).

I had planned to cook a pressure-cooker lamb thing with roasted rhubard last weekend.  And George was delighted because he (a) likes rhubarb and (b) wanted me to use up what was growing in the garden.  So I went down and cut the rhubarb.  While cutting it I politely asked him if he was 100% sure that it was rhubarb and not ruby chard grown bigger than it should have been allowed it.  He was adamant (and he is the gardener among us, I am the cook).  So I dutifully threw away all the leaves, rhubarb leaves being poisonous of course, and roasted the stalks with butter and sugar.

Roasted ruby chard stems with butter and sugar does not taste bad, as such, it just doesn't taste of anything except, well, butter ... and sugar.

And a large bunch of squeaky fresh ruby chard languishes in the bottom of our green waste bin :(

The house is coming together, slowly.  There is still all the stuff in storage.  When that comes out, I will be able to organise my craft stuff to some extent, and we will have thousands of books to reshelve.  I think we may need some new bookcases, too, but I'm not sure about that.  We have decided that the books of my dead father are going to the nearest book sale - I feel that I have been cursed ever since they entered my life and that it is no longer worth trying to value and sell them.  Some we are deliberately keeping, happily, but the bulk of them will not even be entering the new house.  We all need to move on.

It needs a lot more tidying and organising and finding places for things but it feels like home and we love it.  Yes, it was worth all the angst!

And work is even feeling a bit better.  I had a three-month review yesterday - I am on a 12 month contract (we all are, it gets renewed so long as both sides still want it at the end of every 12 months) but with a 3 month probationary period). I wanted to discuss some things I was not happy with, and obviously my boss needed the opportunity to say anything he needed to say.  Everyone who matters is happy with me, so I do still have a job!  And I was able to air a couple of grievances and establish myself on a bit more of a professional footing.  And I am possibly the only person in living memory to ask for more work to do!  What I actually said was that my allotted duties did not fill in the time I worked, and I was unhappy with the perception that I should spend the extra time doing the work of people below me in the organisational structure.  This was agreed upon, I have more interesting things to do now, and I am going to embark on a training course in designing and delivering information literacy programes, paid for by the college, which will help bump up my CV no end.  So I am still tired all the time, and I would still rather be at home crafting, but at least I feel a little more appreciated now.

Resolutions - May Update

So here we go again. And again, and again, and again...

1. Accomplish all the necessary stuff involved in selling this house and moving into the one we are buying. This is the sort of resolution that, although not easy in itself, HAS to be followed through on.

Report - House sale was finalised on April 15, as was house buying.  For a scarey 45 minutes we had no place to live in but were comparatively wealthy.  Now we have gone back to having no money but owning 3/5 of a rather nice house.  The bank owns the other 2/5, of course.

The move went as well as expected.  Tempers got frayed, things got lost, one or two things got broken (mostly by us!).  The bloomin' removalists packed THE KETTLE.  They obviously had not studied Removalism 101.  So I ducked out and bought a cheap and nasty kettle that was on special in Target.  THEY PACKED THAT TOO.  We have not fully unpacked, of course, it will take months before everything is sorted out completely, but the house feels like home and we are very happy with the move.  Some furniture still needs to be acquired to make sense of it being larger and with more rooms/functions for the rooms, but that will be done gradually (a mixture of IKEA and Ebay, probably), together with the other things we want to get done.
2. This was 'get a job'.  I've decided that after nearly three months whingeing about it I will be deleting this one from the monthly report.  Periodic whingeing may still occur but it will be same old, same old.
3. Complete a project a month. Even if it is just a plain sock (pair of socks!) Preferably try out some new techniques or whatever, but at least one project a month.

Report - I had low expectations for April, what with the house move, but I am glad to announce that I finished the April Bead Journal Piece a few days before the end of the month.  When we can find the cable that connects my camera to the computer, I will blog about it!  It's the one important cable that is still missing, of course.
4. Stop spending money like water. With this in mind, this resolution is split into sections :

4.1 I will not buy any clothes or shoes unless ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY.
Report - I bought another couple of work things, but I have pretty much reached the stage now where I have plenty of work things and really don't have any space for any more clothes.  Though I want to get back into dressmaking again.  And there are some killer boots I am waiting on to come into a shop in the city!.
4.2 I buy far too many DVDs. I will restrict myself to the equivalent of one full-price film (i.e. one new release or something like those 3 for $30 specials you see around) and one TV series. I need to be VERY STRICT about this.

Report - I'm really quite a good girl.  I slightly exceeded the above, but now I am spending my own money on them I feel less guilty.  For my film, I bought Harry Potter 7 Part 1 (still haven't watched it yet).  And for the series I bought the complete (2 series) box set of Campion, because I have read a couple of the books in recent months and fancy it.  And also, the slightly naughty bit, an extra series - Children of the Stones which is a 1977 kids program that looks wonderful!
4.3 Likewise with books. One full-price book or the equivalent per month.

Report - to my complete surprise I stuck to this, buying a new AWW Pressure Cooker cookbook.  I've cooked a couple of things out of it, too!
4.4 Craft materials - only to be purchased if necessary to make a specific project immediately after purchase. Otherwise all craft material shopping is to be done from the stash.

Report - One roll of strong double-sided tape bought to replace the one I lost in the move.  Used for sticking face cabs to beading foundations, and that sort of thing.  And then another roll to replace the one I managed to lose between the shop and the car. 
4.5 Exceptions to the rules will include craft shows, where I will take a fixed amount of cash and leave my credit cards at home. Nothing purchased under these circumstances will count towards the total!


Report - I passed this one - I went to AQC with a fixed sum of money and bought Nicole Maillieu's new book, which I had planned to buy, and as I was exhausted from moving and at the end of the show when everyone's defences were down, was conned into buying a showbag of Japanese goodies that had originally been $60 but were being sold off at $30.  It supposedly contained over $100 worth of stuff.  Well, it contained some things I didn't like, but the fabric selections alone were worth well over $30 and I love Japanese fabric, so though an unplanned purchase I was happy with it!
4.6 Items for any room in the new house, but especially the kitchen, will only be purchased if necessary, not just because they catch my eye. There will be some purchases, planned in advance.

Report - No impulse buys have been made, but some very expensive planned ones for the new house.  We have bought a new fridge, dishwasher and microwave, all to replace the old and decrepit ones that were wearing out.  Also two new beds, ditto.  And new carpet.  And there will be other things to follow.  In particular a new digital TV and recording device for me, to replace my tiny and old CRT telly and decrepti VCR.

So I am happy with how things are tracking.  We are exhausted and broke but we love our new house.  I might even take some pictures of it, if we ever find (or replace) that cable thingy that connects my camera to the computer!