Ballet box

I made this an age ago, sadly recently it went to the Big Craft Pile in the Sky, but it was awesome whilst it lasted. I got so many compliments using it and actually made a second one, which I sold on Thriftstore. It was a ballet box with a sticker of a ballerina on it that my gran bought for me when I was about 6 and did ballet. I dug it out of the attic one summer, bought two single vinyls for 50p each from a charity shop and superglued them on each side. Super simple, I'm definitely going to make some more of these for my etsy store if I ever see any more in car boot sales or charity shops!

T-shirt bathmat

I made this years ago and we've finally got a flat to use it in! I used it in the last flat but the strange continentals had an issue with it *sigh*. So it's finally in its rightful place, on our bathroom floor. I'm in the process of making another one even as we speak, it's much less wonky in case you're wondering.

Housewarming present!

I've been working on this since before Christmas, it was supposed to be a Christmas present for Vicky but sadly ended up a bit late and is now a housewarming present! I'm just waiting on the good news that she's finally found a flat, London sounds super cut-throat for flat hunting, give me the north country any day.

It's just another good old crochet blanket, they come together so easily, I want to make one for us to keep, I keep giving them away!

Also check out the awesome old-fashioned style laundry rack, it's one of those wooden ones that's suspended from the ceiling...*drools*...laundry porn...

Some new flat photos

So, I promised Vicky some new flat photos, there's not many (and it's mainly of furniture!) but it's a start at least!

I love the new flat, it's so nice not to have to worry about other people any more. No fighting for the bathroom in the morning, or creeping around at 11pm when everyone else has gone to bed. No strange continental folk and their anal cleaning habits or spending whole evenings alone in my room because no one wants to talk to me. No feeling guilty for wanting to be with Andrew, huzzah!

The flat is full of gorgeous period features, we've even got bells in the kitchen for our servants, darling! There are 3 open fireplaces, I'm really looking forward to the winter when we can use them properly, I've been collecting sticks on the Meadows for kindling.

There's one in our room, one in the spare room and one in the lounge. This is the one in our room:


I love that mirror, Vicky gave it to me years ago when they were sorting out her nan's house. I love how it looks against the green wallpaper especially. I don't know if you can see, but the 2 glass candlesticks I got when my gran died, they're part of a dressing table set so the rest are on the dressing table. I might take a photo of them all together, they're really pretty and deserve a blog post all to themselves! The faux-champagne bottle was from my graduation, we did have real champagne as well but somehow this was the bottle that survived. I'm now using it as a candle holder.

The dressing table. All this furniture came with the flat but it's pretty much exactly what I would have chosen anyway!


The wardrobe. I love how art deco it looks, inside it's got properly tarnished old fashioned brass rails and hooks for hanging your clothes.


Patchy and Little Ugly Blanket! I know I've blogged about them before but I thought a proper photo of them in their natural habitat was in order. Little Ugly Blanket was my first proper crochet project, whilst Patchy was my first proper quilt.

Vogue pictures

My kind-of-mother-in-law bought these for me from a car boot sale a few years back and I still love them every bit as much as the day I got them. I actually saw them first, picked them up and ummed and ahhed over them, then decided not to buy them (!). Viv then swooped and bought them for herself, for the princely sum of 20p each and then lo and behold, they turned up in my 21st birthday present. They're prints on wood and hang on the wall.







In action in the new flat:


Thank you Viv, I totally adore them ♥

Camera case

This is another fun-with-felt moment and yet another of my mum's old cardigans that made it into my craft pile once it had seen better days. I made a DS case for my old flatmate from it and was so pleased with how it turned out (yet another thing I didn't photograph before I gave it away *sigh*) I made another one for my camera.





I might make a couple of these to sell once I get back from lambing. I really need the cashola at the moment, I'm so close to the bottom of my overdraft these days, it's not even funny. I have a job interview on Thursday for a summer job at a vets though so keep your fingers crossed for me!

Random last thought: I love that button ♥

Return to bloggage!

So, it's been a while! Moving house sucked up way more time than I thought it would (and MAN I have a lot of stuff! The 7 people it took to help us move house can definitely attest to this *hangs head*) and impending exam doom has limited the blogging time somewhat. Also, we've been without internet for the past 3 weeks, it's been like living in the stone age. It's back now, huzzah, though only on Nerd Boy's PC, which means I only get a look-in when he's at work and I'm supposed to be studying. Bring on the wireless router is all I can say...

Anyway, here's a wheat-a-bottle cover I've been planning on making for ages. For those who haven't discovered the joys of the wheat-a-bottle, it's a bag full of wheat that you put in the microwave. It heats up and then you use it like a water bottle, with the added advantages of not having to faff on with boiling water and moulding to your body shape. Mine came with a spectacularly rubbish floral cover (and not the nice kind of floral, believe me) which I've used for the past 4 years until I burned it in the microwave in the old flat (wow, the smell of burned wheat hangs around for a LONG time) and a hole appeared.

I've had this cardigan for a good long time, it's an old cardi of my Mum's, she wore it until it developed too many holes to be decent, so I inherited it for crafting. A quick 60 degree wash and it came out beautifully felted, I love fair isle with a passion. It also doesn't fray, which makes it super awesome.





I'm delighted with how it's turned out, it's not as wonky in real life, promise. It's all warm and snuggly, I'm almost disappointed the weather's become a bit too nice to merit using it!

Hyperbolic crochet coral reef

There will be photo posts of my things coming soon, I promise! I just have to move house and get settled and then let the bloggage commence.

Over the summer (last summer, 2008 we're talking here) Mum (affectionately known as The Mad Woman) and I went into London to see the Hyperbolic Crochet Coral Reef on display at the Southbank Centre. It was made by the Institute for Figuring, which appears to be a group that uses maths to interpret the world. You can check out their rather self-important website here but you have to visit the 'about' page to grasp the full extent of their eccentricity.

Their mission statement for this exhibition was as follows;

"The Institute For Figuring is crocheting a coral reef: a woolly celebration of the intersection of higher geometry and feminine handicraft, and a testimony to the disappearing wonders of the marine world."

Now, I don't know about anyone else, but that sounds like a perfect day out to me. Old lady crafts combined with conservation, you'd only have to throw in ponies somewhere and I would be in heaven. Apparently some stupendously HUGE quantity of plastic ends up in a big vortex at the bottom of the ocean, where it will stay for the next few thousand years as plastic takes a long long time to degrade. Even though shopping bag handles break on the way home from the supermarket but, y'know...whatever.

Some of the reef is crocheted out of wool to hyperbolic mathematical patterns, you can crochet baby trousers in the same way I'm sure, I have the tutorial somewhere. Some of it is crocheted out of plastic rubbish, which I thought was an especially clever way of making a statement about the damage plastic does to coral reefs.

I didn't have a camera back then, so here's some photos piked off the IFF website. You can check out the original article here.