wipster

Needle felting–just stabbing wool with needles?

2012-01-21T16:03:00.001Z

Well, if it’s me doing it the answer’s yes. I’ve seen youtube videos of people making lovely things but for now I’m just stabbing stuff.

You see, before Christmas mum did a bit of needlefelting. Or rather, she sneaked in on a workshop being held for students and pretended to be working whilst actually having a go herself – training and development people! Anyway, she enjoyed it and didn’t manage to finish the piece she was working on so I bought a load of needles and roving for her for Christmas. I also forced my little brother to use a sewing machine and make a needle case – look at this!

He chose the fabric, the fancy stitches, the felt, even the thread colour. He sewed it all himself and I was very impressed.

Today we finally found a few minutes for mum to show me how it’s done (ish).

Wanna see what I made?

Nope, I haven’t got a clue either. It’s a bakewell sushi, um, with a tail. I got a bit carried away adding bits of wool here and there and forgot to actually look at it. Still, it was fun!

And anyway, mum’s is weird too.

I think I need to do a bit more to get the hang of this, but I like it!

Beccy

New Year lists…

2012-01-08T21:19:00.001Z

I don’t know about you, but I need lists. I write a list every day and without them I wouldn’t get everything done. It’s like a written nag. Sometimes I cheat and add a few things I’ve already done, just to make myself feel better. Does that make me a bit odd? Probably. But if I don’t I find my free days slip away and not much gets done.

So what I need is a year list – a bit like a life plan but definitely not a set of resolutions. No-one ever keeps those. Ok so I need to add the obvious:

Get out the Wii fit and lose those 6 (or-so) pounds that have crept on over Christmas and/or eat less.
Tidy my ‘creative space’ (the inverted commas denote temporary dumping ground).
~~Sort out lots of things to send to charity.~~
Decorate a room or two.
Become a millionaire.

But what else?

How about becoming self-employed. Wow! That’s a bit scary, did I write that out loud? But really I should be finding a way to use my degree and ceramics training properly. It won’t help me become a millionaire (or even better off than I am now) and I could become a less angry person – I’m not a natural employee – but I’d probably just end up transferring the anger to the tax-man.

A few more problems with that idea: A) I would need more money, B) I would need more time and C) I would need less fear.

What I need are baby steps – maybe ‘procrastinate less’ should be on the list? Maybe I should add ‘be more pro-active’. Are they the same thing? Perhaps I could combine the two and ‘pro-actively procrastinate less’.

‘Spend a regular amount of time in the workshop each week’ should definitely be on there. Barbara Cartland said (I know, an unlikely source) that you should never wait for the muse to arrive, because it never will. You just have to work. She was probably right too.

Hum. It just all seems so big. A few years ago, before I did my degree even, I decided that I was going to make ceramics and sell it through craft galleries. That was the big life plan that never really transpired. It was never the right time, there was always something else that needed to be done first.

I should probably just get off my backside and do it.

In the meantime, the Mollie Makes blog recently had a feature on making a granny square a day – that means that by the end of the year you have loads you can sew together to make a huge blanket.

Sounds good! I might start with that. After I’ve written this list.

Beccy

The baby blanket is finally finished!

2012-01-04T11:35:00.001Z

At long last. I always underestimate how long these things are going to take. It was supposed to be finished by October, but the birth date came and went so I decided to make it for Christmas instead. At least it’s still Winter!

The worst was weaving in all the ends – look at this!

Anyway, on to the finished blanket.

It’s a bit less wonky in real life (although I think I might have added an extra stitch into that border somewhere), but I needed to take photos quickly! Mum wove in all those ends for me since I did all the crochet. She’s a godsend!

The final size was about a metre and a half by a metre, but I forgot to measure it before I wrapped it up.

I’m pretty pleased with it, and I hope Lindsey and David like it too!

Beccy

Mum’s birthday making

2011-12-29T10:54:00.001Z

I couldn’t show you this until now because I had to give it to mum for her birthday first – she might be reading this…

I realised ages ago that mum doesn’t have a workshop apron that is truly hers. It probably sounds weird, but I’m positive everyone likes to have their own apron!

I decided on a regency style, all empire line and utilitarian. Since mum’s a bit of an Austenite it needed to be fairly accurate (but I draw the line at hand-sewing unless I absolutely have to!)

I loosely followed this tutorial from Across the Ages which I found through Diary of a Seamstress. Bethany Lynn at Diary of a Seamstress is awesome. Hers is all sewn by hand as is everything she makes. Truly inspirational sewing whether you’re into Regency or not.

I used buttons to attach the straps so that I could make it convertible from cross to straight straps (In case mum got sick of the faff getting it on and off with the cross straps!) by just adding extra buttonholes to the straps. I also made it tie-back rather than button because it’s a lot easier to fasten yourself. Photographed on my mannequin but mum has a broader ribcage so it fits her better.

I used a heavy-ish linen and embroidered a little monogram for extra mine-ness.

Beccy

Christmas making…

2011-12-21T13:06:00.000Z

Merry Christmas!

I’ve been doing lots of last-minute making. Well not last-minute as such because I budgeted the last few days for those smaller things. Honest.

A lovely chunky cabled hat for Tracey. She wears muted colours so I had to fight my urge to make it rainbow coloured! I used Lion Brand Thick and Quick in black. It doesn’t photograph particularly well but it looks lovely and warm! The pattern is Speedy Cabled Beret by Paula Chin, available on Ravelry. You need a Ravelry account to see it, but it’s a free pattern. If you don’t have a Ravelry account by now, you should!

A cute little kitten for David’s baby’s sister. It occurred to me that I was only making for the baby – how awful is that? I totally forgot he had a sibling. Ok, so I’ve only met her once, but that’s no excuse. The pattern is Crazy Kitten from Super Cute: 25 amigurumi animals by Annie Obaachen and I used half a ball of Sublime merino. It’s not the best book in the world since there are no making-up instructions and the materials list is more of a hint. Ravelry was a godsend.

An ear-warming headband for Elle. It’s hard to knit things for Elle because A) she knits herself and B) so does her grandad (he knitted the socks I’m wearing right now, they are amazing!) So I chose something that she could wear under the hat he will inevitably make her and that had a bit of lace she could appreciate. The pattern is Blue Leaf Headband by Adrienne Krey and is free from Ravelry and the yarn is Wendy Fusion.

That’s enough my stash-busting Christmas making for now!

Beccy

Christmas cake!

2011-12-20T10:08:00.001Z

I’ve never made a Christmas cake in my life, but I thought I’d give it a go…

What do you think? The cake frill is a vintage one I found in a charity shop. It’s almost a shame to use it because it’s so pretty. The snowmen are old wooden tree ornaments. I’ll let you know how it tastes!

It’s not as good as my gran’s cake though. She always uses decorations she bought in the 50’s – a church (she even flattens a path in the icing), a fir tree and a plastic ‘Merry Christmas’. If I didn’t know better I’d say it’s always the same cake every year! She doesn’t make hers anymore, it’s a Marks’ special, but she always adds her own royal icing and decorations.

If I remember before she cuts it, I’ll get a photo this year.

Beccy

A box of treasures…

2011-12-05T20:02:00.001Z

My great aunt sent us an interesting box recently.

It turned out it was full to brimming with old family photos.

I have no idea why my great aunt didn’t want them but she had heard from my gran we’d been researching the family tree and thought we would like them, which was really lovely of her.

I love old photos and here are a few of my favourites.

My gran and grandad getting married in 1959. I think I’ve mentioned her wedding dress before. A few years ago we found it in a box in their garage. It’s beautiful, and she still has the head-dress and veil. My great-gran made the whole thing for her and it’s tiny. Needless to say we made her move it to a safe place in the house.

That’s my great-gran on the far right in the above photo, she was tiny, we called her our little gran. This is the only photo we have of her.

My big great-gran in the 20’s, May. I only ever had two great-grans, and they are both my mum’s grandmas. May was my grandad’s mum and she was a formidable woman who lived to 96. A lot of the photos centre around her so the bulk of them must have been her collection.

May’s mother and father Norah and Joseph, my great, great grandparents. He died in 1912 aged 38.

Great aunt Daisy, May’s sister, looking awesome on a motorbike. That’s May standing behind her.

May with her husband Herbert (this is the only photo where he doesn’t look grumpy, my gran assures me he looked pretty mean in real life too) and their daughter my aunty Betty. I love that my great gran is in a full swimming costume but he’s just rolled up his trouser bottoms and hasn’t even taken off his suit jacket. He’ll be wearing braces under that jacket too, he is in all the other photos.

Isn’t family history fascinating? We’ve managed to get the tree back to about 1600 in several directions and although my mum knew most of these people I’ve never seen some of them before, and we’ve certainly never seen them young. They used to just be a list of names and dates in genes reunited but this makes them real.

There are about 100 photos in all, and it took ages to scan and identify everyone in them – some are still unidentified like this one:

Look at those amazing dresses, especially the one the little girl in the front is wearing. I wish I knew who they were.

Beccy

My hook is on fire!

2011-11-21T19:33:00.001Z

Not really, it’s made of metal, but if it was wood…

Remember these?

Well I finally made enough to start sewing them together to make the baby blanket for little Liam. It was supposed to be a present for the shower but since he was born in October it’s a little late. Now it’s a Christmas present!

I’ve sewn the granny squares together into strips and now I’m joining them with two rows of double crochet sandwiching a row of shell stitch.

I’m using the Attic24 colour pack of Stylecraft special DK because it’s my favourite (I have a further unopened pack in my stash, I love it that much)

Right, better get cracking – I have two more strips to join then lots and lots of edging. I’m hoping Lucy blogs her tutorial soon for the lovely edging she’s been working out.

Beccy

Quick draught excluder tutorial…

2011-11-08T17:54:00.001Z

Brrr…. it’s been chilly here lately and I realised that there was a particular draught coming under the front door. Mum said to just get one of those brush strip thingies, but boy are they ugly!

Instead, I decided to make an old-fashioned fabric one like my great-gran used to have (although I have a feeling hers was in the shape of a dog – awesome)

This one is going to be like a long tube with round ends and will be stuffed with reclaimed sofa cushion stuffing. I used part of an old floral curtain to make mine, but you can use any sturdy fabric you have in your stash.

First you need to decide how large you want your draught excluder to be. I wanted mine to be about 6” diameter so I rummaged around the house until I found something round and approximately the right size to use as a template. I drew around this lampbase and then added a centimetre seam allowance. Cut them out.

I then measured around the lampbase to determine the width of the main fabric piece. It was 14.5” At this point I also measured the door, which was 40” wide.

I then cut one large piece of fabric 15.5” x 41” (don’t forget your seam allowances!)

Place the large piece of fabric face-to-face and sew along the long edge so you have a tube. Leave a 6” gap in the middle somewhere – this is where you will stuff it.

Now I pinned in the ends. This is a bit tricky but easier if you pin one side, then the opposite, then the gap in between each pin. Try and make sure it is still round and even and use as many pins as will fit!

Then I sewed in both ends. Go slowly and pull the fabric slightly to avoid wrinkles.

The ends all sewn in.

Now snip those curved edges. This allows the fabric to curve properly when you turn in inside out. You can also trim the seams to remove bulk if you like.

I then turned the whole thing right-side out and stuffed it with my ever handy stash of old sofa stuffing. I pinned the hole and hand-sewed it closed.

Sorry for the bad photo, it was pretty dark today. This is the finished draught excluder. It’s a little bit pretty but if I’d had more time I would have made it nicer with buttons… or ribbons… or I would have raided my stash of vintage doilies… or done some embroidery. It still does it’s job though!

If you want to add embellishments, the best time is after you have cut your pattern pieces but before you sew them together.

Beccy

Bow bag showcase…

2011-11-05T20:24:00.001Z

I’ve been meaning to share a few of these wonderful bow bags for a while now, but I’m seriously rubbish and disorganised.

Anyway, here they are! Click on the picture or the link below to visit the maker’s blog/flickr (if they have one)

Chic, understated and girly – this bag was made by The Babe.

These two lovely bags were made by Xperimental, check out her mammoth Flickr photoset bags and purses (in fact her entire photostream is pretty awesome!)

The top bag is also on Craftster, which you should definitely check out if you haven’t already.

These three were made by Amy - I love the contrasting fabric on that last bag!

Mrs P used a remnant to make this great floral version!

And last but not least, Molly from Lilly Cakes used a vintage table runner and a couple of scraps of gingham to make her version. Beautiful.

Thank you everybody who let me steal their photos for this post. Everybody else, please visit them and give them lots of love!

If you’d like to make your own bow bag the tutorial is available here.

Beccy

I made an exhibition of myself

2011-11-01T19:48:00.001Z

I just wanted to show you some photos of the Night Scented Stocks exhibition at Marianne Boesky Gallery in New York that featured my work last month.

This was really my excuse for going to New York in the first place!

More information here, and here

Beccy

Happy halloween!

2011-10-31T17:57:00.001Z

We’ve been so busy (and jetlagged) since we got back from New York that I’ve only got our little pumpkins to show you.

I’ll be back with more stuff tomorrow!

Beccy

A little embroidery….

2011-10-16T20:20:00.001+01:00

can transform a boring skirt into something a bit special.

Take one 70’s stretchy skirt…

…add an old embroidery transfer…

…and play around with stitches you got from an old embroidery book.

It looks better on me than on the mannequin, but I never take photos of me if I can possibly help it! The stretchy synthetic fabric was the devil to embroider neatly and I should have used some stabilizing fabric to stop it puckering, but overall I think it’s pretty cute.

It is the same skirt as this one, just in a different colour….

…wait a minute! Unless my tagging system is rubbish (and to be honest it is a bit) I haven’t blogged the other skirt.

I just got an idea for another post :)

Beccy

It’s a wonderful town…

2011-10-09T11:41:00.001+01:00

Did I tell you I have an exhibition in New York? Ok, it’s not my exhibition, but there is a piece of my work in it. It’s ‘Night Scented Stock’ at Marianne Boesky on E64th street – check out that artist list! I’m in awe. It runs until the 22nd of this month if you’d like to see it.

I’m an extra bit excited because we’re going to New York just to see the exhibition – is that crazy? Is it normal to travel 3400 miles to see something you already own?

I feel pretty ok about spending all that money though because we haven’t had a holiday since 2006 and if you average it out it’s not so bad. We’re going to be there for a few days, so what I want to ask you lovely, thrifty people is: Where are the best thrift shops in New York? If there happen to be any near some major landmarks that would be handy because we only have four days and my Rough Guide already has more bookmarks than I have time! It’s going to take some careful planning.

So, let me know where to go, and I’ll report back on my findings!

Beccy

Shiny new (thrifted) things…

2011-10-04T11:37:00.001+01:00

I haven’t had much time for thrifting lately, even less for photographing the things I’ve found. Also, I’ve reached a stage where I don’t need anything. Anyone else get like that? I have a mountain of clothes which I really need to go through again and donate back. I also have so many Interesting Things I’m having to put up new shelves to house them all!

Anyway, here are a few bits I couldn’t pass up over the summer.

I found the three at the front for less that £5 in a charity shop. The big yellow plate at the back is an old charity find. The gravy boat and pudding bowl are a part of this set that I already have two pieces from:

It’s awesome! I also have a thing for jugs, so I got these three from charity shops too.

The one above on the right was 30p and has been handpainted by someone at home. It’s so cute.

I also got this dress. Now, I know there has been a craze for owls (search owl on etsy and you’ll see) so I have been avoiding them like the plague. I couldn’t not buy this dress though, I mean look at it – pintucks! wooly! What’s not to love, gotta forgive those cute owls. Great for autumn and winter with a long sleeved tee and jeans underneath.

Awww…

Beccy

Finishing details…

2011-09-21T19:50:00.001+01:00

Remember this? I made it ages ago from one of my grandad’s old shirts. I took it in, reset the sleeves and made a new collar.

I reused as much as I could, these bits were the cuffs. Faffy, but cute.

But I didn’t have enough to make any facings. I decided to leave it because I’m lazy, but mum really liked it so I gave it to her. That was ages ago and she hasn’t really worn it because the snipped edges flap up sometimes and look messy.

Cue 6 months later and 10 minutes with some bias binding…

…and it looks so neat now. The miracle of bothering to finish things in a tidy way never ceases to amaze me!
Beccy

Rescued with a dyebath…

2011-09-19T23:44:00.001+01:00

I had this dress which I had worn (and washed) to death. It’s hard to tell in the photos but it was starting to look tired and a bit bleached around the edges.

I also had this top which had gone a bit grey, and then I somehow managed to wash it with a red tee-shirt which left faint pinky blotches all over it.

Cue Dylon Mexican red…

Just make sure your rubber gloves don’t have holes in them…

I realised at the last minute that I had loads of dye salt but no dye fix. A quick look on the interweb told me I could use washing soda (nope haven’t got any of that) or sodium carbonate, AKA soda ash (nope, haven’t got any of… wait a minute!) Soda ash is commonly used in glazes, and what do I have a workshop full of? That’s right, glaze ingredients. Woo! I found some and fixed my dye. It worked perfectly, and was probably cheaper than the Dylon stuff.
After the dye bath - it’s a bit hard to tell in this photo (why is red so hard to photograph?) but it’s very vibrant and no longer looks washed out.

I didn’t bother reading the label on the top because it was either this or turning it into dishcloths but it turned out to be polycotton. Well, what do you expect from topshop?

I don’t mind though because the colour is lovely. It’s a little bit salmon and a little bit hot pink. I’ll get more use out of it now though, it looks like new!
Beccy

Painting handles with pizza boxes?

2011-09-07T10:07:00.001+01:00

Just a quick tip. I needed to spray paint a load of nasty discoloured plastic drawer handles and realised that the easiest way would be to attach them to something stiff and do them all at once. I raided our recycling and found two pizza boxes that were perfect for the job!

After giving them a good clean I attached them using the screws they came with.

Then blasted them with a couple of coats of my favourite sky coloured plasti-kote.

Et voila. Lovely, shiny, bright handles. The round ones were an 80’s red with cream accents. Yummy.

And the result? Well it was always going to be a melamine chest of drawers, there’s no changing that, but it looks a hundred times better than it did and a can of spray paint is a damn sight cheaper than buying something new!

And anyway, it’s for a boy’s who thinks elegance is a lazboy and some pepsi.

Beccy

Thrifty curtains…

2011-08-29T19:01:00.001+01:00

We found this fantastic pair of curtains in a charity shop, perfect for our living room – see how boring the old curtains were?

And the new curtains? Chintztastic.

We have two large windows but there was only one pair of curtains, luckily they were over twice the width of our windows so I thought I’d just cut them in half.

Imagine my joy when I got them home and found out they had a central seam!

I got out my trusty stitch ripper and hacked them in two. The header tape ran across the seam so I just cut it in half, sewed it down and tied the threads to secure them. A lot of hemming later, they looked like this:

Don’t they look much better? They cost £5, and took about an hour to fix.

Anyone remember that Ikea advert, Chuck out your chintz? I would have killed to know the location of that skip!

Beccy

New baby knitty things!

2011-08-19T20:27:00.001+01:00

Ok, I’m not having a baby, but I know a man who is. David, my oldest friend’s brother is going to be a dad for the first time in October and I couldn’t pass up the chance to make Saartje’s booties! There can’t be many of you who haven’t seen those little buttony beauties so without further ado, here’s my version:

I didn’t want to do boring blue for a boy/pink for a girl so I used Wizz aran in a lovely self-striping yellow/blue/pink/orange/purple/white colourway. I’m usually a bit wary of self-striping – you never know what it’s going to do until you start knitting but I’m glad mum persuaded me! It cost only £2.99 for two balls and I have enough left to make a hat (or do you think that would be overkill?!)

Because the yarn was a little thicker than the pattern the booties came out a bit big. I expected that, but I thought I might as well knit one just to see how big it would be. I decided to knit a smaller pair based on Karendidit’s mods for worsted. When I had knitted one of each, I found that I had done one complete colour length of the self-stripe! What are the chances? That meant that I would be able to get two matching pairs without having to waste loads of yarn Woo!

The purply-yellow ones are the smaller ones.

I also knitted a cardigan to match – this is bigger than newborn size, but I think the baby is likely to get a ton of newborn size clothes and might run out when he reaches 6 months or so!

It didn’t occur to me just how faffy it would be to get the stripes matching all around (bearing in mind It is knitted from the top down and then separated into 5 different bits) but with minimal waste, which was curiously mostly blue, I just about managed it. The pattern is the baby boy 5 hour cardi by Gail Bable and it was easy without being too boring. Didn’t take 5 hours though, more like two casual evenings, but it was still quick enough.

Don’t you just love 4-hole buttons? The thread is some from my precious vintage wooden spool collection but it was the only thing I had in a vibrant orange, and it had to be vibrant orange!

I can’t wait til October, until then they’ll just have to sit in a drawer.

Beccy

Garden box cushions…

2011-08-05T21:28:00.001+01:00

Continuing the garden theme, I decided to make Trace a set of garden cushions for her birthday.

I bought the fabric ages ago, intending to make a dress or something, but it was really thick (being curtains) and I thought it would be perfect for these cushions. I made them narrower than normal so they would fit on her pickernick benches.

You’ll probably know by now that I like bright colours, so I raided my stash of bias binding to make contrasting piping. Is there anything more boring than sewing metres and metres of piping?

I had the pink and yellow bias in stash but I had to make the red and green myself. I even covered plain old white plastic buttons with scraps of bias to make them matching.

Nothing from these is newly bought – even the stuffing is some I saved from the cushions of our old sofa (there’s forward thinking! Who says hoarding is bad?)

There is something extra nice about giving gifts you’ve made to people who truly appreciate them. I know Trace’s first thought wasn’t, “they have machines to do that nowadays you know” and that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy.

Beccy

Nature will find a way…

2011-08-04T20:52:00.001+01:00

… is what my friend Trace always says. Something about Jurassic Park, or something. She has a uniquely ad-hoc style of gardening as a result, simply chucking handfuls of annual seeds around the flowerbed and letting nature do it’s stuff. If it grows, it grows – if it doesn’t, it doesn’t. It works though. Sure, sometimes things die and others get out of hand but the result is a bit like manicured nature. Clouds of pretty things left to their own devices.

It was her birthday last week, so mum decided to make her a plaque for her garden.

After choosing a gardeny font, mum printed it out to the appropriate size.

The base of the plaque is an old drawer front, taken from our (ever growing) stash of Interesting Things.

Mum placed the print out over the drawer front, holding it up to the light to make sure the lettering was in the right place, and used a pen to draw over the letters making sure she pushed into the wood slightly.

This created a template that she simply filled with white acrylic paint. It’s a lot easier if you work from left to right, doing all the letters on the left before moving over. Use a tiny brush and don’t overload it (mum says). She also says curves come out better if you move the wood, rather than the brush.

Two suitably old screws were added to the top to attach a bit of wire for hanging and it was done!

Doesn’t it look great?

I’ll show you what I made tomorrow,

Beccy

Resizing a too-big skirt…

2011-07-23T19:01:00.001+01:00

This skirt already had pleats in it, all I did to make it smaller was to add a few more, regularly spaced, until it fit.

Another easy refashion, and the bonus of this kind of alteration means that if (when?) I put on any weight I can just lose a pleat or two.

Beccy

Summer top resizing…

2011-07-17T12:19:00.001+01:00

I picked up this summery top for 40p at a jumble sale. It’s lovely and crisp cotton with a little bit of stretch and cute pintucks but it was a size 18, and I’m not a size 18.

First I slit the sides to below the darts – I didn’t just need to take it in, I also needed to make the darts smaller so I opened them up too.

First I pinned the darts the right amount (check out a shirt that fits you well for a guide) but this left a lot of excess fabric above. I decided to sew this as another dart running flush to the seam of the band around the top. This meant I could hide the excess fabric and make the band run level all around.

When I was happy sewed the darts up.

See how the top hem runs flush? I then pinned and sewed the sides, removing about an inch from each.

It looked fine on the mannequin but on me it gaped a little at the top so I had to put in a little pleat. It’s not the most elegant of solutions and I might have another look at the elastic at the back to see if I could pull it tighter at the top.

It’ll do as a little summer top though!
Beccy Ridsdel

Shirred dress thing to skirt…

2011-07-10T23:01:00.001+01:00

No, that’s not a weird new fashion for teensy bra-tops, I just forgot to take a before picture! The shirred ruchy halterneck bit was originally attached to the skirt and really all I did was hack it off leaving a sizeable chunk of shirring to fit around my waist.

Et voila! The easiest (and quickest) refashion I’ve ever done. The original dress thing was a shapeless mess that I couldn’t breathe in, at least I might get a bit of summer wear out of it, if it stops raining long enough.

Beccy

Squirrel attack!

2011-07-04T12:30:00.001+01:00

Ok, not so much of an attack but I love watching squirrels being clever.

Heehee!

Right after I ran out of memory card the squirrel pulled the feeder off and shook out the fat balls which it then gathered up and ran off up a tree with!

Do any of you in the UK remember that Carling advert?

Beccy

Working hard…

2011-06-25T17:27:00.001+01:00

but not necessarily on the nice things! I haven’t had time for any sewing, knitting, crochet – well I have but I’ve been too tired to do any.

We’ve just had our busiest week of the year at work, getting all the final shows ready. Now, you might think that putting work on boards and plinths is easy but we had to lug those boards and plinths in to the rooms and paint them after removing all the tables and chairs and general accumulated rubbish. It was a week of moving and shifting and we’ve got more to do next week taking them all down and putting more shows up. Phew, it’s hard work and we’ve been too tired to do anything when we get home.

We also bought a wii. I know, a bit late to the party but I really wanted the wii fit because we’re all a bit lardy and there is no way I can afford to join a gym or want to suffer the humiliation of jogging in front of other people. At least when I catch sight of myself in the mirror as I fall over trying to perfect my yoga I can comfort myself with the knowledge that only I can see me. The only annoying thing is that my brother has lost 5lb in 3 days and I’ve put 1lb on!

It’s been a bit rainy lately and I haven’t been in the garden much so imagine my surprise when I checked my vegetables this morning and there was actual produce! God bless plants that look after themselves.

Peppers

Tomatoes just starting to flower

Savoy cabbage

Maize

My pride and joy, a teensy cauliflower the size of a tennis ball

Strawberries and blackberries

Goosegogs and apples

Broad beans and runner beans

Yum, yum, yum!

Beccy

Crochet flower cushion…

2011-06-12T20:45:00.001+01:00

This is a practice for Christmas presents (I know, it’s June, but if I don’t start really early I’ll be doing it all last minute!)

The pattern is Fanciful Flowers Potholder by Claudia Lowman.

I used an old jumper for the back but it is a bit too stretchy – next time I’ll crochet another circle (I’m just too lazy to do it just now for this one) I also won’t use white for the base but it was an odd ball I wasn’t likely to use for much else and this was only meant to be a practice run.

Sewing the back to the front face-to-face was a bit tricky because of the different weights and the extra row of petals on the edge of the front getting in the way.

It worked out ok though! When we got rid of our old sofas I kept all the cushions with a view to reusing the stuffing for this sort of thing. Don’t you just love it when your hoarding tendencies are justified? This cushion cost about £1 to make (if I don’t bill for my time) but it’s worth much more because handmade is pretty much always better.

Next time I’ll crochet the back, use a darkish colour for the base layer, and I might stick a great big button in the centre. All in all I’m pleased with how it came out and I’m looking forward to making lots for prezzies!

Beccy

Teensy alterations can make all the difference…

2011-06-08T10:52:00.001+01:00

Every artist should have a smock, but I draw the line at living in a garret.
I got this great smock top for £3.25 from a charity shop on Friday and although I loved the top part, the bottom was a crazy gathered bubble hem that gave me more hips than I deserve.

I buttoned it up to the bottom and it was like a hobble skirt! Ok, so you’re probably not meant to wear it like that but either way it made me look a little like Andy Pandy.

I didn’t want to mess with it too much, so I just cut off the hem and re-hemmed it straight.

It’s very comfy and yes, it’s still quite Andy Pandy now I’ve lodged that image in your head, but I’ll be wearing it with a belt to avoid that and the obvious maternity look.

The only other thing is I might have to re-sew all the buttons – who bothers putting on anchor buttons but forgets to orient them the right way. Sideways anchors? It’s only a little thing but it annoys the bejingers out of me!
Beccy

Crochet car seat covers finished!

2011-06-03T20:25:00.001+01:00

So, I dropped a cake (icing down of course) on the passenger seat of my car… and then Elle did the same thing. It was the stupid cake tin’s fault and it was such a beautiful lemon cake with lemon butter icing that I had baked the day before and we were taking to a friends house.

We ate the cake anyway because it was a nice cake and the germs don’t stick if you pick it up within 2 seconds right? But buttercream is very hard to get out of seat covers so I decided to crochet some lovely new seat covers to cover the stain. I was always going to anyway, but now I had a reason.

Some people pimp their rides with giant speakers and weird blue lights underneath, not me.

The hexagons are motif 30 from Edie Eckman’s Beyond the square, but only the first two rounds because I think smaller is cuter. I crocheted a lot of them before I actually bothered to measure the carseat, and even when I did I had to make a fair few more.

Doesn’t look like much so far but I wanted to show you a work in progress pic - I was making it up as I went along! (and you can just see the water stain in this pic, where I had tried to clean the buttercream off)

And the final covers. What you can’t see in the photo is that I made them a bit like box cushions but without a base and a back, and then I crocheted a final row around the bottom with a loop every 5 stitches or so. I made a long chain to thread through all the loops and tied it behind the seat.

All done! They took a couple of months because I was winging it but I’m pretty pleased with them – I want to make covers for the backs now but I might have to do something a bit simpler.

Note: Make them slightly smaller than you need because they will stretch!

Edited to add:

I was asked for a picture of the edging so here you go!

The loops are formed by chaining 5 then single crochet into the next stitch. Single crochet 4 more then form another loop.

The loops on the points are chain 5 then single crochet into the same stitch.

Beccy

Crazy sleeves to cap sleeves…

2011-05-30T15:32:00.001+01:00

The college I work at has a fashion department and not surprisingly I’m quite friendly with the members of staff who work there. Every year they have a sale of old student work but inevitably some things don’t sell and those in the know get to rifle through the pile and take their pick.

I got this shirt and a few other things too – boy, does it have crazy sleeves but in every other respect it fits fine.

All I did was rip out the sleeves (which were huge, that’s about two feet of sleeve right there) and follow Rosie’s easy peasy tutorial on Craftster for making cap sleeves.
And this is the result:

Much cuter and more wearable!
Beccy

Sewmamasew giveaway day!

2011-05-23T16:13:00.001+01:00

Hi everyone, I’m not participating myself (it crept up and I missed it!) but you should pop over to Sewmamasew to see the master list of blogs that are hosting giveaways.

You only have a couple of days to enter all the giveaways so you’d better get going!

Honestly, there are some beautiful things out there, and hey you might not win but I’ve already found several blogs I’ll be returning to that I didn’t know existed before.

Beccy

Long and unwearable to short and cute (with a tutorial!)

2011-05-17T14:17:00.001+01:00

Look at the fabric of this skirt! Once again I grabbed something in a charity shop that didn’t fit because the fabric was so lovely. It’s too small in the waist, to long, there is a button missing and some of the fabric is torn around where the buttons were sewn on. Apart from that, it’s gorgeous!

Fleurs, fleurs, fleurs, Les Anemones!

First thing I did was remove the waistband – sometimes that’s all you need to do to ease a tight skirt. If you have a skirt that is too small, you can lay a skirt you have (that fits you well) on top of your too-small skirt to see how much of the waist you need to remove to make it fit.

Once you’ve removed your waistband, normally you can just hem the top and say-no-more but this fabric is a little flimsy and I wanted the waist to be a little more substantial.
I traced the curve of the waistband onto fusible interfacing and cut a piece an inch wide. I ironed this onto the top edge of the skirt.

Now you need to fold down your waistband and sew. Because it is cut on a curve, I needed to do a bit of snipping…

And then iron it down…

and sew…

If you are feeling fancy, you can ignore this last step and trace the line of your new waistband onto some stiffer fabric and cut it a strip an inch or so wide to make a facing. You can then sew this to the skirt face-to-face, fold it to the back and hem neatly. This way would be much neater on the inside and you could use something contrasty and exciting! I’m a bit lazier than that though.
Because I had cut off the top button on the waistband I needed to add another and this meant another buttonhole. I won’t bore you with a how-to because the interweb is littered with them.

Et voila, it fits!

And after cutting it down to knee length and a hemming session later…

I love my new summer skirt, now if we could only get some warmer weather!
Beccy

Pintucks in corduroy?

2011-05-09T19:00:00.001+01:00

This skirt was waaay too big, and dull. You can see where I had put a box pleat in the front but I didn’t like it very much so I unpicked it and started again.

I saw this idea in Sew Subversive and thought it might work even though the cord is very bulky.

I kinda like it. I sewed the pintucks down with contrast stitching so they face the middle and yeah, it is a little bulky but I much prefer it to how it was before.

Beccy

Refashion a lampshade, a mini tutorial…

2011-05-03T23:08:00.001+01:00

Remember this lampshade?

I bought it ages ago for 50p, and although it had a small tear in the back I had to buy it for that fabric. Well that was 2009, and since then one of the metal arms broke and tore the thing in half.
I took the lovely torn fabric off, intending to attach it to some plain fabric to reinforce it, but when I washed it this happened:

*sob* I was so careful but the fabric was very old and it fell to bits in the water. Only one thing to do – use the fabric as a pattern and make a new one!

I had a scrap of Sanderson-type upholstery fabric that was just big enough to squeeze the two pieces from.
This is important! Because the lampshade curves in two directions you need to cut the fabric on the bias to make it work. Trust me.
I cut the two pieces and used French seams to sew up the sides but you don’t have to do that, it just makes the inside a bit neater and stronger.

I then unwrapped all the tape from the top and bottom of the old shade.

Because one of the arms was broken, I got out my trusty brazing torch and fixed the bejingers out of it. I also reinforced all the other flimsy joints while I was there.

When the frame had cooled down I gave it a clean and gave it a coat of matt white Plasticote.

Replacing the tape. You need to wrap the whole top and bottom rail with tape so you have something to attach the fabric to, and you have to wrap it very tightly.

If you need to add another piece, sew it in place to start.

The wrapping all finished.

With the fabric in place on the frame before sewing. You can see that it is slightly too wide, but also slightly too short. When you stretch the fabric to fit it to the frame, it will become tight as a drum and fit the curved shape better.

Fold the fabric over the top slightly and hand sew it to the wound tape, keeping all the stitches on the inside. Make sure the seams are running along the arms of the frame so they don’t show when the light is lit.
When you’ve sewn all around the top, pull the fabric tight and pin it at the bottom. Start at one arm then pin on the opposite side. Move around the base, pinning as you go, making sure the fabric is pulled tight.

You can see that by pulling the fabric really tight it fits to the frame. This only works if you cut the fabric on the bias because when you stretch it one way it becomes narrower the other.
Because the wrapped tape is really tight, that fabric ain’t going anywhere!

The finished lampshade. Lit, you can barely tell the difference between this one and the last one and even though the fabric isn’t quite as nice, I’m pretty pleased with it!
Beccy

A day in sunny Scarborough…

2011-04-26T22:30:00.001+01:00

except it wasn’t that sunny. We left York in a heatwave and pitched up in the middle of what my gran reliably tells me was a sea-fret.

And you know what? It was beautiful and eerie at the same time. We took a walk along North bay beach and could hear kids playing but we couldn’t see anyone, then all of a sudden four kids would run out of the fog, head across our path and back into the fog again. Spooky.

We also went to the Sea Life Centre while we were there. I know they are huge, commercial, shiny, shiny zoos but by god, the fish are pretty. And also a little spooky, like these jellyfish.

Woooooooo, spooky jellyfish…

See? I could bore you with another twenty pictures like these, but I won’t. I’ll finish with one more though, entitled “mummy, why are those seals fighting?” Ahem.

Beccy

Finding crochet time…

2011-04-17T19:48:00.001+01:00

Since I’ve been so busy over the last few weeks I’ve really been missing my crochet. Open studios is finished and to get over that after-the-event feeling I started a new wip.

Due to two freak cake + passenger seat accidents, I needed something to cover a nasty icing stain and decided on some lovely crochet. These are stacks of basic hexagons made using a pattern picked from the lovely Beyond the square crochet motifs by Edie Eckman. This book is serious crochet eye candy, I just wished she’d picked prettier colours for the motifs – why are half of them green and orange? My little hexagons will eventually become some custom seat covers for Ruby our little car.
The yarn is Stylecraft special DK, bog standard acrylic but it comes in at least 56 great colours. In the UK you can buy the perfect selection of 17 colours from Masons for about £25, or individually for £1.50 per 100g ball.
Beccy

I forgot to show you my Open Studios dress!

2011-04-03T13:01:00.001+01:00

Despite the weeks and months of hair-tearing stress, I decided to make myself a new dress for the event, last minute. “Only you…” said ma. But sometimes, you just need a new dress. It looks nice in the workshop and dammit, I want to look nice too!
I used two patterns:

View A, but with the sleeves. Combined with…

…this skirt. The top part is definitely 60’s – look at that hair! But the skirt is 50’s. It looks a lot bigger in the pretty drawing than it actually is, but then the pattern has a 26” waist (and I don’t) so I replaced the soft pleats with gathering. Also the top doesn’t have a 26” waist either, more like 35 so I had to be creative with the darts. I should really try buying patterns in my size!

The fabric is some beautiful 50’s vintage I got from a random fabric sale at college. I had to use every scrap to make it (and sew some scraps together to make the button placket for the skirt!)

It was also very dull and a bit 80’s-does-50’s looking until I added the red polka-dot ribbon to the neckline and hem.

I know, good shoes. By the way, mum once told me that in the 50’s my gran had a 19” waist! How’s that for tiny? I haven’t asked her, but I have seen her wedding dress and if I had any nostalgic ideas about wearing it if I got married someday, I don’t now. Blimy, that lady was tiny.
Beccy

Open Studios…

2011-04-02T22:59:00.001+01:00

…is finally here. The months of making, weeks of fretting and days of hectic workshop tidying are over.

Now it’s just a waiting game. As I write, I’m sat in the immaculately tidy workshop wondering if I’ll be really busy or very bored!

If you’re in York pop by and say hello! For those of you that can’t visit for reasons of being in an entirely different country, here are some piccies of my .

That last pic is my brother trying hard not to break anything, by standing very, very still!

More info about my work can be found on my website: www.beccyridsdel.co.uk

Beccy

Is this dress awesome?

2011-03-21T20:15:00.001Z

Because I’m not too sure – it’s either fantastic or awful! What I do know is it only cost 30p at a jumble sale which is cheap for dusters.

What do you guys think? If a swapped those buttons would it be ok? Shorten the hem or sleeves? Or both? It’s 70’s double knit poly and it’s almost like it’s bias cut because it’s quite fitted until I raise my arms and get a batwing effect. Crazy dress! Anyway, I’m in two minds and my mum hates it – what do you think?

Beccy

I found a spot of time for some sewing…

2011-03-14T10:18:00.001Z

I saw a girl the other day wearing the most beautiful jacket – it was navy with white piping, with big white double-breasted buttons. It was fitted and lovely.
I pointed her out to my friend, and realised that I had that jacket, or at least I could have it if I took in the shapeless 60’s ‘land ahoy!’ jacket below…

It was a bit of a faff, because I had to remove the lining, add multiple darts, reset the sleeves and then hand sew the lining back in, but I think it came out ok and is much more wearable now. I may never look like that lovely girl, but at least I now have a similar jacket!

Beccy

Smoke firing how-to…

2011-02-27T22:22:00.001Z

Before…

…a little bit boring, don’t you think? I wanted them to be black, at least as black as I could get them using smoke firing.

For those of you who’ve never seen it, smoke firing is basically building a fire around your pots and then putting it out until you have it smouldering to create smoke. Your ceramics need to be low-fired because the clay is still porous. The higher you fire, the more the pores close up so it’s much harder to get the smoke to colour the clay. My pots were only bisq fired to 1000 degrees C.

A good way to get a smouldering fire is to use lots of sawdust. My pots are under the sawdust and there is a layer of newspaper on top to get it going. The slower your fire burns down, the blacker your work will be. Sawdust burns slowly and paper burns quickly so you can easily alter the ratio if you want it lightly smoked.

I set the paper on fire (I’m using our old kitchen bin here with the plastic bits taken off) and then clamped the lid on to put it out and start the smouldering. The bin has holes in it which form a chimney to keep the fire burning. If there aren’t any holes you can leave a gap when you put the lid on.

After the smoking, which took about a couple of hours, most of the sawdust has burnt away and you can just see the smoky patterns on the clay.

After… less boring? The finished smoke-fired pieces have very black areas and white bits where they didn’t get touched by smoke. I could put them back in to get them blacker but I like the variation in colour. After a scrub with a nailbrush the colour stays on and you can leave it matt or use a little wax or clear polish to get a soft sheen.

The great things about smoke firing are that it is really cheap and if you don’t like the result you can burn it off by refiring over 600 degrees C and have another go!

Beccy

Visiting galleries

2011-02-24T20:04:00.001Z

As part of our making-work-and-selling-it-to-people plan, we spent the whole of yesterday visiting craft galleries… well, we visited four galleries in a round trip of 216 miles.

The reason we went so far is because you can’t just send information to every gallery willy nilly (or worse, just turn up on the doorstep with a box of stuff), you need to find the galleries that are right for you, where your work will fit and then approach said gallery like a proper business person. There’s no point sending information about your lovely ceramics to a gallery that only sells paintings!

We spent a long time doing research via the interweb and the book Craft Galleries Guide to narrow it down to 10 or so that might work for any of the three of us, but nothing compares to actually seeing the gallery in the flesh, so to speak. Since we already know what the galleries closest to us are like, we headed south (irritating satnav in hand) for a bit of a recce.

It turns out a few inches on the map is further than you think – that coupled with me being the only one of us with a driving licence and a morbid fear of motorways made for a long trip.

We didn’t ask any questions because we didn’t want to seem impertinent - we just needed to look and see for ourselves how they display the work; how big they are, what the area is like, what they are selling and how high the prices are. We took lots of notes and covert photos to remind us later.

It was very worthwhile, positive and informative, and despite only managing to see four galleries in that time it wasn’t a wasted day. We found galleries where some of our work would fit; we ruled out some galleries we weren’t sure about, we saw far too many beautiful things that we wanted to buy and we have a lot more places to look at when we head west next week.

All in all a good day was had by all, but we’re very sleepy today!

Beccy

The new work comes out of the kiln…

2011-02-08T21:37:00.001Z

It’s always nerve-wracking opening up a kiln. It could be perfect or something could have blown up causing all the work to break. The pieces could have warped or cracked, or both. There could be nothing salvageable. Maybe it’s human nature to always think the worst, that way things can only be better. Unless the worst actually happens, then you start to think maybe you willed it - human nature aint foolproof you know!

The fact that this kiln represents the best part of three weeks work didn’t help. In that time I haven’t knit, sewn or crocheted anything – the knitting callous on my finger is disappearing and I really miss the clickety-clack!

But despite all my worrying the kiln is unpacked and everything is fine (yay!). There is still a lot of work to do, but I’m well on the road to having everything done by April for Open Studios.

Beccy

Insert Tab A into Slot B Syndrome…

2011-01-19T10:56:00.001Z

Lately, I’ve been working on something a bit different to what I usually do.

For my last project I used bone china, I slip-cast, I used decals and intricate cutting, those plates were so hard to make I needed to make two for every one that looked great, and the surfaces had to be perfect.

I think (like a lot of creative people I’m sure) that every project has a natural mental life-span. At some point you get sick and tired of making the same thing again, even if people still like it. You need to make something new – not just something that looks different, but that uses different processes and materials too.

For this project I’m using a good, solid, groggy stoneware, I’m hand building, there will likely be no decals (but I’m not sure yet, I really love those decals), there are deliberately imperfect surfaces. They’re not as hard to make, but it will be just as hard to get them through the firings without warping or splitting – I am loath to make things easy for myself.

It doesn’t mean I’m not proud of the work I have done before, or that I don’t like it, but when something becomes a chore to make you no longer feel creative, and the workshop starts to feel more like a factory. If the washing up looks more and more attractive and procrastination rules supreme, you may have ‘Insert tab A into slot B syndrome’.

I’m not saying that I won’t ever use casting slip again, or that there isn’t a perfect surface in my future, I just needed a break – call it a holiday I’ll be taking for the foreseeable.

It’s amazing that that’s all it takes to feel creative again. I want to be in the workshop, I want to make things again - it’s frustrating that I have to go to work and I won’t get back in the workshop until Saturday.

Take my advice – if you find yourself with ‘Insert tab A into slot B syndrome’, stop what you’re supposed to be making, pack it away out of sight, and start something new. Totally new. Use different materials, different techniques - get some books from your library and learn a new skill you can incorporate. Experiment. Anything to break that cycle and get you out of that creative rut!

Never mind ‘slot B’, get rid of ‘tab A’ altogether and start from scratch.

Beccy

Ceramicy business…

2011-01-10T11:44:00.001Z

I’ve been spending a lot of time in the workshop lately, because I’ve been accepted for York Open Studios! Open Studios is a country-wide initiative where selected makers open their studios for a couple of weekends in April, allowing people to see where the work is made, meet the artist and possibly buy work direct. Some of the plates above will eventually look like this:

But I am also working on some exciting (I think!) new designs for the event.

If you happen to be in or around York on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd or 8th, 9th, 10th April, please stop by to say hello! There will be lots of work to see (and workshops to nosy around) all over York on those two weekends – ceramics, textiles, wood, jewellery, sculpture, painting, drawing, mixed media…… Pretty much everything handmade in an arty fashion.

It’s always very relaxed, with no pressure to buy, and as a bonus it’s a great chance to meet the artists you have always admired and see their work outside of a gallery setting.

This will be the first time I will be participating so it’s a little bit scary and I’ll miss visiting all the artists but it’ll be a great experience.

Right, got to go fill the kiln again – April is only round the corner!

Beccy

The finished blanket…

2010-12-29T19:59:00.001Z

Just a quick post to show you a photo of the finished blanket, hastily photographed moments after my aunt unwrapped it on Christmas day!

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!
Beccy

We’ve been crocheting mad…

2010-12-23T17:13:00.001Z

Or driven mad by excessive crochet. Either way, since we’ve each had bouts of flu-like symptoms mum and me have had a lot of free time we could only fill with low-impact work.

This blanket is a Christmas present for my aunt, there are 289 little squares and every single one is different (well, nearly – I made a mistake and repeated one square, prizes if you can spot it) It’s not huge, but it is very pretty. We used Stylecraft special DK because the colours are amazing and easily washable. It’s blocking now, so just the edging to do and it’s finished. It’s based on Attic24’s cushion, in fact my recent preoccupation with crochet is entirely based on Attic24 which I discovered a couple of weeks ago. I could already crochet but Lucy’s blog is really, really inspiring – if you haven’t discovered it yet, go and have a look!

The crochet birds are also Christmas presents, and yes the pattern can be found on Attic24.

I bought this lamp (sorry no before pictures) from a charity shop for £2 because my last one blew up. I liked the shape but the base was a sort of pastely purple with oily lustre. Yuck! So I crocheted a cover for it and slung a ~~tatty~~ vintage traycloth over the top. Much nicer, and it only took an hour or so.

Hail to the all new colourful life!
Beccy

A little magpie sale…

2010-12-06T20:19:00.001Z

Hello folks, I just wanted to let you know that in the run up to Christmas you can get 15% off in my shop by using the coupon code Wipster.

You can have a look-see through such shop sections as little brooches, bigger brooches and biggest brooches. All you have to do is enter the code when you checkout to get your discount.

I also have lovely embroidered felt chokers and keyrings. The coupon code is valid through to Christmas day on all purchases here.

Beccy

Ah that’s better, a tidier page to look at…

2010-12-01T23:07:00.001Z

So, since I’ve been snowed in and work closed today I needed some homey things to do. I’m waiting on some materials to make planned Christmas presents (more on that later) so I couldn’t start anything big.

I finished mum’s Bay jumper in the morning and later I was trawling through this blog looking for a tutorial so I could send someone a link, and I thought: Hang on! These should all be in a handy list on that left hand side bar over there! And that banner is reaally old. And some more pictures would brighten it up a treat! And those links are pointless. So that’s what I did, I had a bit of a tidy up and it beat washing the pots and hoovering!

If you’re after any handy prezzie related tutorials, all of them have gift-giving potential if you have the time to make, and there will probably be a few more added if I have the time to write them (!)

Beccy

Lawks, it only went and snowed again…

2010-11-29T09:24:00.001Z

It snowed overnight – isn’t that the best thing about snow? Do you remember when you were a kid, going to bed and hoping it would snow through the night because that depended whether or not you went to school in the morning? Ok, maybe not those of you in Texas! But those of us in unpredictable weather land (where it will probably rain instead) it always felt a bit like it was Christmas eve. Will the snow come, won’t it? Will I get to drive my mum mad at home instead of doing sums?

When I woke up this morning it looked like this:

And this…

At the moment it’s falling like little polystyrene balls, almost hail. I can hear them clattering down the chimney into the fireplace.

Bearing in mind that this is really unseasonable weather – it hasn’t snowed this early in the UK for 17 years. We also live in a valley, ok so it’s a big valley I can’t see the sides of, but it usually snows on the moors, dales or pennines and all we see is a distant cloud passing by that could possibly hold snow for some lucky kid.

All that is why I’m currently banging my palms together like a deranged seal and squealing like a squealy thing.

Beccy

Oh my giddy aunt, it snowed like a monkey…

2010-11-28T16:42:00.001Z

Raise a glass to unseasonable cold snaps and hail the gods of snow! I love snow, in fact I get unreasonably excited and squealy for a 30 year-old.

Yesterday it looked like this:

Just a sprinkling of dusty whiteness. Then a few hours ago it looked like this:

A little bit more! But now it looks like this:

And this:

That second photo was taken with the flash on, look at all the twinkly snowflakes!

I just drove home from my gran’s house in a blizzard (less than 15mph all the way) and I should have been scared but I was way too excited. Excited but cautious. Did I mention I love snow? I love snow. Heeee!

Anyway, it’s mum’s birthday on the 8th and I need to finish that stripy jumper – what better weather to sit and knit behind a window looking out on. Or something.

Beccy

Stripy McStripe

2010-11-23T16:50:00.001Z

I’ve finished the back, front and half a sleeve of mum’s birthday/Christmas jumper (Bay by Rowan). Phew, it’s a lovely jumper and easy to knit but boy, is it boring! I could have knit a hundred scarves by now.
It’s taken so long that my Ravelry queue is getting pretty long and my planned Christmas knitting is going to get way behind… do you find that sometimes you itch to move to a new project before you’ve finished the current one? Maybe it’s true what they say about attention spans these days…
Anyway, I digress, and this jumper really is beautiful and mum’s wanted me to knit it for her for ages so I’m sure she’s going to love it whether I finish it in time for her birthday (the 8th December!) or Christmas.
Beccy

Kasia skirt number two…

2010-11-16T20:25:00.001Z

Blimy, are my hips really that big? Haha must be! And I should really use the iron more before I take photos. This is the Burdastyle Kasia skirt I started an age ago, made from some more of those curtains I found in a charity shop for £6. Remember I made Burdastyle’s Coffee Date Dress from the same fabric? That £6 is stretching far and I’ve got loads of the fabric left. Matching hat? :)

Don’t you love the buttons? All from stash, I decided to make two buttonholes instead of three – I’ll let you know if it gapes weirdly. I think stacked buttons might just be my new favourite thing. I had all my buttons out and was trying to find something that matched. Mum started looking too, and five minutes later she had come up with this combination. Go ma!
This is my second Kasia, but I don’t think I’ll make any more. I managed the waistband first time round (but I was so involved in getting it right, it didn’t actually fit and was too big), but this time I lost my mojo and botched it together. It’s an arse. Consider that a warning chaps!
Beccy

Thrifty man’s shirt refashion with a mini tutorial

2010-11-01T17:25:00.001Z

I made this cute shirt-for-that-meeting-with-HR-I-have-next-week…
…from this big old man’s shirt…

Here’s how I did it!
First I removed the sleeves and unpicked the side seams, leaving the shoulder seams intact.

Then I put it inside-out on the dressform and pinned like crazy. I had to add bust darts to the side and front and back darts too to make it fit the form.

I also pinned the sides to make sure the darts were in the right position. I then sewed the darts in place and pressed them flat. This is the time to try on the shirt and check those darts – if they are wrong you’ll have to take the whole shirt apart to put them right!

When I was sure the darts were right I sewed up the side seams. I measured on myself, from shoulder to hem, how long I wanted the shirt to be and transferred these measurements to the shirt. Then I hacked off the bottom hem.

I knew I wanted the sleeves to hit my elbows and that I wanted to turn the cuffs back, so I measured from my shoulder to my elbow and cut the sleeve accordingly, following the line of the existing seam. I then pinned the sleeve to the shirt and used tailors chalk to mark the new armhole. Because I wanted puffed sleeves I gathered the top part of the sleeve and tacked it before pinning it to the shirt. I then pinned and sewed in the sleeves backwards. This meant that the split in the cuff would be at the front instead of at the back and allow easy movement (and maybe look cute?)

The cuffs were obviously too small to fasten the buttons at my elbow so I folded them back and pressed them before sewing them down following the line of the existing stitching on the cuff. You can’t quite see on the photo but the cuffs each had two buttonholes so Mr. Man could have the option of using cufflinks. I sewed the extra buttons from the bottom of the shirt onto the extra buttonholes to make it a design feature.
Now I have a shirt for that meeting I ought to try to look smart for (work attire usually consists of jeans and a jumper at this time of year – us ceramicy folk have to wear clothes we don’t mind getting mucky every five minutes)
Beccy

Thrifted sundress to skirt…

2010-10-11T17:34:00.001+01:00

Sorry for the poor before photos, I took them late last night when I decided to start this project!

I got this dress from a jumble sale on Wednesday, it was 20p (!) in fact everything was 20 or 30p but by the time we got there (approx 15-20 minutes after the doors opened) it was a scrum with ladies elbowing each other out of the way for the chance of a bargain. I got a few things, but I saw some beautiful fabric disappearing into people’s carrier bags *sigh*…
Anyway, I like the fabric but the dress is totally not me – it also felt a bit maternity with that not-quite empire line and huge belly-framing bow in the front.
So I decided to take the top off and make a skirt out of it.

The back was shirred so I decided to rip the stitches along that not-quite empire line and cut across the middle of the shirring, making that the waist so I wouldn’t lose the casing for the bow/belt and could use the elastic instead of a zip.

You probably can’t see but there are gold holographic sequins on that top, *shudder*

I sewed bright pink bias binding around the top to stabilise it and added a casing to the top of the shirring to hold a wider piece of elastic. I also pulled the shirring tighter by pulling the elastic and tying a knot in it.

I took about 8 inches off the hem, re-hemmed then rethreaded the belt. All in all, it was about an hour’s work and now I have something I’ll actually wear!
Beccy

Some thrifted goodies…

2010-10-06T21:58:00.001+01:00

First some fabric. I can’t walk by a fabricy bargain! There is loads of this first one, more than enough for a twirly dress and honestly, it’s much nicer in real life – it looks quite 40’s :)

This next fabric is actually a pair of cotton curtains, I love the slightly offset printing of the yellow.

I have a special soft-spot for Sanderson type fabrics. This is only a little piece but it’s more than enough for a bag.

I love old craft books, I’ve got lots of them but there’s always room on my overcrowded shelves for one more!

Look at the illustrations!

I picked up this little box of thread for £1 at my favourite Sally Army. They are only little spools but the lovely bright colours will be great for accents.

Any idea what this is? It cost £1 and I thought it might be a little loom.

It sort-of is, but (have you guessed yet?)…

It’s for darning! I’ll never use it, but I love interesting old sewing paraphernalia.

So the end of my recent thrifty travels, but I’m off to a jumble sale tomorrow…

Beccy

Scrappy birthday card

2010-09-27T15:11:00.001+01:00

Ok, so I know it’s not clothing, but it used to be! I painted and stamped the background with fabric paints then sewed on fabric houses made from my mountain of scraps. I couldn’t resist the button moon (does anyone else remember the cartoon?)

I then sewed the whole thing to a bit of folded card. There are bits of shirts, skirts, and allsorts in there – it’s a great way to use up your scraps :)

Beccy

Ah, fruitfulness – that’s more like it!

2010-09-19T18:11:00.001+01:00

My grapes are actually tiny – we don’t have the climate here for real fruit, but the vine looks nice.

I hate cucumbers, I have no idea why I grow them every year – except that they are always the best growers and I know lots of people who do like them!

Butternut squash – soon this will be soup, yum!

Our solitary cooking apple, but it is a fairly young tree.

Some of our courgettes are turning into marrows – these always do really well.

And finally leeks, I love leeks!

Beccy

Season of mists and mellow… lupins?

2010-09-18T11:48:00.001+01:00

Anyone who doesn’t believe in climate change is welcome to come and check out my garden! How is it possible to have a lupin first flower in September?

Round our way they usually finish flowering in July.

While I was out with the camera, I also took some piccies of things that are supposed to be in flower now, so pretty!

I love this time of year, cool enough for a cardi but still very sunny. The garden has matured into a riot of colour and is still very green. The fruit and veg is ripening, and it seems that all that hard work has been worthwhile.

Beccy

Decoupage with the stars themselves…

2010-09-15T10:19:00.001+01:00

We were given this cabinet when a neighbour moved out. I forgot to take a proper before picture but you can see this cabinet was pretty boring!

We spray painted the inside with some midnight blue plasticoat…

…and photocopied a 50’s book called ‘The stars’ by H. A. Ray. It’s a fantastic book full of constellation maps, essentially written for children but it’s fascinating and the illustrations are lovely. Mum’s been busy cutting them up and sticking them all over with wallpaper paste.

When the whole thing was covered it was finished with a coat of clear varnish to seal it.

Beccy

I finished Que Sera and a new skirt!

2010-09-07T15:17:00.001+01:00

The cardigan is the free Que Sera pattern from Knitty I started ages ago. Isn’t it pretty? Stop looking at those buttons, I know I went a bit wrong with my measuring :) I realised too late that I wasn’t going to have enough room to fit in another properly spaced buttonhole so I put one as high as I could in the neckband when I knitted it on. I think it’s ok?
The skirt was one I’ve had for ages, but it was far too big and had a bleach mark on the hem:

Yeuch, very sloppy! To fix it I added two box-pleats, one in the front and one in the back to pull in the waistband. Then I hemmed it shorter to get rid of that nasty red bleach spot.
This is my new teaching outfit – it’s the first day of class today and I wanted to make a good (smart-ish) impression. I might have to dig out my wide red belt though, to add a bit of zing - I am an art teacher, after all!
Beccy

Que sera…

2010-08-29T22:17:00.001+01:00

I’m knitting the Que sera cardi pattern from Knitty. The wool is some DK pure Bluefaced Liecester (I think, I bought it so long ago!) I dyed with weld (also a long time ago) I’ve been looking for the perfect pattern ever since, until I found this one.

It’s going ok bar a few minor screw-ups and it will need a lot of careful blocking – as you can see from the pictures it’s scrunching up a bit. I’ve finished the front and back and I’m halfway through the sleeves – now, if only I had some yellow clothes to go with it…
Beccy

I finished the skirt-to-dress… and a tutorial!

2010-08-23T20:36:00.001+01:00

I’ve surprised myself, I’ve only gone and finished a WIP!

Here’s how I did it…
You will need one oversize skirt - for reference, I’m a UK size 10-12(ish) and the skirt I used was size 22 and ankle length. You will also need a dressform, sorry but unless you’ve got a really patient friend who’s good with pins, a dressform is essential. There are plenty of tutorials on the interweb on how to make a duct-tape dressform from your own body if you don’t have one. You will also need a zip and a button.
As I mentioned in my last post, I removed the decorative hem and the elasticated waistband. I reused the hem as a contrasting fabric to form the band round the top and the sash belt.

I then pinned the skirt to the form (just pins round the top at this stage) making sure the neckline was sitting in the right spot. You can try on a dress you like and measure from shoulder to neckline and then transfer this measurement to the form. You don’t want it too low!

Now it’s time to get your pins out! With this much fabric you will need to make princess seams following the curve of the bust. It is much easier if you pull and pin the top of the skirt tight to the form, then find the centre front, back and sides and pin them down to the dressform. Then all you have to do is gather the excess fabric between them and pin like crazy! You will need two seams in the front and two in the back. You can make them straight and fitted like I did, or you could get creative! The bottom of these seams will become pleats in the skirt part of the dress so you’ll need to take this into account – one big pleat in the front and one in the centre back will not be attractive. Only pin to the waist and try to conceal any existing seams while you’re at it!
Mark your waistline at every new seam.

This part’s a bit scary! Sew your new seams, taking care to stop when you reach your waistline mark. Once you’ve done this it’s a good idea to try the dress for fit. It can be a bit tricky getting those princess seams right first time, but it’s better to get them right now rather than find out they’re wrong later!

Now slash the fabric at the waistline stopping 1cm short of your new seam.

Now remove the excess fabric from the bodice seams.

Your dress should now look like this (on the inside!)

Now press your seams flat and pin the loose folds of fabric below the waist to form soft box pleats.

Sew ‘em down!

Now pin the back ready for your zip and trim away the excess fabric. Sew up the back seam and press.

Now measure around the neckline and cut a length of your contrasting fabric, double the width plus 1cm you want your band to be, and slightly longer than your measurement. Fold over lengthwise leaving one side 1cm wider and sew. This extra 1cm will reduce some of the bulk in the seam later. Honest.
At this point I also cut facings for the neckline because this is a thin cotton - if your have a stiffer fabric you might not need any facings. I used the strip of fabric I cut from the back, pinned it to the neckline and cut a 2” band all round. I can do that because I have no boobs – If you are anything above an a-cup you’ll need some shaping. Pin your strip to the form and pleat under the arms until it lays flat. Sew those pleats.

Now to attach your band and facings. Pin the band right side up on the right side of the dress and make a sandwich with the facing on the top, wrong side up. Got it? Good, now sew ‘em all together. If you didn’t make a facing, don’t worry – pin the right side of the band to the wrong side of your dress and sew. Use the extra cm on the band to sew it to the dress, it should help cut down on bulk in the seams.
Flip the band to the front and iron the bajingers out of it. When you insert the zip, you will need to turn the ends of the band and facing to the back and sew them to the inside of the dress.

Topstitch the band and insert your zip. I sewed the zip to stop below the band, made a button loop from one of the old hanging loops and sewed a button to the band of the dress.
Measure for your straps and cut two from your contrasting fabric. Sorry no photos of this step but if you want 1” straps cut two lengths 2 1/2” wide, fold them face to face lengthwise, sew a 1/4” seam, use a knitting needle to invert them and press. Pin them to you dress, sew them down and you’re done bar the hemming!

I used a long length of the contrasting hem as a sash belt. Because the cotton is so thin the print has bled through and it’s hard to tell which is the right side. This is great because it meant I only needed to hem the raw edge of the sash rather than fold it in half to sew it, and I could keep it wide.
The hem of your dress should be longer at the back than the front, and you could choose to trim it all the same length but I chose to hem it as it was. I’m not lazy or anything (OK, I am) but I like it slightly asymmetrical.
I hope my ramblings make sense!
Beccy

Dancing at a wedding…

2010-08-22T23:13:00.001+01:00

Yep, that’d be me dancing like a loon at Phil’s wedding. Good times.

And no I definitely wasn’t drunk, but yes that is my pint.

Beccy

Skirt to dress AKA playing with the dressform…

2010-08-18T22:33:00.001+01:00

I bought this size 22 skirt from a charity shop ages ago – I love larger clothing because the skirts tend to be long, voluminous and elasticated which means there can be quite a bit of lovely fabric to work with!

I cut off the waistband and the patterned hem and started pinning like mad on my dressform. Sorry about the lousy pictures but I did a lot of this at night and did a couple of variations.

Princess seams (the gores fall in roughly the right place) with the old hem used as a sash belt, straps and band.

Empire line with the hem becoming the bodice and straps.

Gathered under the bust so I don’t get all squished!

The hem loosely pleated and tacked to the bust. I hate this. It was an attempt to give myself boobs but it just looks silly!
I think I like the top one best because it could become my “50’s dress from stash” as listed in my projects in the pipeline. It also has more shape than the empire line. It would need to be shorter than it is at the moment, and I’ll need to cut a bit of fabric away, so I’ll have some left over for another project – matching headscarf? Heehee.
If you don’t already have a dressform I really urge you to get one. Mine is a second-hand Singer something-or-other I got really cheap on Ebay and it adjusts everywhere. It makes refashioning clothing a lot more fun and easy because you can try out quite a few ideas quickly without having to put on pin-filled clothing and look in the mirror. You can also see the back! Of course it doesn’t rule out trying on the clothes altogether when you’re making, but it can be helpful to pin your favourite idea to the form and leave it for a few days just to get used to it – you usually come up with a few improvements!
I’ll let you know how it turns out!
Beccy

All finished!

2010-08-07T16:12:00.001+01:00

Just wanted to let you all know that the (probably) boring saga of the workshop is (finally) at an end.

We’ve got a website if you wanna have a look-see - we’ve even got a logo, like a proper business or something!

Lawks! Now I might have time to actually make something nice. I’ve adjusted my dressform (how is it possible to lose 2” from your bust and waist but 0” from your hips?) so I can work on some refashions that have thus-far existed only in my head.

I’ve also got an unexpected commission to make a plate for a chap but that’s almost finished so I think it’s about time I made use of that workshop and started on something new!

Right, I’m off – I was at a very late, very dancy wedding last night and I’m a wee bit tired!

Beccy

The planter is finished…

2010-07-22T23:07:00.001+01:00

Just a few photos to show you the finished brick wall/planter/extra garden seating we built!

Before…

During…

We keep calling it the horse-trough!

After…

I know it’s probably not the best time to do it, but I carefully uprooted a lovely pink climbing rose from the front garden to plant around the window. It looked a bit sad for a few days but with plenty of watering and some food it looks fine.

Just need to sort out that patch of bare earth with grass seed or turf and it’s done! I collected the clump of chamomile that had self-seeded on that spot and hung it in the greenhouse to dry. Every morning when I open the door I get a gust of drowsy scent, it’s lovely. I might have to make some tea.

Beccy

Don’t weep Mr bricklayer…..

2010-07-15T20:22:00.001+01:00

it’s only a little poorly constructed wall!

Stop two on the procrastination express is to build a little retaining wall for a raised bed.

You’ve got to make an absolute mess first right?

Laying strip foundations – the ground slopes so we had to make them split-level. Is that allowed in bricklaying? I have no idea!

The first two courses, in total about 12 bricks, took two hours!

And as it looks now, my good friend Elle came to help today and we built a lot more in less time. Ok so it’s not perfect but they are really old bricks – some were even found when the builders dug the foundation for the workshop. They were all shapes, sizes, colours and some were warped and cracked.

You’ll notice the other end has a curve? I’ll take a photo of that when we’ve finished, if it passes muster. If not, I’ll be making judicious use of pots!

Hopefully it will be finished tomorrow (if the rumours of a half day at work are correct) and then I can plant it up with the increasingly sad-looking plants that have been waiting in the greenhouse for weeks.

The shelves are coming for the workshop next week, as is the lady from the council’s planning office to decide whether we can teach from there (eep! Wish us luck)

We’re also taking our Victorian mangle to college to get it sympathetically converted to a slabroller. This is really important for us because we use a lot of clay slabs and it’s a backbreaking job rolling them by hand. A new slabroller can set you back £1500 so using an old mangle is not only eco-friendly it’s also vastly cheaper.

Anyway, I’ll keep you posted!

Beccy

Laying paving AKA procrastination express…

2010-06-29T20:42:00.001+01:00

Ok, so I know I should be putting up miles of shelves and generally finishing the inside of the workshop but we really wanted to get this bit of paving laid. You see, our patio area was sooo small, just big enough for our little table and three chairs. What’s that? You’d like to invite people round? Barbeque perhaps? Well no, you just can’t fit em. Since our Grand Opening Party will require other folk occupying the premises, we felt almost justified spending a few days in the sun.

Until we started that is.

Because it involved moving vast amounts of earth, levelling said earth, and then realising that the old paving blocks we were using (that used to occupy our front garden) were all different thicknesses. This meant we spent a whole day laying each one individually. No easy, straightforward jobs for us! Bah, the sun became torturous pretty quickly but the paving is looking nice!

Just got to fire and glaze the tiles that will fit in those triangular bits and we’re done.

Next up on our procrastination timetable are; Building a wall for a raised bed, planting the bed, painting an ugly concrete garage to be sympathetic, glazing the outdoor tiles, glazing tiles for around the sinks – the list goes on!

Sadly, the miles of shelving will have to wait.

P.s. thankyou to everyone who sent good thoughts for Kitten! I can tell he’s getting better because he’s becoming tetchier by the minute (his fur growing back might give a more accurate visible assessment, but then I am trying to keep my shredded arms covered)

Beccy

Kitten came home!

2010-06-23T11:02:00.001+01:00

Yay! If you remember, one of our cats went missing about a month ago – after several phonecalls to the Cats Protection League, RSPCA and several vets he didn’t turn up. We also put posters up and some people rang – we even went to see a cat that could have been him but no, we were disappointed.

But, I was on the phone at 8.30am yesterday and I looked up and there he was, just sitting on the carpet licking his paws. I got off the phone just as he slipped out of the cat flap so I followed him, calling and calling. I turned round and there he was sitting behind me. He was very jittery, and very thin but it was him.

It’s awful how thin he is, and he’s lost most of the hair on his head. He has scabs on his face, back and ankles – although he had had a fight with another cat a week before he went missing which triggered him licking his fur until it came off, so in that respect he looks a bit better. He was in the middle of a course of antibiotics when he went missing.

Here he is before:

Handsome huh? And here he is now:

Poor little boy, I nearly didn’t recognise him! The vet has given him more antibiotics and steroids. He weighed nearly 6kg at his last vet appointment (14th May, three days before he went missing) and he weighs 3.5kg now. Her best guess is that he’s been trapped in a garage living off his own reserves which is too awful to think about. But now he’s home and we’re overjoyed. He’s very friendly until the ‘roid rage kicks in! We can’t stop stroking him, and we’ve got the wounds to prove it!

Beccy

Avoiding night-time peepery with a roman blind tutorial…

2010-06-20T22:49:00.001+01:00

This window needed something to avoid peepery paranoia. I decided to make a blind because I only had one curtain (the other is covering the French doors) and it happened to be only just slightly bigger than the width of the window – certainly not enough to split into two curtains.

You will need:
Upholstery-type fabric
Lining fabric
Dowel
Screw in eyelets
Strong cord

I don’t have any pictures of the first bit, because it’s yukky measuring :(
The main fabric is going to be flat, but I am using a lining to form the channels for the rods.
First you need to measure your window. You need to cut your main fabric the size of the window plus 10cm all round.
You now need to decide how many rods you are going to use – remember there is one at the very top, but not one at the very bottom. I decided I needed six rods. The dowel I chose was 1cm wide, and when I wrapped the fabric loosely around the dowel then measured it, I needed 5cm of fabric to form a channel for the dowel.
5x6cm = 30cm
My window is 105cm high so…
105cm+30cm = 135cm + hem allowance.
This is the length of my lining fabric. The width needs to be slightly less than the main fabric if you want to hide your cord, so I cut mine 15cm smaller than the main fabric.
Once you’ve cut your two pieces of fabric you need to hem all around the main piece and on three sides of the lining leaving the bottom raw edged. The main piece should have a 5cm hem on each side, you’ll see why later.

Then you need to do the dreaded measuring – for some reason I always do this wrong first time. Now some maths – remember I wanted six rods? Well I also wanted the bottom to have a small overhang of 10cm when the blind was raised. So…
135cm – 10cm = 125cm
125cm – 30cm (excess for the channels) = 95cm
Because one of the rods is at the top, and I have decided on the length of the bottom segment myself, I only need to divide this number by 5.
95cm/5 = 19cm
This will be the distance between the rods.
Phew! I hate maths, even easy maths confusles me.
So, starting from the bottom hem I marked 10cm, then 5cm, then 19cm, then 5, then 19… ending with 5cm at the top. Do the same on both sides.
Now fold the fabric along the middle of each channel so the marks line up and pin like mad.

When you’re happy with your channels, press all the folds.

If you haven’t already, mark the fabric 2.5cm from each fold…

…and sew…

…until your lining looks like this: Giant pintucks!

Press all the channels downwards and lay your lining on your main fabric, making sure the tops are level. See how the lining is smaller on each side? This will hide the cord. The 5cm hem on the main fabric means that you won’t see the back of the fabric.

Once again pin like mad, especially along the channels.

Now sew through all the layers, following the channel stitching. Go slowly, you don’t want either of the layers to pucker!

Now is the laborious bit – you need to hand sew the bottom hem and tack around all the sides, including the top. You can do this with your machine, but it’s a lot of stopping and starting (you don’t want to sew those channels shut!) and I wanted to keep the visible stitches to a minimum on the front.
Now measure the width of you lining again (just to be on the safe side), and cut five lengths of dowel. The sixth (top) dowel should be the width of the whole blind for hanging.

Round the ends of your dowel, this will make it easier to thread them through your sewn channels.

Screw your eyelets into the ends of all the dowels except the top one…

…and thread them through your channels.

Now thread one length of cord through the loops on the right, and another through the loops on the left.
Your cords should be different lengths – one should be twice the height of the blind plus the width of the blind (plus 30cm for luck!) mine was 105cmx2+115cm (+30) = 355cm. The other should be twice the height (+30) = 240cm. Tie the lengths of cord to the eyelets on each bottom dowel.
I screwed two cup hooks (I love cup hooks) into the wood above the window - 1cm in, and 1cm down from the top. Then I hooked the top dowel over the cup hooks. The longer length of cord should be looped through both cup hooks over the top of the blind.

Letting the blind hang loose, tie both cords together at the top and tie something interesting to the bottom.

Screw a cleat to the wall near the window so you have something to tie the cords to (or wrap them around) to keep the blind up, and you’re done!

Lawks, that was a lot of steps! But at least now I’m safe from the night-time peepery!
Beccy

We’ve got taps!

2010-06-02T21:11:00.001+01:00

…and benches and worktops. And stuff.

We’ve had a few days off work – Monday was a Bank Holiday so we got that off, but since it’s half term we managed to get a couple of extra days too – so we’ve been putting in some hours trying to get the workshop finished.

And here’s how it’s looking now. We’ve painted the finished benches and Elle came today to wield her circular saw magic on the worktops. It’s not that I’m scared of it (honest) it’s just that I can’t cut a straight line even with an 8-inch blade, well clamped guides and the will to do it! Elle is a demon with that saw - and she has a sense of urgency even during our current heatwave (which I lack – I just want to sit and drink Robinsons barley water all day).

This sink drainer was a godsend – it has the perfect shaped hole already cut for a Belfast sink and it’s (probably) teak. It cost us £6 on ebay plus the drive to Hull pick it up. It looks lovely now but it was a bit grotty when we got it (which wasn’t mentioned in the listing), but for £6? We knew we could clean it. A bit of elbow grease and a gallon of teak oil later (did you guys know that stuff can spontaneously combust? Yikes!) and it is now shiny and looking as good as new. The taps are chrome, 40’s and cost considerably more!

Our Belfast sink was also an ebay find and cost £5 plus the drive to a Mormon church in Rotherham to pick it up – Elle has a very handy other half who’s going to come and drill us a huge hole through the wall for the sink waste, then we can fit it in and we’re good to go!

I also hung a curtain today because I’m paranoid of night-time peepery. Ok, I’m not going to be getting changed in there or anything but a lit room with black uncovered windows always makes me feel like I’m being watched. This is one half of a pair of curtains we bought from Oxfam a few months ago, the other one is going to become a blind for the window.

And finally, we just managed to stop this going into a skip at college. It was dirty and worn and that orangey woody colour. There are also 20 trays in a lovely shade of school furniture brown. So, we painted the carcase in the same shade of white as the walls and the trays are getting a coat of pale blue Plastikote. It has doors that refuse to hang straight so I think we’re just going to leave them off. This will be great for holding all our tools and Interesting Things.

Right, I’m off – Junior Apprentice is on telly and I need to nurse my slight sunburn.

Beccy

Busy busy busy…

2010-05-25T18:33:00.001+01:00

…worry, worry, worry. In fact, I’ve been too busy to post lately. Has it really been two weeks?

The thing is, I haven’t got much to show you. As many of you know, I work in the art department of a college. This time of year is our busiest by far because they always seem to find a way to do the bulk of their final pieces at the last minute. I can’t really complain, I was the same myself, but it doesn’t half make you tired watching students pulling out their hair with worry! The other thing is that I work with my mum which means we spend half of our home-time planning the following week, and other projects fall by the wayside.

To make matters worse one of our cats has gone walkabout, right in the middle of a course of antibiotics. He’s been gone since Friday and it isn’t looking good. So, when we’re not worrying about work, we’re worrying about (and looking for) Kitten. Our local RSPCA keeps odd hours, so first thing tomorrow is the first chance I’ll have to phone and see if he’s wound up there.

We have managed to find some time for the workshop – the base for the Belfast sink is built and we’ve ordered lots of ‘bits’ like taps and worktops, so we can hopefully fit it all in next week during half term. We’ve also started laying paving in our devastated-by-builders garden, so our guests have somewhere to stand during our Grand Workshop Opening Party.

I also found a morning for sewing. I love this playsuit made by Mena at The Sew Weekly and I wanted to make one too. Using this pattern…

I have so far made this…

Ok, so it’s only the top minus the sleeves. But I have cut them and the bottom parts and adjusted the skirt to make culottes. I made it from an old duvet cover and it’s a wearable muslin because I have some really beautiful fabric, perfect for this project, but I’m afraid to cut into it! It might not work. Can you tell I spent ages matching the stripes? It took nearly the whole duvet cover to cut the pieces for this, but I’m loath to make something I’ll never wear because it’s annoying to look at.

Anyway, the students will be all finished in a couple of weeks and I’m quietly confident Kitten will turn up – he’s an outdoorsy cat and has wandered off like this before and always turns up sooner or later – maybe then I’ll be able to relax a bit and indulge in some more nice things.

Beccy

What do you think of this colour?

2010-05-06T20:04:00.001+01:00

So, we painted the workshop table, but we’re not sure about the colour – it really is that turquoise. I’m getting used to it, but mum’s not so sure and we both have to work on it. We wanted off-white walls and splashes of bright colour and we had this unused tin in the shed. What do you guys think? Could you live with it? I think the thing she really hates is that it clashes with the ever-so-slightly-different-shade-of-turquoise stools you can see on the left of the picture. And we didn’t think of that. And they are perfectly worn in all the most fashionable places by years of use so it would be a travesty to paint them.

I also spent hours Tuesdayday notching the legs for the rest of the workbenches that will be going around the corner of the room. I had to do 13 of them (lucky for some) and although I like using the circular saw – you know how I love power tools – it tends to kick up sawdust into my face and make my cheeks hurt. Who needs fancy micro-dermabrasion? The great thing is that this weekend I can start putting them together!

I think I didn’t appreciate just how long it would take to make these benches, even though I knew we’d be only be able to make them in the few hours a week we have spare. Soon be finished, and then the sense of major achievement will kick in!

Beccy

A new home for the chooks…

2010-05-04T21:20:00.001+01:00

We don’t spend much time in the front garden these days, so we decided to move the chooks into the back garden, because that’s where the workshop is, and that’s where we always are. We decided that they’d have more room this way too.
We usually grow veggies around the greenhouse, but with a bit of fencing we could put the chooks there instead.

We made the gate to be deliberately ramshackle! We were going for a rustic look rather than ‘The Good Life’ and when we get around to putting the paving back down, and planting in front of the hen house it might just look like that. Or we’ll paint it green.
The old run didn’t have a gate, and it’s heaven to be civilised for a change and not have to climb over a fence to put them to bed!

The inside of the house – note, they have never once used their perch.

To the side there is a fence that is high on the hen’s side, but only 3’ on the other so my neighbour can easily feed them (he likes to collect worms for them). This photo was taken while we were still sorting it out – now they have logs to perch on and a string we can hang green things from. The plant at the front right is spinach, they love spinach so within an hour that had gone, but I’ve got a big spinach bed in the front garden to treat them with.

And on the other side of the greenhouse we attached an old cupboard door. We stapled chicken wire to the open part for extra added rusticity.
Trust me, by summer it will definitely look more rustic and less Good Life!
Beccy

Davy’s been poorly…

2010-04-30T20:38:00.001+01:00

Hello folks. I’ve been absent for a week, I know, but it’s been hell of a week.
Well, two weeks really. Dave, the last of our original hens has been sick. She looked a bit under the weather so we brought her in and to keep an eye on her. She was being very picky about her food – interested, but not eating. I’ve been syringe feeding ever since. This continued for about a week and we thought she might have worms despite using verm-x (isn’t a trawl around the forums enlightening? Turns out verm-x = evil and useless) We ordered the proper medicinal wormer from the net – one we had been avoiding because we didn’t want to pump our beleaguered ex-bats full of chemicals. The next morning her crop was full and it looked like she wouldn’t be able to take the meds. A phone chat with our wonderful poultry vet confirmed worms, and I rushed round to pick up some drops to put on her skin. He was worried about her crop though and thought she might have an impaction further down that he wouldn’t be able to clear.
I'm beginning to think the vet was right, and she may have blockage beyond her crop. I’ve been treating for sour crop and I thought it had emptied yesterday morning but when I got back from work she was unable to stand and her crop was full as ever this morning. She has gone from looking peaky for two weeks to looking near death overnight. I didn't expect her to be alive when I got home from work today, and had a good cry and said goodbye this morning but she's still here, hanging on. She's extremely weak, her eyes are closed and she's just lying there rather than sitting. If I try and stand her up she falls forward and I have to catch her. I’m sure she's skinnier than she was two weeks ago but I can't bring myself to weigh her to find out.
When we first got hens, a lady I met said they bring you nothing but heartache. I'm looking at Rita and Lucy trying to shelter from the rain and I have to say I don't wholeheartedly agree. I love watching them pecking about, and I'm proud they have all been rescued from evil battery cages - but when they die the heartache shows itself.
At least Davey got to see the sun.
I’m sitting watching Brief Encounter (I just watched the original Sweet November, it’s that sort of night) with Dave on my lap, sleeping. I know to most people she’s only a hen, and I feel a bit foolish being so melodramatic, but to me she’s no different to a dog or any one of my cats, and I know it’s only a matter of time.
So for now I’m signing off, to get a coffee and pull myself together, and decide whether I’m going to spend my bank holiday weekend sewing through my mountain of lovely fabric or building more workshop furniture.
That’s it Beccy, focus on the Nice things.
Beccy

The building of a table…

2010-04-18T22:05:00.001+01:00

I have to start by saying Knock-off wood is awesome, Ana is awesome.

We needed a huge table for the workshop, one metre by two and a half. The dimensions have to be perfect because we have so much we need to fit in there. We also needed the table to be sturdy, have storage underneath and most of all be cheap!

Enter Knock-off wood. I’ve talked about the site before and all Ana’s amazing (and free) woodworky plans. And not just any plans, these are plans for high-end, high-priced furniture from places like Pottery Barn and the like and the thing is, they’re better made, and much, much cheaper.

Here’s our newly delivered wood. It’s mostly planed, sawn softwood but see those green ones on the left? They are our table legs, and they are un-planed fenceposts. You see, it’s impossible to get planed 4x4’s anywhere near here.

Enter my new friend/torturer the 60’s plane…

…which created this. An enormous pile of shavings. Now, you might be forgiven for thinking I did all this by myself because that’s how I’ve made it sound, but I didn’t. There were three of us – me, ma and Elle, all taking turns, one measuring, one sawing and one planing. And I tell you, it was hard work for all of us!

These next pics show the table in progress. Once we had cut all the wood, which took 2 days (although we were cutting wood for a further two workbenches at the same time) it still took another day to put together but it was worth it.

And the (almost) finished table. It is definitely sturdy! two of us could barely turn it over, never mind move it. All screw-holes need to be filled and it’s going to be painted below, but the top will probably be lightly whitewashed because I hate yellow pine and I think I might be rubbish at applying convincing stains!

So our hands hurt, our knees hurt, we stink of wood and have sawdust in places we didn’t know we had places, but I have to say thankyou so much Ana! The specific plans can be found here if you want to see. I’ll post another pic when it’s properly finished, but for now I was too excited to wait! I don’t know about ma and Elle, but this is the first woody thing I’ve made since CDT classes at school, and I’m proud.

Now onto the other two workbenches…

Beccy

Car booty…

2010-04-18T21:27:00.001+01:00

Just a few things I discovered at last Saturday’s car boot sale. There is a lot of this fabric – more than enough to make a lovely frock. I know what you’re all thinking, ‘does Beccy ever make any of these dresses she’s always banging on about?’ Well never fear, I will soon as I have a free day! At the moment I’m just gathering supplies so I have everything on hand I need for those perfect frocks :)

Speaking of supplies, I found these awesome cards of buttons too.

This 60’s dress was £3 and it just fits. If only I hadn’t eaten all those eggs over Easter…

This tea set 30p. 30p!!! The little old lady on the stall asked if I needed it because I was ‘away to college?’. Haha, despite being 30, I look about 17.

And finally, my new toy. It’s an old 60’s Rapier plane and it cost me £3. The blade looked like someone had used it on a cheesegrater but I managed to grind it back to usability.

Tune in tomorrow (as they say on the telly) to see what we’ve been doing with it!

Beccy

A long week…

2010-04-12T22:11:00.001+01:00

…at least it feels like it! Which is a good thing, because I’ve been on holiday all week and have another one to come – if I make it seem as long again, these two weeks could feel like a month off work!

I finished the plate I was making for that chap and managed to get it posted off to France – it should arrive tomorrow, I hope he likes it. Here’s my original he wanted…

…and here’s the copy.

Almost the same, barring photography and the fact that the original broke in storage – in fact it’s better made!

Me, off a-posting!

We spent a day visiting our friend Penny in nearby Pocklington, who we haven’t seen for a year (!) and her new dog. We took him for a long walk in the wettest wood ever, but it was so nice to see Pen we didn’t care about the mud.

We also went to Hull to pick up an ebay win – a lovely piece of teak countertop for the workshop. We stopped off at the Humber bridge which has a nature reserve to one side. I’ve never been before, that bridge is huge!

I’ve spent the rest of my time painting the workshop, boy it’s taking a lot of time to get that finished! I haven’t any photos of it finished but we finally got the floor primed and painted too. We also ordered the wood today for the workbenches and table which are going to look like this, but longer. Once again, I have to say that Ana at knock-off wood is amazing and her plans are awesomesauce. If you haven’t already, I urge you to clickedy click the link now.

When the wood arrives tomorrow afternoon I will know the painting is nearly finished. Nearly, because all the benches will be painted too – do any of you love painted wood? I’m a sucker for it. By the way, it took all day today to calculate how much wood we need - ‘sell it in even lengths madam? No, we only do weird random lengths, so you’d better be good at maths!’

Those who know me well know I get a bit too excited about tools, but I haven’t had a chance to use my new laser-guided circular saw yet and my trigger finger is itching.

On Saturday we took a morning off to visit our local car boot sale, not so rich pickings but I did find a few things. More on that tomorrow…

Beccy

This week’s vintage finds….

2010-04-02T13:16:00.001+01:00

Ok, so I haven’t had much time for making things, but I managed to get out to the charity shops for a couple of hours. It was slim pickings, but I did find this:

I love old sewing baskets, it seemed a bit steep at £4 - especially since it’s falling to bits and needs some tlc - until I opened it up…

…and I found it was full of lovely old sewing stuff! I’ve never seen so many sewing needles in one place, there were also lots of bobbins – some of them are wooden, and you know how I love wooden bobbins! Lengths of elastic, zips (some curiously tiny), thimbles, buttons a weird needle threader (the green box that says ‘Ully’ in the third pic – if anyone knows how to use it…?) There is also a load of darning thread and a darning mushroom.

Bonanza!

Beccy

A commission of sorts, but no sewing…

2010-03-24T10:16:00.001Z

I haven’t had any time to do any sewing recently, or knitting, painting, gardening, but this time it’s a good thing. You see, I was contacted out of the blue by someone wanting to buy one of my plates, this one to be precise:

Unfortunately this work was made for an installation and has been in storage ever since. When I went to retrieve said plate it was badly cracked so I offered to make the chap one of his very own.

These plates are one-offs and are very hard to make, so that’s what I’ve been doing for the last two weeks. It’s very exciting, because I’ve had to move into the workshop early (we’re still at the painting stage because my hurt shoulder means I can’t do too much) but this is what I want to do with my life.

This is the plan:

Build workshop
Make work
Sell work
Give up part of day job
Sell more work
Give up rest of day job
Become millionaire

Number 1 isn’t finished yet but number 2 seems promising. Really, I’ve made The Plan much more vague than it actually is for comic effect, and I know it’s not going to be easy – I think the only way I’ll get to number 7 is to get really good at monopoly. My art degree had a large business component and my tutor would never forgive me if that was as detailed as the plan gets!

Having said that, when people ask I always tell them number 1 closely followed by number 7 and then pull a funny face.

But all comedy aside, it feels like something is happening and that makes me happy. If you’d like to see some more of my ceramics head over to my website and let me know what you think.

Beccy

Dating vintage patterns – an answer for Catherine…

2010-03-16T18:52:00.001Z

It can be hard to date patterns sometimes because they never do helpful things like put dates on!

Some patterns are obvious (style-wise) like the 40's one in my last post, but some early 60's can look like 50's, late 60's look like 70's etc. etc. For example, is my new Vogue 8187 late 40’s or early 50’s?

You can google the pattern number but companies have a tendency to use 1000 to 9999 then ‘recycle’ the numbers. This is also Vogue 8187:

Nope, that ain’t my pattern…

So what can you do? You can look at a lot of pictures of vintage clothing to find something that is similar and make an educated guess (hairstyles can be a big clue) or you can search for your pattern number in places like Sew Retro, So Vintage Patterns or the Vintage Pattern Lending Library. These will give you an era, or sometimes an exact date, if they have the pattern.

Your best bet for an exact date is the Commercial Pattern Archive, which is huge, but you have to pay for it at $40 for three months. It’s an awesome resource which gives you a date and an image like this for pretty much every pattern they have:

But only great if you’re the type who can built a pattern from schematics and a picture. They sometimes have a free weekend, which is where I got the images above (in case I ever do get good enough to make a pattern from a schematic)

So in conclusion? Well, according to So Vintage Patterns my Vogue 8187 is 50’s, and they are selling one for $28 (ha, I paid £2). The interweb is a fantastic tool for research and websites like this will help a lot – even if they don’t have the exact pattern you are searching for, a quick browse will find you a similar one you can use to date yours.

Remember, hemlines lower in times of crisis!

Beccy