slow day

Rainy day. A good excuse to stay warm indoors and do a little bit of sewing (and knitting, and drawing, and watching the crows pick things (moss? insects?) from between the slates of the roof opposite my window) 

Sewing machine on the dining room table because everybody is out....

Tutorial here

And the finished gloves (well, glove. But the other one is there, I promise, making itself useful and holding the camera). Sunday.

catch up

I say catch up, but  I wonder, where should I start? My first full week of work has flown by, and I feel like I've been there much longer, which I suppose is a good sign! I've realised I have to throw myself into it, and not wait to be told, as the three men that work there are very gentlemanly and seem to be keeping all the dirty jobs for themselves :) 

But seriously, they have made me feel very welcome and there has even been a little time to have a play...

I also finished the gloves... I pulled back the original one and knitted it again,  making it longer as planned. But there was still something not quite right, it was too baggy. I knit the next glove slightly smaller and it definitely fits much better, so I bit the bullet, pulled back the first one for the second time and knit it up again to match. At least I know the pattern off by heart now!

I don't have any pictures of the new gloves. In fact I don't have any pictures of any of the things I want to show you, because it's got to that time of year when I leave the house in the dark in the morning and return home from work in the dark in the evening. All my photos are yellow tinged and which ever filters I twiddle in photoshop I can't seem to do anything about it. The photos still look like they were taken in the Seventies (which is not necessarily a bad thing, just not the look I'm after...)

But tomorrow is another day, and hopefully it will stay light long enough for me to take some snaps. How long 'til Spring??!

knitting experiment 2

Today I have been knitting. I managed to get up early (perhaps my body clock is finally adjusting to winter time...) and decided to attempt knitting in the round. And cables. 

I think sometimes I get too comfortable with what I'm able to do. I find a level and sit there, carrying on with what I know, with the thought at the back of my mind that anything else would be too hard. And then one day I'll suddenly think 'actually, I should have a go' and my brain pleasantly surprises me. It's just a case of having a go isn't it. It also makes me wonder what else I take for granted that I can't do, when actually, if I was just to try...

 Anyway, after trying about 5 patterns for fingerless gloves I decided on this one (I haven't made the thumb here as this is just a test run to see how the pattern works). The others patterns I tried were lace and the wool I had was too chunky, it just looked a mess. I'm pleased with he simplicity of this one, a good introduction to 4 needles and cables I think! 

All I need to do now is pull this one back (sob!) extend the cuff so the gloves go up my arm and make the distance between thumb and fingers shorter (I've only got little fingers :) ) Oh, and not drop any stitches and pick them up backwards; that really ruins the look!

another experiment

When I read a while back that Amisha could knit and read at the same time I was very impressed. Now the more knitting blogs I read it seems like that is the normal way to go about things and I decided I wanted to be able to do it too! 

So the other day, when I decided that I was fed up with crumbs in my ipod and that I should knit it a little case, it seemed like a good opportunity to try a 'knitting but not looking at the needles' experiment...

Well. It felt very odd at first, like I didn't trust myself to do it right at all without looking. But the more I forced myself to look away (at the wall in fact, my brain is not ready for reading quite yet...) the more I realised that I had known all along what to do, I just had to do it. I mean, it's only garter stitch, but it's a start!

Now this little ipod holder I knitted does look distinctly like the first thing I ever made when my mum taught me to knit when I was little; a little stripy case to hold my tooth fairy money; but I suppose that's quite apt considering I'm kind of learning all over again...

cold

I've got a cold. Which is really annoying seen as I like to think I don't get colds... hmmm oh well. It's also still raining, which means no nice photos of the bag to show you.


Instead I found this picture of me, taken last weekend, by my friend (I didn't know he had the camera out, I was concentrating on my knitting!) Taken before I felt like my head was going to explode, in the garden after we mowed the lawn, when it was sunny and bright. Perhaps tomorrow?

guess what?

I got the job! As a teaching assistant in a GCSE Art & Design class and I'm so excited! I know i love this kind of job as I've done it before with children with special needs, but it was across a whole school. This time it's here and in an art class and I can't tell you how pleased I am. It's only for 2-3 days a week so I'm keeping my office job too but it just means I feel like my life is starting to go somewhere! (Too many exclamation marks, I know!)

Oh, and I made some cats...





I'm off now to sit in the sun (day off work, what a life!) and read my book and stress about starting a new job in two days time, aghh!

hmmm...

I was looking under my bed for some scraps of paper to draw on and I stumbled across these etchings and aquatints of trees that I made in Autumn last year. I knew I'd made them but I thought I only had the plates, not any actual prints. But here they are! It's made me realise how much I miss this type of printing though, process intensive and so much to learn. These prints are just proofs really, and I feel like there's so much further to go with them. Maybe I will take a printing class or something. I think having access to a press makes all the difference, I haven't really discovered a way to print etching plates without one, you just can't get the pressure!

When I finnished my degree I felt so overwhelmed with making art. I felt it had taken over every moment of my life and I had perhaps lost sight of what I wanted to make in the midst of all the assesment and 'advice' I was receiving. I felt like I needed a break from it all, that I was taking it too much for granted. I felt like I didn't know what I actually wanted to make, I needed to miss it again.



Well, now I definitely miss it! Very much so! I feel I'm slowly finding what it is I want to do, without the pressure of it being 'art' or 'craft' or, in fact, anything. It's quite liberating to just do what I like. That may sound silly, (it certainly does to me!) but Art degrees can get so, well... involved. Hmmm. I did these drawings today, they're not finnished yet...



Sorry for the blurry photos... from my phone, and I didn't look at them when I took them, but you get the idea...

Don't know. Now I have no sudio and work full time in a none-too-creative job everything seems to take twice as long to bear resemblance to anything half decent. But that's ok I think.


Am making some spicy sweet potato kebabs for tea (Or poo-on-a-stick as my house mate commented, maybe she's got something there...) and listening to the Gary Stewart Band who happen to be having a rehersal in my living room... You should listen, they're very good!



And finally, in reply to Amisha, the bunny (from previous post) is from 'Nursery Knits' by Debbie Bliss, my Grandma gave me the book (She works in a charity shop and comes to visit with some right treasures, tubs of buttons and knitting needles and books). I think it's still in print, it's full of cute outfits with matching animals and shoes. The rabbit is my favourite though, I'm on my fourth one!


Here is the first one I made for a little baby called Seth. He was made with bright blue pearly wool, lovely!

Right, I'm off.

sunday

Lovely relaxing day today. First, a nice lie in (although I don't think it was well earned, had a right lazy day yesterday!), and then a giant tasty sandwich for breakfast...



Then a bit of knitting...



He is for my friend who's due to have a baby any day... a little girl, hence the pink ears...


Do you like his pompom?

And I baked an apple cake from my new cook book Wholefood.


Yummy!

I like Sundays. Nice slow days of pottering around and catching up with things and relaxing. Time to think. Lovely.