Christmas report

This is what my bathroom ceiling looked like on Christmas morning. The geyser decided to break while we were sleeping! After finding out firsthand what plumbers charge for a callout on Christmas day, Christmas lunch didn't seem so indulgent.... we needed all that pudding just to restore our bloodsugar levels to normal.

But Christmas wasn't all bad. In fact, some lovely things happened.


Cristina proved that even my more garbled patterns can be decoded, by making a very pretty purse from my instructions.


And Deedee improved on my vase pattern. I love how the stitches change shape.


Kaija sent me a book of good things, along with some yummy paper goodies. The little book is beautiful - she still has some in her shop, if you want to get your own.


And I was given this book for Christmas. It's odd, exciting, fascinating; page after page proves that, left to their own devices, no two knitters will produce the same things. And some will think of very odd things. I might never use any of the patterns in it, but I've already had more ideas than I could finish in a year.


This is one of them. What's it for? I'll have to show you next year!

I hope you all have a great New Year's Eve and a wonderful year. 2007 has been pretty scary, quite interesting, and mostly exciting, what with finishing That Comic and starting my printing experiments. Thank you for all your comments, and even more, for all your blogs.

Mmmmm..... Christmas....

Elves are so yummy.

Thanks!

Thank you to all the people who've been talking about my prints recently!


I found this button ring kit at Sew Bettie's Etsy shop, via the Sew Bettie blog, after they wrote a post about my prints . It's time to start thinking about After-Christmas-Presents to myself.... Have a look at Sew Bettie for some experiments in block printing. I can't wait to see what they come up with!



A post about my prints on Modish had me exploring the rest of the site, and led very quickly to these shoes - available on Etsy! Custom made by zerkahloostrah. So thank you for the post, and thank you for showing me shoes I'm going to dream about for a good while.

Bloesem made a lovely display of some of my prints as well - and I found out that Bloesem Kids has just been launched. I love kids' sites; this is going to be a favourite one to browse!

(And to top a great day off, last night I went to someone's work Christmas party, and ate guinea fowl and quail and fruit and sorbet. I'm still smiling.)

There's a 'last chance' market at the Old Biscuit Mill tonight, where I'll be selling bags and purses and dolls and badges with Heather. See her photos of last week's market to see why you should be there!

Accomplishments

I'm feeling like I've earned my sewing stripes today. Not because I managed to make these patched purses (though I'm fairly shocked that they worked) but because I broke a needle! Yep, my first one. Sewed recklessly across a zip, something went 'Thunk!', something landed on the far side of the room, and the pointy bit of the needle was left dangling from a thread. I took a breath, cursed mildly, replaced the needle, and carried on sewing at the same breakneck speed. And I know, because I've seen them, that this is how real sewing people do it.

In case you're still wrapping presents, or in fact making them, or even still thinking about where to buy them, Amy from angry chicken has made some really useful gift tags to download.

Sampler Purses

My little purse seems to be holding up well, so well that I've made a few since. It's a fun way to try out stitch patterns, without having to commit to a whole lot of knitting. The only limitation is that the stitch pattern needs to work in the round; though if you're not as averse to sewing as I am, you could knit it flat.* But that sort of defeats the point, which is that when you're done knitting, it's finished. So satisfying!

Here's how I did it:

1 circular needle
some yarn, whatever weight will work with whatever size needle you grabbed - gauge is not important, other than to note that lots of bobbles at a very tight gauge can be hard on your hands.

Cast on 50 stitches using the Turkish Cast-on (that's 25 stitches on each needle) or the closest number that will work for your chosen stitch pattern. Instructions for the Turkish Cast-on here, or here, or here. Video here.

The number is only really important for even distribution of the bobbles; no reason you couldn't cast on more, and decrease near the top to make a more shapely purse.

Knit till the pocket is long enough - about 7 cm.

Next round, the bobble-making round:
K2, make bobble, *k3, make bobble* to last 2 stitches, k2 (6 bobbles) Knit to end of round.
**To make a bobble, knit front, back, front, back, front into next stitch, turn, k5, turn, p5, turn, k2tog, k2tog, k1, turn, p3 tog. Small, tight bobbles seem to work best for this**

Next round: Cast off 25 stitches. K5, cast on 5 stitches (I just use a single cast-on), *k3tog, cast on 5* to last 5 stitches, k5. Turn.
Next row: knit
Cast off.

If your stitch pattern requires more than 25 stitches, just centre the 25 stitches needed for the bobbles, and cast off the extra stitches with the others in the cast-off row.

*To knit the purse flat, cast on 25 stitches, knit a row, knit the bobble-making row, knit another row, start your stitch pattern, and knit until you have the length you want, then knit the loops, cast off, and sew up the sides.

If my numbers for the bobble placement are squiffy, let me know, I'll check and fix them right away. I have this drawn out on a scrap of paper with many corrections crossed out...

Night market report

Heather has some lovely photos of Friday's Night Market up on skinny laminx. Not just our stall, either; have a look at some of the other people selling things, and see why you should try to be there this coming Friday night!

Night Market

I'll have these bags, and other things, at the Biscuit Mill Night Market this evening from 6 to 11 pm. I'm sharing a stall with Heather, who has loads of beautiful things for sale!

Distractions

My niece has chosen her Christmas present. It never fails... spit on it and it's yours, baby.

A Bumper Crop

Printed last week, while I was waiting for feedback on some illustration jobs:

This is what's so great about blockprinting! I'd planned the pink and blue, but once I started with pink the pattern turned a little too pretty. So halfway down the piece of cloth I switched to red.


Another instance of the same thing. Planned as black and red, along the lines of the prints above, it was quickly obvious that this was going to be horrible. I ditched the red, and started messing around with green.


And came up with this. I'm not entirely sure about it, but I think it could make a nice bag.


Some stenciled calico to use for lining bags.


And, finally, red proteas.


I've also listed a piece of green protea print in my shop.

Zips aren't scary!

Not if you've had a whole weekend, lying flat on your back, felled by a tummy bug, to work out a strategy.

Buttoned

Right in the middle of doing something far more important, I suddenly became obsessed with the idea of a knitted purse that closed without buttons or zips or velcro. After first finishing the more important thing (yes, really!) I started trying to figure this idea out. At about 2am, it seemed to work.

I'll use it for a week or so to see how the fastenings stretch out, and if it still closes. And if it does, I might make some more. I've realised that 'make as many things as possible before the market' doesn't really constitute a Plan, and makes me feel a bit panicky rather than calm and organised. But I can't think of a better Plan; hopefully I won't get too distracted.

Printing in Italian

My printing tutorial translated into Italian, on Indie-guest! Do go and have a look at this fantastic blog - there's so much lovely stuff that I haven't seen anywhere else.

In other news, and before anyone follows my printing instructions too far, I noticed a worrying thing happening to my lino blocks:


Erosion. The sharp lines on the left are turning into those blurry ones on the right. I asked for advice at my local art shop, and they said they'd never heard of this happening to lino before. Neither have I, but there it is..... Could be that it's old lino, but I have a hunch it's something to do with the fabric paint. I've bought some 'easy-cut lino' to try, though I'm not sure what it's made of - it's plasticky texture makes me think that it will seriously undermine any eco-credits I might be earning with this printing process. If the 'easy-cut' doesn't work, I think I'll have to move on to wood blocks (which is rather tempting anyway...)

If anyone has any ideas about what's causing this devastation, please let me know!

Robot

I gave someone a robot for his birthday this weekend, and took the opportunity to try stenciling.* While I've been thinking about the sense of wrapping presents in re-usable cloth wrappings, I also firmly believe that 7-year-olds should be able to rip and tear the wrapping from presents with as much noise and mess as possible.

*I might be betraying the Handmade Pledge; could I just say that the gift wasn't only from me, it was a birthday present not a Christmas one, and I did make the wrapping paper....

Guestblogging

I'm over at the Elle Decoration blog today, nattering on about block printing. (Never have guessed I'd choose that for a topic, would you?)

Pop over there to see some of the printers I've found!

Saving the mid-century

The Werdmuller Centre in Claremont, Cape Town, was built in the 70s, and designed by Roelof Uytenbogaardt, an award-winning architect. I was shocked (though not surprised) to find out via the Elle Decoration blog that it's under threat of demolition.

Although it's a very beautiful building, I've always known it as a shabby, under-utilised and slightly scary place - it's on the 'wrong' side of Claremont's very scary Main Road, a road that requires nerves of steel if you're going to cross it on foot. Apparently the best solution to the problem of this building, and Main Road itself, is a new road, and massive redevelopment of the area. Read more about the developers' plans (oops, I almost said evil schemes...) here.

From the Elle Deco blog:

On Wednesday 5 December , there will be a public presentation of the Heritage Impact Assesment regarding the demolition of the Werdmuller Centre.
To show your support against its demolition, attend the meeting at 5pm. It will be held at 71 Hout Street, Cape Town, on the First floor of the Cape Institute.
If you’re unable to attend, you can add your signature to a petition. Send an email to oh.architecture@gmail.com to find out more.


You can see more photos of the Werdmuller Centre on my Flickr page; I took a whole bunch of snapshots yesterday. It was hard to stop, but I also needed to be quick. You can see from the photos what a desolate place it is on a Sunday morning, but hopefully you can also see what an amazing building it could be. Knocking it down to build 'exclusive' 'luxury' 'loft-style' cubbyholes might not be the best thing to do.