Scissors!

You'd think I'd have gotten here sooner, wouldn't you? Dotted line..... scissors. It's pretty obvious.

Anyway, I've filled my shop with a whole bunch of tapes. There are some old designs and some new ones; some are only small pieces, others are available by the metre.

And more swatches!

From paintedfishstudio:

From heartfelt:


That's such an ingenious envelope, I may have to reverse-engineer it....

No sleeping in...

A little brooch I made the other night when I couldn't sleep. (To be honest, I made it the next day, but I lay awake for what felt like hours figuring out how to make it. Should just have gotten up and done it then and there.)

On the other hand, what's keeping me from sleeping in in the mornings lately is cold-brewed coffee. I have nothing against coffee brewed in machines and gadgets, with hot water, and we have a very fancy machine that makes lovely coffee. But sometimes, on an icy morning, instant coffee would be nice. My feet get cold standing around waiting for that machine to get through all it's rumblings.

Cold-brewed coffee is like instant (you add hot water) but tastes much, much better. I can't remember where I found the recipe, but this site explains it pretty well. For hot coffee, just add hot water instead of cold.

My recipe is roughly this: 1 cup ground coffee, 2 cups cold water. Add some water to the coffee, stir gently to get the grounds wet through, add the rest of the water. Don't stir. Leave it for 12 hours or more, then strain (a sieve works fine). Keep it in the fridge. 1 part coffee concentrate to 2 parts water, topped up with milk, makes a decent cup, but you can vary the proportions to suit your taste.

Who wants a book?

One of the lovely things about blogging is how many great people you meet online, people who are generous with their time, advice, encouragement - and are just friendly, enthusiastic, and nice!


Carina of Carina's Craftblog is one of these people, and she's just posted an interview with me on her blog. While you're there, pop into her shops to see some of the beautiful things she makes.

You'd think blog anniversaries would be easy to remember, what with there being an archive right there in the sidebar, but I've let my second blog birthday (sometime around the beginning of July) slip by unnoticed. To celebrate, however belatedly, how about a giveaway?

I'll send a copy of my book I Don't Like Chocolate to a randomly selected commenter. All you have to do is leave a comment on this post telling me what your favourite comic is. If you don't read comics ... well, tell me why, and perhaps you can give mine a try!

To whet your appetite, some reviews I've found recently:

Gustav at Constant Flux found my book in a bookshop, and then managed, with some superior detective skills, to find some of my old comics. (See, that's the thing with the interweb - once you've put stuff out there, it never ever goes away...)

A review from Rapport (click on the pics to see bigger versions):

In case you can't read Afrikaans, the rough translation is "Fun book about food". Or something like that.

From Women's Business World:


From the autumn issue of Obrigado:
So what's the best comic you've ever read? I'll pick a winner on Saturday the 2nd of August.

Even more swatches!

From Carina's Craftblog:


From Show Your Workings:


From Flower Press:


From Fulvia Studio:


From Gracie Sparkles:


From Karen Barbe:


From mikodesign:


Thank you!!!!!!

So many swatches!

From pippijoe:


From Art Box Diary:


From the sunday project:


From Sew Bettie:


From Oami:

Ugh, Zen....

Too much propaganda bandied around about 'being in the moment', 'being present', 'being here now' had me thinking it might be a good thing to experience. Well, I've Been. Here. Now. for the last week and it's pretty boring. Perhaps being able to dip in and out of it at will makes it more fun. Having the state forced on you by a bad cold just sucks.

My throat felt as if it was coated in ground glass, and my lungs stuffed with steel wool. My sinuses creaked so loudly under all the pressure that other people could hear the noise. There was simply no space left for a brain. Emails came in and I thought: "...." Phone calls were answered with: "... (coff coff) ..." People came to the door: "...."

By the third day I could read and knit, though, and the Bainbridge Scarf came to the rescue! It's perfect mindless knitting, with the straps providing just enough of a challenge (requiring a nap after each one) to nudge that reluctant brain back into position.

I think I'm ready to start answering emails now!

Tired

I finally caught the bad cold that everyone around me has had for the last three weeks, so I'm going to crawl into bed with a box of tissues and a trashy novel.

On the topic of 'sick and tired', read this article by Jenny Hart of Sublime Stitching. (Make sure to follow the link at the bottom of the page, too.) I can't remember how I found it, but it was a well-timed read this morning. A reminder that it's productive to take time off every now and again, and to pace yourself. All too often I squeak in just under the deadline, because I'm trying to do too many things, and working all the time. While I can feel smug about how much I manage to do, and that I do make deadlines, there's often a slightly rotten feeling too: the knowledge that I could have done the work so much better, and that adequate and on time isn't everything. Sometimes it might be better to do less, and do it really well.

It's a tough one when you feel that you're literally paid by the stitch or the dab of paint, and not for the time that you could spend tweaking and making things just right.

Mugs

I've restocked Nest with a whole bunch of new stuff, including mugs. (Have a look at my Flickr page for more.)

Don't forget this Wednesday's soup kitchen at Nest, featuring Karen Kotze!

Capricorn, Aquarius, and Pisces

Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius

Cancer, Leo, Virgo

Aries, Taurus, and Gemini

Horoscope illustration

One of the nicest jobs I've had - illustrating the July horoscope special for Marie Claire SA.

The advice for Taurus is "Unless you take your creative impulse seriously, nobody else will. You simply have to put your money where your mouth is. " Um, gosh... okay.

More swatches

From Celestina Carmen:


From feedthedog:


From Starashan:


Look at the lovely packaging!


A surprising winter warmer discovery: 1.5 m of pure silk + mom's wedding dress pattern = luxurious slip that stops your stockings sticking to your skirt and is warm! Photos will follow, when I've worked out how to use the timer on my camera, and when I've worked through the idea of showing my lingerie off on the interweb.

Good weekend!

In between drawing leaves and working on more ceramics to restock Nest, I found time this weekend to do a whole of bunch things that have been nagging at me. I replaced the fabric on this chair, using two teatowels I bought years ago.


I made big squishy feather cushions for the couch from vintage cloth I've been saving for ever. (Actually, there's about a month between those two cushions. That's how long it takes to finish things around here.)


I framed this print using a leftover frame from Nest - I measured wrong, the framers measured wrong, but no sense letting a good frame go to waste. The print is by John Moore, from a print exchange I participated in in 1995.


And perhaps most importantly, I made one of these, using these brilliant instructions. Mine is made with two narrow cardboard tubes, because that's all I could find at home; I'll be making more as soon as I track down 'pipe foam'. Pool noodles would be perfect, but they're not exactly in season right now.

More Nest (and then that's it!)

Bunnies, bunnies , everywhere... work by Janine de Waal and Homebakes among others.


Cushions and polar bear feet... Helen Melon, Colleen Roberts, more Homebakes


Painting by Alta Stegman


Skinny laMinx's papercut flowers


Some pen and ink drawings of mine that didn't make it onto the blog before they were framed


A glass of milk, a glass of water


And a linoprint.