before you were mine

Another weekend visit to Yorkshire for us on Saturday, this time to go to a miniatures fair for John and generally make use of Pizza Hut’s lunchtime deals with my mum and sister.  My mum’s been rooting through my granddad’s old photos again with some family memories,

That’s my mum in the red cardigan.  I love her pose, whilst my aunt and uncle look the other way.  Before they became my aunt and uncle and before my mum became my mum.  Which is a rather strange thought and reminds me of the poem by Carol Ann Duffy that I’ve used for my blog title today.

My uncle in one of the many staged photos my granddad made him pose for.  You can see the look of utter boredom on their faces in some of the photos and you can imagine the three of them have been stood there for hours while the light’s measures and f-stops adjusted accordingly.

Solly the wonder dog and my gran taunting him with food. 

Mum and dad in matching sweaters, fending off an imminent swan attack.

Family trip to London and the changing of the guards.

And the man himself.  I have inherited his wonky nose.  But hopefully not the hearing loss that led to the use of that hearing aid which could, at times, pick up the transmissions from local truck drivers’ CB radios and broadcast them to everyone in the room.  I promise crafty things ahead people!  Let me get this week over with and I’ll be all guns blazing with new old dresses and jumpers and possibly (hopefully, hopefully) a little good news x

snuggled up

Depending on my mood at the moment I’m thinking one of two things: either ‘Only six weeks till spring!’ or ‘Still six more weeks till Spring’.  At times like these what you need are blankets, and plenty of them.

I made this one from some £3 fleece from our local fabric emporium that i double hemmed all the way round.  Then it was just a case of cutting out and stitching on the felt lettering and toasty red hearts.

This one has kept us in good stead over the last few weeks.  The only problem with dark blue fleece when you have a white rabbit it the fact that it will never, ever look clean and hair free.  He just has to look at it and his loose hairs flying off in its direction, attaching themselves in a way that an Ikea roller or ten stands no chance of combating.

The other was a Christmas present for my stepdad.  This blanket went everywhere with me on the week before Christmas as I frantically tried to finish it off for the big day.

Christmas dinners, movie nights at friends, the mother-in-law’s for Sunday dinner, you name it, it went there.  And all to no avail…

I finally finished it just after Christmas and handed it over this weekend when my parents paid us an impromptu visit.  I never knew how time-consuming entrelac actually is.  It’s all that turning isn’t it?  Knit 9, turn work, purl nine, turn work.

Worth it though.

Our family is scattered with quits and blankets and covering things that hark back to some past relative.  One of my most enduring memories of childhood was having a mustard blanket that was covered in illustrations of dolls.  I would have it under my duvet, completely covering everything but my head.  If my toes peeped out the bottom it would mean that spiders would bite them in the middle of the night – something you would not want to happen.  I’m not sure where this persistent belief stemmed from but it lasted a good long while.  In fact, it lasted until said blanket mysteriously disappeared one day and the previously constant threat of spiders suddenly vanished.

Then there are the blankets made from the family tartan, the ripple afghans that are moth-eaten and rabbit-nibbled and warm and comforting, the candlewick bedspreads in a garish shade of pink, the snoopy blanket brought back with my sister from Japan, the patchwork quilt my mum slogged over for my 21st birthday and, of course, my own family heirloom, the car boot quilt.

And even though I’m miserable know (to paraphrase Moz), I know that in a few month’s time I’ll be sad to pack them away for another year, even if it does mean I can fling all the windows open with abandon and listen to the birds outside chirping away outside x

i got a new camera

In related news, I think I’m in love x

if a body catch a body…

What news to come home to on a cold Thursday evening.  All my (and a million other people’s) teenage angst captured and articulated in a way my fourteen year old self could only have dreamed of.  I, for one, feel sorry as hell x

reason i love being a teacher no. 324

Me: Today we’re going to start reading Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens for our next piece of coursework.  Now, I know you might not of heard of Charles Dickens before (Ah the joys of teaching the English curriculum to low ability students who, through no fault of their own, are working at the most basic standards of Literacy)but you’ll have heard of some of his books.  There’s Oliver Twist, that we’re reading, A Christmas Carol…

Boy: Which Christmas carol did he write Miss?

Me: No, A Christmas Carol

Boy: I know, I heard you, but which Christmas carol…

Sometimes, most of the time in fact, I love my job.

Onto other things for now though, and some felt and fabric book covers that I’m making ready for my next craft fair in March

I’m a avid reader and always have a book on the go.  The only problem with this is as a rabbit owner anything made of card and paper rarely lasts long, not matter how high up you put it or how many treats and chew sticks you leave lying around.

This isn’t a problem in itself, the beasts only tend to nibble the corners and the covers.  It becomes a problem when you have library books or someone lends you one  Then reading becomes a bit of a peradventure and that’s when the book covers come in.

My sister gave me this fabric for Christmas and this is the second time I’ve used it so far.  What more could you ask for than a happy mole and some toadstools?

And moving on again, has anyone seen The Road yet?  We jumped on the band wagon a little late and went to see it yesterday afternoon and Oh My God.  This film is utterly amazing but I don’t feel that I could tell anyone I like to go and see it.  Bleak and stark and beautiful: the kind of film that when you walk out of the cinema at 3 o’clock on a Saturday afternoon you feel the need to go home, bake two rounds of peanut butter cookies and drink a bottle of wine and you’re still thinking about it. 

All in all, I’m having very good film karma at the moment, what with this, Where the Wild Things Are, Moon and 500 Days of Summer recently.  See how I’m drawing a line through Avatar, the most boring film I’ve ever seen that I got dragged to recently?  I remember when I was a kid my Aunt took me and my four male teenage cousins to see Care Bears The Movie and without exception each one fell asleep after about 20 minutes.  That’s how I felt in Avatar, 3D effects and brief Giovanni Ribisi appearance aside.

Finally, thanks to everyone that entered the bow competition in my last post, winners will be picked this week and packages packaged up and posted off.  For now though, I’m off to make lists for craft fairs and stuff my face with cookies x

take a bow

Some new goodies that are up in my etsy shop right now.  These bows were my best seller at the winter craft fair I did before Christmas, which went better than I could ever have hoped for.  I guess you just have to get the first disastrous fair out of the way and then you’re on the up!

After the craft fair my friend got a text from her sister who works in a pretty classy shop in Liverpool telling her she’d just had a customer in who was wearing one of my bows.  This is the first time I’d ever even contemplated the fact that after I sell something it goes somewhere else…  A pretty strange experience if you think about it too much.

Let me tell you, these bows might not look like much but boy, do they keep your head toasty and warm.

I’m slowly getting in to the swing of this new year.  This is going to be a pretty big one for us here if all goes well, moves and changes and additions and progressions all hoped for.  I can’t remember the last one I felt so positive about.

Speaking of the new year (I know we’re midway through January already…), looking back at my resolutions it turns out I managed to stick to all but one of my resolutions; my hair is still long, the quilt is made, I’ve done some craft fairs and sold some bits online but Catch-22 remains woefully un-read.

This year my resolutions include to master my new DSLR camera which at the moment seems to have more knobs and dials that the space shuttle, to make some progression in work and sometimes, just sometimes, resist the temptation to stay indoors and stay warm when I could be outside doing some good old-fashioned exploring.

Which leads me nicely to a belated new year competition.  Leave me a comment, telling me what you new year’s resolution has been, whether you’ve stuck to it, why you don’t make any in the first place or one of your dreams for 2010 and your name’ll be entered into a draw to win one of my new knitted bows and a little bag of other goodies that I’ve wrestled together just for you.  Can’t wait to hear what you come up with x

rules of engagement

We had three days off school last week with the snow.  I learnt the first one by being stuck in the car for three and a half hours trying to make my 40 minute journey home, an experience that was both mind numbingly boring and white knuckle terrifying.  There’s nothing like seeing the taxi in front of you sliding from the middle of the road to the side and bouncing off the kerb to keep you alert.  Now, on country roads I’d be able to accept this, but in Liverpool city centre it was somewhat ridiculous.  Apparently we’ve run out of grit.  The local beaches are being raided for sand and local shops have run out of cat litter.  When did we become such an unprepared nation?

Moaning aside, the snow and ice have been good to us.  Luckily I’d done the week’s big shop the night before the weather landed so the last five days have been the perfect excuse to hole up, drink many cups of steaming tea and get on with all those little projects that I didn’t have time for over Christmas.  Including this cushion,

This took however long Planes Trains and Automobile, one of the funniest films ever made, took to watch, with some sewing up this lunchtime.

I’m not sure what made me choose this quote to be honest, because it’s not a sentiment I’d ever subscribe to.  I’m more from the ‘do unto others’ school of thought but hey, artistic licence and all that…

That final picture there shows it with Moonfleet, the book I have on the go at the moment which was an impulse buy that’s turned out rather well.  Don’t you just love it when that happens?  I think I’m going to make some of these up for my etsy shop which I’m going to be super-focused about this year.  Any suggestions for phrases that could go on them?  Inspirational quotes?  Because all I can come up with right now is the line from Stepbrothers where Brennan tells Dale, ‘I’ll punch you square in the face’ x

the muse

Well hello there.  I have lots to show you, honestly I do but I’m feeling rather rusty (my own fault I know for not blogging for a stupid amount of time) and so to ease myself back in, some pictures of Bob Dylan and Suze Rotolo that I’ve been pouring over during the last few snow and ice filled days.

I’ve been devouring Dylan since I read Rotolo’s Greenwich Village memoirs when I went to Rome in October. I can think of worse things to get fat on x

deer friends…

Happy Christmas people, I’ll see you in the New Year x

i’m here

Saturday from 10am to 5pm in St George’s Hall, Liverpool, come and say hi!  And for those of you further away I’m also here, along with some other rainbow goodness from Folksy.  I’ll see you all on the other side of the weekend when the craft show madness ends and the Christmas crafting begins x