I'm just giving them away!

Last night I made Mouse:

I made him as a going-away/thank you gift for a the guy who's been training me at work. His cat is a major part of his life, so I thought I'd make him a cat toy. I started out using the pattern from the book I bought on Sunday, but I didn't really get it, so I just made it up. It turned out so much better than I expected. I was going to make the eyes out of felt and add whiskers, but I really like the simple, embroidered effect of the face. I almost regretted giving it away, but I'm trying to be a vaguely good person. (Sure, Sparky's birthday present is 4 months late, but she will get it eventually!)
It took a much shorter time to make than I thought it would (about 2 hours). I might make a few more for the shop, put bells in them, something like that.

That gave me enough time to work on Frankenstein's Toyster for a bit. His body is all finished, and I just need to make his head now.

Right now I have to finish my next zine though!

Cool yet hot yet dorky yet hip

Today I went to the Stitches and Craft Show. I was expecting it to be staid and boring. I was expecting to see endless quilts and embroideries of puppies and teddy bears. I was expecting to feel way too young and frustrated. In some ways, it was just like that. In other ways, it was GREAT! You just need to be discriminating and walk straight past the stalls you're not interested in without lingering. For me, that was the quilting and the beading, to some extent.

I did spend an indecent amount of money, and picked up some pretty cool stuff. Viz -

One of the first stalls we came across was a stamp craft one. I haven't been into stamping so much before, but recently I've seen some stamps with amazing images in magazines and online. I throught they'd be really hard to get hold of in Australia, as so much is. I was proven wrong though! I got some from that stall and also a couple further on:

Rubber stamps - fashion ladies, trees, Venus face, etc ; grab bag of ribbons, etc.
I also bought some ribbons and a $5 bag of random goodies (I love the grab bag!) from a pretty plain-looking stall a bit further on. It had some good bargains though! I needed some ribbons for a scarf I've had in the back of my cupboard for a few years now that I really should finish. Hopefully this will provide the impetus.

I then nearly had a multiple orgasm at the oriental bead stall, where I purchased these:

beads and pendants
I love all kinds of Chinese and Japanese styled items, and I really had to hold myself back from buying half the stall! In the end I just got a pair of lantern-shaped beads to make into earrings, and some larger ones to make into pendants. I'm just thinking something very simple with a black silk or velvet ribbon. The silver ones are very similar to a pair of earrings I lost last year, so I was very excited to see those! I'm sure I have some findings somewhere....

Then I ran out of money. Well, technically I had more in the bank, but I'd already been to the ATM once, and it was just getting ridiculous. So I spent the rest of the time collecting flyers and business cards. Some of them are pictured below.

Various paper thingys
Also pictured is the one and only book that I bought. It was a bit expensive, but I had to have it! If you've read Knitorama or Crochetorama by Rachel Mathews (I have Crochetorama out from the library at the moment!), it's by the completely insane Japanese chick that models some of her designs. Hey, I like completely insane Japaneseness! Her name is Annie Obaachan. The amigurumi in this are so adorable, and made in many different styles to give you a thorough grounding of the craft. It also has a section on designing your own, which is fantastic! Not all designers are generous enough to do that.
I got some free mags too, about papercraft, working with wooden items and a wedding one (*gag*, but it might have some good ideas).

There was one section of the show which I need to mention. It was like all the hip, young, cool crafters were all collected together in one place. There was a huge, amazing, garden-themed display on one side with retro clothes, knitted vegetables, bird stuffies, etc. It even had real, live bunnies! It was so cute! And on the other side, like a line-up was a counter with about 6 crafters showing their stuff. Some of them had Etsy shops, and I felt like I was in company at last! I spent some time chatting with two women from Audrey & Maude who do retro sewing patterns incorporating embroidery and other embellishments. The fabric they were using was wonderfully kitschy, and they told me it was from a shop in Melbourne called Amitie. The woman who runs it was there, but she was being hogged the whole time I was there, so I just grabbed her business card. I HAVE to go to this shop. Soon.

The best part of that section though, was that I ran into Hollabee there! It was great to see a familiar face from the Etsy seller's meetup. She had even been asked to do some demonstrations by Creative Living (or is it Living Creatively?). It's really wonderful to see people on Etsy doing so well.

I certainly have a lot to go on with now! When I got home, I was torn between doing crochet and doing papercraft, so I went to the gym instead. Heh. While I was working off my excitement there, I was still having ideas! I had one which involved buying cheap-arse frames from Ikea or similar, and decorating them with paint and 3-D embellishments using a hot glue gun, etc. I could use them for framing cross stitch, etc.

Phew! I need a rest!

Game On!!!

If you're into computer games, retro stuff and fun, and have at least 4 hours to spare, go to the GAME ON exhibition at ACMI. It's truly amazing. It was like the last 15 years never happened for me. Bliss!
Plus, it's cool and dark in there. 37 degrees outside. Need I say more?

The early arcade games have also given me some ideas for digital art, and maybe even some fair-aisle patterns. I've got brightly-coloured squares floating through my head at the moment. Things with little crosses on them are featuring heavily as well. So far I only have the books from the library to show for it. Every new idea starts with a trip to the library for me. Hopefully I'll have the energy to have something more to show for it soon. Wage-slave issues are are starting to piss me off again. :[


I've written a love poem:

My Boyfriend

My boyfriend has a computer. I love him!
My boyfriend has a colour printer. I love him!
My boyfriend has a scanner with photocopy emulation. I love him!
My boyfriend has a laminator. I love him!
My boyfriend has a dimo labeller. I love him!
My boyfriend has a long arm stapler. I love him!
My boyfriend has a guillotine cutter. I love him!
My boyfriend bought a graphics tablet last weekend. I love him so much!

More when weather sanity returns.

New but not new

SHOP STUFF

I've put a couple of knitted projects on my shop that I've just had lying around for ages (it's self-sabotage central in the hobby room!). They are:

Skinny Tubular Scarf ; Moss Stitch Baby Tunic

I'm quite proud of both of these, the baby tunic especially. I designed it myself. I'm thinking of making a few more - I could do an Elizabeth Zimmermann and make them bigger by using thicker wool. When it cools down a bit...

Writing my guts out

I've been so busy the last few weeks that I haven't had time to post. It's taken me a while to finish anything anyway, so there hasn't been anything to see. I made some random poetry postcards for a swap which I won't go into right now (I'm not really happy with them). But finally I can show you my new obsession! (Which I'm starting to get over now anyway, but anyway...)

I've been interested in zines for a while, and recently I've spent an indecent amount of money on them (supporting independent artists and that stuff), and finally got up the guts to go to Sticky when it was actually open. (I don't know what I was afraid of, the woman there was really friendly and I didn't feel too dorky.) Now, I've finally bit the bullet and made one of my own! Two actually. They were both made for swaps on Swap-bot. I was having trouble coming up with a topic (they can be about anything - that's scary!), so I figured they could provide me with the ideas I needed to start off. The first one was 'zine your festival', and I came up with this:

It's much bigger and more colourful and more 'printed' than was required, but it was a combination of not reading the instructions properly and getting a bit excited. I spent hours in the library researching (my favourite kind of geekery) and attended the festival and took my own photos. If you're gonna do something, you may as well do it right, right?
So far in return I've gotten this one:

Which is completely amazing! It's well-drawn, informative and funny. And it came with accessories! I love it so much!

The second one I made was to be a hand-drawn mini zine about any topic you like (*gulps*). But then I got inspiration while I was in the library researching the first one:

It's called 'Where Am I? Who Am I?' (the library; and a librarian???). It's equal parts immature angst, anarchist anti-wage-slave rant and random acts of kindness story. I also started making another zine, based on a recurring theme in my life. I've done a mock-up of the text and layout. Now I just have to draw the damned thing! I bought a nice fabric-covered folder with a black ribbon tie to keep my zines in. And I put it away cause I'm sick of them now.

I've gone back to my roots for now. Kickin' it old skool. I put away the Sharpie and got out my crochet hook again. I'm making a scarf that I've had in mind for a long time. I saw a girl on the tram wearing a crocheted scarf with long drop-stitch type inserts between the rows of crochet, and I wanted to try and imitate it. After a false start where I realised that the long bits weren't attached at the back, I got the hang of it.

The scarf watching one of my favourite shows with me.

Because of what show I was watching when I started it, as well as the extreme femininity of the sparkly pink wool, I had to call it the 'Girls Like Mythbusters Too' Scarf.

Tired now.

Art Journal

See a larger picture here.

Here is my art journal entry for this week. (Well, for this month, as it's turning out.) All I've been wanting to do is read lately. At first this worried me, because I was only taking things in, not putting anything out. But then I thought, why can't I make art on this theme? So the theme is Reading and Writing.

(Please note that one edge is cut off in this scan!)

The bottom layer is a rough draft of a book review I wrote for a zine I'm making. Over it I painted a green rectangle. This represents The Book, with the colour being that of many older, hardcover books. Over the top I have stuck a text that I wrote in a spiral. The subject expresses some anxieties I feel about both reading and writing. It came straight off the top of my head and as I wrote it from outside in, I didn't know how long it could be. I also didn't have the chance to cross anything out and start over. So it's probably not as good as it could be, literary-wise. But it felt good to write. The red dots are scraps that I collected from work and stuck at random over the top. Dunno why. I felt it needed some colour.

I had the whole layout of this page designed in my head at least a week before I started, unlike any of my other pages. In some ways this was good, as it cut out the 'fear of the blank page' and 'what do I do now??' factors. But on the other hand it felt a little sterile. I'm not sure which way I prefer.

I've been wanting to draw lately. Today I was in a meeting, and I had a strong urge to draw my manager's nose. Yesterday I really wanted to draw the plant on the next desk.

Can you apply for Art Leave??

Things are happening!

Today was the day. The wait is finally over.

I finally took some photos of the art doll I finished over two weeks ago! Even after I had taken it to the sellers' meetup and Boy had overheard some compliments on it, and kept saying that if/when I put it on my shop, it'll sell quickly, I still didn't get around to photographing it. Anyway, without further ado, here it is:

first art doll

the back ; detail of front

I have to admit, it's quite heavily based on the Dotee Doll style invented by the lady in Perth who I was talking about a few posts ago. Now, I dunno what the 'rules' are about these things - shape of top, eyes open or closed, type of embellishment, or what. I just went to town with whatever kind of decoration I felt like doing. So I made it with open eyes, and used some needle felting for a heart on the front and some abstract decoration on the back. I embroidered a bit with buttons, beads, sequins and ribbon, til I got bored with it. Then I sewed the front and back together by hand, and sewed the purple ribbon in for hair as I was sewing it up.
I'm quite happy with it. I'd like to make another one, but I want to try and make it more original and specific to my style.

I've also been working pretty steadily on my knitted Blue Creature:

one ear finished ; slut creature!

I used a technique from Mochimochiland to make the legs and join them together. This leaves a hole between the legs that you sew up later. Hence why my creature has a giant hole in her nether-regions! I utilised the access this holes gives to weave in the ends at the bottom of the legs and embroider some 'claws' on. Oh, this is really sounding so wrong.... *secret smirk*
I have now finished the body; the picture shows it with one ear completed, but I have now finished both ears and started one arm. I'm going to finish the arm, then embroider on the face, etc. through the arm-hole on the other side, then knit on the second arm last.

Perhaps this isn't the most efficient way of making this toy, but *shrugs* schnyeh. I think that knitting toys is a bit too fiddly for me. All those double-pointed needles sticking out all over the place - it's annoying. I think I'll stick to crochet from now on. I also wanted to make a toy that was symmetrical and straight out Cute instead of a bit fugly, but I'm starting to think that's really not 'me', either.

Perhaps I am working out my style, after all.

The other major thing was, after finding this blog Joyful Abode, about creating harmonious spaces to live happily in. She is currently hosting a series on creative spaces. I was heavily inspired to finally get the Hobby Room into gear - organise everything and tidy the place up. Not only that, but fill it with inspirational objects that will make the room a pleasure to be in. Or whatever.

So yesterday, I spent the whole day tidying and sorting. Except for an exhaustingly expensive trip to Bunnings. Boy took 'Before' photos, which I'm too embarrassed to show - yet! To be fair, I should mention that Boy worked very hard yesterday too. The room is supposed to be going to be for his photography and other hobby stuff just as much as for mine. Most of my beads are sorted now, which makes me want to make another art doll. Whenever I uncover another supply or piece of equipment, I want to make something out of it. This is good! My creative juices are flowing again.

Although, they make me want to make wool scarves on 35oC days. Not so good. Oh well!

SHOP STUFF

Art doll going up on the shop tonight.