5-Minute Obsessions - #1

Right now I have an obsession with hand-spinning yarn on a drop spindle. Brenda of the Cast On podcast has been increasingly turning to spinning lately (she was on weaving thing for a while, too), which is a bit strange for a knitting podcast, but hey, I love her! I'm attributing my current obsession to her.

I'm swooning over this:


New Spindle, originally uploaded by Shunklies.

Let's face it though, I will probably end up with one like this:


spindle, originally uploaded by CUBIST LITERATURE!.

It was made at home using materials from the local hardware shop. I'm pretty impressed by it actually. I'm on a making-everything-yourself,-even-stuff-that-you-use-to-make-things-with kick at the moment. Hence the spindles I guess! Spinning raw material into yarn to weave into a cloth using the cardboard loom I got in Craft Zine a few issues ago, to cut and hand-sew into a [insert item here] seems really appealing to me right now. I just need a sheep to start the process off! They're so cute!:


sheep:Suffolk, originally uploaded by aikawarino.

It might be worth making my own spindle, not only for the money it saves, but because by the time it takes for me to actually decide to buy one of the other spindles, and for it to arrive in the mail, my mini-obsession might be over. I just can't take that risk!

Hmmm, what to do?

Unfortunately... Meme

Ok, I couldn't resist this meme, which I saw on the Meet Me At Mike's Blog:

What you do is google "unfortunately [your name]" and cut and paste the sentences that come up. The fact that most of them are going to be fragmentary in the description of the search results makes some of them quite intriguing. Here are some of mine!

Unfortunately Katie does not live anywhere near Toronto ...
Unfortunately Katie wasn't able to share her real feelings with Mike ...
Unfortunately Katie isn't a titan, she's an anchor miniature ...
Unfortunately Katie was not shown again in the States until she was three and half ...
Unfortunately Katie is nothing compared to the ultimate hotness, Michelle Pfeiffer ...
Unfortunately Katie is a different style and therein lies the problem ...
Unfortunately Katie and those around her come across as sanitized versions of people ...
unfortunately Katie has reached understanding of life that most ...
Unfortunately Katie's best efforts to gets flowers seems to go wrong somehow and she ends up hopping in and out of several paintings in her search for a ...
Unfortunately Katie's face is completely obscured by an "ectoplasmic" ...

P.S. I have a new banner for my blog! I spent a couple of hours faffing around on Picture2Life.com over the long weekend, and that was the result.

P.P.S. Boy has a blog now too! He's documenting his 18-month drawing course, so if you're into drawing, learning, looking at pictures or just all around self-improvement, check it out!.

Finish A Project Month

I've declared this month Finish A Project Month!
(It was nearly going to be No-Buy Supplies Month, but I'm just not that strong.)

I noticed that I was cycling through new projects pretty regularly, while the old ones lie, languishing in the back of the cupboard. They really need to be dusted off and given some love.

Here we have my set of three embroidered Art Cards which I finished yesterday:

flowery
(A new project, I know, but I haven't gotten started dusting yet!) Some are for swaps on Swap-bot, and I'll probably chuck the spare one on Etsy if I can get a good photo of it. I've already started a new set of 2. I also made these bookmarks for another swap:

Bookmarky goodness
The idea was to make them with stuff you have lying around the house. Materials include paint, a patterned paper bag, a brochure for the Bell Shakespeare Company, and a copy of National Trust magazine. I'm quite proud of some of them.

Yesterday we all left work early due to the possibility of the trains being cancelled due to a storm (I work for the Government, okay??) and I was a bit bored. I was listening to some craft podcasts and got inspired by what I perceived at that moment as a lack of receptacles in my bedroom. So I made these:

They're crocheted bowls (not quite finished yet). I made them to keep bobby pins in. The taller one falls over when I put bobby pins in it, so I made the wider one as well. They're OK. Now I have an (even more) insane amount of projects on the go.

More in progress means more to finish! Yay!

Friend Floggin

Black Rock Sunset, originally uploaded by ugbug7.

My friend is a photographer (as much as he says he's not! :P ) and his work is now available on redbubble.

Mail!

U.S. Troops Surrounded by Holiday Mail During WWII, originally uploaded by Smithsonian Institution.

I'm so excited! I sent off my bulk order to the Lilmag zine distro today. My zines are going to be sold in Japan!

Yay!

Tragedies, Swaps and Cats

I don't really have too much to say right now. The bushfires were just horrible, and they've left me feeling very sad and helpless. I've been thinking a lot about how lucky I am to have a house, and the things in it, and all my family and friends. Work has been absolutely flat out too. Because I work for a Government department, we are directly involved with some aspects of the bushfire recovery. It has been very draining, and I come home from work every night exhausted. I'm not complaining though - it's been very satisfying to be able to help in some way.

I have managed to make a few things in the last week though. I made this fabric bookmark for a swap on Swap-bot. Yes, I know, I've been going on about that site a lot! But it's my current obsession, so just get used to it! =)

Fabric Felt Bookmark
Once again, I missed the point and made something a bit different to the specifications. It didn't really need to have all that embroidery and needle-felting. But I enjoyed making it anyway.

Then I started making some sewn Artist Trading Cards for another swap. There's also an embroidery on a bought pouch that I'm working on there, too:

My portable workspace
(ATCs are playing-card-sized pieces of art. They are exactly the same as ACEOs, but you use the term ATC when you are swapping them, and the term ACEO selling them. I gotta get the terminology right!)
I've been working on my stable table (which has a background of coffee beans embedded in it) because it seems to be easier than getting everything out and putting it away again every time I want to work on something. I don't have any free table space anyway. I'm much more inclined to do some work when it seems easy!

I think I prefer using felt rather than fabric for the backing of the ATCs as it doesn't need finishing around the edges. I have cut out a second piece of felt for each one as a backing, and I'll probably blanket stitch around the edge to finish them off as with the first one. I'm a bit stuck at the moment as to what to put on next. Perhaps I should plan them out next time? Today I was looking at the blog Dot's Life and Art for inspiration. She is a lady who lives in Melbourne and does the most amazing embroidered and beaded works. I really admire her creativity - and her patience! She has a full time job just like me, but she manages to make the most beautiful, detailed work that she must spend hours and hours on.

I have also been doing a bit of writing this week (though not on my zine, unfortunately!). I've done both creative writing and a biographical piece. I'm not going to share that as I'm not very confident with it yet. Plus it's kinda yawn-worthy on a craft blog.

I was mucking around with the camera this morning, and I took some shots of the cat being schmoozy on the windowsill. On their own they weren't too crash hot, so I found a photo editing website and made them into a collage:

Amy-La
I have more Fabric ATC swaps and a handmade bookmark swap coming up, so there'll be more of that next time, probably.
Take care everyone.

These Things Take Time

Leaves, originally uploaded by apartmentcat.

My photos from my trip to Japan are up on my Flickr account. I haven't edited or cropped them in any way, it's just tourist snaps all the way. It's made me think that I really should get on with finishing the zine I've been writing about the trip, before the memories and impressions fade. But my brain has been fading in the heat! And I've become obsessed with Swap-bot again. I've been spending most of my time working on a big swap which involves a lot of writing. I've also joined a few other smaller ones which involve writing and making things such as bookmarks, which feeds into my obsession with reading at the moment.

After having no orders in my shop in about 6 weeks, I've had 3 in the last week! One is a bulk order for my zines from Lilmag, a distribution site in Japan. (If you want to look at the site, it's mostly in Japanese, so take the address and stick it into Google Translate or something similar if you don't read Japanese!) I'm very excited about this! I don't have enough copies of my zines lying around, so I've been doing some research on where I can get copying done without paying a fortune or being looked funnily at. It's a tough gig!

Meanwhile, things are happening! The Sticky Institute's annual zine fair is on this coming week. They are having a project where anyone can just pop in and contribute throughout the week, and a big sale and events next Saturday. The first Brown Owls event for the year has been confirmed in a few weeks' time. Numbers are unlimited, but it's members-only, and seeing as I am a member, that means I should go, but I can't take Boy or anyone else with me! *gasps* But I feel that 2009 is a year of change, and I can either hide away in my cubby-hole or embrace it and get out there!