Finally getting involved in making things again

Those that know me will know I have been talking about making things and working with Wookie at his workshop for ages and failing to do so apart from the occational mini bits of sewing.  Well hopefully I'm changing that now. A few weeks ago he said would I help with a urgent order that Mandala Studios had recieved. I said yes and between a few of us we made a full mascot outfit in what was really a pretty short time scale.

The brief was to make as exact a copy of the customers graphic as possible.. you can see the graphic here on their website and indeed compare our costume with him at the same time as there is a photo of him in action!. We were very lucky really as he was shipped to them only a few days before the volcano errupted, had they wanted him a few days later they would have been out of luck.. The order was from Australia and no planes have taken off in the UK for several days now.

Here he is in full.

He is very much a multi media mouse, the main peices are foam of various types covered in either latex or fur and fabric.  I did all the fur and fabric, well apart from the fur on the head and it was both a challenge at times and great fun. I am very please with how he turned out and of course that is very much due to the others involved as my part had many bits but each of them fairly basic, the important parts are the things like the Head which i had very little involvement in.. Probably the bit that had me most worried was sourcing the gray T-shirt fabric for the collar !  Why is it so hard to just get the right shade of grey!

If you want to see the process in the form of many, many photos as we went along they are all on the Mandala Studios facebook page.

Mandala Studios are based just at the end of my road.. mostly cos I found the workshop for Mark and Andy originally :) They work on the principle of having a pool of people all with different specalist skills who can either work on individual projects or come together for something like this so that all areas are overed by the best person for that job. Working with Mandala has several advantages for me. The workshop is just up the road and I can work there in the evenings once the boys are in bed if I wish. They get orders from all sorts of places I don't have contacts with, there is the opertunity to work on multi-media projects like this which I couldn't do on my own and they are very happy for me to develop my own ranges of items and market them for me if I so wish. Plus Wookie and I have been friends for ages and know we can work together and brainstorm projects and any arguments are normal and not friendship breaking :)

This next week or so I am working on a couple coats and waistcoats will post some photos assuming they don't go horribly wrong.

Long time no blogging

I know I know... I will post something a bit more interesting than this soon. One of the reasons for not doing anything is my main computer is very sick and himself keeps promising the fix it but as yet hasn't. While there are plenty of others that is where i have all the photo software and so on set up just right and where I generally download the photos.. yes I have them backup on an external hard-drive too but it's just that extra effort to do anything and I normally fit blog posts into the little gaps in doing other things.

It is Treestump's second birthday today... how time flies and I certainly have an item or two made for him to post up in the coming days so do watch this space there may be something worth looking at later you never know!

A jeans bag

No more snow and in fact we had a few mild days though it has got colder again now.

Didn't do a mosaic at the beginning of the week, though I might do one later as I do have some photos.. some however you aren't going to see including the ones of my in underwear which I HOPE I will be able to compare with ones later in the year and see a visible improvement.. it's well past time I got rid of some of the excess from having two kids or rather from being more physically immobile than normal with both of them at different stages.

I can however show you a bag I made as a late Christmas present. I hope the recipient liked it, I don't know her well enough to be certain but well she's part of our extended family so will have to get sued to me I suppose :)

This was originally a set of slightly strange jean shorts but I really liked the embroidery on them so picked them up in the charity shop planning to do something along these lines at some point.

The strap was the only other thing I bought and is a wide velvet ribbon. The fastenings were salvaged off an old bag.

Mosaic week 2 - more snow and sledging.

This week's Mosaic is rather late for Monday but I just ran out of time, that and my rather dodgy computer decided to crash when i was most of the way through it but before I saved it!!

It is very rare for us to have snow for this long, more than a day or two at a time is very uncommon in fact so that I have two weeks in a row of snow pictures in not something to miss. These were all taken on Wednesday. We were asked to pick up Treestump from nursery early as the staff wanted to get home before things froze so I went to get him walking through one park in falling snow (top three photos) and Tom went to get Noddles from school. After school we all headed to a second park which in fact is just over the road from the first to sledge, by this time it had stopped snowing but the sky was very grey making the light levels quite strange it felt almost as if my glasses were in need of a clean but it was just the way everything looked...

This second park is just a big flat field except for the fact it has a bank round the edge next to the road and this bank is big enough to sled down. Normally this park is empty apart from the occasional dog walker or someone taking a short cut but as you can see it was really quite full of poeple sledging, having snowball fights or just enjoying themselves out with friends. The bottom right photo is Treestump trying to throw a snowball.. problem was he could pick up just enough snow to coat his glove but not enough to have some to throw! It was very funny if frustrating for him.. In the end he worked out there were bigger lumps he could pick up form around where others have dug up snow for snowballs.!

I love the way the snow and the light made the trees monochrome even though in the lower pictures it is mostly Rhododendron which are evergreen. It made the bright waterproofs the boys were wearing stand out all the more.
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Week 1 - mosaic

I am not trying the 365 photos thing again but would like something to encorrage me to take photos often so I'm going to try doing a mosaic a week. Sometimes they may be themed like this week, other may be a hodge podge of whatever I snapped that week.

This week has been dominated by snow. For many people this much snow is minor but we don't often get it so for us this much substained snow is unusual. Much of the rest of the UK have had even more and for longer which is even more un-usual certainly for the more southern areas that have been hit by it.

Looking at this it looks like I live somewhere rural. Believe me that isn't the case. All these were taken either in parks or on our allotment all of which are in the middle of Coventry a city with about 300,000 poeple in it.

I am posting this up on Mosaic Monday over at Little Red House.

Change of look

Thought I'd do a winter theme using some photos taken in the park yesterday !

A late Christmas Present

Late not because the person giving it to me was late bu because we were responsible for ordering it and were rather slow!

I have been wanting one of these for ages but haven't been able to justify it but now I have my very own Bpal scent locket.. from the Bpal Trading post and now I have one!

I love this clockwork one, all the others are a single colour but not this one which is two colours, gold and silver, well three if you could the blackened bits. There are various holes in the cogs and so on so that you can put a small wad on cotton or similar inside with perfume on it and the smell comes through. Very useful for perfumes you love but go weird on your skin or if you just don't want to wear them on skin for some reason such as they have cinnamon and you react to it.

Tom also got one but his is the three daggers one.

The Art of Crochet

This is a new part work magazine and as normal the first issue is at a cut price to encorrage you to try it. I quite often buy the first part if it is something I like but I haven't gone any farther in years. Most part work magazines give you very little each week when you compare them to other magazines but then they do give you items to allow you to make whatever it is they are about but over the time it takes you to get everything it tends to cost far more than buying it outright and they are often bad quality but that's like many things in life you can buy something outright for a good price or overtime for an inflated one.. do I think they are good value? Not normally but they do allow you to get something a bit at a time and there have been times in my life that has suited me, so while I think they are over inflated I don't totally knock them though I have noticed they don't seem to try very hard on quality..

So what about the Art of crochet, well the first issue you get a 4mm hook (so that's the 99p already) a dvd showing a few very, very basics of crochet, a leaflet doing the same again, a leaflet extolling the virtues of the later issues and a slightly longer magazine, with some basic stitches, the first blanket square, and a few other patterns. The yarn you get is two balls. a 16g one of a light brown (for practising) and a 25g of a raspberry (for the first square), both are acrylic and OK quality but nothing special. I assume from what is said the 25g is the normal size of yarn you will get each issue.

I don't think I'd make the blanket, I don't much like many of the squares but the colours are OK and I could see using them for other squares. I can also see it might be worth getting the first few issues to see what it is like. If you subscribe you get issues 2 and 3, 2 more balls of yarn, a yarn case, a travel case and a hook roll plus a binder and dividers for 1.99.. From then on you get 4 issues every 4 weeks at 2.99 per issue.. there are a couple more extras you can get with the first couple of deliveries depending how you pay. I suspect it would get samey very fast and these days with the wealth of on-line free patterns and so forth there is far less need for a cheap gradual information source like this but the small bite size nature can make it easier to get your head round than the over wealming amount of info you get on the net. For someone starting off the first few issues might be quite useful to give you an easy slow in to the craft.. 120 issues is probably over kill though so I suspect there is a fairly fast fall off of subscribers.

Christmas presents

The Keeper of the Needle

Well the gift giving has been and gone, well mostly anyway we haven't as yet caught up with a couple of groups of relatives but most have been seen and gifted as it were.

I made a bunch of felt play food for my brothers twins but forgot to photograph them. I may do the boys some to so if I do I'll take pictures of those which will invereably turn out completely differently :)

I do love that I have a family who appreciate hand made things. We gave Tom's family mostly hampers which were a mix of bought and made items, mostly of an edible nature and got thanks for taking time to make things! I know many who like to make things have far less appricative family.. and I honesly think in such cases give the handmade items to your friends who will love and appriciate them :)

I am also luck enough to have family who make me things !

You can see where it get it from as they included these items from my mum and the wonderful little person at the top is by my brother's very talented partner and mother to his wonderful little boys. Isn't it just adorable! She has started selling as few pieces on folksy as Feythcrafts and also on DaWanda .  She also has a blog.

Let it snow

Life seems to have been full of people being ill recently, nothing serious just the normal round of early winter illnesses abut it has meant pretty much all my making time has been take up.. well not making things!

I did make 6 costumes for school but was feeling so ill myself I didn't take photos. Just basic tabards with stencilled snowflakes but they seemed to go down OK.

Hopefully I will have more to post about soon though most of what I have in the process of being made will have to wait till after christmas to be posted in case the recipients read this blog!!

Sledging last year.

We had a few flakes of snow for real but nothing like the 6 inches our friends farther south got much to Noddles discust as he wants to go sledging again  like last year! Trestump was quite mistified by the snow though and didn't seem to be sure if he liked these funny fluffy but cold things that were falling on him!

Advent calenders of the none fattening sort.

We have a lovely wooden advent calendar Noodles gets to do each year. Each drawer has an ornament in it which then gets hung on the little wooden tree that goes with it. This year it is rather crammed on a shelf to keep it out of the way of Treestump but it is still fun and hopefully next year they will both be taking turns or perhaps I will make Treestump a fabric one to save arguments.

I've finally got down the workshop a tiny bit a couple of weeks ago and hope to do so again tomorrow, Treestump being off nursery due to inflamed throat and ears last week didn't help but he is better now. I did manage to help Wookie with a rabbit project.. The brief was a life like looking rabbit who's neck could be broken! This is for a school play apparently. There are photos on the Mandala Studio Facebook page. Wookie did most of the work on it I just helped on hand sewing, stringing the legs and generally trying to get the limbs to sit right, his airbrushing makes a huge difference to it though as without it the flat colour of the fake fur made it obviously toy like.

Tomorrow I  have some tabards to make up for Noodles school for the reception class play.. I don't have kids in reception currently but Noodles ex-teachers from year one moved to that class this year! I suppose making them end of year sewn gifts did rather put me in the spotlight for such requests :)

Anyway back to advent calanders and there are a few on line ones you might like to check out if you like making stuff or just looking at nice things.

For anyone into minitures the AIM advent calender has a project a day and so far they are wonderful..
Made in the UK also has a simple project each day ranging from biscuits to kids costumes to sweet little bags.
Tempus Fugit and NBK are both giving away scrapbooking elements everyday which go together with each other and are lovely and wintery. Currently you can still download everything from the start of the month.

(edit to add another one)
Kids Craft Weekly does a wonderful range of weekly newsletter on fun kids activities and has an Advent issue.   Two in fact the other is here or just click on newsletter in the menu to see them all..

Now a couple of pretty ones
Circles of rain has more traditional one in that it has pictures each day, though the photos are less traditional in content :).
I love this one at Stamping Mathilda it's so creative!


and Finally as the Beeb say.. dont' forget Norad's Santa tracking page for the big night ! They too have a form of advent calender and games to play

Green gloves

I have finally finished the fingerless gloves I've had nearly finished for ages. Somehow the weather is making crochet more appealing again.

The pattern is Something New by Donna Durchunas published in Issue three of Inside Crochet and she says they were inspired by a pair in a Lithuanian museum. The design is lovely with a shell patten on the arm and hand is more of a mesh, differing on the back of the hand and the palm. I really like how they turned out though I haven't decided if I'm keeping them or giving them away. The colour isn't one I wear that often and the wool was originally bought with someone else in mind. It is a very nice sock weight wool from The Yarn Yard.

I would happily make these again but if I did I would re-write the second half of the pattern. I don't know if was me just not being used to patterns but it felt like as I went on through the pattern it went from something you could follow exactly to something more akin to notes you would make to remind you about a pattern you already knew. I know space can be an issue but there was a certain amount of frogging and harsh words at time particularly while doing the hand sections.

I must say so far I am really enjoying Inside Crochet. It is nice to have a British Crochet magazine and the patterns have been a nice mix each magazine so far.

Wool, needles and hooks at Lidl

I don't work for them or anything but I am a fan of Lidl's weekly specials.

This weeks specials at Lidl are crafted related knitting, crochet, sewing etc. I've just picked up some packs of hooks (3 for 1.29) and they also have standard knitting needles, circular needles and double pointed ones.

Also on this week is various packs of yarn ranging from double knitting to stuff like pompoms on string and a whole bunch of sock wools, 75% superwash wool, 25% polyamide for 3.99 for a pack of 4 50g balls including a sock pattern.

They also have various sewing kits and a set of divided see through boxes for holding bits and bobs which looked pretty useful.

If you cook they still have a fair amount of the last set of specials at least in the two Cov stores which include a whole variety of silicon baking trays, muffin tins and so on including a variety of winnie the pooh molds.

Costume meme

Ganked off Isis Wardrobe, who makes some lovely 18th century outfits.

1. What was your first costume?
The first I remember was for a fancy dress competition at primary school. I used my mum's academic gown as a base for a bird outfit with a card board beak and big feet.. it was either a puffin or penguin I don't remember which for certain. I think my brother was a cardboard box robot.

2. Did someone get you into costuming? Or on your own?
Well probably my mum. we made costumes for fancy dress competitions or indeed just to dress up for as long as I can remember.

3. What is your favourite costume?
Very good question possibly my wedding dress which was Elizabethan though there are parts I wasn't happy with it still looked very good.. I really should remember to scan some photos at some point However doing the whole lot including Jon's outfit, the best man's, my brother's (who gave me away) and two bridesmaids was very good and having the best man wanting to keep his even thought he wasn't a costume person was great.

4. Which is your least favourite costume?
There have been several mostly when I haven't really given myself enough time to make them properly. Can I say the dress I wore for my mum's wedding ? Sorry mum I know I couldn't get to a fitting or anything but a busty, dumpy young adult was never going to look good in the pink ruffled outfit that her little sister though was fabulous!

5. At conventions, do people compliment you on your costumes?
I don't go to conventions but I have had compliments and roleplay events.. well technically I went to one convention but it was quite small.

6. How many have you done?
Costumes? Lots I used to make them for a living so I lost count.

7. What are the top 6 on your list of "Want to Costume!"
It constantly changes..
I NEED an underbust corset.
I have recently spent some time looking at 1940/1950 stuff and want to do a really nice outfit for that era and possibly got to some tea dances.
I want a really nice over the top victorian outfit probably a bustle dress, with hat and fabulous coat too!.
I also want a steampunk outfit which could overlap with the victorian but I'm thinking more female engineer/explorer.
I'd like an 18th dress with panniers.. my current roleplay character keeps refusing to let me make something really nice though. Ideally with a proper 18th century fabric.
I'd really like to do a really well trimmed empire line outfit with a proper long spencer jacket and hat
Oh and making proper more modern shoes not just turn shoes !!

8. What female costume do you want to do most?
I want a underbust corset but that isn't really a costume.. otherwise I'd love to do something really OTT but just don't have the time or brain power.. possibly a steampunk outfit which included metalworking to make it!

9. What male?
A really fantastic 18th century outfit for Tom or indeed a steampunk one for him probably with a full flowing coat, high collar.. nice fitted waistcoat (possibly corseted), fitted trousers, spats. and room for plenty of pockets and guns..

10. What do you prefer to do, make or buy your costumes?
Make though i am gradually finding people who's work I trust enough to consider buying from Plus I have less time for myself these days.

11. Your most memorable experience? What makes it so memorable?
My wedding was pretty memorable. I made outfits for all the wedding party, about 1/3 of the guest were in costume, mostly 16th century. we had a bill block with crossed bills standing at attention outside the door of the church and a bishop to take the wedding service! Plus we did it on a shoestring and had the reception in the vicarage ground (mum being the vicar) with dancing and so on laid on my friends and family.

12. Your dream costume?
Something that makes me seem taller and elegant.. at 5"3 at a push and rather dumpy even with good curves elegant is had to achieve. I do a really good cleveage though!

13. Is there a pattern in your costuming? If so, what?
Yes it's lead by what roleplaying systems we are currently playing mostly.. this changes over the years.

14. Your most recent costume?
Umm I got halfway through an 1950's outfit but ended up not finishing it or going to the event it was for due to Jake dieing but I do plan to finish it.

15. What do you prefer? Cosplaying in a group or on your own?
Well costume for me is for setting the scene and that's not really relevant on my own!

16. (and one I added) What skill are you most proud to have learnt?
How to make proper 15th century hoes and how to pick the fabric to get the right stretch.. just cos i made so many when I was making re-enactment costume for a living and they were the bane of my life.

Goodbye Jake

Today we had to put our cat Jake to sleep. Yesterday he was found on a neighbours drive obviously hurt. We took him to the vet and by the time we got him there he was in shock. Over the next few hours he was obviously fighting to keep going but the vet decided he had been savaged by a dog which had picked him up and shook him. You can't tell in this photo but he was already missing a leg and there was a big wound in his abdomen where the leg would have been and teeth marks on the other side. Both hips were broke and so was his tail.. even then he fought to live and showed progress.. but come this morning he was doing less well and the nerve reactions in his leg were getting worse not better .. he needed them to be OK for any operation to mend the hip to be possible as he wouldn't be able to use the leg without it. When we went to visit it was obvious he wasn't coping and was slipping away so we agreed for the vet to end it..

I am just glad I don't know who's dog did it because I might not be able to restrain myself. It is a dreadful way to go but he never did know when to back away, always stood his ground even when it was stupid to do so and obviously missing a leg didn't help his agility though he would never have admitted that.

Good bye Jake we will miss you very much.

Sunday Stash

It's all IKEA's fault.. they are selling fabric at 49p and not just any fabric but the fabric I bought a while ago to make a Regency day dress.. so I may have a bit more now as in a couple of half bolts of different designs. The original one I bought is the same as the pale blue design but in navy.

I really like the black best except I am not sure what the number is all about and it rather jars with the rest of the design which is why i got the navy orginally..

A pile of random stuff

So what do you make with a pile of stuff like this?

A random assortment of bits of foam, a light green bed valance sheet, an old and tatty baseball cap, a small plastic mixing bowl, paints, PVA glue oh and not in the photograph some small latex cast horns and contact adhesive as well as a sewing kit.. Most of these items were just knocking about in case they came in useful. I bought the bowl and the sheet, the second was on sale and was quicker and easier than dyeing something which as I forgot I'd promised to make this thing till the last moment was important. Yes even the latex horns were knocking about.. the workshop where my friend makes latex prosthetics but they were random spares rather than made specially.

So what is this all for you ask.. Isn't to obvious? NO?

Well what if I tell you it's because we have a birthday treat trip for my nearly six year old, one that has been booked for most of the year?

A treat where we got to sit within feet of these.and roared at by thisWatched this fly over the sea.and this lumber about as well as many others.That's right we went to Walking with Dinosaurs and what self respecting young boy goes to such a birthday treat without a dinosaur costume? Of course I couldn't do any old dinosaur, no generic ones for us thank you. The type has to be discussed and thought about. In the end a pachycephalosaurus was decided on, or as he prefers to call it the headbutting dinosaur.. The image is from the encyclopaedia britannica and the whole article can be found in this link.

So with less than a day to go by the time everything was collected together I started attaching bowls to hats and covering it with foam and fabric. As well as making a top with attached tail!

While there are many things I think I can improve on I don't think it came out to badly given the time constraints. So here is our version of a pachycephalosaurus.

Hope you like it he did.

A recent scrapbook page

I am particularly happy with this one, in fact I really like just the patterned paper with the picture of Noodles on it's own too.. I think the extracting of the picture and leaving some partly merged grasses from the background worked really well with the detailed paper.. Which do you like best?

This one
Or this?

Canel trip

We have been away for nearly a week on Tom's parent's canal boat, the lovely and beautiful Apple Queen. She is 62 foot long I believe and very well kitted out inside for what is not a very big space. In the mosaic below you can see her outside and indeed about half the inside. What you can see is the sitting area, which is set as a double bed in the photo, the dining table and kitchen beyond.. In front of that is the bathroom and another bedroom. The dining table area also converts to a double bed so in all she sleeps 6.

It has been lovely and peaceful pottering along the canal and though we did have limited internet access it was slow and only really used to check for urgent emails. The boys enjoyed themselves very much though of course a 16 month around that much water needs careful watching particularly around locks which are potential death traps if you fall in one especally so when the water is going in or out.. For any that don't know a lock is a short contained area of canal long enough for a boat and wide enough for one or sometimes two boats. It is shut off at each end by a gate and you can then open various paddles to raise or lower the water level allowing canels to go up and down with the geography. There is a max speed of four miles and hour and often you have to go slower than that to avoid damaging the bank with the wash or rocking moored boats so live is very relaxed and slow..

The scenery was fantastic and I am sure you will see some more photos later though we did have to dodge the rain at times and by the time the sun was out I had run out of battery power and kept forgetting to recharge them.

I did get some crochet done in various moments which I will blog about later but for now it is bedtime for the smallest. I'm adding this post to the mosaic monday list over at Little Red house so pop over there for more eyecandy.

Green

These are a few images from the allotment taken last week including the lane I mentioned a few posts ago.

For Mosaic Monday over at Little Red House. though she isn't running the round up this week.