A bowlful of cat party

It was my 30th birthday last November (I know, try to retain your collective gasp) and some of my longest standing friends took me for a little surprise crafty treat - painting at The Pottery Cafe in Brighton. I've been to the cafe a few years ago for sewing classes but had never done any painting there. 

You choose an item and go for it with whatever style or design you like. I've never felt very sure about my drawing skills, so painting isn't something I do very often. I decided to choose a large cereal bowl because that seemed like an item I could get a lot of use out of. My friends picked a large mug, a plate and a piggy bank.

The ladies running the cafe are lovely. Really helpful with advice on what the different techniques are and they let us bring our own wine in to drink whilst we painted. Pink bubbles definitely made me feel more artistic.

I found a very cute bit of wrapping paper in one of their inspiration trays with a design by Gemma Correll of some cats celebrating a birthday. They looked like this. I like Gemma Correll, I like cats and I definitely like cat parties. Birthday cats were in.

You can see the pink bubbles in that blue plastic wine glass - classy

I drew four cats onto the bowl in pencil, copying her style. You couldn't see below the waist on her cats so I had to invent what the legs looked like. I then painted the cats and used a black paint pen to outline them. This was quite tricky because the nib kept jamming with paint so I had to poke it with a pin every 30 seconds. Then - because I had very little time left for detail outside of the cats - I did some swirls around the bowl and painted the outside in green. If I had more time I probably would have done something on the outside, but I spent a long time on the cats themselves.

Here are two of my friends with their creations

It was one of those things where I would think I was finished... leave it... stare at it... think of something else I could add... and start fiddling with it again, including little details...

CAT PARTAAAAY

(mais óu sont les ballons?)

...like the sudden appearance - with 5 minutes to spare - of a green balloon...

CAT PARTAAAAY

(aka the world's easiest game of spot the difference)

And here I am, looking rather pleased with myself.

 

I was very happy with the finished result - especially once I had added the balloon. I'm a better painter/drawer than I thought evidently - even if I was copying someone else's design. It was so much fun too! I would quite like to make a series of these bowls with different animals having parties on them - hamsters and dogs and so forth.

 

Here are the gang post-kiln, looking pretty cheeky

HUZZAH!

I haven't dared use it for cereal in case it gets damaged! It's currently sitting on the windowsill of the kitchen with the rubber gloves in it. Rubber gloves seemed pretty harmless.

As a result of this fun session I ended up booking myself onto some pottery classes at the cafe, but I'll save that for another post. And if you're local to Brighton I would highly recommend you check out the Pottery Cafe - it's pretty great.

See you in September kiddos

xxx 

I discover phannie

Right, no more dilly dallying about. I'm a terror for avoiding writing anything at the moment.

It's been yonks since I did a post about crochet, so let's have a badboy one. This project was a present for a friend for last Christmas and featured not one but two items! I was the ambassador and I was really spoiling her. She was the last one of a group of friends to receive a crocheted gift from me and for years has been going on about this wooly hat I own. So I decided to crochet her a matching scarf and hat set. No gloves though, because I'm too much of a wuss to work them out.

I got this  M E G A T R O N  ball of yarn in a sale at one of the local wool shops with this project specifically in mind. She likes quite neutral colours see.

Look at it! It's a MONSTER!

Because I'm a fusspot I couldn't find a matching scarf and hat pattern that I liked. So I decided to mix and match. I went for a chunky cowl pattern for the scarf firstly, as I've had one of them in mind for ages and this yarn was perfect for it.

The scarf was dead easy and I got through it quickly. The trickiest bit (and this is telling because it was easy peasy) was crocheting it together with a seam, as I hadn't done that before.

I like the little black fibres running through the yarn

Look at that beauty of a seam!

Like a web of awesome

I should probably get on with showing you the hat right?

Fine, one last one for luck...

SCARFALICIOUS

Once I'd finished the scarf I cracked on with the hat. Like I say, this was my first hat and so I was quite excited about trying out something new. I decided to go with this particular design which had ridges on top, partly because it was cute and went with the scarf, but mostly because its name was PHANNIE and I am a child and found this hilarious.

The makings of a great phannie

The phannie groweth

Can you see those little ridges going around it? This was my first experience of what's known in the trade as an FPDC (a Front Post Double Crochet to all you non-cool-crochet kids).

After a while the phannie gets a bit curly-uppy and unruly...

 That's the phannie's undercarriage that is

Majestic

Then you start decreasing in order to bring the shape back around.

I was at the next stage for quite some time. What tended to happen was that I got to here...

and...
1) made my mum try it on (she has a tiny pea-head like the friend I was making it for)...
2) found out it was far too big/too tight/weirdly shaped...
3) tore my phannie right back to about 2 inches previous and then redid it. 

**repeat ad naseum**

This stage took quite some time.


A pro-tip might be to actually measure the head of the person you're making it for, in order to establish how big it should be rather than guessing.

Anyway, here it is finished

Eventually I was happy that my phannie was adequately small without being too tight, and my work here was done! 

I really am sorry about the innuendo. I think my innuendo metre broke and now I can't judge when a joke has not only been thrashed to death, but also thrown down the stairs.


Look here's me squeezing my big melon-head into the hat anyway.

I found that once made into garments the lovely yarn was suddenly actually quite itchy, so there were quite a few stages after I'd made both of the items.

Tort's guide to how I made them not itchy

First I...

1) Filled a sink with cold water and V05 conditioner and left the items to soak for an hour

2) Gently squished out the water with towels (no rubbing)

3) Put them in the tumble dryer

4) Found they were still wet, put them in the tumble dryer again

5) Found they were still wet, put them back into the tumble dryer, cursed the wool

6) Found they were still wet, put them back into the tumble dryer, cursed the wool, cursed the skies, cursed the crochet gods for having foresaken me

6) Took them out and found that they were dry and lovely and soft. Hurrah!

Not a bad job

See you in August. x x x

Intermission

So, it's right at the end of June and I haven't done my blog post for this month. And I have to get up at 5am tomorrow to go to the airport - as I'm off on holibobs to Norway! My brother lives there see...

To make up for being a terrible craft blogger I bring you one of my favourite things - a cat parade to mark my departure.

I promise to be better at this blogging malarky next month (yeah yeah, I know, I always say that).

Catch you later kiddos.

x x x

Get your paint on

Hello there! I promised a longer blog for May but I'm a stinking liar in'I? Also it's the evening of 31st May, so I've left it right up to the wire as always. It's another non-crochet post today I'm afraid. But with more pictures than last month's blog.

A couple of months ago I did a furniture painting workshop with a friend. We found this offer through Groupon and I decided to give it a go despite 1) not having my own place and therefore owning very little of my own furniture, and 2) not really being interested in furniture painting. I like learning new stuff though, so I figured it would be fun and interesting - and I wasn't wrong.

The workshop was run by a one-woman company called Love House and was taught from a sort of repurposed shed in her back garden in Southwick. It was pretty cool all the same though. I took along a chair which my Mum's been wanting to have painted white for about 15 years. It's one of those big rounded ones with a sort of semi-circle for arms (I'm crap at descriptions, you'll see in a minute). I was worried it would be too big to get painted in time but the teacher didn't seem worried when I struggled into the shed with it.

The paint was chalk paint which means you don't need to strip it back to the natural wood, you can just slap it straight on. It's better to actually have varnish already on the item, otherwise it's more likely to have weird staining showing through. Unfortunately my chair had already had the paint taken off which meant it there is a bit of yellowish discolouration on the finished product.

See, one of those chairs. What are they called? Oh, never mind.

There's me slapping the paint on above. You only use a tiny amount and build up the layers. It's almost like dry brushing and - what with it being chalk paint and all - it dries in minutes. If you're bored of waiting then you can use a hair dryer to speed up the process! I had to work super fast because my item was pretty big (certainly the biggest in the class) and the teacher ended up helping by painting around the other side to me. It was a bit manic!

Once you're happy with the painting you sand back the edges/detailed bits to give it some definition. You can also add in scuffs to make it look older and sort of lived-in. I wasn't too sure about this bit, as I didn't want it looking battered. I ended up going along with what the teacher said to do, and it does look ok, but I am still quite tempted to get some more of the paint and touch up the scuffed bits!

The next step is to whack on a bit of wax, which - as it's chalk paint and therefore dry - the furniture drinks up in no time. Then when you're done with that you put some varnish on the bits which will take a lot of wear. I got overexcited and ended up varnishing the whole chair. Then, with about 5 minutes until the end of the class I was frantically pointing a hair dryer at it (which was melting the wax! Aaaagh!) and cursing myself for being so overzealous, as I had to stick it in the back of my car in order to go home.

Here I am, throwing waaaaaaay too much varnish on it

The colour of the paint is called 'Vanille' I think. It's not quite white, more of a sort of cream. The teacher didn't think white was a good idea given how big it was (takes a lot of coats to make white look decent I think).

Here it is once I got it home - thankfully without leaving a white coating of paint over the backseat of my car!

Superchair is GO!

I'm pretty happy with it! You can see the scuff marks above, which I'm not 100% on, but mostly I think it looks good. I love where I wore the paint off of the studs on the seat, as it's lovely to see them poking through - that bit of scuffing is ace.

The chair lives in Mum's bedroom and she's really chuffed with it. It was not long before Mother's Day so it kind of counted towards that too (she ended up getting about 5 presents from me this year, lucky stick).

Here's my glamorous assistant checking it out

I would definitely like to buy some more of the paint and give it a go again at home. It's really satisfying when you're finished and it looks like a different item altogether. I've already picked out a few bits of Mum's furniture which could do with a face-lift too!

See you in June x

Tort of the Rings

Almost the end of April already? This year is flying by! Can't quite believe that we're a quarter of the way through it already. I'm meant to be doing serious, boring, grown-up things tonight (like banking paperwork and buying insurance) so instead I thought I'd avoid them by doing a quickie blog post. I promise a proper post in May about something with lots of pictures.

About two years ago, after moving back home, I decided to start taking classes in different things. The main reason being to build up my confidence, with the added bonus of learning a new skill. This decision has lead to courses in furniture painting, glass cutting, sewing, pottery, and French language, and has helped me to discover something about myself - I love trying new things! Once I'd started trying out adult classes I got the bug for it. I want to learn all the things!

So, the class which started it all was a one-day course in jewellery making at Sussex Downs College. I remember being incredibly nervous as I tottered off early on a Saturday morning to Lewes.

I assumed that jewellery making would naturally involve bits of wire, beads and pliers. Some of my friends create beautiful pieces of jewellery in this manner, and I hadn't even considered that I would be taught anything else. The teacher was a gruff, stocky guy of around retirement age, so it seemed like an unusual profession for him to be in, but to each his own...

Looking around the workshop at the vices, metal files and hammers, it slowly dawned on me that we weren't going to be using beads... we were going to be bending, filing and welding metal. I don't think I'd have signed up if I'd realised it was essentially a metal workshop as I was always naff at design technology at school. I'd paid my money for the course though, and had a whole Saturday to spend learning this new skill, so I threw myself into creating something.

I made two rings from the little sheet of silver I was given. I wasn't mad keen on the cutting part, as it was a bit fiddly and cutty-scary, but bending the metal with pliers was quite fun. Then you put it around this little metal cone and hammered it into a smoother shape. The filing stage was boring, tiring, irritating and yet somehow deeply satisfying all at the same time. You had to use about 3 different metal files in order to get a proper smooth finish, and often it would only be on using the last one that you noticed an imperfection and had to go back to the first stage. Le sigh.

I was completely unprepared for the welding. It hadn't even occurred to me that I'd be having to do it, so when we gathered around to watch him use the blow torch I suddenly began looking for the exit in order to make a quick escape. I ended up very reluctantly using the torch and it was every bit as scary as I'd thought. Welding is incredible and makes you feel like some kind of a fire god but also completely terrifying. You place a tiny piece of metal (which has a lower melting temperature than your silver) on top of the area you want to weld, add a little bit of a chemical, and then heat it with the torch. When it melts that little piece of metal zips into the join just like magic. You then get to plunge the red hot jewellery into water, like a blacksmith from days of old. If blacksmiths faffed about with little bits of metal jewellery anyway. Which obviously they did, because I've played RPGs and rings always have magical powers like +10 speed, so they're a pretty badass bit of armour - AMIRIGHT?

From here on out most of what you're doing is getting the finish right. Basically more filing, but with finer files. It's a bit like when you buffer your nails to make them all shiny. Also there was this buffer machine which was pretty fun to use, although the metal did get super-hot from it. It looked a bit like one of those rotating table-saws - the kind you'd try to kill James Bond with - but was fluffy instead of spiky metal.

Right, I've prattled on enough now, just take a look at them...

Pretty nifty huh?

They're not quite perfect - I can see flaws in these photos which I'd file out given the chance!

Mmmm sausages

So there we go. Something I probably would have shied away from trying but which I'm very glad I did. I'm happy with my little creations and it turned out to be a lot of fun. Plus it gave me the bug to keep trying out new things and for that I'm very pleased. 

Now what class to try out next? Any suggestions?

A glass quickie

So it's almost the end of March and I've yet to do a post. In keeping with my 'do one blog post a month' resolution I figured I'd better crack on with one today. I'm feeling very lazy though, so let's make it a quickie...

I really love taking classes to learn new skills. I've just finished a French course, pottery course and done a one-off furniture painting workshop. I like finding new things to learn and trying my hand (sometimes more successfully than others) at new crafts. Last year I did a glass coaster workshop with some friends at Inlight Contemporary Glass Fusion in Hove. We got a good deal from a Groupon voucher, although we didn't end up doing a different workshop with her afterwards, because she wouldn't let us use another Groupon voucher - as we had already attended one of her taster sessions. That was a bit annoying. Anyway, I digress, and would still recommend the coaster session because it was a lot of fun.

I had some big ideas before the class as to what I would like to make. I knew we could make two coasters and one of them would obviously  be a tortoise. That might not be all that obvious unless you follow me on Twitter. I bloomin' love tortoises. For the other one I thought I might make a Jaws coaster for my friend Charlie. I done sketches and everything...

 

Sketching skillz - dream big people

We were given four pieces of coaster glass to work with. Each coaster is made from two pieces so that they are the desired thickness. We learnt that there were two different ways to make the coasters:

1) Cut pieces of different coloured glass into shapes. This involves scoring them and snapping them like they were pieces of chocolate, which is incredibly  satisfying. Then, using a really thin watery glue (which doesn't even seem sticky, but does the trick in the kiln), position the pieces on top of one of the coaster. The other coaster just sits underneath. Imagine that the sheets of coaster glass are the toast and the coloured glass bits are the beans - does that make more sense? Mmmmm. Beans on toast.

2) Use confetti glass. This is so thin that you can just snap it with your fingers without any scoring. It reminded me of thin pieces of icing. With this technique you build up a picture by positioning the confetti glass on top of the bottom coaster and then placing the other coaster on top. Imagine the coasters are the toast and the confetti glass is the cheese, like a delicious cheese toastie. Mmmmm. Cheese toastie.

I knew that the tortoise was the top priority for me, so I went to work on cutting out the pieces for the shell and the body parts. The teacher was a little concerned that I was biting off more than I could chew, but I was bloomin' determined (and stubborn - I am quite stubborn). The tortoise took quite some time to construct - well over half of the lesson time was spent on this little beauty - but it was time well spent.

See the two pieces of coaster glass I was rambling on about - one is sitting underneath it all

I used this glass filing wheel to curve the sharp edges of the limbs and head, and to make the shell pieces straighter. It looked a bit terrifying and I had to wear goggles over my glasses, but it actually felt really soft, like a buffer.

The teacher kept referring to him as a turtle, but I ended up letting this slide because she was French and both turtles and tortoises are called 'tortue' in French. See, those French classes were money well spent eh?

Look at him, looking all beautiful

The teacher cut for me those tiny black pieces of glass for his eyes, so I forgave her for all references to turtles.

By the time I'd finished with my tortoise I only had about half an hour left for my second coaster, so it was a complete rush job. No way was I going to have time to do the Jaws scene I'd intended (also they didn't have any grey glass). My mum is a big fan of poppies and I could think of a quick poppy image to create using the confetti glass, so I decided to crack on with that instead.

The confetti glass was both easier and harder to use. Easier because you just snapped it and threw it onto the glued coaster, harder because it sticks to your fingers, doesn't land where you want it to, and the tweezers suddenly move all the other carefully aligned pieces by mistake.

Poppalicious

For the stems I used copper wire, which makes bubbles in the final finished piece, by trapping air between the sheets of coaster. The grass was a really pretty glittery green confetti. The flowers themselves are partly designed to look abstract and partly 'oh-God-there's-only-ten-minutes-left-and-I-am-never-going-to-finish-this-in-time,-chuck-it-on,-chuck-it-all-on'.

My panic crafting - right up to the wire - paid off though, and I left feeling very happy with my lovely two creations.

They were then to be fired in the kiln by the teacher and collected in a couple of weeks. On the day I collected them I was going straight off to a beer and cider festival, so part of the reason I'm so proud of them is that I managed to get them home unsmashed after a lot  of cider.

And here's the final result!

I love them!

My Mum was dead chuffed with her poppies coaster, which came out way better than expected for such a rush job, and I adore my tortue coaster, which sits on my bedside cabinet, pride of place.

That wasn't that quick of a quickie post was it? Once I get rambling I really do ramble. 

See you next month, take care. 

xx

Raspberry ripple blanket

Half-way through February and I've just remembered that I'm due a blog! It's another blanket one I'm afraid.

I am all about the blankets.

In 2012 I made my nephew a Spiderman inspired giant granny square blanket for his bed. You might remember it, it's this one here. Well, last year my sister asked me to make a blanket for my five year old niece, as she was having her bedroom decorated. My sister picked out the colours from my own giant granny square blanket to fit in with the colour scheme - she went for a pale pink called 'Fondant', a lovely soft 'Plum' and 'Cream'. They're Stylecraft Special DK yarns, which is my favourite yarn for blankets as it's soft, cheap and easy to work with. I'd previously found a pattern by Lucy of Attic 24 for a lovely ripple blanket which I'd been dying to try out for a while. So, full of enthusiasm off I went, thinking this should be a lot quicker as it was only single bed sized, rather than the double bed style of the previous two blankets.

I got through the first few colour changes quite quickly...

I loved the colours and the ripple effect. It's a really easy pattern, basically just lots of treble crochets (UK terminology), along with increases and decreases.

I hate those bamboo hooks (from the first pic), much happier with a metal hook in hand

And then, somewhere around a quarter of the way into the project I completely stalled. I was sooooooo bored of the ripples. I think the fact that I was doing seven rows of each colour was what did it - as there were much fewer short term goals. With my original blanket I'd work until I finished a colour, but with this I didn't even want to pick it up, as the colour change was so far away.

Eventually I got to about halfway through - but by now it was late July and the present needed to be ready for Christmas (I'd already missed the May birthday deadline) - so I had to get cracking!

 This is probably the best photo for the colour of the plum

I think one of the main difficulties I experienced with this project was the closeness of the stitches. With a granny square you're making as much progress in the spaces between stitches as you are with the stitches themselves. With this everything was stitches.  

E V E R Y T H I N G.

 

I do rather like the colours though, several people commented on how it looked like ice-cream...

 ...the general consensus was that it looks like neapolitan ice-cream...

...although I suspect that's because of the way the plum colour comes out very dark in photos...

I prefer to think of it as my raspberry ripple blanket

This photo makes my eyes go funny, it's like a Magic Eye puzzle

I decided against doing a border for this blanket because the edges were all neat enough, and so it didn't seem to need one. Also my niece's taste is quite girlie but not particularly fancy, so she wouldn't want any additional frills. I think the plum makes it quite a sophisticated colour scheme for a 5 year old!

It was difficult to get a decent photo of the ripples at the top and bottom of the blanket. I always struggle with photographing the finished item in a way which shows it off properly. The top and bottom edges are a lot more regimented than the picture below makes them appear because, as my friend @CrochetedZombie would say, I'm a tight hooker!

(It's being modelled on a king-sized bed here btw, I didn't seriously misjudge the size of the blanket)

So I finally got a wiggle on and actually finished it in November, leaving me with time to do those snowflakes from the last blog. Yes, I am a crochet addict. I finished this blanket with a claw-like, aching hook-hand, and launched straight into making 60-odd snowflakes.

I gave it to my niece for Christmas and she loved it, so I was very pleased. :)

BOO-YA BLANKET!

Being a glutton for punishment, I'm actually in the midst of another blanket, which I started in late December. This one is a surprise though, so it's top secret! Well, except on Twitter anyway, where I keep posting excitable pictures. I can't wait to properly show you that one.

See you in March then... x