And she aches just like a woman. But she breaks just like Martha Stewart with a paypal account

I have finally dug out and finished my Anna Maria Horner Evening Empire Dress. I will try and get pics for next week. Even though it has been hanging about for probably actually a year it only took a couple of hours to finish, isn’t that always the way? I went into Emergency Craft Lets Just Get The Bloody Thing Finished mode so I have not lined it and the zip isn’t inserted into the bodice lining properly, but. It is for me. Who will see? It will be fine. And look what I unearthed when I was tidying out my bookshelves, shoved quietly at the back and all unloved.

When O When will they have tops with strange protuberances in Primark?

Pattern Magic! Now, I have to say, I think Pattern Magic is probably better for someone who understands how to make a fitted bodice toile, but, I am getting there and who knows, this time next year I may be churning out tops like these.

And as a bonus you get to see my scruffy cuticles

I love this book. It shows you shapes based on a fitted bodice, but hugely, hugely innovative: nothing that you are ever going to see in Burda (much though we love Burda, obviously). There’s nothing I like more than a good unwearable pattern. Fancy shoving it to the back of the shelf. When I was doing a particular job a couple of years ago, I took my mind off the daily re-enactment of the less self-aware bits of the Jeremy Kyle show by buying craft supplies. Obviously I cannot recommend dealing with employment issues through spending money, it is a Very Bad Idea which may end in terrible debt or forced participation in Hoarders, you never know: but, on the other hand, not only do I no longer have to do that job, but I also have a great stack of fabric! Result! And sometimes I turn up gems like this that I had squirrelled away. Well done, Stressed Unhappy Susie: you had excellent taste in books. This is the exciting thing, though. Pattern Magic is now available…in translation.

Yes! In translation! My copy is in Japanese, and while I agree that if you know what you are doing the pictures are enough to go on, I do not entirely know what I am doing (it really is quite hard, I say in my defence) and I would like to be able to read the text as well. I think it would be particularly helpful if the text said something like, ‘Although this looks scary, don’t panic. Put the book down. Breathe deeply. Go and make a cup of tea. Have a nice digestive. There. Does it look a bit better? Good. Now get out your French curve and go and draft a fitted bodice from scratch. Jump to it!’.

Ridicule is nothing to be scared of

Readers, I could not help myself. I have bought Pattern Magic 2 in English. I will show you the things in it when it arrives. And when I manage to actually make some of the things within, I am sure my loved ones will be very polite about my creations and will say, Gosh, is that hugely directional garment Junya Watanabe couture? Rather than, What the hell are you wearing? Honestly, Susie, I wish you would go to Marks and Spencer like a proper person.

And I am expecting them to be polite when I wear the Evening Empire Dress as well ;-).

Fire. I'll teach you to burn

So, before I ask your advice about my quilt-in-progress, I just want to tell you about Knit and Crochet Blog Week (KniCroBloWe? No, perhaps not ;-) ).

It’s being organised by Eskimimi of Eskimimi Knits, as a thing arising from the Blog Hub group on Ravelry (I didn’t express that very well, you know what I mean). Anyway, during that week, lots of knit and crochet bloggers are going to be blogging on the same topics but bringing their own personal neuroses creativity into it, it’s going to be great. If you have any interest at all in things of an interlocking loop nature, why don’t you join in? You’d be very welcome. Even if you’re not a knit/ crochet blogger normally, you could join in any of the days where the topics interest you or you have something to say, because there’s nothing the knit/ crochet blog community likes more than Fresh Blood. Come, come and join us (says she with a sinister expression, beckoning from behind cloak).

Also, if you’re not already on Ravelry and you have even the most passing interest in anything woolly – if you once admired the size of a huge ball of aran: if you’ve ever peered at your friend’s handknit shawl in handspun laceweight and said ‘I’d like one like that. Could you make me one for next week? I’ll give you £5 and try not to leave it in the pub': if you have a secret hankering for one of those poodle toilet roll covers which you can’t buy in shops: then do not waste another moment of this brief, confusing life, get over instantly to Ravelry and register, because it’s just a marvellous, marvellous site. Patterns, help, projects to lust after, everything. And we nice people in the Blog Hub group will mop up your blood and tears when you turn up, fresh from the triumph of having rushed to the forums 1 minute after signing up and started a topic with the title ‘I can’t believe people knit with Acrylic! OMGZ!!!!! Have they got no taste!!!?’ or, ‘Why would anyone want to crochet LOL? I suppose only because it’s so much easier than knitting’.

For lots more info on KniCroBloWe (I jest), get on over to Mimi’s lovely blog. If you haven’t already found her blog, then you’re in for a treat, I personally wish she would come over and take all my photographs for me because, well, look at hers, so she is very lucky she doesn’t live in Cambridge because I can imagine that might come to be a burden in time.

Now onto my quilt-in-progress. Could I have some advice, pls, nice internet people? I have pieced the top, this is it.

900 squares of pleasure

There are a couple more rows of blue on the top where it is hanging over the fence. In case you are not quite sure what my Vision was, it is supposed to look like fire (do you see, hey hey hey? At the bottom?). It is 60” square and I am thinking that what will set it off is a 5” border all the way around. People: I do not have it in me to piece a border. I am going to go wild and buy more fabric so I can do a solid border. But, what colour? What do you think? It is a quilt for my mother, and obviously I could ask her, but she will say beige and, this might surprise you, but I am not a beige person (I mean, I would consider it, but. Let’s think of ALL the other options first). I thought possibly grey? Or fuschia? Or navy? I will use either a solid colour or, one with a small print. I have looked in John Lewis and, nothing, so I shall have to poke about online. Sigh, internet fabric shopping, such a burden, my life, it is hard, whine whine whine.

(Go on, mum, tell me what you want. Leave me a comment. I’m ignoring you if you say beige, though).

Book Masochism Progress! (Of Sorts!)

I have nearly pieced together my 900 squares. I am on the last batch. I am taking a break from it before I go mad to update you all on the other undoable thing I am doing, i.e. the Book Masochist Challenge 2011.

Taken at a recent book fair in Cambridge. I was almost knocked over in the rush. I couldn't take it, I had to leave

So, if you remember, I am trying to read thirty of the books on this list of Top Books that I have not read already. Well, readers, I have stalled a little on Ulysses and I suspect the reason goes right to the heart of why I did not in fact manage to do a PhD in English, which would have enabled me to be sitting in a nice book-lined room at Newnham now, sounding off about something or other with doe-eyed undergraduates looking at me admiringly, rather than piecing together 900 patchwork squares in a desperate and cross-eyed fashion. (Because obviously the Newnham fellowship and undergraduate admiration would have been a given).

It is unquestionably a great book, I have skim-read it before, I love Dubliners and I love Portrait of the Artist. But, if you do not have exactly the same cultural references as JJ had when he was writing it, it is not an easy read. I hesitate to say, unreadable. But, bits of it are. Now, I do not expect everything I read to be easy (900 squares, people, doggedness), but (lecture begins. Feel free to skip): modernist literature’s use of intertextuality I think is sometimes specifically designed to alienate the reader. I think it is elitist. I think it is saying, if you do not have a working knowledge of Greek, Latin, contemporary Irish politics and many other things, then I do not care if you understand this book or not because you are not my sort of reader. To which, I say, OK. That is fine, I am not. So I have put down Ulysses until I feel less belligerent and I have moved on.

Books at the Book Fair. I took this photograph secretly like a Ninja in case I was apprehended by men in flat hats

This unhelpful kind of thinking is absolutely why I did not do a PhD, come to think of it, and it is either depressing or marvellously consistent that I appear to have made no progress in however many years it is since then. (Many). So you see what a wonderful thing this is to do, it is forcing me to Confront Issues and I may come out the other side a better person! (Perhaps not! ;-) ).

Anyway, after that I had a bit of a break from the list, and I read Steppenwolf (this is not on the list, it was cheap in Oxfam. I have excellent literary selection criteria, excellent). I don’t think anyone reads this any more but I think it was popular in the 60s. It is about a man who thinks (on a metaphorical level, natch) that he is half wolf. It is a comment on Society. It is interesting because there are lots of narratives within narratives and quite a fun theatre thing going on, but (I know I sound a misery, I am not!) I do feel the stance of just being too delicate for society is very much dependent on someone else doing the housework and looking after the children. Partner says he feels Herman Hesse might have felt particularly as if he was morphing into Steppenwolf right at the moment the dinner needed cooking. ‘Go away! Don’t bother me about peeling potatoes! I’m oppressed by a need for Primitivism!’. However, this was an interesting read and I shall lend my copy to my brother Dan when I see him next and see what he thinks.

And thus the sun set on Steppenwolf and rose on The Trial. Can you see my tree sanctuary? I know they need trimming

I am now reading Kafka’s The Trial. It is short and it is not bothering me with its intertextuality (although possibly I am just missing it), so we are going great so far, I am about half way through. I am enjoying it very much. I don’t know what I will move onto next, but Partner has a copy of Catch-22 hanging about so that may be the one.

What is everyone else reading? Any fellow book masochists out there? How are you getting on?

A White Album

Inspired by The Crafty Cripple, who has been taking part in the weekly photo challenge on Shutterboo and keeps posting some very alluring photographs, I thought I would jump in myself and have a go (the flickr group is here). Well, this week’s challenge was ‘white’ which was interesting because I have been having a tie-dyeing session, so not much white there! I was hoping the big fat white cat from 2 doors down might come and sit and look at me and then I could take his photograph (since we had the new fence done, he comes every day and sits looking at it, with a furious expression. I know you are thinking, how can you tell, but I can. I can only assume it smells wrong or something, or it is on his patch and we ought to have asked his permission). Anyway, no big fat white cat, he must be busy staring furiously as something else this week, but it did strike me that All The Things before you actually tie-dye them have this strange white vulnerability: pure, glowing white but you know it won’t last, because as soon as you open the procion dye pot, boom, there it is, all over. So I experimented with a photo of my tie-dyeing equipment beforehand.

Actually, look. Don't use thin white bin bags for tie-dyeing. COVER EVERYTHING WITH THE THICKEST ONES YOU CAN FIND!

But it wasn’t quite right. Then I got distracted by some white bubbles on a dish I’d just washed up.

Finest Ecover bubbles because I save the environment while I am washing up. Smug, moi?

But the one I liked most was the one of the soda ash being dissolved preparatory to soaking all the cloth.

Fixative! Very important! Do you want your tie-dyeing to run in the wash and turn your pants all murky?

It was a fun challenge because there are a surprising amount of different shades and variations in white, and keeping the colour simple means you can focus on the texture. Next week is 'large' - this holds no fear for a woman with a small plastic gorilla, ha!

You know what I really like is colour, though ;-). So this is what I ended up with after I had done my tie-dyeing (well, there was more than this. I just didn’t want to haul it all up onto the fence. The neighbours think I’m odd enough as it is).

Sunshine! Get the camera out! Rush out and hang that tie-dye on the fence!

I was intending it as the centre panel for a quilted wallhanging but I’m not sure. I like it but it turns out that the idea I had in my head was smaller and more colour-intensive (who knew? Not me until I’d actually done the dyeing!) so I’m going to dye another batch next week.

I am on my fourth block and I am losing the will to live

And this is a bit of a taster of a new quilt top I’m piecing. 900 2” squares. Did you all wince in unison? Good ;-).

The Friday Interview - on Tuesday. Amy Orange Juice

Today’s interview is with Amy from Amy Orange Juice.

I noticed Amy’s lovely glass work when I was poking about looking for a glass suncatcher for the kitchen window (Amy’s shops on Folksy and on Etsy). I am as yet undecided as to whether a suncatcher would work because of my condensation issues (have I bored you about our house recently? We have condensation issues in the kitchen! I am redoing the garden! It is all very difficult! ;-) ), but I thought her things were so nice I wanted to share them with you.

In my mind I always think glass, or indeed anything involving heat, is scary and hardcore. This is because I once took a jewellery class (don’t ask, I was rubbish) and one of the things I couldn’t get through my head was, when you have heated the silver with the blow torch, do not then pick the silver up with your hand. So, I am always impressed when anyone does anything which involves soldering, because if I had carried on for much longer I would have had no skin left on my fingers. I am also too frightened to ignite anything, which holds you back when blowtorches are involved. This is a whole other story and one for which I blame my upbringing; but you can see it is safest and generally best all around if I stick to fibre. So, I admire glass artists lots; but I admire them from a safe distance. Take it away, Amy!

12 beach huts. I believe I once saw a sky that colour, it seems a long time ago (sigh)

1/ How did you get started with making stained glass?
I have always been interested in stained glass, I really love working with colour so I guess it is a good medium for me. I studied art at university but after I graduated I started working with homeless people (as a mental health worker) and I really needed a creative outlet to relax, so I did a stained glass course in the evenings for 2 years. It was love at first cut and I was soon making things for friends and acquaintances; 3 years later (when I was pregnant with my first daughter) I was made redundant, which gave me the perfect opportunity to change career and become self employed. I have not looked back and I can work around my young family. [Note from me, I also used to work with homeless people. As a benefits adviser. However at that time my creative outlet was mostly focused on eating cake and spending too much money at TK Maxx. Stained glass is more constructive].

2/ Could you just explain briefly how the process works? 
Use several techniques, primarily I make traditional leaded stained glass windows, little has changed in the process for 1,000 years! [Note from me, gosh, and I mean that non-ironically]. You make a design, cut the glass, fit it all together in lead came (which has channels for the glass to fit into). Then you solder all the joins together, cement the panel to fill all the gaps between the lead and glass (to make it water tight) and then finish with a patina acid to darken the solder joins and polish with stove black.

For smaller, lighter items I use the copper foil technique which is where you cut the glass, and then cover the edges in adhesive copper tape, these pieces are then fitted together and soldered together.

Finally, I use applique and mosaic techniques, basically gluing pieces of glass to a transparent surface (applique) or onto a solid backing (mosaic) and then grouting the whole piece.

I use etching techniques to affect the surface of the glass and I do a lot of acid etching.

I am saving up for a kiln, so I can start fusing glass together and painting the surface with enamels.

Art Deco Columbine Flowers

3/ I love how your bold graphics translate into glass. What are your biggest inspirations for colour and shape?
Thank you! I get ideas of colour everywhere, I am lucky enough to live in Devon and it is a really beautiful part of the world, from the coast to the moors there is a view everywhere. I am very inspired by Art Deco and I love vintage fabric designs [note from me, me too!] and repeating patterns. Mostly I do a sketch and then try to reduce it to as few lines as possible. I don’t even try to get the realistic colours of nature, you can do that with other media, I want to celebrate the beautiful effect of light on coloured glass and I choose my colours to create a ‘mood’ more than a realistic interpretation of what I see. 

Commissioned window in situ. Isn't that lovely? I bet they don't have condensation. I bet their cutlery drawer opens

4/ Which of the things you make are you most excited about at the moment?
Probably my commission stained glass work at the moment, I am booked up till sometime in the summer with a steady flow of bespoke windows for people’s homes and I love the whole process from having a nosey round some lovely homes to seeing the finished piece in its new home and happy customers (I have been hugged and kissed several times!)

But I am always excited by the next project…I have to think of something to make for a couple of sculpture exhibitions later in the year, I just need to find the right old rubbish to get inspired by! 

Kaleidoboat! I think this fabulous. Also I want to go and live near the seaside

5/ I love your Kaleidoboat, above (link to the story here!). Do found objects/ upcycled stuff feature a lot in your work?
The first thing I remember upcycling was old cigar boxes given to me by my next door neighbour when I was about 13, I would decoupage and paint them with all sorts of designs. I did A Level Textiles and did a project on make do and mend clothes in World War II and I have really been upcycling ever since! All of my art work has included found objects, when I was young it was out of the need for cheap materials but I also like the challenge of incorporating found objects into my work.

I use found objects much more regularly than just in big mixed media sculptures, I also make lots of bottle top brooches, mosaics layered with broken jewellery and all of my boat mobiles,  mosaics and many of my other small pieces are just found pieces of waste stained glass pieced together into pleasing shapes.

Junk Plankton

6/ Are there any other glass artists (or other general artists) you admire?
Oh lots, too many to choose, but at the moment I am especially blown away with the Japanese approach to contemporary stained glass and there are lots of artists on this website who I like to snoop at http://www.kuripa.co.jp

_________________________________________

You can see more of Amy on her website, or in her Etsy or Folksy shops. She also has some events coming up – a landscapes exhibition at Otterton Mill from 5th March – 29th April (this is one of the pieces going into the exhibition), and she’s making a new range for a new shop in Scotland in May. She’s also going to be doing an art fair at RHS Rosemoor on 10th-11th April. So if anyone is in the Devon area you can go and have a look at her lovely things (and you could buy some as well! Or you could commission a window! You never know ;-) ).

Thanks Amy for being interviewed, I enjoyed it very much. Best of luck with all your exhibitions and fairs and I hope you get your kiln because I can imagine your enamel work would be lovely x

Spiky veg and a great big ball

And on the plus side, it's a really excellent photo of that tree trunk

Just a couple of things I wanted to show you. The moon through the trees the other night.

If the garden ended there I could probably cope with it. It does not

My bulbs! They grew, they flowered! They inspired me to cut out a yellow and blue quilt and now I have Quilter’s Bottom™ from hovering over the cutting board! (I know that table looks scruffy. Go and google ‘teak garden table prices UK’ and then try and find it in your heart to condemn me).

I grew something! I know it doesn't count!

Close up of the hyacinths, in full bloom. They are just lovely. The smell is permeating the entire kitchen. Obviously it has done a bit of a number on my hayfever, but I try to be brave.

I have to say, I don't know where to start with this one. Thank God for the internet (crosses fingers)

A spiky vegetable. How hopeful are we that I can turn it into an edible dinner? Me = not hopeful at all, especially after the man in the shop told me it was ‘very bitter. Very very bitter, and excellent for people with diabetes!’ with real enthusiasm. Yum, I thought. Yum. It is called Kerala.

20% wool! Be still my beating heart!

A giant ball of aran. This is the slippery slope. Not only am I no longer a cool person (because, the highlight of my day today was getting my National Trust membership pack. I am so excited! I am going to go and read the handbook and plan excursions!), I am also no longer a cool knitter. Cool knitters do not have giant balls of aran. They have handspun laceweight which they have fashioned themselves from the soft underbelly of an alpaca they rescued from difficult conditions. They do not have enormous balls of an acrylic mix in questionable colours. I shall just say this though: £7.45 for over 900 yards. And it’s soft. Is it looking any more attractive now? (Non-UK knitters, do you even have these giant balls of aran, or is it something that doesn’t translate overseas?).

And, do you remember my interviews? Do you, hey hey hey? Well I have started them up again and I am going to do one tomorrow. Yes, because it has been a long time, I am going to relax my Friday rule. I know, it’s anarchy, don’t feel too disorientated. At least there’ll always be the giant aran balls (really, there will be. They’d survive a nuclear winter. The first shop that started up after the nuclear winter would probably have giant aran balls, Take A Break, and Pot Noodles). So, tomorrow’s interview is with Amy from Amy Orange Juice who is going to tell us about her lovely stained glass work, do check back for that. Now I go, I go to cut out more quilt squares. I try to see this as a form of Pilates and I am hopeful that not only will I have another quilt at some point but I will have buttock muscles you could crack nuts with. Watch out for my forthcoming DVD, Tone Your Bottom Through Quilting. I am not sure how well shots of me hunched and groaning over the cutting board will translate to TV but perhaps it will find a specialist market.

Preserving Passion Chapter 4

In the interests of preserving family harmony rather than passion (because my mother rings me up and says 'have you written another chapter yet? Write another chapter!' as if I were not trying to make the garden habitable and make enough money to live on as well chiz chiz), here is chapter 4 of Preserving Passion. It is a chapter with a strong moral tone and a warning to those of you who mix your drinks, and if Kahlua and Barley Wine becomes fashionable I would like you to remember that you read it here first.