Poor Little Blog-blog

I've been neglecting it and now its hungry and feeling unloved. Poor Blog.

Maybe a 'Disappointed Knitting Bear' will make it feel better??


Or some 'Frightened Masquerading Slugs'?



Or even a 'Floating Shepherding Lily Pad'?


... All my work has a sad theme :(

Anyway that should have whetted the appetite for images and show what I've been doing with myself for the last few months. Not exactly a few months work but never mind. At the moment my life is bound to go in any direction and now is purely down to fate. Not that I believe in fate but it stops me worrying about minuscule possibilities I may or may not have to decide upon. Do I get a full time job that scuppers my art career but pays the rent? Do I get a couple of hours a week in a shop that is easier for me to get than a full time job but makes me have to paint and knit to pay the rent? I've decided that I can't decide. So I'm waiting for things to happen.

My final degree show is over now and I've had enough good feedback from it to stop me getting low about my work not being good enough to even sit next to some of the talented people in my year. Being predicted a 3rd can do that to a person. Thinking back I have no idea what made me keep going but I did and I found things that worked and was more positive about the good things in my work. If I get a 3rd now I will be severely pissed. Ha ha. The tutors were great with me because they always appreciated that I wasn't that talented but I never gave up. They spent a lot of time with me and respected that I didn't want short cuts to compensate for talent. They said to another not- so -talented girl in my class that she should use collage of photographed images to stop her from including her crap drawing in images. When they gave the same suggestion to me I told them I would rather learn to draw better than give up for short-term gain. Maybe that was a stupid decision but it's the one I felt comfortable with.

Lucky really because it seems my drawings were fine anyway. The tutors had mostly ignored me the first 2 years of the course so they hadn't really looked at my sketchbook work. Strangely enough they liked it because it was naive and charming and encouraged me to keep going with that. I also got great feedback when I first showed them my crochet work. It was my bunny cactus that started it all. They were so impressed with my 'knitting' (as everyone constantly keeps referring to it - it was annoying at first but now I like that no-one seems to know how they are made giving it a bit of a magical quality to it) that they didn't think I'd actually made it.

What ever grade it get is purely down to luck. Luck that I gave up trying to draw and just drew the stupid charming ideas that pour out of my head. Pure self-indulgence. Luck that I just bought a crochet book and started to learn 8 months ago and that it just *clicked* and I can just about figure out the way to crochet any shape I want. Luck that the natural wonkyness of crochet matches up with my wonky drawing. Luck that I have a stash full of natural fibres that when I started felting details such as eyes and mouths onto my work I had everything I needed sat next to my desk.

Any more luck? Well thats enough for now.

More Pictures

Ah to be back in the woods at my parents. I realise now that I feel more at home sitting in the woods rather than sitting in the house.

I've been planning this image for a long time and I'm glad it seems to be easily falling into place. I think the image above is the best on the lot and I'm really pleased. However looking at the file sizes it looks like my RAW pictures are substantially smaller than the highest setting of jpeg... which it shouldn't be. The image above is only 8cm wide on 300dpi where as other pictures I've taken as jpeg are over 20cm wide on 300 dpi.

Which means I have to go take MORE photos..

Floaty Floaty

After the last post about not liking my new felting tool some people might think I'd never use it again. I already had too many plans for using it for that :).

In the random avoiding of my increasingly dull negotiated project for college I've been designing purses and bags and such. Felting is a great way of making a mock-up of a design and luckily my yarn snobbery of not buying acrylic unless it's for something particular means almost all of my yarn stash is feltable. Wooh. I do have to comment that the black silk edging is a pain. Before using it I had to separate the 6 strand yarn it came from and pick out with my fingernails the horrid multicoloured cotton slubs that some idiot who 'designed' it thought was tasteful. Ick.

Felting

I find that in life I make it my mission to not be taken in by gadgets and gizmo's that make everything seem 'easier'. However after buying the Spinning Mill I found it has real mileage as a useful item. A few months ago I saw the Clover Felting Needle Tool and thought it might be really useful too. I've never tried felting before except for putting the odd knitted item in the washing machine (sometimes I even meant to) and I have to admit that I was seduced by the packaging showing lovely appliques. I considered for a long time that it would make much more economic sense to buy a single felting needle for 50p than the Clover tool for £14 odd to learn a new skill. But no one wants a sharp object to feel cumbersome to use and felting needles look just so. The Clover tool looks user friendly and simple for beginners like myself. So against my better judgement I bought one. The tool explicitly says it has to be used with the Clover Felting Needle Mat and I automatically dismissed this at marketing. I wasn't going to pay and extra £7.50 for a glorified scrubbing brush.

Now that I've been playing with the Felting tool for an afternoon I can come to to following conclusions:
1. I like felting.
2. I don't like stabbing myself.
3. The Clover tool is overpriced, as are the needle replacements and the needle mats.
4. The mats are probably quite useful for long term use, however I found a stiff nail brush was just as good even if the bristles aren't long enough to protect the needles.
5. After I'd got the hang of felting a bit of wool to a bit of felt I found it a lot easier to do by taking a needle out of the tool and using it on it's own.
The single 50p needle would have been a better option. I'm glad I didn't buy the mat as well, although in hindsight it would have been more useful if I bought that instead of the Clover tool.
6. Theres a chart on the back of the packaging about what type of needle to use for what fabric base and applique. All very informative but there are three symbols which I have no idea what they mean. Maybe I'm just slow but they arnt explained anywhere in the extensive and repetitive instructions, and I have no idea what they mean.

So Little Brain Space

I've posted before about my weird habit of listing things and now that so much is going on college wise I need them more than ever to keep track of what I'm doing and more importantly expunge the stupid whimsical things that I seem to obsess over and stopping me from working. So here we go:

College work I HAVE to do:
1. Illustrations for the 10 or so for my main illustration project. I'll hope to have 5 really good ones.
2. Really nice photos of my Cactus Creatures.
3. Redo some Illustrations that I didn't do before for the 'Food Miles' Brief and 'Hot as Hell' brief
4. Do some self promotional business cards and postcards.
5. Finish off the two competition briefs .
6. I bought a roll of wallpaper liner and have been drawing on it getting every silly idea out of my head and it seems to entertain people who look at it. I'd like to have that as big as possible for a WOW factor in my degree show.
7. Organising some kick-ass features for my degree show.

College work I would like to do:
1. t-shirt designs
2. paintings
3. tongue-in-cheek leaflets about caring for creature cacti
4. pattern designs
5. more creature cacti
6. I dont actually want to do this but I will get earache if I don't submit some work to the college website. I just don't want to do a picture of myself.
7. I really should sort out a proper website for my work.

Personal projects I would like to start/finish:
1. I have an almost finished skirt sitting looking at me sadly
2. I have a lovely dress pattern just itching for me to make
3. knit my self a jumper
4. make fully plush creature cacti so sell (maybe I can flog some at my degree show)
5. make sheepy heads to sell
6. I need a wallet and I dont want to buy one...
7. I found a lovely fabric that would make the loveliest summer bag...
8. I want to try felting
9. I need a pincushion and I don't want to buy one...
10. I'm half way through making a little loom type thing to make A4
sized bits of fabric, except I need a bigger hammer...
11. Theres an almost finished hat sat next to me.
12. Learn to use painter.
13. Learn to use my camera properly
14. Theres a drawn out picture of an elephant with flowers coming out of its ears that I drew out on stretched paper waiting to be painted. It looks at me with longing...
15. So many little drawing I've done on my roll are just perfect candidates to be made into plushes.


And me degree show where all my work will be displayed is only in 4 weeks.

Proto-Sheep

A remake of the sheepy that was in my first ever blog post here. I wanted to know if it could be done using a sewing machine and I'm pleased with the results. The first sheepy was made without a pattern and was very much a one-off, I've been trying at various times since to recreate the first sheepy but without much success. But this one I'm happy with although noticeably different.

This sheepy is a little keyring with a small clip at the top. I shall use him as my very own prototype and see how he fairs with the real world.

Duckypus Cactus

So here at last is another Cactus Creature (their official name now). He's a platypus in lovely silk and wool yarn (a darker colour to the stuff used to make fiery chickens) with leatherette beak and tail (out of sight).

I've been so busy with college lately I can hardly think straight. But now the last hurdle of my degree is in sight, the one I've been waiting for. The final show...