Hats Outrageous!

Arty Farty or Crafty Wafty?

I get a bit confuzzled as to what to call the things I do.  You see, in the Dark Ages I spent three years at Art School - I didn't graduate though, which rankles a bit when I call myself an artist - am I offically entitled to do so?  But then I think, hey, there's plenty of people out there who are doing stuff in the art world who've not spent any time anywhere near an Art School - and it shows (snark snark!)!  So, I'm an artist.

But then...a lot of the stuff I do is probably better described as craft.  Crochet, knitting, sewing, decoupage...all craft.  Even jam-making and baking are crafts of sorts, of a home-making variety.  I guess I'm more of a craftswoman.  On my LinkedIn profile I describe myself as an Arts and Crafts Professional.  So, I guess, that's what I am - heck, I've sold stuff - I'm no longer an amateur!

ANYWAY...I've taken some photos - wanna see?

 

A lovely little corner.  I was at my 'puter yesterday and turned around to see this little tableau. 

 

A framed patchwork.  We had a spare space on our wall, I had an empty frame...and some bits and pieces of material left over from Christmas sewing...voila!

 

I think the colours go very well with our William Morris & Co. curtains - which, by the way, I bought from a charity shop for £2...gloat gloat!

 

I have had that collecting tray doing nothing but collect dust underneath our sideboard, so I asked the Good Husband to hang it on the wall...of course, I have yet to fill it up...

 

The crochet afghan in situ.  It's not too bad for a first attempt (well, a first attempt for a LOT of years) and it passes the test in terms of warmth...so that has to be good!

This'n'That

Today being the day after the day after Christmas, I thought it only right that the children tidy up a bit...ooh they didn't like that too much!  I decided it would be best if I led by example and did a bit of tidying up of my own - of course, that didn't last too long - no wonder my kids don't like tidying!

A year or so ago I bought a whole stack of bus blinds from a seller on eBay.  I had been watching various "repurposing" shops (Pedlars and RE, for example) buying up bus blinds and selling them on, framed or otherwise repurposed.  My blinds were never going to command the prices theirs sold for, as mine are from my local area, but I made a blind for my kitchen, I mounted a few others (you may recall "Leisure Centre" from a previous picture), which sold well...but I still had LOTS of blinds left.  Let's just say I went a bit crazy when I bought them initially...

Anyway, part of my tidying up today involved cutting the letters out of some of the less "useable" blinds (they might be a bit crumpled or dirty) and these I put in a jar for future use.  I sorted out the appropriate letters for the names of each of my kids, and the boys now have their names in bus letters stuck to their bunk beds.  My daughter has her name stuck to her wall.  A bit random, but that's how she liked it. 

I hadn't had enough fun yet.  So I did this:

 

Each letter was cut out individually and stuck down on excess black bus blind paper.

In this long shot you can see heaps of the stuff I've done over the past year - the pictures are train posters of time gone by, printed out and cut and stuck...then on the wash stand you can see some of my jam - I made some lovely sloe and blackberry jam the other night - it's to die for...there's a "bag bag" made in what I believe to be some William Morris pattern material (I could be wrong, so don't quote me on that), and finally, above the wash stand, is some of my "Christmas coloured" crochet bunting.  The whole lot looks very pretty, I think!

Lisa's Kitchen Crochet Class!

I'm biting the bullet and I've decided to teach crochet...I'm running a five week course (on Monday evenings) commencing 11 January. It's going to be at my place, cost is £20 which includes 1 crochet hook and yarn (and cakes!). Class size limited to 6 as we're in my kitchen, which although quite big, can only really comfortably fit 7 around our table (and the 7th one woudl be me...). Anyway, I have one taker already, so if you live in the Bromley area of South East London, and would be interested, drop me a line! We'd likely start at 8pm, probably have 2 hour sessions.

Jammin'

I found this lovely stuff in Sainsbury's the other day - Ma Made, and given I had about 2 kilos of jam sugar in the cupboard I thought I'd give it a go!  Looks good so far - I made some great jams in the summer with my excess red currants, plus some lovely stuff from scrumped damsons and/or sloes, but I'd never seen pulp for sale before.  It made 3 medium-sized and 1 large jar, plus a jam pot full...and there was even enough for Husband to have some on toast...good value.

I'm now contemplating whether or not I should give a jar each to the teachers as their Christmas present, and make some more for us, or just give them a card...a few of which I made whilst making the marmalade...