Carmenland

(Yes, yes, ok. I apologise for that god-awful pun in the title. I hate coming up with titles.)

Anyways, I mentioned before that on holiday I tried whitework for the first time. I was quite honestly surprised I stuck to it until the end. I kinda would have expected to run out of patience, but I found it really quite relaxing to be stitching away at it whenever there was some time.

So, when I had the idea of combining this with monsters, I just went for it.



By my standards, this took a loooong time to finish. I worked on this almost every day for the last two weeks. I had to have a couple of days' break in between to not go completely nuts. But I'm so pleased with the result!

...I'm having an exhibition. I wonder if I should just give in to the fact that long-planned things come to nothing, and that last minute works best for me. Not that this is particularly last minute, in the scheme of things, but given that we were planning to organise an exhibition for the festival at the beginning of the year, and then gave up on it because nobody really had the time or inclination, this came as a bit of a surprise to me.

I've been wanting to find a way to use the Glasite Meeting House for a while now. It's such a lovely building. But the space, unfortunately, is a bit unwieldy. The upstairs room is perfect for exhibitions, but used by yoga and dance classes. The hall is full of pews (which are lovely in themselves, some with graffiti from the 1800s!), and even if I had more stuff to hang on walls, I could never dream of filling the vast amount of space available in there.

But then, suddenly, it struck me: there's quite a large toilet on the ground floor, supposedly accessible for the disabled. I say supposedly, because the building in itself is hard to get into if you have trouble with steps, as all the entrances have stairs on them.

So I liked the idea of using this, but then forgot about it again. Until I mentioned it at work, and it was rather more enthusiastically received than I expected.

So, there you go. An exhibition. In a toilet. Why not, it's the Festival, after all...

Just back from hols, and I'm still sorting through stuff. Once again, I went into needlework overdrive, starting a pair of socks (knitting patterns, people! Suddenly, I'm getting them!), getting THE most exciting embroidery book I have seen in a long time, having my first go at whitework (and having a brainwave, too - more on that once I've actually got some results...), and then making a lovely summery skirt as well. Being round my mum does that to me, and I like it.

The weather was being funny, playing nice whenever it was needed, but no more than that. And I discovered that 'tis a great year for blueberries. Nobody believed me, but if you happen to hang round a german forest in the near future, check'em out!

Enough for now, but there'll be more reports of findings and experiments soon!

It's done! The new website is up! I'm *so* chuffed with it... So, check it out and marvel at the delights it holds in store.

Sometimes I find myself in a love/ hate relationship with ideas. Obviously, having them is kinda essential to doing cool things, but sometimes they get in the way of each other, or completely take over your brain. So, today, instead of preparing for the market tomorrow, making another Minimonster Musical Mobile, as I had planned, and doing the dishes, I faffed about with a dress all day. Meanwhile, it has gotten so late that I won't even bother trying to take a photo of it, and technically, it's not even properly finished.

Well. I may not have anything much to sell tomorrow, but at least I've got something to wear. Gotta get your priorities straight, I guess.

I'm spending so much time these days drawing police cars, I ended up putting some on a ribbon.

Look! A house! With monsters in! It's a wee bitty tight, so I hope some punters will show mercy and buy some (or all!) of them. I kinda thought I need to come up with a better way of displaying them at the art market, so when I came across this on the Craft: blog (where else?) a while back, I though I should make one. So, last night, realising that, apparently, I've done most of my stuff for the market, I turned to display matters.

I kinda made it up as I went along, using an old cardboard box as a base, rather than following the instructions. As a result, it's not collapsible. But it's got wallpaper!

Whilst I was at it, I also revisited the packaging for the bags.



It could do with a bit more fiddling, possibly, but seeing as I'm now out of those patches and the fabric, too, I'm not sure how many more bags there will be. I kinda like them, and they sold well at the Christmas market, but I'll have to see how they do this time.

Oooooh... I do like me a good faff with packaging.



Things are kinda taking off, suddenly. Last weekend I was all chuffed for managing to convince Mike to do me a nice fancy wee website, and he was actually willing to do it, if maybe a bit stuck for time in which to do it in, and then suddenly an in-between-jobs friend offered to help yesterday. Yay for geek friends!

Now, friends, time to get your calendars out along with a big red pen, cross out Meadows Festival on the 6th of June, and put in the forthcoming Art Market instead.

Art Market
6 June 2009, 11am - 7pm
The Drill Hall, Dalmeny Street, EH6 8RG