Summertime Blues :o)

Hello blog! We've got a bit of catching up to do, it's all been down to a combination of weekends away and the untimely demise of my internet connection. As you can see, we are now reunited, hurrah. A man came and fiddled about with the cables earlier, and well, here I am.

I think it's best to do a bit of a potted photo catch-up of what you've missed seeing. As you can see, I started with a photo that sums up summer pretty well perfectly! That was the first bbq I had this year, courtesy of my parents. (I contributed the Pimms, this went down very well, although I did falter a bit when asked to explain quite what it is...)

There's been festivals - small homegrown ones with an old-fashioned fair (and a Wall of Death!)...

...and village fete type stalls with bunting, and a stage for bands too!

This was Paradise Gardens Festival in Victoria Park. It happened the next-to-last weekend of June and if they do this again next year and you're in town, it is well worth a visit, we had a lovely chilled out afternoon and best of all it's free.

The following weekend brought another festival, but at the opposite end of the country. And this one had boats and fireworks! And another fairground, and the most wonderful sunsets over the harbour.

This was the Whitehaven Festival, and what a lovely festival it was. A maritime festival in all but name.

Meanwhile, the kicking off of this, and the subsequent perusing, highlighting and ticket buying have been the cause of much excitement:

And isn't that just about the most beautiful cover design ever for a brochure? I love! You can also find it all over their website, they've really got it right this year, so inky and intricate. They are featuring the designer (Johanna Basford) on the site at the mo, well worth a peek. I'm so excited about my fledgling plans for the last week of August.

I'm going to spread out this catching-up lark, so more will follow. I also promise I will have some things I have made to show you next time. :o)

New skirt - by me!

Ta da! I am very excited to unveil the first ever item of clothing I have made with my sewing machine.

I started with a metre of fabric, and the basic idea that the width of the skirt should be about twice as big as my hip measurement. The most complicated part was the threading of the elastic through the waistband, mainly on account of the number of times it came off the threader midway through! I think there must be an art to this I have not yet mastered. The finished skirt is in fact a bit shorter than I intended, because the easiest way to resolve that problem (coupled with the other problem of my channel narrowing far too much halfway along) was to cut off the waistband and start again!

What kept me going was a combination of grim determination and the fact that I love the fabric, it's perfect for a simple summer skirt. It's a pretty bluey grey colour with a small repeating circular pattern in greys and occasional blues, interspersed with little inconspicuous Liberty logos hidden amongst it.

The very charming assistant who measured it out for me told me that this fabric had been very popular for menswear, particularly for shirts, and I can see why. I think the small repeating pattern also lends itself perfectly to a skirt, which is fortunate given that my sewing repertoire does not yet extend as far as shirts (and on the evidence of this project, is not likely to for some considerable time)! It is available in other colour ways too, but the base colour of these were mostly white and cream, which while lovely, is not terribly practical for skirts in the city.

If truth be told, the amount of unpicking and re-sewing that ended up being involved in the making of this means that it probably won't stand up to detailed inspection, but it is most definitely wearable and I am pretty pleased with it, all things considered. 

Incidentally, I had great fun trying to photograph it while wearing it. The one above was achieved by balancing the camera on the ironing board, putting it on its timer and finding the correct distance to get it suitably in shot with extensive trial and error! 

In fact, trial and error pretty much sums up my whole approach to sewing, but it is definitely worth it when it all comes together at the end.

Weekend shopping: pretty new things

Ahh, the start of something new.

One of these is going to be a yoga mat bag and the other is going to be a skirt. Can you guess which is which? Of course you can.

I've been shopping today. I had never actually been to Liberty, shockingly. It is a marvellous place, although perhaps I had best not make a habit of it, my purse may not thank me for that. But so many pretty things! I never like taking photos in shops, but so many people in here were doing it that seemed to be almost expected. This was one of my favourite displays.

Rainbow glass, I'm so predictable. I bought an orange glass, I love that they are handmade and the tops are not at all even and they are all slightly different. Perhaps I will acquire more colours by degrees. :o)

I also bought a new dress. This was bargainous, the fantastic Anthropologie are having a sale.

If you have never been to their Regent Street store and you find yourself in the area, they are most definitely worth a look, their pricing is wildly sporadic (either very reasonable or unexpectedly extortionate), but their store is beautifully designed and laid out and worth a visit just to look. They have an entire wall covered in plants and lots of coloured glass made out of old green bottles. I have no photos of any this, sadly, so you will just have to go and see for yourself.

I also spotted several more elephants, and will leave you with some of my favourites.

There are two in this last one, look at the little mini elephants on the last one, so cute. If you are entirely mystified by this elephant thing, just click on the image below to make bigger.

Scratch nights @ BAC

I thought I'd show you where I've been spending quite a bit of time this month.

This must be one of the most glorious little theatres in the city. It's a reclaimed old council building and it's beautiful, full of lovely details to notice. The floors are tiny mosaic tiles featuring bees, and let's just say it's worth looking more closely at the vintage-looking printed wallpaper outside the council chamber, which is used for more traditional shows. 

This being BAC, there's not so much of the traditional - it is known for championing new, different and completely random approaches to theatre and places it all over the building, from the rafters to the cellar. The reason for my recent visits has been Scratch, a festival of experimental 'work-in-progress' where the audience are invited to give their feedback to artists afterwards in a multitude of ways (from twitter to voicemail to buying them a drink in the bar if you're brave). It's an opportunity for artists to try new things risk-free, and it's a pretty unique opportunity for audiences to see how shows develop.

You do have to keep a fairly open mind and expect the unexpected - my first ever experience of Scratch last September featured a man taking off his clothes and pouring treacle all over himself and the staircase! It can be impenetrable, it can be intriguing, and if you're lucky, it will be highly imaginative and you'll discover people whose work you'll want to follow. Nic Green's wonderful Trilogy started life at one of these nights, as did Jerry Springer the Opera. BAC have experimented themselves with different formats for the festival and this time it's a pick n mix approach of very short runs. They've adopted a garden theme for this one - this is under the stairs.

This time round I've particularly enjoyed seeing new stuff by Matthew Robins (I'm a huge fan!), Dancing Brick and a not so new (but very good) show by Will Adamsdale. 

Oh, and it also features a strong contender for the best theatre bar in London - squashy sofas, reasonably priced wine, candles and cake: seriously, what more could you want? :o)

Q&A (and other things)

Hello! Flying by today to share the answers to those ten questions I left tantalisingly in the air at the end of the last post (which I did not forget about). Some of these have changed several times over the course of the last week - it was definitely not a quick exercise although the general gist of most of them was pretty intuitive. I've really enjoyed reading everyone else's too!

Everyone knows that I like tea but you'd never guess I’d never tried it until I started work in an office

I'm proud to admit that I like cooking but my guilty pleasure is fried egg sandwiches

I'm inspired by Shakespeare’s words and it surprises me when they’re thought to be remote or difficult

I've got lots of books but I've always wanted to turn my home into a library with shelves in every room

I tried to detox in January and I lasted 3 days before I changed the rules

If I never make my own clothes it will be a terrible waste of my sewing machine

It's not that I don't like watching television but I'd really rather listen to BBC Radio 6

I didn't like spicy food when I was younger and now I love it!

Doing something new, different or completely unexpected on a night out with friends makes me particularly happy

Someone once told me not to do what they had and then I did

I'm happy to say that I’ve never stopped learning and I'm not sure I ever will

Meanwhile, project new home continues.  I bought this pretty coaster recently, yum.

He reminds me of Gobbolino (remember him?), although he is missing the one white paw.  It was all I could do to not buy the entire collection of these in a stroke - there's a glorious marmalade cat one that I think will also be finding its way onto my coffee table at some stage.  :o)

I have been really enjoying Ideal Home lately (in an aspirational kind of way) and found myself on a walk to up to Wimbledon Village last Sunday evening, which has very many of the types of shops that grace its pages. Alas, most of them were closed, so there shall be a repeat trip if I manage to remember the way, in the absence of a companion with an encyclopaedic knowledge of the local bus routes. Sadly no sign of Wombles on the Common,  although there was some evidence of frogs in a pond, which was some consolation. 

I'm off on a photo safari of a different sort today - all will be revealed when it's complete!

Elephant safari

I've been on safari this weekend, without leaving town.

A parade of elephants has appeared all over London. Various people have decorated them, and next month they will be auctioned off to raise money for a charity to help save endangered Asian elephants.

This little guy is my favourite so far, for obvious reasons. He can be found in Seven Dials.

You can see more about this project here. There is even a map available to help you track down the elephants. I fear this is going to prove very addictive - a friend at work has already started ticking off the ones she has seen and photographed!

I bought several things of joy this weekend - a new dress, some Neal's Yard cheese, and these:

Now very depleted indeed, but a highly excellent thing to find in your kitchen on Sunday afternoon. :o)

In scrappy news, I have been trying to bring Document 2010 up to date - I had a massive photo-printing splurge a couple of weekends ago to complete the photos sections of February, March and April - so much for keeping up-to-date as I went! I have though been very good at keeping all my random receipts and bits of paper for the envelope section each month, so it has actually been quite easy to catch-up. Here are some peeks at the April pages.

And meanwhile, over on copy and paste, the party is well and truly underway, will all kinds of inspirational stuff going on. They also have an entirely characteristic list of questions for us to fill in (ask 10 different people to complete these and you'll get 10 totally different approaches), which I'm going to have to have a bit of a think about - I'll get back to you on those later!

Handmade cushion covers (and other pretty things)

Well, the weather may not be able to work out what it's doing, but the bank holiday is not quite a washout. I've had plenty to keep me occupied right here at home. 

Yesterday was mostly spent in a determined project to get the better of my sewing machine, otherwise known as making cushion covers that match my sofa. My book had very helpful instructions and suggested it would take 1 hour to make 2 covers.  In fact, it took 8 hours! Let me explain.

1)    It was really a pillowcase pattern, but I decided to adapt it to the measurements of my cushions. This was complicated by the fact that I work in cm and the book works in inches, and my maths is not the best.

2)    Given it was the first time I’ve ever used my sewing machine, I first had to work out what the various bits of it were called (in order to understand the manual) and then attempt to interpret the manual’s diagrams. Believe me, this turned out to be very much easier said than done, at least by me.

3)    Despite having threaded a machine fairly recently and considerable attempts to follow the aforementioned manual, mine spent most of the day mutinously tying the thread in knots rather than making stitches with it.

After much wailing and knashing of teeth, several cups of tea and one incidence of throwing the manual across the room, the machine finally started to work! A great deal of pressing and pinning and perseverance later, I finished one! The second one was completed very much quicker.  Ta da:

I am very happy with them, and there are not too many flaws – blind men on galloping horses, and all that. ;o)

The rest of the weekend has been full of happy things. I spent Saturday night at the Old Vic (The Real Thing – excellent).  Whittards had a fab 50% sale on all their china and I was very good and only replaced some of my chipped things:

I love their cheerful colours – barely any of my crockery matches but most of it is rainbow brights from Whittards, so it’s all very pretty and eclectic. I do seem to be going through a bit of a blue and lime green phase lately – further evidence provided by this layout I made today.

I can never take good pics of 12 x 12 layouts - I much prefer concentrating on the details:

It’s about my recent trip to Paris, where I was struck by the number and variety of statues and sculptures in the Jardin du Luxembourg. Art seems to be just so public and part of every day life in Paris, there are also some gorgeous metro stations like this one:

I digress. Use of glimmer mist very inspired by a French scrapbooking magazine I bought while I was there which seemed to feature it on nearly every page. Layout of photos vaguely inspired by a photo frame I saw in Covent Garden this weekend. I still haven’t tired of Dear Lizzy, and I was impressed by how closely the pattern of one of the papers matched my journalling card from Cosmo’s Earth love collection – so I made this button embellishment (with some remaining 'make something with me' thread) to show it off. 

So I've had a pretty productive weekend really! I’ve also made a happy culinary discovery - crumpets and crabapple jelly. I had a mini jar to use up and I’m so glad I thought of putting it on toasted crumpets. Beautiful, and highly recommended, especially when it’s raining outside (again). :o)