Fashioning and Re-fashioning

So at last I delved into the pile of fabric under my table and decided to do something with it, partially due to the overwhelming need of pink bag (surely everyone NEEDS a pink bag) and partially because after a visit to the shops where I cursed the fact I've signed up to Wardrobe Re-fashion (http://wardroberefashion.blogspot.com/) I realised the only way to get over it was to get on with it and re-fashion something.

Here is the pink bag - perfect for carrying the essentials for a little festival Ginny, C and I are off to and handy because I can either wear it across my body OR tie it up (as in the photo) and pop it over my shoulder. No pics of it across the body i'm afraid - Might have to get Ginny to take some pics of me wearing it at the festival to prove that it actually does work.

And for my second little number here is the slightly random shirt/t-shirt combination I constructed. I thought it might make a nice pressie for C however having tried it on I may have to make one for myself too - essentially I hacked up a shirt (£3 from Primark ) and an old t-shirt having seen something similar that I loved in a fab but expensive shop and sewed it all together in a slightly bodged manner popping the collar over the tshirt and popping the sleeves and shirt tails under.


The slightly strange bulking on the arms is actually a "design feature" whereby you can niftily button the sleeves up onto themselves to make it short sleeved - looks rather odd on the dressmakers dummy but I'm hoping on C it will look a bit better.

Wondering

Somehow, listening to Brenda on the Craftsanity podcast a few days ago has left me feeling i want to make big changes in my life. I have a problem with procrastinating, which in part is my nature, but maybe (I now think) also because I'm not quite living the life I'd like to be. Lots of things are right - C for one, friends, house, where we live. BUT I'm not sure I want to be spending as much time at work as I do, and I know I want a different sort of day-to-day life.

I want to do some of the creative stuff I spend so much time thinking about. And live more straightforwardly - because I have a car, which I drive to work every day (I am a GP) I tend to have already set off in it before I have even thought of cycling. I used to cycle everywhere around Bristol as a teenager/ when I worked as an auxiliary nurse. And it's much hillier there! One of my colleagues recently had a semi-breakdown, and opted out of partnership for 3 months. He was able to pay his mortgage by locuming at the out of hours service. the appeal of that is not having things hanging over me - when finished, I'd be finished.

But all this - to do what? I want to explore more knitting, and I've found a couple of places I could do the City and Guilds maybe 7922. This course involves exploring inspiration, research, materials and techniques, presentation, specifically looking at colour, line, texture, shape, form. the two places I am thinking of are Distanceknitting, Fiona Morris's organisation. She does both a correspondence course, and also a course where you go to Lewes (near Brighton) for monthly Saturdays. The other organisation is WS touchbase, where Lorraine McClean teaches by correspondence, but there is the opportunity to attend monthly craft days with them in Dorchester (near where an aunt lives). Loraine' McClean's work appeals to me more, (that's a link to the Loose Threads textiles group of which she is a part). fiona Morris is harder to get by ggogling,as there seem to be 2 knitters of note with the same name in the UK. The one that teaches is the one who has designs in Knitting magazine, and I don't much like that, or find her designs appeal much to me (though they are interesting).

But who knows which would be the better teacher? Or if I have time for this at all - if I finish the essay (on mortality) that I should be doing right now for my MA in Med Humanities, then I'll be starting the dissertation in November, and I guess that's probably enough.

More cogitations to come, but have remembered essay....!

Did she really?

Oh yes, Katydid.

I was really lucky on the Dye-o-rama swap - not only did I get lovely yarn from Squid-knits Devorah, but I also won a fab present from Wendy at Intertwinement!

I could choose something form her website, where she has insect (or bug, for you North-Americans) related yarn (think butterflies, ladybirds - our name for ladybugs). Also, she has Portrait of a girl/boy/man/woman yarns.

But I chose Katydid yarn. I loved the vibrant green, which reminded me of those shield beetles we see here, but also it reminded me of the Susan Coolidge books 'What Katy Did', and the follow-ups (What Katy Did at School, What Katy Did Next, Clover), books I loved as a child. And Wendy very kindly sent me a soundbite of katydids, which seem to be a kind of grasshopper. Neither of us could hear the sound 'katydid', but perhaps that's because we weren't in the south sitting rocking on a creaking porch with a mint julep glistening with condensation, a warm breeze and ..............

I look forward to it some day!