I made something.



Fingerless monster mittens.
Porl thinks I'm slowly turning into a muppet.

I did a post. I did. Really. But it seems to have disappeared into the ether.

It was about cold and gloves and scarves and cars.

• It is cold.
  
• I'm making some gloves (fingerless monster mittens).
  
• Scarves are great, especially when they are long enough to be wrapped around the head in a peculiar fashion to keep my forehead warm.
  
• Cars aren't so great when you work part time so they don't get used much which means it takes ages to scrape the ice off them in the mornings.
  
• I don't like cold.
  

That was about it really. How exciting.

Oh I've booked an eye test too.

A time I have been dreading has finally arrived.

It's something I was warned about when I was just 11 years old. Something that for the large part I chose to ignore, and I didn't follow the advice when it was given to me.

But the time has now arrived when I feel I can physically no longer ignore the problem. But it's going to take a change in lifestyle, and it will cost money.

And I'm dreading it.

What is this problem?

I need glasses.

I was first given glasses when I was 11. I wore them for a while, then the novelty wore off. I used to have regular eye tests, and the lenses were changed as my eyes got worse. But they've never got so bad that I can't actually see. I just get headaches if I do close work sometimes. Not all the time though.

I haven't had a test now for about 5 years. The glasses I do have are the same frames I got when I was 15ish, and they look absolutely terrible on me. I'm doing much more close work than I used to, but I'm realising that I can't really see it properly, and I'm getting headaches after about an hours work. Working on the computer is also incredibly hard. So I might need glasses for that distance.

Quote of the Day "Tell him I've turned into the Mad Hell Woman frm the planet Zarg.... and I want chocolate."

I know I should have gone to bed.

For your pleasure, some pretty necklaces.


On the left is the Hematite choker I finished last night. Mostly finished anyway, I still have to do the boring bit of sewing onto the ribbon fastening. On the right is a blue choker which I made a couple of weeks ago which I forgot to photograph. They're both made in the same way, on a bead loom, using seed beads. The heart on the blue choker is plastic, with a diamante on both sides.

Lastly, some Christmas card designs I've been playing with. I've been having great fun making these... hmmm cut and stick.....


Anyway. Now I really am going to bed.
Nini.

So so tired. So so bored.

Porl went to Manchester today for A&R type discussions about his own music. Yay happy happy, he's finally going to get something released. But the meeting is still going on so he's not coming home till tomorrow.
Boo hiss!
Then tomorow night I'm on a sleep-in.
Boo boo hiss hiss!
So what am I doing with this rare luxury(?) of a house to myself?
I'm cleaning. That's how bored I am. Still not bored enough to clean the kitchen floor yet though. Probably a bit late to hoover up now too. That can wait till tomorrow.

I finished another necklace last night, another choker made with Hematite and silver coloured beads. It's very "Grown-up Christmas Partyish". I'll put photos up later, it's very pretty, but I'll try selling it. I don't want to fit into the grown-up catagory yet.

I'm getting serious about selling jewellery now. I never wear the stuff, but I love making it. I've got to find a way to make these hobbies pay though. I'm seeing so many pretty beads and things that I want to buy, but I really can't afford them. If I can sell some though I can justify it all. I've been told about a shop which sells handcrafted items, so I might make a few enquiries and see what kind of things they like, and if they like my kind of things. Pity it's in Bristol, or I'd try to visit. Something is putting my off e-bay, and I'm not sure why.

In the long term there's probably going to be a website restructuring to make a sales site. I need to look into the terms and conditions on my ISP though among other things. It has to wait at least a week though, as I've been informed today that I've a week to do the Shirokuma site. Ahh!

Right back to the tidying. Or maybe bed.

Who on earth is Laura?
Why does my blogrolling list show hundreds of links for her blog?
Where are my normal links?
Please don't let them be gone for good, because I've deleted them all out of my bookmarks.

Phew! all done.

I know in the last post I said I was being sensible and had saved the the old blogger template somewhere safe, but I was wrong. I did save the template, but I wrote over the stylesheet. I could've tried to put it right, but it would've taken me a couple of hours, so instead I've spent a couple of days hurriedly changing all the other pages. There are still problems, and I've got loads more plans, but hopefully there shouldn't be any huge errors. If you spot any please, please, please let me know.

I've just spotted that the email address is wrong on all my pages. Sorry if anyone's tried contacting me in the past few months. I'll fix that in a second. So there are still huge errors. Constructive critcism is also greatly appreciated. (Jimmy, I'm not putting the menu on the left. Jon, the top pictures are staying fixed.)

One of my pet hates is people saying they've got flu, when it's really just a bad cold.
Cold and flu are 2 TOTALLY different things.
With a cold you tend to be bunged up, sneeze a lot and feel generally a bit grotty.
With flu your limbs feel like lead and any movement takes incredible amounts of effort. You do not sneeze lots, but do tend to get a bad hacking cough, and my asthma always kicks in.

In January 2002 me and Porl got flu.
I woke one morning feeling terrible. I hurt, I knew we'd no painkillers at home, but I had at work.
I drove to work.
I took painkillers.
I got worse.
By 10 o'clock people were suggestion I went home.
At dinner time I told my boss I was ill and I went home.
I don't remember driving home.
I do remember climbing back into bed and telling Porl I wasn't well.
Then the hallucinations started.

We both got ill. Porl ended up in the bed and I made a nest downstairs. I was off work for 3 weeks, our wonderful friends were coming round everyday to look after us and to feed the cats, and it probably took another 3 weeks for me to get my properly well.

Why am I rambling on about flu?
Because I've got it again.
Thankfully nothing like the Mass Flu Illness of 2002, it's only mild, but this ain't no cold. I've spent the last two days sat infront of the computer redesigning this site because typing involves little movement.
Moving hurts, not moving hurts less.
Walking upstairs makes me out of breath.
I hate being ill.

I'm doing a complete redesign of my site. At the moment the layout is looking pretty similar, but believe me it's very very different. And hopefully all written with css, and generally much more web friendly.

I need to figure out how to put the blogger code in though, so if the page appears to look a jumbled wierd nonsense for the next few hours please forgive me.

Normal service will resume shortly.... I hope....

I've been sensible and saved the original template somewhere safe where I can't write over it accidentally.

I learn from my mistakes.

Not that I'd completely delete a web site accidentally.

I'm more cleverer than that.

How does Google image search manage to make most people look like serial killers in their photos? Or maybe I'm just looking in the wrong places.

It does turn up some fun things though. From now on I wish to be refered to by my full title of;

There's so many things I want to be doing. But my mult-tasking tendencies are causing me problem. I can't decide between making myself a new necklace, or doing websites. So I'm here instead.

Last night I decided that seeing as for several reasons I've come to a complete halt on the Shirokuma site that I'd give it a break and play at re-working my site. I failed to come up with anything for me, but ended up doing loads on the Shirokuma site instead. So it all worked out in the end. Today I looked into changing to Moveable Type again. I really want to change over to it, but it looks like the web space I use doesn't do server side scripting. I don't actually pay for this web space, so I'm going to have to ask the lovely lovely nice person who does pay for it to contact them and see if it's an option we can have.

Been doing lots of crafty things. Don't think I'm going to make the 10,000 inch target for ABTI, but I'm doing more drawing than normal which is good. I've made some Christmas cards. Only 8, but there's 4 designs, and they're all very cool.

Other news.
Porl's got the lurk, and I'm avoiding him. I don't want to be ill. We've got fun things to do on Friday.

Gonzo is still being wierd.
He jumped on top of the monitor earlier and knocked it over, thankfully no breakages.
Yesterday afternoon he strolled into the living room to give us a blackbird.
A very screechy, very flappy, very alive blackbird.
Porl and I didn't run out of the room like the big girls we are.
Oh no no no no no.
Cos we're braver than that.
Once we'd calmed down and stopped shaking made a cup of coffee and had a chat, I grabbed a towel, went into the room,managed to catch the bird and get it outside, where it safely few away. Hopefully a wiser bird.

I'm worried about what he could get up to while we're away this weekend.

I love my cats. I really do.
But they're wierd. Really really wierd.
Especially Gonzo.

The last few days he's been getting wierder.

There are probably reasons for his sudden weirderness. (yes I know that's not a word). Like the fact I've been cleaning up and re-arranging furniture. The place is no longer covered in cat hair, and the essence-de-cat is gone. So they're going around rubbing up against everything again making it their own.

Also there's all the fireworks. The first year we had them they seemed to spend of October/November/December hiding in the smallest cat sized corners of the house. Duke retreated to Adams underwear box, and Gonzo found a liking for either under the telly table, or behind the settee. But they aren't afraid of them anymore. They just dont understand them and they don't appreciate being woken by them at all hours of the day. To be honest, neither do I.

The clean house and Bang... banbanbang... bangs have left me feeling a little disorientated. But do I feel the urge to climb on top of my wardrobe at 3:15 in the morning?

No, no I don't. Because that would be wierd.

But Gonzo does.

God knows how he got there. I heard him scrambling around, but I chose to ignore him and pretend I was asleep. For as long as I could anyway.

This isn't a small wardrobe. It's nearly 7 foot tall. Then there are suitcases on top of it. I think he leaped fom the blanket box to the top of the wardrobe. The blanket box is about 2 foot tall, and about 2 feet away from the wardrobe. So that's a hell of a jump he managed. Obviously his oversized belly isn't hampering him as much as I thought. Anyway, he was quite happy up there, so there was no way we could get him down. So I tried to go back to sleep. I didn't quite succeed, for fear of being crushed in the night by a lage cat jumping on my head. Anyway an hour later there were growls downstairs, I think a ferral cat had got in. Porl and I got up, Duke saw him off, and Gonzo decided to brave the leap to the floor to investigate. We checked him for broken legs, hewas fine, and I managed to get some sleep.

Bloody Cats.

Oh as well as that wierdness, the other day Gonzo decided he wanted to learn to drive. I'd opened the boot of the car, I was hoping to fit this chair in and take it to the tip. When I went back, there's Gonzo sat in the driving seat.

Wierd cat.

Why do my camera batteries alays die at the wrong time?

Art by the Inch is going slowly for me. I think the 5,000 square inch target is more likely than the 10,000 target.

I went out and bought a sketch book the other day for the purpose of this challenge. I picked a nice sized spiral bound one which would fit in my handbag. I didn't do the maths before buying it though. It measures 8 1/4" x 5 7/8" (call it 6") and has 50 pages. So to get 10,000" I would need to fill 4 of these pads.

I'm re-knitting the red scarf I made a few weeks ago. It was 20 stitches wide, it's now only 12 wide and I'm much happier with it.

I've done 4 sketches = 198", and knitted 35" of the scarf, it's 3" wide, so the total for that = 305" So my grand total in 3 days is 503"/10,000". Eeek, I really best get some more stuff done.

Other people doing the challenge have been posting pictures in the Community Their stuff is far far better than mine.

Other news. Erm. Not much. Work, home, work, home, work, week off, Woo! We do have a spotlessly clean house though (except for the kitchen.) We've absolutely bottomed the house over the past few days. Walls have been washed down, furniture has been re-arranged, clutter has been chucked or tidied, and pictures that have spent months/years propped up against walls have finally been hung up. The cats are totally confused, the place no longer smells of them, and all their furry decorating effects have been hoovered up. It looks great. That was the easy bit though, the hard bit is keeping it like this.

Anyhow, enough babbling. I'm going to play with photoshop for a bit.

So November is looking like it's going to be fun.

This weekend joeladyboy and Eskimo Girl were supposed to becoming up, it looks like that's been postponed until another weekend, which is a shame, but these things happen, and we'll probably need a quiet weekend to deal with the rest of the month.

I've got next week off work, and on friday it's Amy, where much fun, frolics, fizzy drinks, and spice (sheffield for sweets) will be had. Prior to that I'm hoping to get up to Sheffield. It's my Dad's birthday, so some quality time with parents would be good. A bit of fresh air, and exploring countryside with porl would be great too. It doesn't sem to have happened much this year.

The following weekend DoubleJohnGrey are coming up to do some recording. Wooo we're getting new friends!

Whilst all this is happening I'm going to be taking part in arty things. I've signed up for Art by the Inch.So during November I've got to try to create 10,000 square inches of art. They say it doesn't have to be 10,000, you set your own targets, but I may as well give it a shot. I think this is going to be very odd and interesting for me because I'm going to have to forget my current arty trends for most of it. 10,000 square inches of cross-stitch or beading in a month just wouldn't happen. I'm not leaving them completely though, I've got too many Chistmas Presents to make to forget them altogether. Tomorrow I'm going to buy myself a lovely new sketch pad, and I'm going to start drawing again. I haven't done any pencil and paper type art for years, and recently I've been regretting letting my skills slip. I used to be very good at drawing, but I seem to have forgotten how to do it somewhere along the way. I'm going to do some collages too, because they're quick and I love doing them. I'll be including the Christmas Presents I want to make in the count, and hopefully I'll come up with this elusive Christmas Card design somewhere along the way. (I know I want to use lino prints, but I decide what type of image I'm after.) I'm also going to go for some digital art. In other words, the Shirokuma website is still causing me headaches and I need to get that done too.

So November is looking busy, but lots and lots of fun.

Oh Art by the Inch is inspired by NaNoWriMo. I haven't the ability to write a novel in a month. The peak of my writing abilities was Timmy the Talking Egg. It was silly, and it was at least half written by Porl. (It also appears to have disappeared offline. I'll have to fix that tomorrow.)

However I have a talented writer friend who is doing NaNoWriMo. So hopefully this month we will be egging each other on to success.

Sometimes the guys who edit clips for News and Sport programmes get the music just right. BBC Newsnight was great today. The Smiths accompanied todays news about Ian Duncan-Smith.

Some classic lines.

"I'm the sun and the air, I am human and I need to be loved."
"I was looking for a job and then I found a job, and heaven knows I'm miserable now."
"So please, please, please, let me, let me, let me, get what I want, this time."
"Haven't had a dream it's been a long time."
"So for once in my life let me get what I want."
"So shut your mouth, how can you say, you go about things the wrong way. I am human and I need to be loved, just like anybody else does."
"last night I dreamt somebody loved me."

Would it be totally silly of me to rip the red scarf I made and re-do it with 10, or 15 stitches instead of 20?
It's okay as it is, but it would be better a bit longer, and my coat is fluffy enough for a thinner scarf to be good. It only took me about 4 hours (still learning to knit remember,) and the practise would do me any harm.

Oh what should I do?

The weather has turned colder, the nights are drawing in. Tonight we will put the clocks back an hour and it will be dark by about 5:00. Which means it's time for me to start hibernating. As this room has no central heating I will be moving into the other living room which has the choice of either radiator, or coal fire.... decisions decisions.


*big pictures if clicked on

So this is where I've been for the past week, cross-legged on my lovely leather chesterfield settee (unbelievably generous donation for an ex-lodger.) The fire's lit, the cats are around me, and my bead box is at my side.
I've been content. I've been productive. (I've also been ill, but ignore that.)




I've made some beaded chokers using my bead loom, they fasten with ribbon, which they're securely, and painstakingly sewn onto. I'm really enjoying making them (except for the sewing onto ribbon bit, that's annoying.)
I'm selling these for £15. A bargain for a piece of hand-crafted unique jewellery. If the one you like is sold I can make you something similar, but I will never repeat a design.
E-mail me if you're interested. I have paypal, or cheques etc.'
Excuse the red thread in the lilac one, it's not totally finished yet. It is lilac, honest. Heart are lilac with diamantes in them, and the seed beads are mostly lilac, with the odd blue one thrown in for good measure.




Badges badges everywhere. All 1" badges thanks to my lovely machine (wish I could find a UK supplier of the parts for it though.) Christmas toy catalogues are great for badge making. The paw badges are Shirokuma ones. I see this image when I sleep at the moment thanks to all the time I've spent working on his website, and perfecting the badge design.
Badges are also up for sale 70p. The range is limited to the ones above at the moment. Or you can send me an image that you want, and I'll see what I can do.
Again, e-mail me.


Lastly, things that are certainly not for sale.
A crocheted snowflake. From these pages here It's about 4" across. I'm going to make loads, coat then in a watered down pva glue that has glitter in it, leave them to dry, and then either give a batch of them as Christmas Presents, they could make tree decorations, or be coasters. Alternatively I could put them on the front of the more special Christmas Cards, then they can keep the snowflake to decorate the tree the following year. (I've only just thought of that. See how the creative juices are flowing.)
Cross-stitch Indian. I've picked it up and set myself a mission to finish it by Christmas. I've done most of the top left this week.
The task may be acheivable.
Finally, the practise piece of lino block. I drew the image on the lino years ago, but never had the cutters to do it. Now I have, and I'm quite pleased with the result. Now to find some Christmas images.

Sorry the last two posts are pretty much duplicates, but my brain is tired and I repeat myself when I'm tired.

I've been such a busy girlie. Working hard, playing hard, and trying to avoid the computer. I've been ever so crafty in the past few days.

Craftyness #1
I've made 2 lovely beaded necklaces using the loom I got for my birthday from my brother and his wife (I still can't get used to the fact my brother has a wife!) They're thin choker type necklaces with dangley bits. I'll take pictures tomorrow when I've got good light. I might even try selling them, either to people at work, or on here. I'm definatly going to make some more, I'm really enjoying them.

Craftyness #2
I've crocheted a snowflake. A charity shop trawl yesterday turned up some crochets in white, cream and red. So I'm thinking crocheted snowflakes as Christmas Decorations/Presents. I picked up some wool for another Christmas Present I'm planning too, but you'll not hear anything about that until Christmas. (Little Jugs, Big Handles, etc).

Craftyness #3
I've picked up my cross-stitch Indian again. I'm on a mission to try to get it finished by Christmas for my Dad. I figure if I set myself a date I might actually finish it, and stop throwing it across the room in boredom.

Craftyness #4
I've been limo cutting in preperation and practise for printing Christmas Cards. I've not done any lino printing for years, so I'm trying to get to grips with it. I've made a nice flower stamp so far, still waiting for the Christmassy inspiration. Also browsing lots of magazines looking for Christmas Card ideas.

Craftyness #5
Made a candle. Consisted of chopping and grating old candles up. Sticking a wick in a glass jar. Alternately layer old candle scrapings and contrasting coloured candle sand in jar until happy.

Craftyness #6
Been making lots of badges with my lovely lovely machine. Toy catalogues make great source material. However, not having much luck finding a UK supplier of parts which fit in a DrDon's model 100, but I really don't want to pay £30 for shipping everytime I need new parts. I'm even thinking about buying a machine from a UK supplier and reselling this machine to someone in the US. the nly problem is, the UK machine are twice the price of what I paid for this, so I have to make the money first.

So that's what I've been up to. (Plus 2 days of illness I had during which I slept constantly.)

I've done more crafts in the last couple of days than I have in months. The joys of avoiding the computer. Why am I avoiding the computer? I have very important work stuff to do at the moment, and it's not going too well, so I'm having a short break. Also, and probably more importantly it turned really cold here this past week. This room has no central heating, the crafty room has either central heating or a coal fire, whichever I prefer.

Now I'm off again, fingers itching for more crafting tomorrow, I'm hoping to have a Girlie Crafting day with a friend Cat where silliness, talking and yummy food may be involved.

I promise pictures tomorrow.

My brain is finally starting to get itself together. I'm feeling a little bit more with it than I have one for the past fortnight. Which is good because tonight it's party night. Wooo!

We're heading up to Manchester later on to go to to amy with love. So before then I need go to town to get something to wear, what I was going to wear seems to have ending up at Marky boys house after our little adventures in drag. I also need to sort my hair out. My mum cut it for me last week and since then I've been doing a great impression of the Wicked Witch of the West. Once the boys are back from work we got to eat, I've got to make a load of Shirokuma badges, then we can get going. Oh I've got to make a cake too. But that's a secret, so shhhhh!

Eeeee fun... Party night out.

I look really happy in yesterdays photos.

I really wish I felt that way.

I finished knitting my scarf! Most people may think "pah! it's only a scarf" But I knitted it! Me! I may be a dab hand at all the other crafts, I can still crochet when I'm too drunk to walk, but I've never been any good at knitting. I made a jumper when I was about 8, but I think my mum must have helped a lot. So this scarf is a huge acheivment. It's made with 1 strand of red double knit (found on a charity shop trawl) and 1 strand of red eyelash yarn (Stylecraft Eskimo Double Knit). It took about 75g of each yarn, and I used 6mm needles. It's so lovely and soft and fluffy. As I've got loads of the plain double knit left, and about 3/4 of a ball of the eyelash yarn I'm going to make a hat next, but I'll crochet it this time and just use the eyelash yarn as trimmings.

Whilst I had the camera out I took some pictures of the other things I've done. The pink bag is what I made for my brothers wedding. It's made with 1 stand of pink mohair and 1 strand of cream arran. Again both found in charity shops. It's just a plain rectangle folded in half. The edges were single crocheted together using the cream arran. For the strap I did a long chain and then went all along in single crochets for about 3 or 4 rows. The mohair makes the bag lovely and soft, but the arran makes it firm. I lined the bag with some cream cotton.

The orange bag is my "In the City" bag. I started it at rehearsals for Marks in the City performance, continued it during the day of the gig whilst I was sat around when everything was being set up, and I finished it the morning after when fighting off a hangover. It's just an easy string shopping bag made using some of the many many hanks of rug wool that I've got.