Month: December 2011

Doctor Who meets Helena Bonham Carter.

Somewhat unexpectedly, this was one of my Christmas presents this year. A box set of all eleven Doctor Who figures. They were held into their TARDIS-shaped box (it had doors! with velcro!) with forty-four little twisty ties, which gave me plenty of time to contemplate the little Doctors as I was wrestling them out of the plastic.

As a general principle, I think bow ties are cool. We were watching some Sylvester McCoy episodes yesterday, and I genuinely contemplated knitting a fair-isle tank top with a punctuation motif. I like long scarves and big coats and funny hats.

And then I thought of someone else who likes long scarves and big coats and funny hats. And wearing things in lots of layers, and generally looking a little bit crumpled.

My fashion inspiration for 2012?

Doctor Who meets Helena Bonham Carter.

With the somewhat eclectic contents of my wardrobe, that should be pretty easy. Watch this space for pictures, if I manage to make it work…

For the young who want to

Talent is what they say
you have after the novel
is published and favorably
reviewed. Beforehand what
you have is a tedious
delusion, a hobby like knitting.

Work is what you have done
after the play is produced
and the audience claps.
Before that friends keep asking
when you are planning to go
out and get a job.

Genius is what they know you
had after the third volume
of remarkable poems. Earlier
they accuse you of withdrawing,
ask why you don’t have a baby,
call you a bum.

The reason people want M.F.A.’s,
take workshops with fancy names
when all you can really
learn is a few techniques,
typing instructions and some-
body else’s mannerisms

is that every artist lacks
a license to hang on the wall
like your optician, your vet
proving you may be a clumsy sadist
whose fillings fall into the stew
but you’re certified a dentist.

The real writer is one
who really writes. Talent
is an invention like phlogiston
after the fact of fire.
Work is its own cure. You have to
like it better than being loved.

Marge Piercy, Circles on the Water: Selected Poems of Marge Piercy (1982)

Nuno Felting

Nuno Felting

Hello! I feel as though I’ve been away for ages. I’m so busy at the moment I’ve barely had time to breathe, never mind blog, but I made this yesterday and I thought it would be a nice little something to show. It’s a somewhat experimental piece of nuno felt, about the size of a sheet of A4. As you can see, I’ve felted a little bit of merino onto a backing of muslin.

Nuno Felting

When the wool starts to felt, the fibres contract and matt together. The cotton muslin doesn’t shrink, so you get these lovely textures coming through.

Nuno Felting

This is the back, with its lovely rivers of ruching, and the wool fibres just poking through.

Not bad for a first attempt, I think!