Have I mentioned lately that I love my job? I run the Toddler Time sessions at the Museum of English Rural Life (every Friday during term time, 10-11 & 1-2), and part of that is to come up with an activity every week – preferably one that’s linked to the museum’s collections in some way.

This is a sneak preview of Friday’s activity – a paper puppet of King Alfred to colour in and cut out. You fasten all the pieces together with split pins, in case you were wondering. One of the highlights of the museum is a six foot straw sculpture of the king in question, so I thought it would be nice to make a little something in his honour.

I drew a quick pencil sketch, and had planned to recreate it in Illustrator. But the scanner won’t speak to my computer, I couldn’t get a photograph that was clear enough to be useful, and so I decided to go back and do things the old fashioned way. I traced my sketch onto a new piece of paper, drew over it with two different thicknesses of pen, and rubbed out the pencil lines. On Friday I’ll fit all the pieces onto A5 paper, then use the photocopier to enlarge it onto A4 card.

Sometimes it’s so much easier to do things the old fashioned way!

Saturday January 28th was the last day of Neverwhere at Progress Theatre. We saw the final performance, which was followed by a party. Louise and I were given mugs and cards from the cast, as a thank you for working on the costumes. The gorgeous rats were knitted by Kate – one for every member of the cast and crew!

The theatre bar stayed open until 2am, and a mere eight hours later most of the cast and crew were back (in varying states of sobriety!) for the Great Dismantling. Anything that was too covered in fake blood to be retrievable was simply chucked in the bin. Most of the costumes were re-homed in the theatre’s wardrobe, and the dressing rooms ended up even cleaner than before we’d started!

The set though… watching it being torn apart was heartbreaking. Some of the elements have been kept – the metal stairs, the handrail, and all the ladders have been stored until they can be used again. But every single roof tile, every brick, every platform… it all had to go so that the next production (Art, by Yasmin Reza) can get into the theatre and start building their own set and rehearsing in the space.

I have something in the region of three hundred photos to edit, so I can show you what I’ve been so busy with these past few months! Since before Christmas I’ve been saying “never again”… but seeing it all come together was so amazing that I might have volunteered to at least consider helping out with the summer Shakespeare production, Henry IV Part 1. You can keep the “I Told You So”s to yourselves, thank you!

Working weekends is a peculiar beast. I only work in the afternoons, but that leads to rather polarised mornings – either rushing around like a mad thing, or staying in bed for as long as possible. And then I don’t take time off during the week, because I feel guilty spending time on myself when I have so much to do.

This weekend brought the end of Neverwhere, the play I’ve been working on at Progress Theatre. We saw the final performance on Saturday night, and then spent Sunday dismantling the entire set so that the next production can start to build theirs. Oh, and there might have been a little bit of a party in between…

By Monday I was well and truly ready for a bit of a break. I’ve been working on two large knitting projects for several months (both now completed), so I wanted to have a rummage through my yarn stash and make some plans. I couldn’t start knitting anything, mostly because Pony don’t make circular knitting needles with 3.5mm tips, and that’s the only brand of metal needles sold at my local yarn stores. So I contented myself with winding all of my single skeins of yarn into balls, and looking up some patterns to go with them.

The yarn that’s wrapped around my knees and on the ball winder in the photo is Skein Queen‘s Delectable, a gorgeous silk and merino heavy laceweight. It’s earmarked to become Jane Sowerby’s Glimpse Maxi Cowl, if I can ever get hold of some needles in the right size. Diane gave me a gorgeous mystery mini skein in a very similar colourway and a mittens pattern for Christmas so those will match beautifully.

I also wound up two skeins of Noro Blossom, that I’d bought with the intention of making a pair of chameleon-paw Tridactyl mittens. Then I saw them next to my stashed Rowan Big Wool, and they were perfect together. So now I’m about half way through knitting a moss/seed stitch scarf. It’s four feet long already, so it’s going to be a proper Doctor Who style monster, but it’s really pretty. All of the colours in the Noro look gorgeous against the pale pink of the Big Wool, and the bumpy texture of the yarn and the stitch pattern look great. It’s really nice to have an instantly-gratifying project, after having worked on two long-term ones.

I’m going out for a knitting date with friends this evening, so hopefully progress on the scarf will continue quickly. I’ll write up the pattern (if you can call it that!) once it’s finished.

Oh dear, I might have had a little shopping accident, during which I broke my resolution to Stop Buying More Things. I went into TK Maxx to look for some foam mats for blocking my knitting, but they didn’t have them. (Curse of TK Maxx – if you leave something behind, you’ll never see it again.) What they did have was quite a large selection of TM Lewin shirts. So I bought three. (Top right, middle left, bottom centre.) They cost £12.99 each – something of a bargain compared to the RRP, which is usually around £70. I can’t afford to pay £70 for a shirt, but I can usually afford £12.99, so thank you TK Maxx.

Interestingly, although I browse the TM Lewin website quite regularly, and visit the local store whenever I pass it, I almost never see these patterned shirts. That’s the main reason I jumped on these as soon as I saw them. I often see plain or striped shirts that I leave behind because the colours don’t grab me, but I can’t resist an unusual print.

I am now renewing my No Clothes Shopping resolution (which also had a little accident in the fabric shop at the weekend, but that’s another post) by adding to it Don’t Go Into TK Maxx. If I don’t go there in the first place, I can’t see the lovely shirts and be tempted to buy them.

Perhaps my next project needs to be knitting up a few waistcoats or tank tops to go with them. No shopping required for that – I have stash yarn in a multitude of colours (okay, black and various shades of pink) that would go with most of these shirts perfectly.

In the spirit of trying to actually wear the things I make, and to wear more handmade things in general, here’s what I wore to work last Friday. (I don’t know why Paul, who is a good photographer, is incapable of taking a decent picture of me, but never mind.)

Cardigan: Colinette “Cate” in Rowan Polar. I love the style, but the yarn’s gone a bit bobbly and horrible. And it has an annoying tendency to fall off my shoulders.
Brooches: You can’t see them in this picture, but I used two little brooches to fasten the cardigan at either side of the waist. A Christmas gift from Miss Alice, they’re about the size of scrabble tiles, with pictures of bees on them. :)
Skirt: the herringbone one I made last week. Apparently it doesn’t photograph well with a flash.
Petticoat: Long lilac elasticated petticoat, with matching broderie anglais trim.
Lace shawl: Made by Lettice. I wear this A LOT.
Earrings: I made these for our wedding, from vintage beads given to me by Paul’s Mum.
Glasses: Gok Wan at Specsavers
Boots: Christmas gift from Paul, Dr Martens “Mel Martine”, limited edition colour from Schuh.
T-shirt: H&M, a few years ago.

I also arrived at work wearing a handmade coat and hat. Apparently I don’t have a picture of my pink silk Wurm hat. I should probably rectify this, given that I’m wearing it every day at the moment!

Comments from my colleagues ranged from “I had an outfit just like that in the 1970s” to “you look more Victorian than my daughter, who’s gone to school dressed like a Victorian for the day!”

I’d wondered whether wearing such a long skirt might be annoying at work, but it was fine. Bit of a nuisance going up all the stairs, but I escaped unscathed from the mess of the salt-dough-making (I wore a home-made apron…), and felt thoroughly comfortable. I think I can make the outfit look smarter by wearing a tailored shirt rather than a t-shirt, and I want to dig out my waistcoat patterns, and maybe knit a tank top or two. Useful when you roll up your sleeves a lot at work!

So, that was an enormously waffly way of saying that I mostly made and wore an outfit that I really liked. I feel a little bit better for that. Hooray!

Please excuse the terrible photo, it’s very dark out here in my Shed! I took a couple of hours off from making theatre costumes, to treat myself to a new skirt for work.

It’s made from the same herringbone linen/wool blend as my giant trousers, and I should have enough left over to make either a waistcoat or maybe even a small jacket.

The skirt’s based on my usual a-line pattern, but with added jeans-style pockets. Next time I’ll make them a little deeper so I can put my hands right in without pulling the skirt down. I couldn’t find any matching fancy elastic, so I made a simple straight waistband and threaded plain elastic through.

One day I’ll find a nice strong elastic that I’m happy with. I haven’t yet managed to source one that doesn’t stretch out and go baggy – sometimes even as you’re pulling it through the casing! At least with this style it’s easy enough to take the old elastic out and replace it.

I’m still working to find that balance between the streamlined look of a zip and waist facing and the comfort of elastic. This fabric doesn’t help because it’s quite bouncy, which adds a bit of bulk to the gathers. It’s also soft though, and I’m hoping it’ll calm down a bit after a trip or two through the washing machine.

It’s hard to tell from the picture, but the skirt’s actually a sort of greyish-brown colour. I ‘m thinking of teaming it with burnt orange tights (if I can stand to wear them all day) and a mustard coloured top. Failing that it’ll be brown knee socks and a brown t-shirt, with my purple boots and purple lace shawl for a splash of colour. I’ll see how I feel in the morning – and I’ll try and take a photo or two in daylight!

Oh dear, I’m doing it again. Blogging all enthusiastically, then disappearing for a week. In my defence I’m still working on the costumes for Neverwhere which, as well as doing the odd day or two of overtime at work, is taking up every spare minute of my time and then some.

These are three raven skulls that I made the other day – and in the process of doing so I managed to pull a muscle in my shoulder that trapped a nerve, leaving me wearing my arm in a sling because everything hurt and I couldn’t feel my fingers. Oops. That’s what happens when you spend upwards of seven hours pinching a layer of Fimo into place over an armature of masking tape and paper clip wire, apparently. I won’t be doing that again in a hurry!

You can see the development of the skulls over on Flickr. I did the sculpting and, once the shapes were baked and hardened, I passed them on to Paul who painted them for me. We wanted them to look as though Vandemar had been wearing the rings for years, so Paul’s painted them to look somewhat aged and cracked.

In an ideal world I would have smoothed and sanded out all of those fingerprints, but time was of the essence! If anyone can see the fingerprints from the stage, I’ll be very surprised. Although Louise did spend part of last night’s rehearsal shortening Vandemar’s coat sleeves, otherwise nobody would have been able to see the skulls at all!

They’ve now been mounted onto rings, with glue that I can only hope will be strong enough to last through the entire run. Performances start next week, and I keep thinking that we must be into the final straight with the costumes by now. But Louise and I spent yesterday evening at the theatre and each came back with a to-do list longer than the one we’d started with, despite having sewed our way through the entire rehearsal.

We must be nearly there though, surely?

Happy New Year!

Very much a work in progress at the moment, but there are a few things that I want to resolve for the New Year:
 
1) Stop Messing With My Hair
As you can see, at the beginning of last month I shaved off all my hair down to a grade 8, which is about an inch long. The sides are still a little bit shorter than that, owing to a disastrous haircut I’d had a couple of days earlier. I’d basically bleached and dyed my hair into such a terrible state that the only possible course of action was to get rid of it and start again. I’ve given away my remaining pink dye and bleach, so that I can’t be tempted to do it again. I really want to grow my hair long again, and find out what colour it is.

Exceptions: Non-damaging colours such as henna. (If I can be bothered.) Going to see my one and only trusted hairdresser, Mel, for proper haircuts if necessary. Otherwise, LEAVE WELL ALONE, and perhaps make some pretty hairclips or knit some pretty hats for the inevitable growing-out frustrations.
 
 
2) Stop Buying New Clothes
When I started my new job in September, I bought a lot of new clothes to go with it. Now I have those clothes, I don’t need to buy any more. I may want more TM Lewin shirts, and they may be a bargain in TK Maxx (although not as much of a bargain as the one I bought in a charity shop the other day for £4!), but I don’t actually need any more. Ditto Jeffery~West shoes, funny-coloured Doc Martens, John Rocha trousers. If I do need new-to-me clothes, I can make things, and look in charity shops or on Ebay, and alter things I have already.

Exceptions: I genuinely need a pair of smart black leather shoes. This can wait until the weather’s nice enough that I’m not wearing boots all the time, but (assuming I don’t switch straight from boots to Birkenstocks) I’ll need shoes for work, come the spring. I’m saving up for Fairysteps, Conker, or Doc Martens For Life.
 
 
3) Stop Going to the Corner Shop
Far too often, when I’m at home on my own, I find myself wandering down to the corner shop. It’s a habit left over from when I used to go to the Post Office a lot. But now I just end up buying crisps and chocolate and fizzy drinks, which are bad for my health and cost me money. I don’t need to eat those things, and I can’t afford to waste the money, so I basically need to break the habit and just stop doing it. The same applies to popping across the road to M&S on a Friday, and grabbing a sandwich to eat at work. Even worse when I’ve actually taken food with me, but just don’t fancy eating it. It’s lazy, and it’s expensive. Much easier to take soup to work, or bread for toast.

Exceptions: None. I just need to stop doing it. Unless I genuinely need something from the corner shop, like milk, or Lemsip.
 
 
4) Walk Outside Every Day
I tried hard to do this last year, and I genuinely felt better for it. But then “go outside” became conflated with “go to corner shop”, which isn’t even a particularly nice walk. This year I want to work on the garden, which is still a disaster area, so that should help. And it’s only just over half a mile to walk all the way around the lake, so if I can go for a walk with my camera, that would be lovely too. I don’t even have an excuse on the days I’m at work, because the museum has an acre of garden that I could happily sit in to eat my lunch, or walk around between toddler sessions to clear my head.

Exceptions: Weather. Although I do have boots and coats and a brolly. And even in yesterday’s horrific wind and rain, there must have been half an hour when I could have gone out without getting disastrously wet.

I want to add cycling to this one at some stage too, but I need to keep things manageable to begin with. Given that last January I paid £120 to have my bike serviced, and in the past year I’ve ridden it precisely once (home from the bike shop!) I don’t want to get too carried away.
 
 
I do have some other Resolutions in mind, to do with Making Clothes and Taking Photos and Making Art, and Living Well. Those are the ones that still need thinking about. But the ones above seem like things I could start to work on straight away, and without too much complicated effort. I’m a bit too busy for complicated effort just at the moment.

I’m with Amelia. Don’t be misled by her statement that personal adornment should be of secondary importance – it in no way means that we shouldn’t strive to look and feel beautiful in what we choose to wear. But for me, at least, it’s time to be comfortable. No more synthetic fibres, constricting waistbands or crippling shoes. I want, and need, my clothing to allow me to be healthy, comfortable and useful. My tiny revolution starts here.

Obvious, when you think about it, but something that’s sadly overlooked. We’re so divorced from the understanding of how our clothes are made that the cost of the cloth itself in human terms is barely even considered. We go shopping not because of need, but to make ourselves feel better. A different kind of need, but one that we’re so often looking to fulfill in all the wrong ways.

I’ve been looking at blogs such as No Pants 2011, The Uniform Project, the Brown Dress Project and Wardrobe Refashion, but they were all fixed-term projects that have now come to an end. I’ll be writing more about what I actually want to do in terms of changing my own approach to the way I shop and dress, once I’ve thought it through in more practical terms. But I definitely want to make changes that I can stick to in the long run, in terms of what I choose to buy and what I decide to make.

I don’t want to be boring or preachy or holier-than-thou about any of this, and I certainly don’t want to go around wearing ugly clothes simply because they’re comfortable. (You will NEVER catch me in fleecy boots and tracksuit bottoms!) But I can definitely work on not buying things to cheer myself up, and I can try to design and make some pretty-but-comfortable clothes from recycled or more sustainable fabrics. That seems like a good place to start.

I don’t have photos of all the knitting because I wrapped and posted it as soon as it was finished. But I made a pair of socks and a pair of wristbands and a cowl and a pair of fingerless gloves. And a hat and mittens.

I do have a picture of Milly’s Monkey Hat and Matching Mittens:

The pattern was one of Ann Budd’s basic hats, and I made up the ears as I was going along. The mittens are from a Ravelry pattern by Anke Klempner, designed for newborns. The pattern calls for 3.5mm needles, so I used 4mm to make the mittens slightly larger. I managed to get the hat and mittens out of one 50g ball of Sirdar Snuggly, and I used the leftovers to make the mitten string. The cream parts on the monkey’s face and ears are made from fleece, blanket stitched into place, and the eyes, nose and mouth are simply embroidered on.

I made the string for the mittens on my knitting nancy, and I think it’s probably long enough to last Milly until she’s at least eight. I was a bit worried that the hat would be too small, but it seems to be okay:

The ears do make it ridiculously easy for Milly to grab the hat and chuck it across the room, but apparently that happens to all hats at the moment – and she was far more interested in the crinkly wrapping paper anyway!