A bit of this and that: journeys, comics and toddler blues

I've notices on my blog, the distinct lack of any colourful photos over the past month. Even a lack of handmade things...what's going on? I've only just realised I have made very, very little this year, and January is nearly over..

I’ve been in fuzzy land, and don’t even know mentally where the last month has gone.. I think this is because my toddler got up one morning and decided “today is the day I start the terrible 2’s”. I have heard enough, seen enough, and read enough to realize you don’t escape the terrible 2’s, it might happen at 3 or 4 but you don’t escape it. I just had a notion that my boy was good and special and wouldn’t do that to me, but he decided otherwise. And I am not coping as well as I thought I would. To the point where I went out and bought a brand new coffee pot with expensive strong coffee… I now need it to get me through the day.

So, in the interest of my sanity I’ve decided to pack him of to a crèche for a few hours a week. It will eat into my wool/book fund but it’ll mean more free time. The ladies in the crèche were lovely, you need time to yourself, they said, its good for the child…So, hopefully, when we start that next week, I’ll suddenly be bombarding my blog with creativeness and my organic garden will bloom… I think the neighbours must hate me. Especially the ones across the street trying to sell their house, as the garden is a soggy mess at the moment. They’ll all be jealous next autumn, when my veg patch is bursting with goodness, the berries are ripe and smelly plants smell nice…

Anyway, back to the list and creativeness…

• I had a wonderful drive up to Galway on my own. I got to drive the speed limit, stop for coffee, overtake without worrying about my child’s life…I had a collection of my girly music with me to make me feel young again. On the way up it was Lily Allen for a bit of fun, then Ani di Franco for feeling free and single and I don’t give a shit, On the way back its was PJ Harvey, for shouting out loud and then Stina Nordenstam to calm me down again as I turned slowly back into mum again…It was heaven. I got to catch up with 2 sisters and 2 old friends. A quick stroll around Galway early in the morning, and the only things open was Charlie Byrne's bookshop. A very dangerous place to visit indeed. I came out with 3 books, where I wished I had 20… so, back home with inkle looms, new books,and a feeling of renewed energy.

• I made another scarf similar to the one I made for my ma. It’s a bit longer and thinner. I love the openness of the stitches, makes it look more like weaving that knitting. Have to try experiment with this more.

• I was selected to be one of the Sneak Participants to receive a copy of HANDKNIT HEROS, the first graphic novel for knitters. You can read my review of it on the for The Woolly Way blog, or check out their website - www.comicknits.com. Each issue comes with a pattern, and I started my version of the POW Hooded Scarf…

• Went for a walk in the local woods, this morning. I went back to the tree where I found the oak galls last year, and found a few more. They are the same colour as the rotting leaves, so not easy to find. As well as being used as a dye, a mordant (they contain a lot of tannin), they were also used for making black ink. I must find a few medieval recipes to try them out.

Getting things under control

well, I have a few things to check off my list, and a few things to add...

• the ma's scarf is done, of course its all wrapped and ready for posting, and I forgot to take a photo
• I have a reply from the Fearless One (as our leader is called), head of the Crochet Liberation Front about what to make for the Second Ever Book
• I am practicing my knitting before I start the cardigan as I'm a bit rusty. Even learnt a new way of casting on...
• And....best of all, I am going to Galway tomorrow for a night, TODDLER FREE! To finally collect my inkle looms.I have two cup of tea stops on the way, to catch up with friends and family, and then into the big city. Meet the friend who's storing the looms, catch up with the sister in her new house, sleep peacefully all night...blissfully not wake up pre-dawn with toys up my nose but peacefully at a reasonable hour. Then a stroll around the City of the Tribes,then its back home to the list and the boring housey stuff....

There's a few things sub-consciously waiting to get on the list, but I am making a conscious effort not to think about them until I am able. The aim is to only add as I delele...God-damn lists, they are never-ending...

Joseph Albers in Lisburn!

I've just heard there is a Joseph Albers exhibition on in Lisburn! I have never seen an exhibition of his, and its of Silk-Screened prints, which I do like....I have his book, Interaction of Colour, which I enjoyed. Yet I read it with a kind of, HA!

This new way of looking, is actually a re-working of a lot of very old textile techniques, of dyeing and colour blending for Tapestry..Lucky for him his wife was a textile genius. Anni Albers was behind the incredibly successful textile workshops at the Bauhaus School. The only financially successful workshop, I might add. So, I reckon, its the great woman behind the man syndrome...

Now I've just checked a route planner, which according to the AA Ireland, is 280.00 miles away, roughly 5 hr 55 min, without pee stops, food stops, tractors, road works, etc...

It probably isn't worth a 6/7/8 hour drive, but it is tempting because its history in the making. I'm a big fan of the whole Bauhaus scene (the art movement not the band. Still you cant beat, Bela Lugosi's Dead...). Klee has a special place in my heart, as does Kandinsky....

I used to move house every couple of years, even months at one stage of my life. And now I have been living in the same place for a few years, and the same County for several more, my hobo tendencies are starting to get a bit rattled. I'm like that girl in the book Even Cowgirls Get the Blues: that starts to hitch-hike around the room because shes going mad living in the same spot.

I do feel like hopping in the car and taking off, but maybe I should find something a bit closer to home...In fact I should be working on several projects but feel a bit lackadaisical at the moment.

• I have to make a kids knitted cable cardigan for someone...
• I have to try get something together for the Crochet Liberation Fronts Second Ever Book
  
• I have to go to Galway to collect my inkle looms (again sorry, I haven't done it sooner)
• I have to start my bloody Etsy shop!
• I have to sort my workroom, its a mess
• I have to start thinking of ideas for the latest Cork Textile Network exhibition...
  
• what else...tidy the garden, start getting my early spuds together for planting, make something for my ma's approaching birthday, take-over the world....(na na na na na na you cant help doing the theme tune to Pinky and the Brain after that one..I used to have it as a ring tone on my phone..)

And now for something completely different...Psychiatrist Dr Karen Norberg, of National Bureau of Economic Research in Cambridge, Massachusetts, spent a year knitting an anatomically correct replica of the human brain

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Inspiration for 2009

I first came across the Manchester Craft Mafia because of Sackboy. They were invited by Media Molecule to the Little Big Planet launch, to do customized workshops in making your very own Sackboy. I love keeping track of what this fantastic craft group are doing. It makes my heart ache for something similar here in Ireland. Its one of the reasons I set up The Woolly Way of Ireland. If The Woolly Way was even a fraction of a success like the MCM,I would be very very happy....unfortunately, at the moment its a one-person show (mine!) and trying to get it off the ground is taking its toll, and time on all the other things I'd like to do. That's why I feel inspired by what they are doing over the water. I feel I'm not really crazy to believe something like this can exist. I have such grandiose ideas for the Woolly Way, apart from it being a textile directory, networking site,forum, I had plans (eventually) to try take it on the road,doing a Woolly Way Roadshow! I got such a great reception last year at the Electric Picnic Music Festival, I really thing there is interest in it.

I haven't voiced a lot of my plans before, because, this is Ireland after all, and if people who know me think its a bit odd, what will the rest of the country think...So, imagine my delight when I get the latest update from Manchester Craft Mafia to tell me about UK DIY a craft uprising in the north west of England :: a series of events, exhibitions and projects exploring DIY crafts across the UK The project stems from all things ironic, political, environmental, fun and subversive found within contemporary craft, communities, and entrepreneurial makers.

Then, I come across these The Great British Craft Tour

This is the kind of stuff I dream about doing. Getting on the road in a VW van and driving all around the country gathering all the info you need. This is pretty much what I had in mine for the Woolly Way. I don't just want to get lists out of the phonebook, I want to physically gather the info, visit the venues, talk to anyone who has an interest in textiles from makers to seller. What I had hoped was to get a number of volunteers around the country to check out their areas,but the uptake is very slow(hint,hint) so I guess I'll just have to hit the road myself...

My New Years Resolution consisted of

1) more action less talk

2)trying to be less grumpy in the mornings...

So, this will prob be my only rant for along time, but I needed to get that out, or I would have burst! I am so excited about the way textiles is going in other countries, its everything I've dreamed about. But if I say this out loud to anyone around me, they just switch off. In fact they are so uninterested in what I do, or want to do that I don't even tell them. When people ask me what I am up to I say nothing, I'm just a stay-at-home-mum lost in Suburbia..with insane woolly things on my mind...

Viva la Revolution!

And all that jazz...

Well, its been weeks since my last update, and so much has gone on, I don't even know where to begin. Last time I wrote on my blog I had just done the Craft Fair.

I got a few commissions of hats, scarves and even a tea-cosy, and a few friends came round after the Fair to root through what I had left. Enough to pay for a few bottles of wine over the Xmas...so I was happy enough.


The Customized Tea-Cosy.
It took me a while to figure this one out. I had to borrow the teapot, and adjust the pattern to take into the account of the straight sides and the spout. I love tea-cosies that you can leave on, so I did the lid more for decoration, it also doubles as a coaster.




This is the Vintage/Re-cycled/Re-used bag that I had asked questions about previously. The main body is linen thread, which is over 40 years old, the red is fairtrade twine I got from Oxfam, and the pale is strips of remnant upholstery fabric.

Here is the another Sackboy that I made.

I re-wrote the pattern to make one with an open mouth. This Sackboy along with the original Sackboy and Sackgirl were sent to Media Molecule Headquarters where I have just heard, they have been placed in the Cabinet! It must be a Cabinet of Fame, of LBG memorabilia that will some worth a fortune some day...



My biggest commission came from my step-dad, who let his fingers do the walking by getting on the phone and ordering his Xmas presents off me. He wanted some kind of a Hyperbolic thing to give to my ma. She had seen some of my Coral Reef stuff before, and they were amazed, not at what I was crocheting, but the fact I was talking maths. (Me and Maths were never known to have gotten on before...). The piece I made of the Cork Textiles Network Exhibition in the School of Music, is still in Cork, so I had to make a new one from scratch. Doing the crochet was easy enough, it was finding the right frame that was the hard part. I didn't have time to get a frame made, so I did a search for box frames around all the usual haunts, and eventually came across one in Woody's that would do the job.



Then, one or two more scarves to be made, pack the bags and we were off for Christmas. An over-night stay in Galway, and next thing, we were in the wilds of the Mayo, the land of St. Pat. I ended up spending a week and a half up there. It was nice and uneventful, as I had planned, until after Xmas when I got a puncture. Me being me, it had to be a drama, the wheel was rusted to the car, so refused to come off. Then I realised I hadn't seen my purse since before Xmas, and discovered it was lost somewhere between Kerry and Mayo. Cards Cancelled, money borrowed, wheel off, child sick, a day later, I went off to get puncture repaired.

What has been a successfully quiet and pleasant Xmas with my family, had turned into a hungover disaster, but by New Years Eve, it turned back to being pleasant. A small win on the horses (considering I bet on horses about every 3/4 years, this was a great surprise), the puncture repair people couldn't find a puncture and said my spare was fine to drive with, and a call from the bank to say my purse, which I had lost Xmas Eve in Westport, was found intact, with cards and cash.

The End of 2008....

So, 2009 started with me snoring my head off, peacefully in bed with toddler, and then a long drive home...

Croagh Patrick, Co. Mayo, o holy of holy mountains,
covered in cloud, yet basking in the sun