I Heart My Camera

These are the bracelets I made from my illicit ebay button binges. They will be up on my etsy shop by the end of this week (internet connection willing)

This may come as quite a shock....

...but today, for the first time in seven months, I picked up a pencil and made a few sketches.




I have the vague notion of turning these into an autumn promo postcard, or, depending on how organised I get, a Christmas promo card, but the main thing is, I drew. Whoa.

Cat tagged me last week to display what's on my desktop. Well, at the moment I am at my mum's, so what I have here is the family desktop, complete with obligatory tea:



For some reason the family computer doesn't have any kind of "paint" programme, so I had nowhere to paste my screen capture, so a photo of the screen will have to suffice.:



See, I have the Illustration Station forum constantly on.

My own computer for PhotoShop and the like is directly opposite this one on a baby desk, but I don't have it connected to the internet.

I finally received my LOVELY new camera last week, and this has been the first chance I've had to have a proper play with it. I LOVE it. Seriously. If it offered me a dirty weekend away in Brighton, I'd take it. It's already a million times better than my little point-and-shoot Samsung and I've barely begun to use it properly. I sat myself down yesterday afternoon and worked my way through the manual taking random pictures of the coffee table, but I thought I'd use it today to take a few snaps of my latest WIP, a pair of wrist warmers/fingerless gloves knit in gorgeous Freedom Spirit:







Check out the depth of field on that first one. Yum. I can already see this camera and I going places. One of my New Life Resolutions is to take more photos and that'll be a doddle on this baby.

So chuffed!

Many, many thanks to Not-as-lovely-as-he-was-but-still-pretty-spesh Jon for buying it for me.

There's a lot of awkward and painful stuff happening over here right now, so I'm only going to blog about happy things. One thing that makes me very happy is Fantastic Cookies. It so happens I have a recipe for Fantastic Cookies, so when I met up with Paula and Cat this week, I took along a few. Here, as requested from the two of them, is the recipe for Oat and Peanut Butter Cookies*:

225g plain flour
175g rolled oats (the bigger the better)
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
175ml vegetable oil (or sunflower or rapeseed or anything with a neutral taste)
175g crunchy peanut butter (I usually go ahead and use nearly a whole 340g jar instead. I love peanut butter)
200g caster sugar
225g brown sugar
125ml milk (moo, soy, rice or oat is fine)
2 tsp vanilla extract

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C/350 degrees F/gas mark 4. Lightly grease two baking trays.

In a large bowl mix the liquids, the peanut butter and the sugars.

In another bowl, mix the dry ingredients, then add dry to wet and mix. You want a firm, moist dough, so if it's a little runny - as it may be if, like me, you've used extra peanut butter - just add more oats to bulk it up a bit.

You can make these any size you like, but I normally go for a tablespoon-sized lump. Roll it into a ball (you may need to flour your hands to stop them getting too sticky), place well apart on the sheet and flatten slightly. These will spread quite a bit.

Bake for around 12 minutes, depending on their size and your oven, until golden brown. Leave on the baking tray for at least 10 minutes before transferring to a rack to cool completely.

These are yummy-delish eaten still warm with a glass of milk.

Enjoy!

*Adapted from a recipe from "Vegan With A Vengeance" by Isa Chandra Moskowitz.

Just came across an amazing illustrator, Victoria Maderna, here. I love this image. It's very sexy and retro and funny and makes me want to get up draw! Shocking, I know. I can't seem to get her website or blog to load, though, but I'm going to keep on trying. Fab stuff.

Last week I asked the lovely fairies at the Society of Secret Fairies if there was to be an autumn exchange. The reply said they hoped so, but things were a bit manic. I offered to help out, and so here I am creating my first invite and taking on my first stint as fairy organiser!:



I hope lots of people will want to take part. All the info for the exchange is over on the SOSF blog.

How bizarre that your home grown produce totally dies off in the July rains, only to come back to life again at the end of the season, thus:



And here:



They did look like this:



and most of them still do, but the others have literally come back from the dead after a bathe in the sunshine. Odd.

Shame it's pretty much the sum total of this year's harvest, though!

Whoa. Where has the summer gone? Or rather, why didn't the summer turn up in the first place? That said, today and the previous five days have all been glorious. I expect that summer will now stretch right through September and it'll probably still be near 20 degrees come October.

I'm not really a fan of summer. OK, I like the golden evenings with long shadows and hazy clouds, and the fresh, crisp sunlight through the curtains first thing in the morning, but I'm not a hot weather person. August, even though it's my birthday month, has now come to mean loneliness coupled with a desperate desire to see the back of it. Lovely Jon has just returned form his third August in Edinburgh. I never went up there myself this year, so today was the first time in three weeks that I have seen him. Right now he's asleep. He didn't manage to make it to bed last night as he was frantically cleaning his Edinburgh flat on his lonesome, as all the other flatmates had already gone back home. I keep sneaking down there just to look at him, or to stroke his face, just to check that he is really is there.

This August hasn't been too bad, though, really. I've just spent the previous two weeks with my mum and sisters (one week of them here, the second with me there) and I had a great pirate-themed birthday and some fabby presents, including these excellent Converses:



(Now is the plural Converses? Or Converse, like "one sheep, lots of sheep"? I prefer Convi, meself.)

And some mega-inspiring craft books:



I have to say I'm feeling more positive right now than I have for a long time. It's amazing what a new hair-do and being able to fit into a pair of jeans in your regular size can do for you!



I also have a meeting tomorrow with a local publisher. I'm not getting myself het-up about it or over-excited. If no work comes of it, then that's OK, but I think it'll really help my confidence in my work just to have someone else look at it. I'm planning to send out a new promo card by the end of this month, too, and the prospect of creating something new is really exciting. Who knows, I may even get some of that bounce-out-of-bed-because-my-job-is-great enthusiasm back!

For me, September is New Year. I still like to work on an academic year basis. Right now it's that shiny shoes, new pencil case feeling of a new term that's getting me all powered up and ready to work. Let's go!

Any minute now my mother and sisters will be swooping down on me for the following week, so Lovely Jon and I have spent the last few weeks (and just me for the past two) getting the once vibrant-purple room ready. Here's what we've done:

I have amazed myself with my productivity today. Four windmills made and up here on etsy. I even persuaded my camera to take some decent pictures:

Round our way, the postman usually comes at 10am. I waited and waited and waited for him, but in the end I just had to get in the shower. Of course, the very moment I jumped out, the doorbell rang, so, swathed in my towel-turban and my - thankfully - all-encompassing bath sheet, I answered the door somewhat shyly to find the postman, not only with our post, but eight - EIGHT!- other packages for next door, too.

But embarrassment aside, he did bring me my new supplies, and a fab pressie from the lovely Cat:





And a batch of safety eyes I ordered also arrived today, so it's back on with the monsters.

Since last Sunday I have been by myself in the house as Lovely Jon has been working up at the Edinburgh Festival. It hasn't been too bad - not nearly as terrible as I thought it was going to be - but he came back yesterday to spend a couple of days with me before going back up to the grindstone. It's been lovely not actually doing any work at all for the past day or two. A bit weird, but lovely. I can't remember the last time LJ didn't make his excuses sometime during a "day off" to go and check his emails or answer the phone, so it's been really nice to have him all to myself. Speaking of which, must get in the squdge (cuddle) time while I can.....

Well, hell-air. Here are some crafty items for you all:











They measure 17cm x 12.5cm, with sewn felt and safety eyes. I love the pink striped one. Her expression is just so cute, yet wary. Bit like a bunny.

These are mega quick to make. I can knit up and finish one of these babies in a few hours. I tend to knit the legs and join them all together, have a break, then knit the rest of the body in one evening, then stuff and sew the eyes the next morning. So I've made these five in the past week. I have the method down to a T now, but supplies are running low. I still haven't done the major wool shop, so I think that will be on the cards for tomorrow.

I'm not sure what to do next, though. Do I put these guys up on Etsy, or concentrate on making a whole load more for HK Handknit? Perhaps I could limit myself to evening knitting, but make up some button bracelets and windmills for Etsy, especially as the weather is actually nice now and the windmills don't seem like such a crazy idea!

Mucho love to Bentin who recommend Flickr Uploader to me today. Genius!

For an illustration blog, illustration has been a bit thin on the ground. As has the Universe and we're decidedly lacking in Everything. What I can provide is plenty of apology and an offer to show you the graphic design work I've been working on lately, just to prove that I do actually do something.

Here are just a couple of pieces that I'm quite chuffed with:









On the whole, my experience of this year's Edinburgh lead-up hasn't been too bad. There has been only one awkward nutter amongst the sane people (and every year there is always is one), it just takes much, much, longer than you think it will. Thankfully, the last of the promo material has gone off to the printers today, so I can finally breathe a sigh of relief.

However, 37 boxes of A5 flyers and two boxes of A3 posters were delivered today and are currently busily taking up room in my dining room. They're for a tour Lovely Jon has organised for the autumn, so he and I are going to go through them all and sort them into piles of the required amount for each venue on the tour and send them off before LJ goes off to Edinburgh in a couple of weeks. Last year I had a very bad experience of this. The very day LJ went off for the month, 26 boxes were delivered on an enormous palette, and three days late, I have to add. Despite the printers promising the delivery guys would help us inside with the boxes, the driver just left them outside our flat. On the palette. So I had to carry each box up the steep flight of stairs to our flat with a bandaged hand and in 37 degree heat, and find somewhere to stash an gigantic palette in a narrow road of garden-less Victorian terraced houses. I was not amused. Especially as the two blokes sitting outside the pub opposite just sat and watched me struggle with them. And the guy who came to pick them up once they'd been divided up was the rudest person in the entire world. But never mind. That won't be happening this time.

But anyway, it's all out the way now. All I have to do now is write my enormous invoice for the work. Mwah-hah-hah! And then I can get back to being all crafty for my Etsy shop. I must also make a start on the monsters for HK Handknit. November sounds a long way off, but I know it's going to creep up on me. If I manage to knit one a week, then that is 14 weeks and 14 monsters. That doesn't sound too bad. Plus, I can go on a marathon wool-buying trip and that's always fun.

I've been trying all afternoon to get a decent picture of my latest windmill. The light is dire. It's unbelievable to think tomorrow is mid-summer. With the rain lashing down and the wind howling down the chimney it's more like February. Not that I mind, really. The thought of a swelteringly hot day brings me out in a rash, although I would like to be able to hang my washing out and finally plant out my pumpkins.

But, back to windmills. I tried making several 18cm ones with card, but as soon as you bend the corners in, the inner paper buckles and creases, so I tried this 25cm one with just thick-ish paper:



Yum. Love it.

I don't know what's wrong with me, but I've been absolutely starving all day. Perhaps it's the wintery weather making me feel like stocking up and hibernating, but I don't think even bears eat as much as I have today. Possibly the entire punnet of cherries and the huge bowl of home-made popcorn were a step too far. I am so looking forward to dinner!

Oh, and a very Happy Birthday to my sister Amy Spud (23 today) who was taken to a matinee performance of The Lion King in London this afternoon, and Lovely Jon's mum Mummy Bridget (not saying) and his sister Hannah Spannah (24). Today is an expensive day.

BleurgghhhAhhhhhhhahhhoMmmmma. That is exactly how I feel.

Productivity-wise, I've not been having too bad a day. (Yesterday was absolutely rubbish. We skived off for a bit and went to Portscatho for a play in the rockpools) I've been making paper windmills. They were one of the things I optimistically said I'd make for the etsy shop launch, but, even though I bought the paper for them weeks and weeks ago, they still remain unmade. So I've been having a bit of an experiment with putting them together and deciding which is the best glue to use. To my utter dismay, it's the dreaded lung-killing spray mount.

Here are my first attempts:



The one on the left is fixo gum, the right spray mount. I just have to let the glue dry for longer before I start bending over the corners, so I've made up a batch that are busily drying ready for assembledge tomorrow. They should be fun, I think. Something more affordable for the shop. These are 18cm across, and I'd like to make some monster ones, maybe 30cm or so, but I'll have to find some bigger card first! My windmill tutorial comes from Danielle Proud's fab book, House Proud.

I've also been beavering away with my precious buttons. Oh, how I love them! If red buttons could pay the mortgage, I'd marry them. This bracelet here is my absolute fave:



Look at all the fabulous varieties. I love the toggle and the square one just right of the top centre. It's going to be hard to let go of that one.

I read on Penny and Toby's blog about clear elastic thread, and I thought that was just such a genius idea I had to get me some. It's amazingly professional stuff, and looks so much better than the stringy old bit of white elastic I first had in mind.

I've also had a go with making a necklace with yummy white buttons, but I think the varying button sizes - which work so well on the bracelets - are just too chunky and random to wear around the neck en masse.



I think I'll un-string it and only use smaller more uniform buttons for necklaces and leave the crazy size free-for-all for the bracelets.

And on the dairy-free side of things, things are also going OK, although I could kill for a glass of the white stuff. After trying a lot of milk substitutes, I'm going for Oatly, which is oat milk. Unlike the custard powder-smelling rice milk, it only has three ingredients, and they're ones I've a) heard of and b) can pronounce. I made some fab vegan cookies with it on Sunday. Thank God we bought this book a couple of weeks ago. I heartily recommend these Oatmeal and Peanut Butter Cookies from it. Triple yum: