Lost out to a lick of paint....

So Sis has blown me out next week in order to redecorate! Hmmm. Still, it at least gives me the chance to go for another 'girls night out' to this:




The "Worlds Greatest Showgirl", Princess Farhana, is coming to my little town, to one of the smallest theatres in the country! She's giving a stage make-up demonstration, a talk about the history of bellydance and burlesque (which is quite an eye-opener I've heard - she leads a wild life!), and performances by her and by other other dancers.



So the night should be a good laugh. A girls night out is always fun! I'm looking forward to the stage make-up demo. Oo, and 'the guy' turned up to belly-dance class again last night! It's funny watching him trying to emulate hip shimmies and chest lifts. The teachers instructions to imagine lifting up from the middle of your bra left him totally confused. Guys just don't have the 'bits' to make these movements graceful. Or lets face it, to even be able to make the movement at all. Hip slides are an example of a movement that most blokes just can't do. I have seen a male dancer before though and he was quite flexible - he bent backwards much further than I can *lol* but there were alot of movements that he just didn't do as part of his routine. Hmmm. Now I'm curious. I might have to search for male dancers on YouTube to see what they normally do. Has anyone else seen a male bellydancer?


Anyway, before I get totally distracted by that idea, I have to tell you that I've finally finished the Tassel-edged Wrap! Hurray! Here it is being modelled by Chia'ana (who has recently sprouted fairy wings - 'thanks M' - his idea of a joke!) Here it's folded in half because I wouldn't have been able to get it in the picture otherwise. It's really long! I can wrap it twice round myself! Got to figure how to block it now. Well, not how, I know the 'how', but where. And is it worth blocking acrylic? As you can see, Chia'ana is still wearing the velvet jacket. I haven't got around to embroidering it yet. I'm still mulling over the possible designs. I'd like a henna type design, or maybe Celtic, or possibly just a floral design. So many possibilities, so little time!

My socks? They're still on the needles. I've just turned the first heel. I'd be useless at the Sock Wars which have just started. I'm knitting these so slowly I'd be assassinated before I had a chance to even get to the first heel! We have another Ravelry group meeting this weekend, so they'll get another outing then probably. I'm looking forward to meeting up with the yarn girls again.

And surprise surprise, the postie bought me two packages today! The first was this light tent which pops out to form a cube made of light diffusing material with four different coloured backdrops. You pop your item in that you want to photograph and it diffuses all the available natural light so that you can take good quality photos without a flash, showing true colour. This will be excellent for my glass since I struggle to get good photos as light tends to bounce off.

Pippin quality checked it for me.

'Ooo, what's that Mum? Should I kill it?'

Does it make a difference to the items that I can photograph? Well, lets do a compare and contrast. The second package I got in the post was my FOC swap package from Sevsonlygirl and one of the things in it was this gorgeous shawl. Here it is showing true colours in natural light without a flash (my camera has the facility to take two photos at the same time, one with a flash and one without so that you can chose the one you prefer)

And here's the same shawl, at the same time, in the same light, but with a flash. Check out the difference. To see the rest of the wonderful things she sent, check them out here.

I still have a few Hufflepuff goodies on the go, my partner Kathleenalice has flown these grey shores to sample the delights of Amsterdam, and will then be travelling to Tunisia to sun herself for a week *sigh* Jealous? Me? Completely! I contented myself with buying these tiger lilies today. I know they're cheap and crappy silk flowers, but they're destined to become tribal style hairpieces for the next Hafla, or maybe next week if I get them done in time, or maybe just for weekly dance class :-) But for now, they're a tropical flavour that my winter weary heart needs at the moment.

Warning: this post contains SWAP SPOILERS!

I recently treated myself to this DVD which is a Belly dance DVD with yoga warm-up and tried it for the first time today (M is on call this week starting from this morning, so I've had some time to myself today) and boy does it make you work! I've had a dodgy shoulder since I suffered a rotator cuff injury and had to have surgery on it years ago, and doing some of the shoulder isolation's with it makes me realise just how much I favour that shoulder. I certainly ache there now, but I guess that will ease up. Here's a clip I nicked from YouTube which shows the introduction. Hope the link works, it's the first time I've tried pasting a YouTube link in.

I love Ariellah, she's an amazing dancer and definitely someone to aspire to. I don't think I'll never be as graceful as she is, but it's fun trying :-)

So what else has been going on here in my little corner of the world? As Britain prepares itself for the worst storm to hit the UK for years, I spent this morning working on my Tassel Edged Wrap whilst watching Hollyoaks in bed with my girls (the cats) and loads of China Rose Petal Tea. I'm just about finished with my wrap, I just have six tassels left to sew on. A lovely lazy morning followed by a belly dance workout and then onto some other things.

I started these last night, sawing some pieces of dowel ready for a mystery swap projects for one of my lucky partners. If you've never tried sawing through dowel before, don't be put off. It's so easy, I did these on my knee *lol*

All it takes is a little shaping with a knife and a sanding block.....

to get to this point. Or points....*lol* They got their final sanding and polishing with beeswax this morning, unfortunately after this picture was taken! Any guesses as to what they might become?

I also broke the polymer clay out this weekend. I'm totally in love with these!

Pretty cane work and swirls.

And these will become some earrings, but who are they for? I love the glittery effect of the Fimo in these. I'm going to the Hobbycrafts show with my Sis next weekend and I'm hoping to restock on Fimo as I'm running short of some of my favourite colours.

I've also been having fun making beads. This is a variety of swirly beads in bicone, lentil and some good old regular round shapes. I like the effect the matt and the metallic Fimo create in those marbled looking beads. I also blended the black with a little dark pearlescent blue to get that sort of superman-y black colour. You know how superheros in comic books have a deep blue black hair colour? It makes the black a little more interesting.

I have a bit of work in front of me this week to get these sanded and buffed to a shine, and I hope they work for the project I have in mind.

Wardrobe refashion!

The rest of the world is getting snow it seems apart from us here in my merry little county. How I wished to wake up to a deep snow fall this week so that I could legitimately have an illicit day at home, but it was not to be, a morning of hard frost, a quick flurry of literally half a dozen flakes, then, nothing *sigh* I want to be able to toboggan down the hill, or at least on a tea tray!

Instead I decided on a quick recon job whilst my 'Lil Brother was out and plugged in. I've had this tie-dyed vest top for ages, but it comes to mid belly level which I'm not about to show off in actual daylight, so I never really wore it. One night lying in bed, I had a sudden inspiration! I could create my own Frankenstein garment by chopping up another tee and sewing the two together. Brilliant! So I found one of my purple tees which coordinated really well (I don't really wear this one much anymore)

I cut the hem and the top, just above the sleeves, so I was left with a tube. I lettuce leafed/frilled one edge of the tube.

From one of the redundant sleeves, I cut a circle of fabric and overlocked it, then I sewed a motif to it.

I pinned it into place on the front of the vest top.

Then appliqued the whole lot into place. Applique on stretchy knit fabric is tricky, but not impossible.

then I pinned the tube to the bottom of the vest top and sewed that into place, and voila! A new wearable vest top, ready for the summer! (Modelled by Chia'anna!)

By the way, the title of this post comes from this blog which I read regularly and is always inspiring - check it out! :-)

The Saga of the Dress...

The saga of the dress is over! Hurray! I finished it tonight and I love it! The only thing is that corduroy sheds little bits absolutely everywhere, so I'm going to have to vacuum tomorrow :-) I just love the feel of the dress, it's so warm and comfy feeling, and can be dressed up or down. I can see me wearing this dress over jeans or over boots. I really like the simple contrast of the plain black corduroy with the embroidered corduroy. The sleeves are maybe a little baggier than I originally thought they would be, but that creates a kimono type effect which is nice. The sash is really long and I can tie it behind, or wrap it around and tie it in front. Here's my Lothlorian/Rivendell type shot, me in my dusty bedroom mirror!

But I figured you couldn't really see the dress in that, so I tried the old self timer out. Yes, I have my new camera! Hurray! This picture uses the self timer facility, the portrait setting, automatic red eye removal and automatic face recognition.

Here's a nice shot of the dress fabric.

And this is my cameras artsy B&W portrait facility *lol*

These settings even managed to make me look okay despite that headachey, sore throaty, tummy achey, 'I'm just about to come down with something nasty' feeling. Uggh! I hate feeling like this. I just had to get the dress finished though. I need my table space for crafting HP swap goodness. I managed to get the majority of one project done yesterday and I have a few more in the pipeline. My partner Kathleenalice is a Hufflepuff! My first Hufflepuff! I've swapped with all the other houses and some more than once. Kathleenalice has some interesting favourite characters and seems pretty open as to want she wants to receive, so I should be able to have some fun!

Back to Hogwarts

The next Harry Potter swap has sucked me in - 'Because we miss Harry Potter' kicks off the 1st of March - Whooppee!!

I have sort of warmed up with the FOC Secret Swap; my stalkee was the totally awesome Sevsonlygirl and she has now received her package from me - Phew! She said she liked it, so I'm quite relieved. Stalking the galleries is no good for your blood pressure when you're waiting for your partner to receive. And of course, if you know Sevs, you know that she's a huge HP fan (okay, a huge Snape fan!), so I did make her a FBB in Slytherin colours to celebrate her passion for the one and only Severus Snape. I resisted the temptation to go all out HP for the FOC swap, but it was hard!

I'm actually co-organising the HP swap with the totally amazing Superhooker - well, she's doing the majority of the work at this point, I'll be doing the gallery and sending/receiving side of things. I can't wait to get started, I have a few ideas already! I can maybe get started on the non-house specific things....I'm watching the Goblet of Fire on the movie channel at the moment and I'm really coveting a Quidditch style hoodie with 'Ginny' or 'Weasley' on the back! I'll have to see if I can find a dark red hoodie somewhere. I've been watching all the films consecutively for ideas - I haven't made it to the OOTP yet, but I'm nearly there. I'm also replaying the Deathly Hallows on my mp3 player :-) I love the bit where Snapes Patronus reveals his true love...ahhh...old magic....it bought a lump to my throat :-)

Oh yes, I got my new camera! Hurray! I'll be snap happy for a while at least! I'm still working on the dress; the bodice is now done and I'm sewing the skirt panels together at the moment. More piccies tomorrow when I've not had anything to drink *lol*

It's windy here; not the sort of earthquaky sort of feeling of Tuesday night, but still, very windy....

Egyptian Bloggers

This story from the BBC news homepage interested me; it's about Egyptian Bloggers who use their blogs as a platform for discussing political issues and debates that many people in their country are afraid to discuss. One student in particular is standing trial for religious contempt for expressing his views on his blog. Some bloggers are discussing political and human rights issues, giving eyewitness accounts and footage to events which have been denied by the authorities. I feel lucky to live in a country where I have an automatic right to freedom of speech and thought. Hopefully bloggers will change the world eventually.

Ravelers in the Park!

Sunday afternoon I had the pleasure to be part of the first Ravelry Northants group meeting held in the Abington Park Cafe. Dutchoma, Nightcrickett, who brought her excellently behaved son, Max, Catknit, Honeygirl, Funkypixie and myself all took over a corner of the cafe and chatted and knitted for a couple of hours until hunger and the cold (for me I'm afraid - I can't tolerate the cold and my hands had started to seize up). There were a few sock projects on the go (including mine, the Fake Isle socks), because they are just sooo portable, Dutchoma was knitting a prem baby outfit, and Funkypixie had a very complicated lace pattern going on. I can't do lace without total concentration :-) I meant to take photos with my phone camera, but I forgot and so I found a stock photo of the cafe in the summer - I wish it had been warm enough for t-shirts on Sunday.

I had to take my socks to do, because the only other fibre project I have on the go at the moment is the Tassel-edged wrap, which is much too bulky to carry round to work on, and is nearing completion (you'll all be glad to hear!) I'm at the sewing tassels stage, and like many crocheters, I find this the most tedious part of the process!

(By the way, I also met up with GOK last week too, she made lunch for me in her fabulous Gothic basement dining hall and we talked for hours!)

I just want to be finished and done so that I can wear it, and move onto the next project, which I have already decided will be a scarf from the same book. I ought to photocopy the pages because I'm terrified of renewing it at the library and being forced to give it back mid-project *lol*

Now, I know you're all interested in the dress?! No? Well, I'm going to bore you with it anyway. Look, I've almost completed the bodice! Yay for me! I love the comfortable and tactile feeling of corduroy, and the embroidered corduroy is lovely!

M and I ordered the Bourne Ultimatum on PPV (pay per view) last night and whilst I was watching this, I finished and embellished the scarf I made to go with my Kublai Khan hat. I was inspired by a very expensive stocking stitch scarf with sequined embellishments that I saw in Accessorize for about £25. This is my version. All from my stash. Cost = nothing. It's lovely and long and will wrap round my neck about three times *lol*

All those beads and sequins are hand stitched onto satin ribbon, and then the ribbon is stitched onto the scarf.

I can't wait for a certain someone to receive a certain package!

Once you pop, you can't stop!

My soap experiments appear to have worked well. This is my half and half soap, stripped of its Pringles tube mould. In case it was a bit soft, I took the precaution of freezing it first. The wrapper came off easily and the soap cut well. This is what I looked like before I cut it. The orangey half is the half with the palm oil, scented with patchouli oil. The creamy half is the part without the palm oil in; just coconut oil, olive oil, almond oil and rapeseed oil, with amaryllis and ylang ylang essential oils. I try and avoid palm oil when I can; the palm oil industry is responsible for the slaughter of many Oran utangs and the destruction of their natural habitat, and as a vegetarian, and animal rights activist for many years, I just can't bring myself to finance that sort of industry. I don't know why I bought the first jar; it was a moment of weakness - I desperately wanted to try soap making and didn't want to use animal fats. If this experiment works, I won't need to use palm oil either - hurray!

I've had a thumping headache for the last day, one of those horrible between the eyes sort of headaches. I'd like to think it's hormonal, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it's got more to do with my current addiction with my DS Lite. I've been guilty of playing Narnia until the wee small hours, yes, brain-draining instead of brain-training. I can feel my IQ diminishing as we speak! I managed to get past a really sticky bit that had been holding me back and now my sons of Adam and daughters of Eve have been merrily dashing around Narnia, bashing all the White Witches wicked minions. I also managed to get my Gamecube set up in my nest, so tonight when M is shooting stuff on the PC, I'll be taking Harry Potter round Hogwarts :-) We share a craft/hobby room, the PC is in one end of the room, and my nest with all my craft stuff is in the other end of the room. Usually I craft when he's on the PC, but occasionally I fancy a bit of gaming too, and I don't want to play downstairs on my own. I plan on getting a bit more done on the dress this afternoon. I'm currently piecing the bodice together.

Oh yes, you'll all be pleased to know that M was paid yesterday and so I have ordered a new camera! Hurray! This is the little beauty that is currently winging it's way to me courtesy of Amazon! I can't wait for it to arrive. 12 mega pixels of Fuji technology!

I tried my hand at making my own falafels this afternoon too. The recipe and stuff will be on my 101 blog. They were so yummy and so easy to make, and much healthier than ready made ones, because I baked them rather than fried them, that I think I will never buy ready made again!

Sneaky suprises

Well, yesterday was a nice little surprise; I received a package from my secret FOC with these lovely things in, but was confused by the lack of identity, just a return name and address. So I notified the swap organisers asking them for more info so that I could thank my partner personally, and it turns out that this is a teaser package and the name on the package is that of a big craft shop in America. How tricksey of my partner!

So I still have a package to come and the mystery deepens *lol*

I've just signed up for the 'Because we miss Happy Potter' swap and am co-organising with Superhooker. It's a good way of dipping my toe in the waters of the swap world as one of my goals is to organise one completely. And how can I resist a Harry Potter swap?

Do you know what? It snowed yesterday! Really! Snow in February! Now I know many of you will be thinking that that's nothing, but here in Numpty, smack bang in the centre of England, we hardly ever get snow! And to get it in February! Wow! It's gone now though! Mandy came up to have the wood that Chalky had pruned from our cherry tree on Monday as she's got a wood burner and never passes up the opportunity for free fuel. I made lunch for us both and we had a good natter.

On Monday I made some patchouli soap and used up alot of my vegetable oils, but only filled half of my mould, so I decided to make some more soap to fill up the rest of it. I'd used up all my palm oil, but I still had some coconut oil, some rapeseed oil, some sweet almond oil and some olive oil, so as a little experiment, I used pretty much even quantities of each. The resulting mixture took alot longer to come to trace, but is paler and seems much creamier than most I've made using the palm oil, which is really orange. I'd like to see if I can find something else to use instead of the palm oil, for the sake of the Oran utangs , but I'm having problems finding a substitute that's vegetarian. I've been trying to find a local source for beeswax which would allow to make vegetarian soap that's a little firmer. This soap is amaryllis and ylang ylang. I can't wait to see how it turns out.

The procrastination of the dress is taken to the next step. I hate cutting fabric out. I only have one place that's large enough to spread fabric out, and that's my floor downstairs, so I have to vacuum first, and then I have to fight off the advances of the minions who are desperate to come and assist me in my endeavours.

Pippin has taken to diving into the pieces or grabbing at my hands as they're trying to pin or cut pieces. *Shakes fist* damn her! But all my pieces are cut now, thank goodness; it's a cold and backbreaking task, but now that bit's done, the sewing should be relatively easy. I suspect that the pattern I have is the wrong size, (McCalls are American right? Their sizing's different) but I cut larger just in case. So now I'm looking at this pile of fabric pieces, trying to motivate myself into pinning it all together on Chia'anna.

Oo yeah, I've taken part in some sneakiness myself and appropriated the Gamecube up to my nest. M never plays it, he likes PC games, so the games we play together downstairs are usually on the 64. The Gamecube is mostly my stuff and when I want to play it is when M's watching the football or something, so I've moved it. Mwuahahaha! Now I'm being tricksey!

All wrapped up

Look, my wrap has flowers! Not all the way round yet, but it's getting there. And when the flowers are finished I'll still have to add the tassels, but I'm liking it. It's really long and warm. I wrapped it around myself whilst I was crocheting flowers on the other day.

I've been dabbling in a spot of stamp carving too. This is a gift for someone who likes vampire literature. I hand carved the stamp on Saturday whilst the boys were all downstairs watching the football. Whoever decided that football should be played on a Saturday should be shot! I hate that such a nice sunny day was wasted. Well, not by me anyway, I was crocheting and carving my little arse off! We just should have been out and about. Bloody ManU!

I was quite pleased with the results, they came out better than I could have hoped for.

I made postcards in 3 different colours, all appropriately vampire-ish; black, red and purple.

And I have a swap package all wrapped up and ready to go. Here's a little teaser. I hope the recipient likes it.

Today's been spent doing housework, having dental check-ups (no work needed, hurray!), visiting Mum, making patchouli soap and supervising C's tree surgery. He really pruned our cherry tree hard, but I'm hoping it'll go mad once spring hits in earnest. He's coming back to do the greengage tree at the front of the house in a couple of days. Other plans for this week are to try and drag my mate out somewhere, even if it's just a walk up to rabbit field with the dogs, I've been invited to lunch on Thursday by a new friend I first met through my local Freecycle group, and then 'bumped' into on Ravelry. Small world eh? Friday I have a bit of freelancing at the local pottery studio, a jewellery party and a pottery party. Saturday I'm going to try and head into town early enough to visit a friend at her work (she's a reiki healer and does lots of complimentary therapies, so I'm being nosey!) and I haven't seen her to catch up with for ages. Sunday, the local group for my county on Ravelry is getting together a stitch 'n' bitch session in the park cafe in town. I think my socks will be the perfect project to take, small and light.

Happy Valentines Day!

I hope you all had a sweetie to shower you with loving attention this Valentines Day. Mine gave me a single red rose, a bunch of flowers (which I ended up having to split into several recepticles as I only posess one small vase), and a bottle of vodka which he called my card. Now, I know he had actually forgotten by the 'rabbit in the headlights' look which he sported in the morning, but he made up for it later. What can I say? He's had alot going on this week - I've been out alot and he's been audited twice for work (one of which earnt him a payrise) so I'll forgive him. He doesn't usually forget. We celebrated the day with my card :-)

I finished the details for my FBB by lining it with some matching fabric

Including a neat little pocket

and a hand embroidered flower pin detail which is entirely removeable so the the pin can be worn as a brooch.

I made fresh pasta from scratch this week. Check out my 101 blog for the details. My Uncle was buried but I wasn't able to get the time off to attend the funeral. It was Valentines Day, so M and I toasted him with my card.

Last night I went with the girls to the Bellydance and Burlesque night. No pictures I'm afraid as I am still sans camera I said you would get very sick of me complaining about my lack of camera but it was a great night. The theatre is the tiniesy little place you can imagine. It's part of a row of old Victorian terrace houses, the two up two down variety, the bar was in the front room, the stage and seats in the back room. Very small. You were definately up close and personal with the performers *lol* The whole show was very low budget, but utterly charming. It made me think of the early days of theatre, in very small, cheap venues. No flashy set, no expensive musical accompaniment, the acts were introduced by a costumed narrater who climbed off the stage and back into her seat on the front row between acts. We had belly dancing, tribal, Egyptian and cabaret; we had poetry, we had tableaux vivant, burlesque dancing, and musical performances with performers singing along to their instruments. It was mostly a female audience with group of gay, transvestite (and one possible transexual - no-one could be sure) friends. We took the opportunity to dress up to the nines, with plenty of sparkles, basques, long flowing skirts and in my case, big boots and stripey tights, but I think I was the exception *lol* We drank lots of wine, admired the technical expertise of the performers, complained that no-one dressed up to go out any more and laughed alot. Chris' husband picked her up afterwards and very kindly gave me a lift home afterwards so I didn't even have to brave the local taxi service (which I had steeled myself very reluctantly to do). Time out with the girls is good. No-one even mentioned football - hurray!

Today has been spent in catching up with a few chores (boo), hula hooping and yoga (hurray), adding flowers to my tassle edged wrap (hurray) and entertaining M's friends who are round to watch the football (boo). They are keeping my wine glass topped up though (hurray). C has promised to come round and do a bit of tree surgery for us this week as I'm off all week on half term (double hurray and party poppers!)