Big day - quick post

I'm dashing about today as I'm leaving this evening for my new job (here). However, yesterday was such a big day that I need to write a quick post about it now, so that it doesn't get lost in all the new job/new home palaver.

The day started with a parade in the centre of town where my dad's army unit got freedom of the city of Manchester. There was a lot of standing about, but it was still quite an impressive event. Here's a picture from the BBC website (taken by Ed Swinden with an amazing lens that I really want).



Then after that I went to a Manchester Literary Festival event, Words on Asylum and Refuge, organised by the beautiful girl for Amnesty International. It was a fantastic event, very moving and interesting. The best part for me was the talk given by Mende Nazer, who you may know a bit about if you saw the film I Am Slave last year (staring my fellow MGCer Wunmi Mosaku). I don't think anything can compete with the effect of seeing her talk about her experiences in person, but I do want to find out more about her, so I will definitely be reading her book, Slave, soon.

Some of mine and the beautiful girl's other friends came to the event, so we went for lunch afterwards, which was lovely. But then I had to dash off to go to the Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair. Apparently it's been going on for a few years, but I'd never heard of it before recently. My very thoughtful brother got me a ticket for my birthday, as I'd asked for experiences not objects.

There were lots of amazing things there, which will keep me inspired for a good while. It was quite nice to see that all of the stuff there was out of my price range. Everything was well priced for the work that had gone into it, which I was pleased about. I quite often see crafters pricing their work very cheaply in order to make a sale. But at the fair, there were lots of sales being made, and lots of interest. I've taken a few cards for future birthday requests. The hats in particular were wonderful. I loved these by Sarah Cant, and these by H'atelier, who actually has a shop in Manchester that I have somehow never seen.

It was a very lovely day, and a nice way to round off my very quick trip back home in between jobs. Hopefully, I will have time on the farm to keep up with this blog, and I'll be taking my camera with me in order to capture my time there. Wish me luck.

PS

For anyone who isn't cool enough to know already (where have you been?), this is a lino-cutter. In fact, this is pretty much the one I have:




These are the sorts of things you can make with one:











I am aware that the hole in my plan is my inability to draw, but I will just have to get my talented and generous friends (you know who you are) to doodle things for me to trace and cut out into a stamp.

Writing and Hair

Thanks to The Rejectionist for this cool site - it analyses your writing and tells you who you're most comparable to. I got Margaret Atwood, which is a nice compliment, but looking at Tea Berry-Blue's research into the site, it would appear that the person responsible for the coding may not be lovely sort of person you might hope.

Apart from generally procrastinating on the internet and watching 9-5 today, I have also finished One Day by David Nicholls (it's not without fault, but I did cry buckets at the end, which was exactly what I needed), and dyed my hair a shade of red that made the water I rinsed with look like a river of blood. Not sure that last part was the best idea ever, since I have to give a presentation at a very important sales conference with work in a couple of weeks. I need to look important and respectable in a way that blood-red hair may not quite enable me to do. I'm hoping that if I team it with a lovely green vintage dress, I will look charming and memorable, which is about the best I can ever hope for.

Later, I will be baking cookies for a party at work and doing some more crafting. All in all a lovely weekend, but it is conspicuously missing any time spent writing. I cannot even consider writing anything without shuddering with revulsion at the thought of my output. I think I may have to ease my way back into this with a resurrection of a fiction journal.

More Crafting

I have previously made a purple cupcake purse using this tutorial, found via Whip-up.

It started to look very tatty after rattling around in the bottom of my messy bag for over a year, so I made a new one. It's a little bit more grown up...maybe 25 is too old to be making cupcake purses, or maybe I just needed a change:

This is the first crafting I've done since moving down here. I couldn't bring any of my craft supplies with me, and I've been feeling a little lost without them. Luckily when I was down in Devon recently with my HLP we found a lovely little craft shop, where I got the heart ribbon (amongst other things). Then today I went to investigate the only craft shop in this one-horse town and found it was actually far better than I thought it was going to be. Sure, it's nowhere near as good as my favourite places back home, but it is still really good. I got everything else needed for the purse, including the lovely button there.

Lanterns

A friend of mine got married this summer, the reception went through the afternoon and into the evening. One of the many lovely things she had to decorate the grounds of the place she had the reception at was a labyrinth lined with jam-jar lanterns.
Before the wedding, a few of us got together to decorate the lanterns, but I could only stay to do one. I got a taste for making them and did several when I got home. I was in the midst of a pickled onion addiction at the time and so I had plenty of large empty jars to cover in glue and tissue paper.
I've not posted the pics yet so I thought I'd get some on here. I did make 5 or 6 jars, but I've only taken pics of the ones I took to the caravan last time I stayed. They photographed really well, I especially like the one with the foil confetti stuck between the layers of tissue.

PS crochet

PS for anyone like me who has always wanted but failed to crochet, Meet me at Mikes has a series of posts about how to crochet. There are so far 10 parts of the series, taking you right through from the very start to making a granny square.
This will be the very next craft thing I try, the posts look really good and I've wanted to crochet for ages. It's apparently easy, but my feeble previous attempts have all looked like a ball of yarn that's been attacked by a cat.
Try, try and try again.

Crafting

I've been pretty busy recently, as well as making the cupcake purse I mentioned previously, I also had to make a new bag because my old one fell apart.

On top of those personal projects I've been knitting my stip for the ArtYarn project, which is based at the wonderful Craft and Design Centre in Manchester. For the project you need to knit or crochet a strip which is 7cm by 40cm and either take it in to the craft centre office on the first floor of the Craft and Design Centre or you can post it to Manchester Craft and Design Centre, 17 Oak St, Northern Quarter, Manchester, M4 5JD, England, UK.

People from all over the world are taking part in order to 'celebrate the many versatilities and techniques of knitting and crochet from around the world'. I've knitted my piece, and naturally its pink and fluffy - they do say 'the brighter and wackier the better'.

Whip Up

I love all sorts of crafts, possibly to the point of addiction. Blame it on my need to be creative when I have writer's block, blame it on my parents sending me to Brownies from age 7 - my brown owl was virtually a pusher when it came to crafts.

Anyway, whatever it is, I'm sick, I have a room full of millions of pretty papers, wools, yarns, ribbons, beads, and anything else you can think of to make things from.

I don't think I'll be getting better anytime soon because I had the good/mis-fortune to find an amazing craft website which has page after page of new crafty ideas. It's called Whip Up - only check it if you have a lot of time on your hands, or if you don't but you're sick like me.

I found the site yesterday evening and went straight to my craft supplies to make a super-cute cupcake felt purse. I know it's wrong, but it felt so good!