The first of my Christmas present crafts, this, and one I’m pretty pleased with — a variation on my own knitting needle case which will be going to Mrs Eat a Vegan.  The beautiful floral fabric is by Heather Bailey, which I picked up at the Lola Rose stand at the Knitting and Stitching show; the ribbon is from A Rubanesque in the Powerscourt Centre.

I say “pretty pleased” because there is fierce puckering going on at the top of the plain cream fabric, where it meets the green ribbon and the red lines that make up the needle pockets.  The photo above is terribly forgiving of this puckering, but I’ve tested it out and, when the pockets are full, it’s not quite so noticeable.  On my own case, I happened to use the patterned fabric in that section, which turns out to be an unexpectedly wise move — a patterned fabric which will hide a multitude of sins; as you can see below, slight wonkiness in the lines is completely unimportant when given some camouflage.

However, some imperfections notwithstanding, it does its job, and I entirely love the fabbo floral print, of which I have some leftovers.

I am a long-standing naysayer of Twisted Thread’s Knitting and Stitching Show: the entrance fee is ridiculously overpriced (€13 for a concession ticket! in order to go and spend money at a fair!), it is populated solely by razor-elbowed oul ones and the selection is uniformly crappy, appealing only to the razor-elbowed audience.  (When telling my mother about this, she called me ageist: I fully admit it, but I have plenty of experience of the blue rinse brigade and let me tell you this for nothing, it’s not the young that don’t have manners.)  I can’t not go, though, because if and when I do, that is the year it’s guaranteed to be good.

My patience paid off this year — it was actually worth the trip out on the 4A!  The stalls were very similar to previous years for the most part, including the frankly maddening inclusion of stalls given over to the sale of sweets, fancy scarves and what can only be described as special mops (no crafter worth her salt goes to an event styling itself “The Knitting and Stitching Show” for a special mop; stop wasting valuable space which could be given over to notions, event organisers!).  But there were a significant few that really made my show, which demonstrate that even a behemoth like the K&S Show is not impervious to the modern world: Doughtys impressed with their tremendous selection of Amy Butler fabrics at €10 a metre; Village Fabrics had a fantastic range of quilting fabrics, including some gorgeous William Morris designs I’d never seen before; Cara Craft Supplies‘ stall was completely milled for the duration I was in the RDS, which I ascribe to the brilliant selection in various papercraft odds and ends (that’s a technical term) that were available for half nothing; and probably my stall of the show was from Galway’s Lola Rose, where I spent the lion’s share of my pin money on some only gorgeous Heather Bailey fabrics that I haven’t found anywhere else in person.  In addition, there were some great wool stalls from the likes of This is Knit, but seeing as I already have a stash reproaching me, I steered away from them, tempting though they were.  I won’t post any photos of my purchases now: most of them are supplies for Christmas crafting and in any case I’m itching to do something with them sooner rather than later, so they’ll be up here in no time.

It’s only because of the pincushions I made recently that I’ve been working with felt, and to my surprise I found I really liked working with it — previously it’s always seemed like cheating because of how easy it is, but my mind has been changed.  I’ve been rooting round Flickr for some ideas for crafting with felt, and here are a few that caught my eye.

Christmas ornaments by casscette

Finger puppet nativity, by abbie*christine

Blogged at mmmcrafts

Tea cosy by Bella Dia

Jaw-dropping iPod cosy by Coolbeans717

If anything, I’m even more pleased with my pear pincushions than with the strawberry pincushions I posted up yesterday (which were the sole reason I bought the Heather Bailey pattern in the first place) — even though I’ve never seen a pear quite this yellow before.

The Heather Bailey pattern makes use of patterned woven fabric as well as felt in the body of the cushion; I’ve steered away from this because, though I really liked the multi-coloured effect on her samples, I prefer a simple single colour.  I’m also a bit concerned that, if stabbed with pins enough times, a woven fabric will show wear and tear far more readily than hardy old felt.  I already have pieces cut to make another couple of pears, so pleased am I with the result.

It’s taken a long time to actually get them made (oh the travails of finding adequate craft supplies in Dublin), but I’ve finally managed to make them — strawberry pincushions.

I’ve had a bee in my bonnet about these for a long time, partly because I saw an outrageously-priced Cath Kidston strawberry pincushion over the summer.  I still thought it was a cute idea, and thought they’d be a great Christmas gift component for the crafters in my life.  I wasn’t too sure about how to make it up myself though, so for this project I used Heather Bailey’s Fresh-Picked Pincushions pattern, which also includes patterns for apple, pear and tomato pincushions.  I already have  a couple of pears in the making now, which I hope to post within the next few days.  While I’m quite pleased with how the straberries turned out, they are surprisingly time-intensive for such small things (I made the large-sized strawberries and the body of each is only about 2″).  I would say, though, that it’s worth taking the time to add the extra details.  I didn’t think to use a contrasting colour to blanket-stitch the green star-shaped leaf to the body of the strawberry on my first one, and it just looks rubbish:

So don’t do that.

Photo by Julian Holtom

Warning: fannish glee ahead.

Having now seen Hawley at least four times (at one point in last night’s gig I tried to get the exact number — it could possibly be as many as six times, but it’s definitely at least four), I can safely say that last night’s turn at the Olympia was, by a country mile, the best. A combination of factors contributed to this, such as the compact but well-chosen setlist, mostly taken from Hawley’s latest, Truelove’s Gutter, how tight the band’s sound was, etc, but most striking was how cool the stage looked.  Hawley and his guitarist Shez have always looked stupendously cool with their suits and their beautiful guitars, but everything else was sharpened up — gone were the Vegas-style satin swags from the backdrop which were present on the last (at least) two occasions I’ve seen Hawley, leaving a terribly atmospheric black expanse behind the band.  Though extremely simple, this black space was used to devastating effect when combined with judicious use of smoke and lights.  In addition, the irredeemably naff keyboard that was on show last time was now housed in a discreet wooden piano-like casing (Hawley, introducing the band, introduced pianist Jon Trier as being “on piano and post office counter”).  I’m a suggestible creature and looks go a long way: last night, the band looked like they meant business.

They also sounded it, though Hawley, after the opener, informed the audience that he was unwell — so unwell that he’d considered calling the show off altogether.  All I can say is that I wish I sounded like this when I’m sick.  The piece of paper on which I recorded the setlist simply notes that “Lady Solitude” and “The Sea Calls” (a song which always comes alive in performance but which I think is flat as a pancake on record) were “GORGEOUS”; “For Your Lover Give Some Time” benefitted from a superb acoustic, drum-less rendition; and a completely epic “Run for Me” was probably my highlight of the night*.  But really, there was no let-up in quality, either from the poorly frontman or anyone else on stage.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Hawley is meant to be seen live.  There are plenty of times on record that he shines but I don’t think he’s yet recorded a full album that does justice to a live show.  This was amply supported by the show last night, with practically every song benefitting somehow from the live performance; Hawley can create a rapport with an audience that’s second to none when he has a mind to do so.  And, of course, when he’s on form, Hawley’s a funny man (introducing “the Haagen-Dazs” song, he said that “he may be a Judas, but a no longer fucking skint Judas”; after a polite smattering of applause when a song off the new album was announced, he observed that “that was ten copies sold anyway”).

See comments for setlist.

———————–

*And yet, this was the very song during which the man and woman sitting next to me — I had the aisle seat — chose to go to the bathroom.  Separately.  What is wrong with people?

I feel I should explain my recent quietness.  Over the past two weeks, I’ve been suffering from some kind of bug (the doctor said it “laryngitis, bronchitis, all the itises”, which surprised me) which has made it difficult for me to just deal with college reading, let alone doing anything else much*.  I still have all sorts of ideas for making things, many of them Christmas related, but because I haven’t much in the way of supplies right now, those too are on the back burner.  I’m still here, anyway.

*No, this didn’t stop me from attending Jonathan Richman last week, but it has to be said that it, along with the way I was roaring “MORE!” at the end, probably didn’t do me much good the next day.

An especially quick review, because I have so little to say: Richman (vocals, guitar and bells) was joyous and lovely, Tommy (drummer) TORE it up frequently, the audience, especially yours truly, went mad.  Setlist in the comments.

It’s back to school time for me — I know, a bit later than for most — and that means it’s time to cover my new books.

My light reading.

I like to use pretty papers which I cover in sticky-backed plastic before cutting to size.  So protection for the protective wrapping, there.

Then, assuming I can be minded to crank up the printer, I like to make a few labels, which I attach with more sticky-backed plastic.  And now I can face my “Reading the Renaissance Bible” course with pride.

In order to justify some new fabric purchases, I’m trying to use up the remnants of other projects that are hanging about.  Thus this afternoon I made up a few lavender sachets, using this tutorial, and they’re very satisfying — useful, pretty, quick.  I was so pleased with them that I’m sure I’ll be making a batch or two for Christmas presents.