The Magic Bean

Whipping Up a Guest Blog Post About Creativity

Today I am guest blogging at Whip Up.  Kathreen, who writes the blog Whip Up, has asked creative types, including me, to write about their creative process for her special guest blogger series.

I've been really enjoying reading about other people's creative journeys as part of this series.  I hope you'll enjoy reading about mine.  Click the link to read about My 4 Essential Creative Truths.

I'd really be interested to know - do any of my creative truths ring true with you?  What are your creative truths?  I hope I'm not the only one who gets creative while wearing one shoe or in the shower.  Having said that,  I just found this quotation which suggests that I'm not alone in how my creative epiphanies dawn:

“Everyone who’s ever taken a shower has had an idea. It’s the person who gets out of the shower, dries off and does something about it who makes a difference.” — Nolan Bushnell

Want to read more about my creative process?  Here are some of my thoughts on Finding Inspiration and The Evolution of a Doll Design Idea.

Here's hoping you come out of the shower with an idea and then do something with it!

 

Tea Towels Fit for a Queen

If you are looking for a special something to make in time for the Queen's Golden Jubilee in June or maybe something to make your mum for mother's day, these tea towels will make anyone feel like a queen.

 
These tea towels were inspired by a story my mum told me about her mum.  Apparently, when I was just a baby, my mum, my grandmother and an infant me were riding in the car.  I was feeling ill and was unfortunately and spectacularly sick all over my grandmother.  My mum pulled the car to the side of the road and changed my clothes in the boot of the car (that's the trunk for North Americans).  My grandmother stood to the side of the car, gingerly and by all reports, rather uselessly dabbing at herself with a tissue when she said in a very dry voice "I was born to be royalty, but something happened". 

What you need:

•  Standard sewing equipment such as sewing machine, thread, hand sewing needles, pins, shears etc
• 1 yard (1m) of 60" (152cm) wide fabric for tea towels OR two pre-made plain white tea towels (try to get one without a nap or texture).  If you are using fabric look for something thicker than quilting cotton and thinner than canvas in cotton that can be washed.
• a selection of quilting cottons to be used for appliquing the crown and Union Jack flag (I used 7 different fabrics)
• Double sided bonding sheet such as Steam a Seam 2 or Wonder Under
• An embroidery hoop (I used a 8" or 20.3cm in diameter hoop)
• A darning foot or free motion machine embroidery foot for your sewing machine
• High quality polyester sewing thread such as Gutermann in black for decorative stitching and in colour to match tea towels if you are making your own from fabric
• Purple fade away marker

You'll also need the templates for the applique and embroidery, click the links to download the two templates in PDF format:

Download I was born to be royalty with crown

Download I was born to be royalty with Union Jack

How to make the tea towels:

1.  Pre-wash all your fabric.  Check that none of the dyes in the fabric have run in the applique fabrics in particular.  If the colours have bled, choose another fabric or your finished tea towels could be ruined after their first wash. 

If you are using pre-made tea towels skip to Step 4.

2.  Tea towels do vary in size so you can make them any size you wish (you may want to use one of your own tea towels as a template for size).  My finished tea towels are 15½" x 22" (39.4cm x 55.9cm).  Add 1" (2.5cm) to each edge as an allowance for hemming.  So to cut tea towels the exact same size as mine, cut two pieces of fabric each 17½" x 24" (44.5cm x 61cm).

3.  Turn the raw edges on each edge of each tea towel over by ½" (1.3cm) and press.  Then turn them over another ½" (1.3cm) and press again.  Pin the hem in place.  By machine, edge stitch the hem down.

4. Print the applique and embroidery templates that you downloaded onto paper.  If you have a light desk, break that out and fire it up, but if you don't own a light desk, simply tape the paper templates to a window with the sun shining through.  Lay the hemmed tea towel on top of the paper template.  If you are using a window, you may need to tape the tea towel in place.

 
5.  Using a purple fade away marker, trace the letters onto the tea towel fabric.  As much as possible you will try to stitch continuously from one word to the next, so use the marker to draw lines that gracefully connect one word to the next.

 
6.  Place the tea towel in an embroidery hoop.  Normally you would want the lip of the hoop to be on the wrong side of the fabric, but in this case, you want the lip facing up, so that when you take the tea towel to the sewing machine, the wrong side of your work will be facing down and flat. You will not be able to get all words to fit into the hoop at once. 

 
7.  Set up your sewing machine for free motion machine embroidery.  Change your presser foot to a darning or free motion machine embroidery foot.  Be sure to either drop your sewing machine’s feed dogs or cover them with a plate (the feed dogs are the metal teeth which feed the fabric at an even rate through the machine).  If you don’t know which you need to do for your machine, consult your sewing machine manual.  Thread your machine and bobbin with black thread. 

8.  When your machine is set up, you will need to gently lift your darning foot to sneak the embroidery hoop under the foot.  Both a darning foot and a free motion machine embroidery foot are on springs, so it is very easy to push the foot up in order to accommodate the lip of the hoop. 

9.  When you begin stitching, loosely hold the top thread in your hand and use the hand wheel to lower your needle into the fabric where you wish to begin sewing, and keep the presser foot up.  Bring the needle back up again using the hand wheel and pull on the thread to bring the bobbin thread to the top side of the fabric. You do this by pulling the tail of thread on the top side of the fabric to bring up a loop of the bobbin thread.  Pull the loop until the bobbin thread sits on top of the fabric. Lower your presser foot and begin stitching.  You can travel in any direction and you control the speed at which the fabric is fed through the machine.  

 
10.  Stitch over the outline of the letters a total of three times.  You do not need to keep the stitching neat, in fact, the loose and slightly messy look really works well for this project.  When you travel from one word to the next, do not go over the join three times, just the once will do.  This helps to make the join less obvious making the bolder letters stand out.  You won't be able to stitch the entire phrase at once, as the whole thing will not fit in the embroidery hoop at one time.  I completed "I was born to be" at one time, then "but something".  I then moved the hoop and completed "royalty" and then "happened".   

 

11.  When you are finished, use your hand wheel to lift the needle to its highest point, lift the presser foot, pull the fabric away from the machine and snip your threads leaving longish tails.  At the end of your stitching pull the tail of thread on the bottom side of the fabric in order to bring up a loop of the thread from the right side.  Pull the loop until the thread sits on the wrong side of the fabric.  Tie both the threads from the beginning and ending of your stitching in a reef or an square knot or thread the tails of your thread onto a needle and anchor the thread tails into the existing stitching and cut the ends off.  This means that, the tails from the beginning of the stitching will be tied on the right side of the fabric and the tails from the end of your stitching will be tied on the wrong side of the fabric.

 

12.  Now to create the applique.  Flip your template over to the wrong side of the page and place it on your light desk or tape it to a window for tracing. With your template flipped, you can now trace each element of the applique crown design onto the paper side of a piece of double sided bonding sheet.

 
13.  Iron the double sided bonding sheeting to the back of a different fabric for each element.  Although I traced the circles from the points of the crown and the "jewels" of the crown above, I ended up using fabrics with a circular printed motif, so I simply cut out the circles as they were printed on the fabric.  Cut out each shape on the outline.  Neither your tracing nor your cutting needs to be overly accurate as again this design looks good a little messy. 

 

14.  Peel the paper from the back of the cut out applique pieces.  Position the applique pieces using the template as guidance for placement.  When you are happy with the position of the applique pieces iron them to adhere them to the fabric.

 
15.  Put your tea towel back into the embroidery hoop, with the lip facing up as you did before and using the same techniques as you did for outlining the letters, outline each element of the applique design a total of three times.  Remember that messy stitching works for this project.

 

16.  Repeat the same steps for the second tea towel using the Union Jack applique pattern.

 
17. Once your purple fade away marker has faded completely, iron the tea towels and present them either to your very own Queen Mum or someone else you want to make feel like royalty.

© Colleen Babcock 2011, All Rights Reserved

You are welcome to make as many of these tea towels for your own personal use, including to give as gifts. 

A Tale of Blue Fingernails

Last week I dyed my fingernails blue.  They stayed blue for a few days.  They were blue because I took a screen printing workshop at The Make Lounge in Islington, North London taught by Helen Rawlinson.  I did not resent the blue.  I kind of liked it.  It reminded me of a night of learning a new skill with a good friend surrounded by like-minded women.  No reason at all to feel blue. 

Plus, I made some super cool bags and a tea-towel so rockin' that my husband refuses to use it as a tea towel and wants to frame it.

Ever since I took a natural soap making course at The Make Lounge last year, I've wanted to take another one, but life conspired against me so that it took a whole year for my friend Bex and I to get back through the doors of the Make Lounge's workshop space.

But make it we did.  Helen gave us a brief run down of the screen printing process.

And before we knew it we were wielding crafts knives and cutting our images out of paper to use on our screens.  Helen came around and helped each person with their image.  Sometimes it can be a bit hard to get your head around the negative versus positive image thing, so Helen was on hand to help.

In my usual way, I was a complete geek and brought my own craft knife, a ceramic bladed beauty called the "Slice ".  Because of how precisely you can cut with this tool, I was able to use both the negative and positive image that I cut from my paper stencil. I actually found the image that I used at the Graphics Fairy, so you don't even need to be able to draw to give screen printing a try.

Once the stencil was cut, it was straight on to applying ink and creating my image on fabric.

And it was at some point after this that I dyed my fingernails blue.

You'd think with help from Helen, our workshop assistant Becky (who was a rockstar, by the way), and my friend Bex (above), I'd avoid any and all calamity, but I still managed to get some stray ink where I didn't want it.  However, as I tell my students when I teach, "There is no such thing as a mistake.  There is just creative redirection".

Nothing a well placed ruffle couldn't fix.

I love to try out new crafts like this and ever since I read A Field Guide to Fabric Design: Design, Print & Sell Your Own Fabric; Traditional & Digital Techniques; for Quilting, Home Dec & Apparel by Kim Kight, I've wanted to give this handmade version of fabric design a try. 

Normally, I'm very happy to buy a book and get stuck in by following the instructions.  That is how I first started making cloth dolls.  However, trying a new craft that requires specialist equipment without taking a course has pitfalls.

- you might not already have the equipment

- you could go through a lot of unnecessary trial and error that a teacher could have steered you clear of

- you could buy all the specialist equipment and find that you don't like that craft after all and then be stuck with it

Unlike cloth doll making, screen printing can be very messy and you need a lot of space.  And space is just not something I have a lot of.  So, The Make Lounge is my my messy craft oasis away from home.  Complete with cool people to hang out with, experts on hand and a power hose for washing down ink-laden screens.  What more could you ask for?  Except maybe an in-house manicurist for those blue finger nails.

Where the Wooly Things Are

For a dyed in the wool crafter with a background in costume design, nothing could be more attractive than a wild and wooly tour through the Wool Modern exhibit at the La Galleria in London with the curator, Charlotte Lurot before its official opening last night. The Campaign for Wool's patron HRH The Prince of Wales opened the show as part of the Wool Week festivities.

If you are lacking in creative motivation then head to Wool Modern for a flash of inspiration that will have your running for your knitting needles/loom/sewing machine/felting needle (delete as appropriate) with all due haste.

The exhibit is a mix of high fashion, sculpture, furniture, and installation art. Knitting, weaving, tailoring and felting all feature with legendary designers like Vivienne Westwood, Alexander McQueen and Thierry Mugler rubbing wool-clad elbows with young designers like Thom Browne, Kinder Aggugini and JW Anderson.

And this is not wool as the stereotypical tweed-wearing, wool jumper-toting traditionalist would recognise it. It's wool re-invented.

It's tradition turned on it's ear - like the Knit Monster by Silbing where skulls and Frankensteins replace the traditional motifs of a Fair Isle knit - giving us "Scare Isle".

Where decidedly staid pin-striped wool suiting is ripped to strips and then knitted and looped into a dress by designer Craig Lawrence.

Where wool ceases to be the preserve of business-like suits, tailored overcoats and sensible jumpers. It's wool subversive.

It's wool as rugs, lamps, clothes and everything in between.

Wool can even be strange little needle-felted sculptures like the piece entitled "Ernie" by Bethany Jen Fancher. Personally, I found that the strange little sculpture put me in mind of an internal organ on legs. I have no idea if the artist meant Ernie to be evocative of a lower intestine, but the inclusion of such a piece shows that this exhibit understands that wool is diverse. Because wool is a fibre unique in its ability to transform itself.

It accepts dye readily.

It can be felted - when you stab it with a barbed needle, when you rub it with water and soap and when you wash it in hot water in your washing machine.

It can be knit

It can be woven

It repels water

It's warm

It can be lightweight or strong beyond belief

Wool Modern communicates that wool is what you make of it. What will you make?

Kitchen Cliché Hot Pad Tutorial

There are many things that I am not good at. 

For instance, I am very bad at maintaining a frizz-free hairstyle for more than an hour.  My hair gets so frizzy and curly that I actually get two corkscrew curls that stick out from my temples like TV antennae.  I'm sure if I turned my head the right way I could receive the nightly news.

 
But there are few things that I am very good at and making handmade gifts is one of them.  Like any good kindergartner, I am also good at sharing.  Although my kindergarten report card said that I was also bossy.  And I am.  So I am now going to use all the things I am good at - I am going to share with you a handmade gift tutorial.  Follow these steps to make a set of Kitchen Cliché Hot Pads (see, I'm so bossy).

What you need:

•  Standard sewing equipment such as sewing machine, thread, hand sewing needles, pins, shears etc
• ½ yard (0.5m) of  canvas, denim, cotton ducking or other heavy weight fabric 
• ½ yard (0.5m) of batting (wadding in the UK)
• a selection of quilting cottons to be used for appliqueing the pot and the kettle (I used 5 different fabrics)
• Double sided bonding sheet such as Steam a Seam 2 or Wonder Under
• A darning foot or free motion machine embroidery foot for your sewing machine
• High quality polyester sewing thread such as Gutermann in black for decorative stitching and in a colour to match the heavy fabric of your hot pads
• Purple fade away marker

You'll also need the templates for the applique and embroidery, click the links to download the two templates in PDF format:

Download Can't stand the heat hot pad

Download Pot Calling the Kettle Black hot pad

How to make the hot pads:

1.  Pre-wash all your fabric.  Tip:  You may want to wash the fabric with some white vinegar to help set the colours and prevent bleeding.  Check that none of the dyes in the fabric have run in the applique fabrics in particular.  If the colours have bled, choose another fabric or your finished hot pads could be ruined after their first wash. 

2.  Cut 2 pieces of canvas or other heavy weight fabric at least 1" (2.5cm) larger than the hot pad pattern given on the down-loadable templates.  These will be the embroidered top side of the hot pads.

3.  Print the applique and embroidery templates that you downloaded onto paper.  If you have a light desk then dust that off and light it up, but if you don't own a light desk, simply tape the paper templates to a window with the sun shining through.  Lay one heavy weight fabric piece right side facing up on top of the paper template.  If you are using a window, you may need to tape the heavy weight fabric in place.

4.  Using a purple fade away marker, trace the letters onto the heavy weight fabric.  As much as possible you will try to stitch continuously from one word to the next, so use the marker to draw lines that gracefully connect one word to the next.

 
 
5.  The advantage of using a heavy weight fabric for this project is that you don't need to use an embroidery hoop to keep the fabric taut as you stitch the free motion machine embroidery. Not to mention that when made up into a hot pad it will also help to protect against burns.   

6.  Set up your sewing machine for free motion machine embroidery.  Change your presser foot to a darning or free motion machine embroidery foot.  Be sure to either drop your sewing machine’s feed dogs or cover them with a plate (the feed dogs are the metal teeth which feed the fabric at an even rate through the machine).  If you don’t know which you need to do for your machine, consult your sewing machine manual.  Thread your machine and bobbin with black thread. 

7.  When your machine is set up, begin stitching by loosely holding the top thread in your hand while using the hand wheel to lower your needle into the fabric where you wish to begin sewing (keep the presser foot up).  Bring the needle back up again using the hand wheel and pull on the thread to bring the bobbin thread to the top side of the fabric. You do this by pulling the tail of thread on the top side of the fabric to bring up a loop of the bobbin thread.  Pull the loop until the bobbin thread sits on top of the fabric. Lower your presser foot and begin stitching.  You can travel in any direction and you control the speed at which the fabric is fed through the machine.  

8.  Stitch over the outline of the letters a total of three times.  Make sure that you relax your shoulders as you stitch and don't worry too much about being neat.  A slightly sketchy, loose stitch style is what you are after with this project. When you travel from one word to the next, do not go over the join three times, just the once will do.  This helps to make the join less obvious making the bolder letters stand out.  

 

 
9.  When you are finished stitching the text, use your hand wheel to lift the needle to its highest point, lift the presser foot, pull the fabric away from the machine and snip your threads leaving longish tails.  At the end of your stitching pull the tail of thread on the bottom side of the fabric in order to bring up a loop of the thread from the right side.  Pull the loop until the thread sits on the wrong side of the fabric.  Tie both the threads from the beginning and ending of your stitching in a reef or an square knot or thread the tails of your thread onto a needle and anchor the thread tails into the existing stitching and cut the ends off.  This means that, the tails from the beginning of the stitching will be tied on the right side of the fabric and the tails from the end of your stitching will be tied on the wrong side of the fabric.

10.  Now to create the applique.  Flip your template over to the wrong side of the page and place it on your light desk or tape it to a window for tracing. With your template flipped, you can now trace each element of the applique pot or kettle design onto the paper side of a piece of double sided bonding sheet.

  
11.  Iron the double sided bonding sheeting to the back of a different fabric for each element.    Cut out each shape on the outline.  Neither your tracing nor your cutting needs to be overly accurate as again this design looks good a little messy. 

 

12.  Peel the paper from the back of the cut out applique pieces.  Position the applique pieces using the template as guidance for placement.  When you are happy with the position of the applique pieces iron them to adhere them to the fabric.

 
13.  Now to outline the applique shapes and really make them "pop" (not literally of course, just visually).  Use the same techniques as you did for outlining the letters to outline each element of the applique design a total of three times.  Remember that messy stitching looks great for this project.

 
 14.  Repeat the same steps for the second hotpad using the remaining applique pattern.

 
15.  Now to turn your embroidery into hot pads.  Start by making a handy loop from which to hang the hot pad.  Cut two strips of fabric 5½" x 2" (14cm x 5.1cm).  I used one of the quilting cottons that I chose for the applique.  Fold each strip in half along the length with right sides together.  By machine, stitch along the length of the strip ¼" (6mm) from the edge (pictured at left below).  Turn each strip right side out and press. 

 

16.  Cut out the paper hot pad pattern along the outline given on the template.  Fold the hot pad template in half and crease it at the centre.  Place thefabric embroidered front of your hot pad down on a surface right side up.  Place the paper hot pad template on top of the embroidered piece so that the embroidered stitching is lined up with the letters and image on the template.  Trace around the outer edge of the hot pad template with a purple fade away marker.  Mark the top centre of the hot pad where you creased the template when you folded it in half (this marks where you will stitch the fabric loop).

 
17.  Remove the template and mark a 4" (10.2cm) opening roughly centred at the bottom of the hot pad.  Do not cut out the hot pad now!

 
18.  Fold the strip you created in step 15 into a loop.  Using the mark at the centre top of the hot pad as a guide, place the loop on the right side of the hot pad with the loop facing down, making sure that the ends of the loop overlap the traced edges of the hot pad.  By machine, baste the loop in place at the top.  
 

19.  Now to create the back of the hot pad.  Cut 2 pieces of batting (wadding), plus one piece of heavy weight fabric at least 1" (2.5cm) larger than the hot pad pattern given on the down-loadable templates for each hot pad. 

20. By hand, baste the doubled layers of batting (wadding) to the wrong side of the back piece of heavy weight fabric.

21.  Pin the right side of the heavy weight fabric backed with batting (wadding) to the right side of the embroidered front of the hot pad.  Without cutting around the shape of the hot pad, sew from one side of the marked opening around to the other side of the opening directly on the traced line through all layers. 

 
22.  Cut out the hot pad leaving approximately ¼" (6mm) seam allowance around the sewn lines.  Trim the batting (wadding) as close to the seam as you can.

 
23.  Turn the hot pad right side out.  Turn under the seam allowances at the opening.  Press and pin the opening closed.

 
24.  By hand, slip stitch or ladder stitch the opening closed.

25.  Repeat steps 15-24 to complete the second hot pad.
 
© Colleen Babcock 2011, All Rights Reserved

You are welcome to make as many Kitchen Cliché Hot Pads as you would like for your own personal use, including to give as gifts. 

I hope that you enjoyed making these Kitchen Cliché Hot Pads with me.  If you want to see more of my free tutorials click the link.  If you don't want to miss out on any upcoming tutorials or any of the tutorials that I feature every Friday click the link to subscribe.

Wait there is another free tutorial from me today!

A special note to my mum:  Mum, I know you are reading this, but you have to stop right now.  You are not allowed to spoil my surprise.  But I am not completely without feeling, so I'll distract you with Josh Groban.

Now nobody tell my mum, but I've also created a second free tutorial.  Nobody can tell her anything about it.  You are all hereby sworn to secrecy.  Raise your right hand and repeat after me "I will not tell Colleen's mum, Kitty anything about the tutorial I am about to see".  There. It's official.

My mum can't see this tutorial because it will spoil her Mother's Day gift.  I am really excited to be guest blogging at The Crafter's File Box and sharing another tutorial that would be great for your mum or for another fantastic woman in your life.  Seeing as I can't present my mum with Josh Groban wrapped up with a bow on his head, these special "secret somethings" will have to do. 

Make sure to go over to The Crafter's File Box to see the "secret somethings" tutorial - and remember you can tell all your friends about it - just don't tell my mum.

Craft to Beat the Draft

 
 This weekend I resolved to do some recreational sewing and make a project from Betz White's book Sewing Green, juste pour le fun. 

I was using an old manky towel rolled up to stop a draft coming in the back door of my flat and well, it looked like an old manky towel.  I've been drooling over the draft excluder in Sewing Green for ages and even had an old pair of brown cords (that don't fit anymore and that my hubby professes to have always hated) that were ripe for re-purposing.

 
I have to say that I love the result.  Love it.  I loved it even more when I saw a draft excluder for sale in the garden centre for £20.  This one was made entirely from re-purposed items and scraps from my stash - it cost me nothing. 

 
And it has an adorable little snail.  I think I'll call him Arnold.

Betz has another book called Warm Fuzzies in North America (the same book is called Felt So Good in the UK) that you can check out.

 Betz also has some great free tutorials over on her blog, most of which are focused on re-purposing.  Check out Betz's eco friendly tutorials by clicking the link.

The thing I can tell you about crafting from re-purposed items is - it feels good, really good.  Try it, you'll like it.

What's the Big Idea?

A while ago I had a big idea.  It was so big in my mind that I didn't quite know what to do with it.  I didn't know how to get it off the ground.  The idea was this:  to go into women's shelters or eating disorder clinics and teach women how to make cloth dolls. 

Some people might think that cloth dolls are a bit frivolous for women in those situations.   To those people I would say that making little people out of cloth makes you look at yourself and everyone around you.  Whether you realise it or not, dolls are an expression of self identity and the very act of crafting them has a therapeutic effect.

People might think that it is silly to ask someone to express their grief, their anger or their self doubt through a doll.  I would say to those people that  you can certainly express those things through the human form and you can also express hope and joy and beauty. 

People might think that women who are at turning points in their lives won't want to sit and sew or glue or bead.  I would say to those people that sometimes the act of focussing on something else entirely helps you to see what's been in front of you all along or maybe it will be just be a distraction that makes getting through that one day a bit easier.

Maybe my big idea wouldn't work.  Maybe my big idea would be laughed at.  Maybe it wouldn't help anybody.

But maybe it would.  Making dolls helps me everyday.  Maybe it could help someone else.

But the big maybe is, would I be able to do it financially?  The thing about making a big idea fly is that you need some way to help it take off.

When I heard about The Cooperative Membership Fund I realised that it might be the boost a big idea like mine would need.  The fund is made up of donations from Co-operative members who have chosen to give a percentage of their twice-yearly share of the profits. This year The Co-operative  Members have donated £1.2 million to local community groups across the country. 

As a charity, the board of trustees gives funds to community projects that fall in line with the Charities Commission guidelines as well as the values of the Co-operative. 

The Co-operative Community Fund wants to support local charities with grants ranging from £100 to a maximum of £2,000.  That would buy a few doll making supplies.

So if you have a big idea that needs some help taking flight you can apply for the support your local community project needs.

You just need to ensure that your big idea aims to:

• Carry out positive work in the community (it does not have to have charitable status to apply)

        And the big idea must:

• Address a community issue
• Provide a long-term benefit to the community
• Support co-operative values and principles
• Ideally be innovative in its approach

 

 A lot of people have benefited from the Co-operative's support of their big idea.  Could this be you?

Or this?

Or what about this?

What's your big idea?  Maybe the Co-operative Membership Fund can help.



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Colleen Babcock: Famous International Doll Maker

My husband has always teased that I am a "Famous International Doll Maker".  This gambit has been going on for years.  If I say that I have tons of e-mails to reply to, he responds with, "That's what happens when you're a famous international doll maker".  If I say that I need to keep working on a design past normal working hours, he says "That's what happens when you're a famous international doll maker".   When I'm trying to sort out the travel arrangements for classes overseas he chirps up,  "That's what happens when you're a famous international doll maker".   Yup, he says that a lot - if I am working hard, or getting asked to do classes often, or selling lots of patterns, or if it's a Tuesday...

Then HP came along with their HP- Be A Star video app.  And now this Famous International Doll Maker has got her own celebrity expose video - eat your heart out.  I just took a still photograph of myself teaching a doll class and uploaded it, entered my name and my gender and whammo I'm on video. 

You too can be a Famous International Doll Maker or a Celebrity Decoupage Diva or even a World Renowned Quilting Queen or whatever type of star you'd like to be.  Just visit the HP Be A Star site by clicking the link and upload your photo.  I can't think of anything better to do during a lull at work or during a commercial on TV.   And it is a good giggle.  You'll be given a bit.ly link to your video at the end so you can share your video.  

Once you've made it into the A-list with your HP video, make sure to come back and leave your bit.ly link in a comment on this post.  If I get the highest number of bit.ly links, then I will win an HP laptop.  And I could really use a laptop let me tell you - when I travel the world as a Famous International Doll Maker I need to keep in touch with my peeps!

Make sure to tell all your A-list friends to join the party by "liking" the HP app on the Facebook fanpage:  http://www.facebook.com/HPUK.

I'm off to show my husband my video. He's going to regret the whole Famous International Doll Maker schtick when I start demanding higher thread count sheets to go with my fame.



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Stand Back I'm Loom Knitting Like a Fiend

Ever since I got myself some Knifty Knitter looms , I've managed to rack up (or loom up, I guess) an impressive array of knitwear.

I made two more cowls from the free loom knitted cowl pattern at the Lion website.  This one...

 

And this one...

 

Then I branched out and made a scarf.  I know, it's still a neck covering, but it was made in a totally different way with a long loom , so I'm allowed to call it branching out.

 

That scarflet, came from the free pattern from the Purling Sprite in the top, right corner of this free loom knitting pattern page.

I made something else too, but I can't show you a picture because it is for a Christmas present.  So no peaking!

Give Me British Weather Any Day and Every Day

I was born and raised in Canada.  And I love my country of birth.  But I’ve lived in Britain for over ten years now and I’ve been a British citizen for four.  The thing about Britain is that many people who were born here will complain about it – a lot and often.  They complain that it rains.  They complain that it isn’t sunny enough.   They complain that it isn’t warm enough.  They spend their time wishing they were in Spain or Greece or Portugal.  But give me Britain any day.

  

There is nothing more wonderful than stepping out into a park full of trees covered in blossoms in spring.  Nothing more cosy than sitting in front of a peat fire while the rain batters down outside.  Nothing more exhilarating than standing on the top of towering white cliffs with the wind battering against you.  Britain’s weather can be gloomy or bright and gentle.  Britain’s weather can be fierce or soothing.  You can choose to complain about Britain’s weather or you can celebrate it.

 

Lloyds TSB have chosen to celebrate Britain’s weather in all its beautiful contradictory glory.  Lloyds are running a competition to find the best amateur photographer of British weather.  As my husband and I spend large amounts of our time exploring the British countryside in all kinds of weather with a camera in tow, we decided to enter one of my husband’s photos into the competition. 

Entering the competition was the easy part, we just submitted a photo of British weather to the Lloyds TSB website which we entitled "Bending to the Will of the Wind".

     

Now we need your help to win the weekly competition.  To vote for my husband’s photograph, visit the Lloyds TSB website by clicking the link.

Then there is the overall competition which runs from April 13th – September 30th to find the British weather photographer of the year .  That part of the competition will be judged by a panel of meteorologists and photographers.  The best you can do to help us with that part is to keep your fingers crossed.

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