To lead on from Lost & Found and soft sculpture characters, during the run up to Christmas I offered to make my little sister something. Or remake her something.
The night before my sisters thirtieth birthday, I sat up all night sewing, mostly because I'm insane but primarily because she'd mentioned wanting something a few days earlier and in my head I'd pretty much worked out how I could do it. So, instead of sleeping, I panic made her a felt No-Face from Studio Ghibli's Spirited Away (2001), sitting knitting as he does in the film.
My sister loves Studio Ghibli and she'd seen soft sculpture figurines like this online and shown them to me. Sometimes you show someone something and it's just because you think they'll like it or find it interesting, sometimes it's a subtle hint. This I took as a not so subtle hint.
Throughout the day of her birthday, I stole five minutes here or there to finish sewing his face, to stuff him with cotton wool balls (because I'd run out of wadding, or couldn't find it, I honestly can't recall) and do a tiny piece of knitting. Now, normally my sisters and I have a deal on birthdays that we have to decorate each others cakes and try and out do one another... that year, seeing it was an milestone birthday, I made her No-Face as a cake topper which I wouldn't dare place on the cake. Instead I hid it behind my back and handed it over with her cake.
Needless to say, she flipped out! So no sleep was worth it and I was proud of what I'd made.
More recently she used a photo of her bookshelves and No-Face sitting there as the avatar for her messenger and email, and her friend David saw it and, as a huge fan of Studio Ghibli, also flipped out! Mostly, I believe, because she hadn't shown him earlier.
And so I made my sister an offer, and a plan was hatched for her and I to make the second iteration of No-Face, new and improved, for David's Christmas present.
I redesigned the pattern into fewer pieces, which I taught my sister how to do a blanket and Henson (ladder) stitch (a stitch she found really satisfying to do) so she could help me sew him together, before using actual toy stuffing to fill him. I hand stitched his face instead of using pieces of felt, which had driven me bonkers the first time around and made him look a little stoned as every stitch compressed and slightly distorted the shape I'd cut out. Then to finish him off, not only did I make him proper knitting needle (I even sanded the bamboo skewers smooth so they didn't catch!) but I tiny knitted the beginnings of a jumper and Swiss darned Jiji, the cat from Kiki's Delivery Service (1989), onto the front of it.
Admittedly with the Swiss darning, I was being extra, and little sister was both overjoyed and jealous because her No-Face knitting was seriously basic. But I couldn't resist! I got the idea in my head and couldn't not do it, even if I was working up until the last Christmas post.
After the final touches were made, No-Face was very quickly (and slightly blurrily) photographed, boxed up and shipped out to Lerwick, and on Christmas Day a message came in from David which simple said:
"After hyperventilating, I thought I'd just about be
okay until I noticed what No-Face was knitting...
I'm dead. Totally fucking dead :D"
- David
I think he liked it. (And doesn't mind that I included his message to my sister, it was just such a lovely reaction and I'm really happy he likes it.)
So there they are, two iterations of a knitting No-Face, and with some definite improvements made. David's version certainly had a glow up, but I like how my sisters version looks like a younger, softer No-Face, for now at least. The only thing I wish I'd done this time around, was buy some plastic pellets to add some weight to the base and allow him to stand up a little more easily, the original, being stuffed with cotton wool, actually was heavier than the newer version. Luckily my sister has requested a glow up for her No-Face, including new knitting and needles, a new face and actual stuffing, not cotton wool, so maybe some pellets will be in its future too...
... along with an open mouthed No-Face, a Totoro and a Kuchi Kopi (from Bob's Burgers) if I have time.
Demanding little bugger, lucky I like her and making these sorts of things makes both of us happy.
Plus reaction like hers and David's definitely make it worth it.
I can't quite get my head around writing this post, I keep getting distracted and forgetting to take note of things I've really enjoyed.
Instead I've mostly been continuing my scatter-gun attempt at spring cleaning. Jumping away from the pile of my stuff for a mass chuck out that's cluttering my room, to the garden because it was warm and sunny and then to repainting windows and walls because I had the paint, and it started getting cool/raining again.
Actually I thought the month I would have issue with would be May. May being my birthday month and I don't like birthdays. It triggers the, "oh fuck, I'm old and I have nothing and no-one and my life is crap and how did I let myself get to this point when everyone else is..."
... you get the picture. So, seeing May is next month, one of two things will happen. I'll either flounder and my post will short and slightly crap, or it'll be huge and full of lovely stuff.
Lets hope for the latter, but you have been warned!
Anyway, this is April and here are my ramblings...
Seconds into April 1st, and someone had already posted something positive about Brexit... if only it wasn't a joke.
At least we didn't fall out of the EU with a no deal Brexit this month, instead we have until Halloween to see if the UK Government can actually come up with some kind of solution, agree on it and get the country through the whole thing.
Hopefully.
And now we also have the Scottish government pushing even harder for Indyref2...
The Happy News
Brexit, terrorism, murder, death and despair. The news, as important as it is, as essential as it is to know what is going on in the world, is not a happy thing to keep track of. Some days it feels like there's not even a dead donkey to lighten the mood.
So it seems ironic that that's where I first read about The Happy News by illustrator Emily Coxhead:
This is such a wonderful, positive and fun creation. Each three monthly issue crammed with only happy and positive news in the world, Emily not wanting to ignore the fact that bad things happen in the world, but to highlight the fact that good things do too.
With thousands of news papers, website and broadcasts available around the world, all giving us the same news and focusing on what's wrong with the world, I think there's room for The Happy News and it's positivity.
And officially the first CD I've bought in a ridiculously long time.
And yes, I still buy CDs! Occasionally, but I do. Unfortunately, this doesn't make a very good album to listen to in the car, which is where I am most likely to listen to an album start to finish. It has way too much bass for the car and quieter singing, meaning all you can hear is bass unless you're wanting to deafen yourself. I like listening to music loud in the car, but there's limits, I don't want to be that person that you can hear by the bass that's thumping out as they drive by.
I've been knitting for a long time. Probably since high school, maybe even primary school, but I can't say I'm a fast knitter. In fact, I'm damn right slow.
Like most people I know who knit, I was taught in the English style...
... also known as throwing. In this style the piece of wool you're knitting is held and tensioned in the right hand, and after you insert the right needle into your existing stitch, you have to hold both needles in your left hand, wrap the wool using the right hand and slip the finished stitch off onto the right needle. Your process is essential three or four manoeuvres per stitch - or at least it is the way I was taught. Three moves is a lot for one stitch and it can be cumbersome and definitely time consuming.
Three moves over two hundred and one stitches is pretty slow going and that's what I was doing. I've wanted to knit a blanket for a while, I'm not sure why, but I did, I also wanted to use seed stitch (knit one, purl one) because I like the texture it gives your fabric, but in English Knit, I wasn't managing more than a couple of rows a night. Luckily, something else I wanted to do, was learn how to do Continental Knitting.
Continental knitting, much like English knit, is used world wide, and was popular in the UK until the Second World War, when it fell out of favour. You can probably guess why. This method however, you hold and tension the working yarn in your left hand and only really have to move the right needle to pick up the stitches from behind, which is why it's also known as picking.
This style of knitting is one I knew about - obviously - and knew as a much faster way to knit. Thus why I wanted to try it.
Each row of my blanket was initially taking me forty five minutes. I knocked twenty five minutes off that while learning to Continental knit! That was as of my second day of doing it this way, despite being freakishly slow and awkward!
I've been knitting like this for a couple of weeks now, and while I'm still not that much faster than the initial speed up, I'm definitely less awkward (for once in my life!).
I'd really recommend anyone wanting to speed up their knitting, or find a somewhat less awkward feeling style, to try Continental knitting. Seeing I'm knitting in seed stitch (knit one, purl one) over two hundred and one stitches, knocking half my time off per row is pretty good and it's two things I can tick off my "craft all the things!" list.
Wands for Wildlife is a wonderful thing. Especially as mascara is a cosmetic you should be throwing away every three to four months, despite it's supposed eight month shelf life. You definitely also should not be sharing it due to the high risk of cross contamination and eye infections.
Don't share mascara!
However, it's also a problematic product given you shouldn't share it, generally they're packaged in plastics which aren't readily recyclable and nearly impossible to clean well enough to be recycled when they are. So what do you do with them? You either hold on to them for far too long, abandoned in your collection as I'm prone to do, or throw them in the bin, which sucks because where possible we should recycle.
In the past, I've washed wands and kept them thinking I'd use them for other things, the application of other makeup being the obvious one, but there must also be some sort of craft based application. Surely everything has a craft based application?
However, a couple of years ago, I read about the Appalachian Wildlife Refuge in North Carolina and their project Wands for Wildlife. They shared a message online, asking for beauty lovers to donate their used mascara wands to the refuge, in order to help groom smaller animals of fleas, larvae, dirt and debris. The response was not only plentiful but completely unexpected, as they were inundated with donations.
I read about this and thought it was wonderful, so as I culled my old mascaras, I decided to see if any wildlife centres in the UK had launched similar pleas. Luckily six miles from where I was born, it turned out The NEW ARC - North East Wildlife and Animal Rescue Centre in Auchnagatt, Aberdeen, was putting out a similar call for people to send them their old mascara wands.
Um yeah, anyone who's interested in numbers, there are thirty six wands in there. I have been saving them, and not chucking others for a few years. If you're meant to throw away your mascara ever three months that means you're going through four a year, plus there are eyebrow mascara wands too... yeah, no, I have a problem.
All you need to do is wash them in warm soapy water to get rid of all the mascara, dry them, pop them in a zip-lock bag and send them off to help groom tiny animals. So this is where this little collection is going to go, (though seeing I'm about to finish a couple of tubes, I'm holding onto it for a little while longer). Here is the address if you fancy doing likewise:
The New Arc,
Nether Auquhadlie,
Auchnagatt,
Ellon,
Aberdeenshire,
AB41 8UW
Or have a look around to see whether there's anywhere in your area that you can donate too. I think this is kind of wonderful and it's the only time I'll be happy to see a mascara wand anywhere near an animal!
This is a silly favourite on the subject of conservation, but the Kakapo is a wonderfully silly bird, and it was announced this month that they had their most successful breeding season ever, with seventy six chicks hatching, with sixty expected to reach adulthood.
This is good news as in the 1970's the Kakapo, the worlds largest, flightless, nocturnal parrot, was thought to be extinct thanks to hunting by humans and predation from species of animals introduced to New Zealand. It wasn't helped by their tendency to stand very still when approached instead of running away. By the end of the decade a handful of the birds were discovered to have survived and wildlife conservationist began to help the bird boost its population and save them from extinction, beginning by moving the remaining Kakapo to two small, predator free islands where they could be protected.
From the eighteen found in 1977, there are now a hundred and forty seven adults left, so seventy six chicks hatching this year is a massive boost to this critically endangered chubby land parrot.
I love these birds. I watched a documentary series on the BBC called Last Chance To See (2009), based on the radio series (1989) and book (1990) of the same name by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine, in which the pair visit various locations around the world to document animals on the brink of extinction, including the Kakapo. The BBC series returning to the different species twenty years on was presented by Stephen Fry and Carwardine - Adams having passed away in 2001 - and this is where I was introduced to the Kakapo and I fell for this chubby character in all its glorious green feathers.
Also, each of the birds is named. Every single Kakapo in existence has a name, including Sirocco, who certainly made an impression during the species dedicated episode...
They're handsome beasties, full of personality and the more of them in the world the better!
Note: Initially I didn't draw the Kakapo. I used a copyright free photo from Flickr (I eventually used this as a reference for my sketch). But looking at the comments before publishing I saw that the Flickr account had used another photographers image without permission and the actual owner was contesting it. The actual photo is by Shane McInnes, a Department of Conservation biodiversity ranger, of Sinbad the Kakapo, from around about 2011. It's an amazing photograph and has been used a lot over the internet, generally without credit, so I'm crediting McInnes (Stuff) (BBC)
I also noticed when finding the Last Chance to See guide entry on h2g2 that the site turned twenty this April.
h2g2 is a collaborative website creating its own encyclopedia, created by and based on the book of the same name, within the book of the same name, Hitch Hikers Guide To The Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Starting as a radio series, progressing into a book, television show and eventually a film. h2g2 served both as a physical embodiment of the guide for it's fans, but it also allowed them to become researchers for the guide, much like Ford Prefect and create their own online community within the site.
I have been a proud researcher for nineteen years - though relatively inactive for a lot of that time. I have written, published and edited articles on the site. Spent an unhealthy amount of time on there. Made friends and felt part of that community. I was there when it was an independent site, before the move to the BBC, when we still wrote articles in GuideML, the sites own HTML coding, and after it became independent again in 2011.
Like I said, it's been a long time since I contributed, life got in the way, but maybe one day. That said, I will never not love the site or the friends I met on there.
Happy 20th Birthday h2g2 and all my fellow researchers old and new.
Last month, I mentioned the fact that April 4th is National Chocolate Mousse Day. Well, I didn't make chocolate mousse on that day, but I did make my first attempt at making it for my Grandpa's birthday.
At Christmas I mentioned my Grandpa wasn't well, he isn't, he has a heart condition they're unable to do anything for, however, after a really bad six months, he's is doing better than he was, which is great and on the sixteenth, it was his birthday. Now, I've always known my Grandpa liked food, he's actually one of the best people I know to feed because he'll try anything, twice, and he will almost always enjoy whatever is put in front of him. Unlike the other fuss pots in my family. I even knew he liked puddings, but I never really knew how much until he became unwell and we discovered he was nuts for ice cream and had a really sweet tooth.
Then at some point during the year so far, someone mentioned Chocolate Mousse and despite mentioning our ineptitude at making it in the past, he showed great interest in the possibility of it being made... so here we are, with not only a challenge but a proper reason to complete said challenge!
Birthday Mousse Moose, classily dolloped into an old reindeer adorned Nutella jar, normally use as a drinking glass. I thought that was fitting.
But I also made chocolate mousse! I've never done that before and I actually managed it and it tasted good!
I used the recipe for Dark-Chocolate Mousse from Bon Appétit, if you're interested, it was really easy to follow, turned out to be really tasty and bar the chocolate, I already had all of the ingredients in the house as store cupboard ingredients, which is always a good start. Plus, there's even a video on their recipe post and YouTube channel, something that can be incredibly handy if you need ingredients to have specific consistences or there are special instructions for mixing etc. Very useful.
If you've not seen Detectorists, when I say that it is beautifully mundane, it may not seem like much of a reason for you to seek out its three seasons and watch them, but calling it beautifully mundane, is an incredible compliment.
Written by Mackenzie Crook, who also one of the lead characters, he's created a series about detectorists, people who metal detect in their spare time, combing the British countryside searching for what remains of this countries history, but more often than not coming up short with ring bulls, nails and buttons. Specifically it's about Andy (Crook) and Lance (Toby Jones), two friends who have an overwhelming passion for their detecting hobby, their personal lives and their ambition to find the lost burial of King Sexred of the East Saxons, along with the gold and burial offerings that should accompany him.
Set in Essex, though filmed in Suffolk for the most part, you would genuinely think that the sun always shines on TV. It's idyllic and sound tracked by Johnny Flynn's title song, Detectorists, throughout the episodes, it's intelligent and subtle, and mostly it's incredibly endearing.
It's a favourite this month because we've been rewatching it and it's one of those shows I could watch and rewatch and never get bored of. Plus, I can't get the theme music out of my head, and this is one earworm I really don't mind hanging around
I changed all my products this month. Got foiled by sneaky silicons being in everything and embraced my diffuser. This is after coming to the realisation that I hate having wet hair and I'll take half an hour of sitting with my head upside down holding a hair dryer rather than the whole day sodden.
Doing these things seems to have helped me get past my rut a little bit. Which is nice.
But, I also, in a fit of pique, chopped an inch or so off my hair... while it was curly. I have no idea if this was straight, or even, or actually beneficial, because normally I would cut my hair straight and I would take my time to get it even. This time I literally gathered all my hair in a ponytail and chopped it.
This was probably not a wise idea, but fortunately it wasn't a lot, and curls hide a multitude of sins.
I also realise if I'm going to do updates on this process (i.e. whinging about sneaky silicons, frizz etc), I should probably do the one thing I really don't want to do, which is post a picture. So here I am, all curls and as little of my hideous visage showing...
... I really hate having my photo taken. There isn't a filter on the planet which would encourage me to post selfies or actively let someone take my photograph - I'm pretty sure cameras break when exposed to my image, so really I'm saving people money. So I'll do my best Cousin It impression instead.
Spring
The spring is sprung, the grass is riz.
I wonder where the boidie is.
They say the boidie’s on the wing.
But that’s absoid. The wing is on the bird.
- Anonymous
Over the Easter weekend, we had sunshine and warmth. You forget how nice it is, to go outside, be warm and just sit and hear the birds sing.
So I spent pretty much all of it outside, gardening. Specifically I've been tidying up, trying to help my mum, who isn't getting enough time in the garden to keep on top of it. She needs help and I just about know the different between a seedling and a weed. Though sometimes the weeds are just as pretty.
Nice thing was also the fact that I was listening to music and had my phone, and therefore a camera, at hand to take lots of photos...
Okay... I may have gotten snap happy. But seeing the garden come back to life over even just the last couple of weeks has been really lovely and I wanted to document that.
The Head Gardener
The monthly Charlie comes in the form of his role as Head Gardener. Charlie, love him, when anyone is working in the garden likes to find the best position he can, so he can observe not just one person, but any person in the garden. This can mean him perching on the old cold frame - I say perching, he lounges and rolls around, enjoying the fact that this position also garners him almost constant sunshine in our shady garden. However while I've been working out there, he's been choosing to lurk in the bushes and sleep in the borders beside me...
... despite his grumpy expression, I do think Charlie actually likes me. There were plenty of more comfortable places he could have observed what I was doing, but instead he chose to sit right by my side, within petting distance and glare at me.
He does have a wonderful resting bitch face.
Anyway, I hope you had a nice Easter weekend and a lovely April.
And let's hope the sunshine comes back in May and I can bombard you with more pictures of pretty flowers and rambling chatter!
