Thoughts from the Bus Stop

Birthday diorama for my (second) favourite librarian

Design and images (c) Kristen Bailey 2012
 

* SONG OF THE DAY: The Divine Comedy - The Booklovers *

Diorama for new baby: Harry

Design and image (c) Kristen Bailey 2012

Cathy and Tim moved to their new home in Canada last October while Cathy was pregnant, and they now have a baby boy, Harry. I made this for him. Harry and his mum are travelling to England this weekend so I hope to meet him soon!

* SONG OF THE DAY: Deniece Williams - Let's Hear It For The Boy *

Morris Dancing festival in Horsham

We went to Horsham just for an afternoon's shopping and, by happy coincidence, we'd chosen the day that more than a dozen different Morris sides were dancing all around the town centre, wearing fantastic costumes. I found a good spot and got snapping:

(Above) Dancers from the Knockhundred Shuttles, a Northwest Clog Morris side from Midhurst in Sussex.

(Above) The ladies of the Magog Morris side from Horsham, supported by their drummer and one of their junior members on tambourine.

(Above) Members of the Pentacle Drummers group from Eastbourne.

(Above) The Jackstraws, a women's Cotswold Morris side from Hale, near Farnham in Surrey.

(Above) Ewell St Mary's Morris Men from Ewell, Surrey.

Sticks, staffs and swords belonging to Horsham's Broadwood Morris Men.

All images in this post are (c) Kristen Bailey 2012

 * SONG OF THE DAY: Leo Sayer - You Make Me Feel Like Dancing *

Extreme Carpentry!

Stools from Mark Morgan on Vimeo.

Wow. This guy - Sentayehu Teshale, a carpenter working in Addis Ababa - is an astonishing craftsman. Do not try this at home.

* SONG OF THE DAY: Crowded House - Nails In My Feet *

Following footprints in the snow

The snow came a week ago, and we've had no more, but very little has melted yet. I pulled on my new wellies (new to me - they're a 'hand-me-down' from a nine-year old who has grown out of them - I'm a UK 4 and she's now a 6!) and took my camera out for a slow shuffle.

First I looked for bird footprints in the snow. These are probably from crows - we have loads of them in Crawley and that's how it got its name (Crow Lea - the place of crows).

I think these are the webbed footprints of a seagull. We're 20 miles inland, but still have plenty of gulls. They fight with the crows for the contents of our rubbish bags on bin day.

This strange, beautiful print (below, above the human boot print) had me puzzled for a while, but I decided it must have been made by a magpie standing in the snow with its wings and tail feathers extended - there is a pair of magpies which live in this road.

Lots of dogs had been running about in the snow...

...and loads of human beans too! I got a bit obsessed with the intricate patterns left by the soles of people's shoes:

After all that icy geekery, I decided to go home... before I turned into a snowman.



All images (c) Kristen Bailey 2012

* SONG OF THE DAY: Frances Nero – Footsteps Following Me *

Cabaret themed diorama for Rae's 40th birthday

I had to make something special for Rachel's 40th birthday, and once I'd remembered that her favourite film is Cabaret, and put a mood board together on Pinterest, I had the idea for this diorama, which puts Rae on stage at the Kit Kat club, complete with bowler hat.

It's cut from thin card and stitched with sequins, and folds flat for storage.

Design and images (c) Kristen Bailey 2012
 

* SONG OF THE DAY: Liza Minelli - Mein Herr (from 'Cabaret') *

Mushroom walks: Orange Jelly fungus

It was an unpleasantly windy day today, so my walk was fairly short, but just as I was heading home I spotted this amazing orangey-yellow jelly fungus - Dacrymyces palmatus - on a fallen branch lying on a grass verge. 

Initially I got dead excited, cos the striking colour made my untrained eye think I'd found a slime mould (which I first heard of just a few days ago when I watched BBC Four's After Life: The Strange Science of Decay) but now I've correctly identified it (thanks to the fantastic Rogers Mushrooms website) I'm still pretty pleased with it!

 
Images (c) Kristen Bailey 2012

* SONG OF THE DAY: The Flaming Lips - She Don't Use Jelly * 

Heptagonal card for Roxie's 7th birthday

Roxanne's seven-sided 7th birthday card - design and image (c) Kristen Bailey

* SONG OF THE DAY: The White Stripes - Seven National Army *

 

Knitted animation: Little Red Plane by Charlotte Blacker

The Little Red Plane is a gorgeous knitted animation by Charlotte Blacker, a stop motion/2D animator and compositor living both in London and Wakefield, West Yorkshire.

She graduated from The University of Central Lancashire in 2010 with a First in Animation and later went on to win a Royal Television Society Award for The Little Red Plane. 

She's currently working on more film projects, hopefully involving knitting - so watch this space!

* SONG OF THE DAY: Suzy Bogguss & Tom Russell - Outbound Plane *

Diorama for new baby: Alexis

Design and image (c) Kristen Bailey 2011

Eddie and Sharry now have a baby girl, Alexis. I made this for her. Haven't met her yet but am really looking forward to it!

* SONG OF THE DAY: Stevie Wonder - Isn't She Lovely *

Shimmering birds: The Martlets Tree, Crawley

'The Martlets Tree' is a piece of public sculpture which stands in Queens Square in Crawley town centre. It's covered in metal cut-outs of birds (the mythical 'martlet') loosely held onto the branches so that they move and shimmer with the breeze. Last week I caught it looking at its best - in brilliant sunshine under a blue sky - casting wonderful shadows and bouncing bird-shaped light off the pavement in the shade.

It was designed by Peter Parkinson and made by Richard Quinnell, and you can find out all about it via Public Sculptures of Sussex.

All images (c) Kristen Bailey 2011
 

* SONG OF THE DAY: Elbow - The Birds *

Helping creative women flourish through microfinance

These talented ladies are the 'Esmeraldas de San Francisco' (San Francisco Emeralds), a group of embroiderers from the State of México in Mexico. They applied to Kiva, the microfinance organisation, for a loan to enable them to buy more thread and fabric to help them expand their business, producing embroidered napkins and tablecloths.

I lent them $25 (about £16) and 104 other people made loans of varying amounts, which made up the total of $3,025. Just a few weeks later, the group have repaid 5% of their loan, and eventually I'll get my $25 back and will be able to loan it to someone else who needs to borrow it.

I don't have the spare funds to *donate* much money to charity, and Kiva allows me to do a little bit to help by lending the same $25 over and over - how fantastic.

* SONG OF THE DAY: The Feeling - Sewn *

Brighton Fantasy: Gay felt appliqué ( #MagpieMonday )

A lovely charity shop find - this time in the Relate shop in Broadfield, Crawley - the December 1963 edition of Patons 'Stitchcraft' magazine for 10p! I going to buy it anyway so the pattern for a felt applique of Royal Pavilion in Brighton (my 'home' town) was a bonus!

I love seen the Pav rendered in stitches - most recently a knitted version by Peter from Temptation cafe in the North Laine. Well done sir!

   

This post is part of Magpie Monday - your chance to share your second-hand treasures.

Hey Cinderellas

I've posted before about the beautiful Cinderella doll my auntie Sue made me when I was a kid, and said I wanted to do the same for my friends' kids (honorary nieces). Well, I've done it! The pattern I used is from Jean Greenhowe's Christmas Special.

They took quite a while - not so much the knitting as the making-up - but at last they're finished and have gone off to live in Lewes with Roxanne (6) and Isabel (8). The girls loved their lookalike dolls, and made them a palace from dining chairs, then put them to bed under the wrapping paper they came in. Roxie even sidled up to me later with a winning smile and said, "You know, you could knit me a prince!" When her sister pointed out that my knitting bag didn't contain any 'hair' coloured yarn, she added, "It's OK, he can be bald!"


Images (c) Kristen Bailey 2011

* SONG OF THE DAY: Langhorne Slim - Cinderella *

#MagpieMonday: Clock This

'Magpie Monday' is a fantastic way of showing off your secondhand finds to like-minded magpies! It's been started up by Miss Lizzie of Me And My Shadow:

"The idea is simple. If you have purchased something 2nd-hand, whether it be from a charity shop; car boot sale; eBay or whatever, then I'd love you to write a short post on your blog and link up."

So for my first MM post I'd thought I'd show you three gorgeous timepieces I've bought in charity shops. As you can see my taste includes tasteful Mid Century Modern and so-bad-it's-good kitsch!

The heart-shaped wall clock (with gold plastic peacock and fabric flowers!) was £2, as was the beige mantel clock, and I blew a whole £3 on the beautiful turquoise travel clock.

* SONG OF THE DAY: Irma Thomas - Time Is On My Side *

 
 

All images (c) Kristen Bailey 2011

Get aboard Brighton's Woolly Bus

Image via The Woolly Bus on Facebook

A Brighton bus stop has been given a woolly makeover to launch an appeal by a Hove yarn shop to raise money for The Martlets Hospice by covering an open-top double decker bus in knitting.

The lovely folk at Cocoon Knits in George Street are asking knitters to collect sponsors and knit a minimum of three 15cm x 15cm squares. To celebrate the end of the project the bus will be driven along Brighton seafront on the 20th August with contributors and guests aboard! The minimum sponsorship amount is £25 per entry but they're aiming to raise over £40,000 for the Martlets Hospice. More details at www.cocoonknits.co.uk. After the event all blankets will be broken down and sent to Africa with the help of Knit a Square charity to help keep AIDS orphans warm.

'Knit' a bit of a petition for Macmillan Cancer Support

I've knitted my bit of Macmillan's woolly scarf petition to make sure people with cancer can keep warm without the worry. You can get knitting too.

Birthday diorama for my favourite librarian

 

Images (c) Kristen Bailey 2010

* SONG OF THE DAY: Belle & Sebastian - Wrapped Up In Books *

Birthday diorama for The Blonde

This diorama was based on three of my sister's favourite pop songs. 'Walk On' is by U2 - she has these words tattooed on her ankle! 'Learn To Fly' is by Foo Fighters and she loves the video especially (any excuse for Dave Grohl and chums to dress up!). And that little bird sitting on the fence is a reference to 'Blackbird', her favourite Beatles song.

 

 
 
 
All images in this post (c) Kristen Bailey 2010

* SONG OF THE DAY: Juliana Hatfield - My Sister *

My First Paper Diorama

Look what I made - it's a foldable pop-up diorama! I went to a workshop (in December - yes, am crap at getting posts finished!) at Hove Museum run by lovely local artist Lizzie Thomas, who is part of the Unravelled group of craft-based artists (also lovely - the ones I've met anyway!).

Lizzie showed us several samples she'd made using the same basic principles, and although they looked scarily complex, she explained everything so clearly we all came away after two hours with complete and fairly fancypants versions of our own! All just from some pieces of card and careful scalpel work.

Mine is a secret garden. (I must re-read 'The Secret Garden'...)

 

A great tip from Lizzie was to cut all or part of the back of the diorama away and cover the aperture with artists' tracing paper. Then you get a lovely effect with diffused light shining through. You even place in in front of a candle if you were VERY careful. Maybe one of those fake LED candles would be better!

 

Since I did this I've made a few more, mainly as birthday cards, so I'll post some photos of them shortly. This is a fascinating craft, I really want to explore it further!

* SONG OF THE DAY: Dawn Penn - The First Cut Is The Deepest *