I'd Like To Be Under The Sea...

Crocheted octopus anyone?

Last Night

Words Of Violence,
Break The Silence,
And Come Crashing In,
Into My Little World.

Painful To Me,
Pierce Right Through Me,
Can't You Understand,
Oh My Little Girl.

All I Ever Wanted,
All I Ever Needed,
Is Here In My Arms,
Words Are Very Unnescessary,
They Can Only Do Harm.

Went to Manchester MEN Arena last night to see Depeche Mode - Immense. The coach ride was a bit of a nightmare, four and a half hours, the driver got lost, we past the same shops in Bradford about seven times. When me and Jerusalem finally got there we made our way straight to the front :D

The support act, SoulSavers, weren't too bad - the singers voice was extremely gravelly, apart from that the actual band were good. They just need a new vocalist.

But the Mode - greatness embodied! I need to go see them again :)

Well at least I have photos...

My really old work :) Apparently it looks like a face.

The Pin Cushion Queen as inspired by Tim Burton's poem from 'The Melancholy Death Of Oyster Boy'.

Also, also, also... TOP SECRET ART PROJECT!

All everyone is getting is two words - Yarn and Newcastle!

Seriously...

this needs overhauling...

Over The Past Weekend...

Theres been a whole lotta changes on my part.

First of all twisting newspaper into yarn is really quite difficult! I know I have until march to get it done and done it will be I'll just have to go back to the ol' drawing board as to how I'm going to make my textiles/art piece for the competition.

I ventured to both CCAD - Green Lane's craft fair and the Designers Marketplace, both equally lush! It is officially confirmed that I am a gob on legs, I talked to everyone there and left rather inspired. I'm thinking of making my own wares to sell for the next one (fingers crossed).

Thinking of going to the "Art Factory" in Middlesbrough on Wednesdays - could be fun :)

Found out my style of drawing! Photoshop! :D And I would have proof but its being blah... :( Watch this space...

Also, also, also! Found out my grade for my bag project - 65%, higher than I imagined.

I'm chuffed!

Competition Time!

I've decided to enter my first competion, I can't wait! It's all about recycling - great! :)

http://metrorecreate.co.uk/

So, here's the plan, cutting the newspaper into shreds and crocheting with it. Hopefully that'll work and look half decent... I mananged to take a copy of it off the train this evening so I may just have to have a little play with it :D

Not exactly sure what I'm going to make, or how inky my hands will get (I'm guessing very) but its worth a try.

Lost My...

...Fascinator on Linthorpe Road.

I want to cry.

MMS - Making Middlesbrough Sexy

Friday was a fun day, went out to take those 50 photos after meeting with Jerome and I think we did a better job of capturing an interesting town than the council have. Yes we could've spent all day at the green taking photos of MiMa, the town hall and the bottle of notes to death but we ventured further than that! I started the day uninspired and doubtful and finished with these - enjoy :)

Oh-kay, so I did take a few of the bottle but this was at the very beginning of the day and I do like the way the sky goes from a very dark blue down to a lighter shade - similar to dip-dyeing :)

On the road to Jerome :)

I like the two differing stones together, the smoothness of the pillar alongside the textural brick, it felt quite nice too... can you see that I was getting a little more excited about it yet?

I like the pattern - basically.

This picture started the real adventure "Oooh! I like the look of that building there! Lets go find it :)" What I like about this is how it frames the building, the diagonal slats of the fence with the horizontal railway lines and Albert Bridge.

The amazing building we sought after :)

The door to nowhere - where it leads nobody knows! May have to check it out sometime soon :)

I just really like this one :)

There are a lot of things that make this in my opinion the best from the day, I like the perspective of how its getting smaller, how the Transporter Bridge is reflected in the windows, it works really nicely.

Again I just really like this photo...

Anyway, thats enough of me blah-ing on about what photos I took, I still don't think I'll be picking up a camera instead of a crochet hook anytime soon.

Out Of The Frying Pan...

Well, Textiles Techniques is handed in. Really proud of it, I may have been a bit modest but I'd rather be modest than blow my own horn. I don't have any photos of it, may ask Jayne on monday if its possible to take a couple and put them on here.

Now I've got Visual Language... Is it bad to say I thought it'd be doing calligraphy?

I have a little idea of what I could do.

We get to do soft sculpture (yey!) and I thought that I could possibly make some carrot earrings, they'd be cool. Embroidered and made out of satin perhaps with some angelina fibres attached to make it glisten and capture the light, that'd be gorgeous. Really nice, long, dangly earrings :) Just make sure you don't have a pet bunny near by or you'll have no more ears hehe!

I'm supposed to be taking photos of interesting buildings, about 50 of them for monday but I'm just having a little time to chill for a bit. I'd really like to go to Helmsley, I love the castle and all the little shops and pubs. Don't think the bus is still running there this time of year, it stopped halfway through october. Newcastle has some nice architecture but I prefer the countryside.

I've decided to crochet a little amigurumi desk friend for when I'm on my own on SDS, maybe a rabbit or a cat, the real work can start tomorrow.

This Time Tomorrow...

My bag should be finished! Finito! :)

Don't get me wrong I've enjoyed making it but its been non-stop since last monday. A labour of love can be quite draining, non? Theres been a whole load of emotions going into this; anger, frustration, joy, laughter, tears and many more...

It'll be a shame to be done with it. When you've put so much time into something it can sometimes be depressing to no longer to have it to occupy you. The spare time I'll have, like on the trains on the morning when I used to sit and crochet-away, what am I going to do then? I'll have to talk to my train buddy Adam I suppose :P

I had a really good idea actually earlier on where I could make my own mini-project - "The Daily Commute", I could fashion little trinkets only in the time that I'm travelling/waiting for the train/bus (whilst I don't have any major projects of course). I'm not good with spare-time, anyone can tell you that, I have to be doing something. Anything. Could make a matching purse perhaps?

Or something a bit more fun... :D

Dying In The Dye Labs!

I GIVE UP!

Since when does Dark Brown = PINK!

Twenty minutes later - panic over! Wrong dye, little amount... :S

Just switching my colour scheme... :)

From Matisse to Nicholson to Degas... Just you wait tomorrow it'll be Waterhouse! FULL HOUSE!

A Bag Project (For Life?)

So I've finally, after not having to frog and re-frog my bag (like I have been for the past two days) back to the third row, made progress! :)

11 rows! :D I'm gonna be up until 2 o'clock the day of the hand in sat on my bed like a little pixie crocheting away with shopping bags under my eyes, let alone the one I'm making... It's gonna be mammoth! 12" by 16" - how much shopping can one girl do?

Kept taking it out because Jayne said she can't wait to show Tricia (the course LEADER) my work - I can... The amount of mistakes I made after that, I've never met Tricia but apparently shes really good at knit and crochet and if I can spot a mistake I've made I'm sure she can see them from a mile off :S she makes patterns for Rowan people, my pathetic attempts to try and cover up mistakes will never do...

But its all sorted now and looking fabulous for it, so far so good. I still think a 6" by 6" bag would look better :P

Another Day, Another Blogger

I am currently a first year FDA Contemporary Textiles student, I taken up textiles as its a passion of mine, if I were to say that I always wanted to go art college I would be lying, I never really knew what I wanted to do but when my mother showed me the basics of knitting I knew I was hooked. Since then I taught myself how to crochet and have been learning ever since.

My main reason for studying art is that I would like to be an art therapist helping young adults with "learning difficulties" to express themselves, I myself have only recently been diagonosed with dyslexia and understand how hard it can be to go through an academic schooling system.

However I would also like to sell my own pieces of work on the side (who doesn't?). I love to make 3D/textural work which is a little on the crafty-side, for example dolls, and keep myself upto-date with contemporary artists.

I hope you enjoy looking at my work as much as I'm going to making it.