Yee hawwwwww part two

Well well. Hello, I am mega excited, I have just dropped rice on my bed but I'm not excited about that. I have something to show you which I made ages ago. Wow!!

Listen, do you remember these monsters? Specifically, the cowboy ones? They are Rachel and Dave and they are getting married REAL SOON. Rachel asked me to make them tiny monsters, little minuscule wee ones, to go on top of the wedding cake. Super wow!! Of course, I had some doubts about whether I had the skills for this one. I am NOT a super accomplished mini-crocheter, I am pretty cack-handed actually. There I said it. (Gasp!) Anyway these guys had to be REALLY small, just visible to the unclothed eyeball, and I didn't want them to look all bulky and rubbish. So this is what I came up with: first up, Rachel:



She's still a cowgirl, like. I think I did all right in the end. I put wire in the hats to keep them shapely, and she's got her little cowboy boots on too. I thought I'd photograph the monsters on horseback by the way.

Full frontal:



Pouty!

Now Dave:





Looking good there Dave.

Here's one of them both:



Dat's very cute. I wonder what they're going to look like on top of the cake. I will have to see if I'm allowed to post photos of it after the wedding. Everyone else will be cooing over the bride and groom, and I will be in the corner, taking pictures of the cake from all different angles.

Any road up, I have done some other monsters which I have yet to photograph. I am aiming to do at least some of them this weekend seeing as I'm off work for FIVE DAYS. All right! Catch you later then, take it easy, blah.

Unveiled! KNITTED DRAWING-O-RAMA!

Hey everybody, I finished it (weeks ago), sewed all the ends in, and FINALLY got around to bringing it round to Nic's house for a photoshoot. So the time has come!

**drum roll**

Hooray!





Int she a beaut! I will tell you a bit about her.

I wanted to recreate one of those 50s style adverts, or food packaging with a housewife-type holding a plate of cookies or whatever. I love packaging like this with big, bold lettering. And custard is suitably 50s and homemade and wholesome. The ladymonster, though (I should give her a name!) is eating the custard off her finger which is quite suggestive I suppose. I think of her as quite predatory, or at least confident. She is sexy despite being a total uggo. Her pose and cocky demeanour, which I have imagined, having spent HOURS in her company, is not ladylike or demure, as I guess the 50s housewife thing is supposed to suggest. However, at the same time, she's totally feminine, as indicated by the frilly pinny, the pink frock with all the curly bits, and the lovehearts. She may not be a lady, but she's all woman! I wish I was more like her!

The subject of women and femininity in art has been pored over for decades and I was going to go into it a bit here, but I don't want to churn out some old cliches or start drivelling on about feminism like a drunken, well, me, on a blog which is primarily about my silly knitted nonsense.

I am going to stop writing bollocks now because I feel like an idiot. Here, have some close-ups.









Aahhh. I'd like to exhibit this somewhere, it looks pretty cool in front of Nic's summer house but alas, it can't stay there. Does anyone have any ideas?

Finally, for scale, here's a picture of the drawing with me in front of it looking awkward.



It's very bright today and I've got the sun in my eyes.

Well anyway, that's what I've been doing for the last year and a half. I think I'll go and do another one.

My Scruffy Flat and Other Stories

Hey. I haven't really got much to say right now, but I haven't written anything in a while, and I am avoiding any proper work. Also, I ate quite a lot of chocolate by accident before (I don't even remember buying it, I go into such a trance in Aldi) and I'm a bit sleepy. Just a heads up.

So I still haven't managed to take any proper photos of my knitted drawing, and I am reluctant to show you the shitty ones I took on the floor of my flat, because - well, they're shitty, and I don't want to OKAY. I also don't want to drag this out for the rest of eternity though, so I will endeavour to do it this week, not that anyone cares any more, probably!

Argh. If you remember, I started the drawing partly as a way to use up all the odds and ends of yarn that made up my 'stash' as they call it. I would say that this has been a failure. In the year since I started making it, I have accumulated about three times as much yarn as I had before, thanks to Laura, who moved into a van and gave me loads, and my auntie Brenda, who keeps me topped up with gigantic sackfuls every few months. Which is awesome and I'm mega grateful! I love you guys! I have a million tons of yarn all over the place though.

Speaking of which, last year I wrote this thoughtful and intriguing post about how I put all my yarn on different shelves in my cupboard, and how it had changed everything in my life for the better and things like that. Well, in the meantime I moved house and threw everything on the floor. A week ago, my workspace looked like this:



Ugh, rubbish, look at that tangle!



I like to call that a 'tanglabra'.

Anyway I am halfway through putting it all in cupboards now, which Nic gave me, since she is moving into a van too.

I am boring myself now, I will stop jabbering on about nothing in a minute. Here are some teaser photos for you though, from my 'Shitty Floor Photos'* collection, just to whet the whistle.







*my actual floor isn't shitty, just my photography skillzz innit.

THE KING

Hello. Now that my knitted drawing is finished, hooray, I have a lot more time on my hands. I am filling it by making monsters of People I Like. I have an idea, which is to send monsters to FAMOUS people, like a creepy stalker. I don't really know why I'm doing this.

Anyway this is the first monster I've made of a Famous Person, but it isn't part of that series. I couldn't send it to him anyway, because he's dead (maybe). It's Elvis.



Shirley asked me to make him for her husband Stuart. They are going to Graceland soon and little monster Elvis is going with them, I am pretty made up with this. I have no particular opinions about Elvis, but I liked making it anyway.

Have just realised that the monster isn't finished in that photo. It's the best one I've got of his quiff, though. Here he is in all his spangly, jangly, jumpsuited glory:



Yay! Well, that's that. Enjoy your Saturday, please.

Big bad baba

Ey up, hope you're having a nice weekend, etc. I've been well productive, check this out.



This is Noushka, I guess her full name might be Anoushka but I'm not sure. She's Jen's niece and very beautiful she is too. She's a baby. I haven't made any baby monsters before but it was quite fun. I don't know if you know this about babies, but they ALL LOOK THE SAME. To me, anyway, not being of a maternal bent, or particularly observant. They tend to have no hair and sort of big eyes, and they dribble a bit and wiggle about. Sorry mums! Your babies are EQUALLY beautiful.

Well anyway, Jen wanted the monster to be wearing lion pyjamas, which are super cute, and I want some. Also, I have a particular affection for the baby on the warning labels, not for the under 3s. The one with the sad face, and a massive nose. You know, THIS guy.



Ha ha! I LOVE HIM. He just has such a ginormous conk for such a little fellow. Anyway, even though Noushka is not a hirsute baby (thankfully), I decided to give her one little curl in homage to my favourite label baby.



Didn't give her a big nose though.

Another thing you may not know is that I have VERY NEARLY finished my knitted drawing! I know I always say that but it's so close now, I can smell the success. I have just started my final square this afternoon. I can't wait to get this wretched thing done, I mean taste the sweet satisfaction of completing a long project. Yay!

Before I go, I'd just like to tell you that I also like this warning label:



Once I saw a lady with this tattooed on her leg! Amazing. Maybe one day I will make a monster like him.

Reet, best get back to it then! Bye bye chicken pie.

Sherleeeee Werleeeeee

This is Shirley.


Shirley is brilliant. I work with her at the Arts Council. She brings in biscuits and Vimp-toe and makes me laugh and looks after me. In return I am a grumpy sod. No wait, I brew up every half hour, so I bring the tea. Anyway, Shirley is ace and I love her. And I made a Shirleymonster.


Hiya!

Shirley loves beads and sequins and sparkle, and she is a bit of a sparkly character herself, so I decided to make the whole monster out of glittery yarn. Then I went a bit bonkers with the old sequins. It's totally blingin and that. It captures her very ESSENCE, I feel. I could only have made it more Shirleyish by putting a voice recording in it.



Here is human Shirley with monster Shirley outside work in the sun today. Not a terribly exact likeness here, because I picked the ONE day she isn't wearing any jewellery or spangle at all, and also DAMN YOU PHOTOCHROMIC LENSES ( I googled that). However it was sunny so that was nice.


I gots to go now, I am so blimmin' busy! By that I mean I am going to be a good citizen and fill my census form in. Buh bye now, take care, mind the roads!

Oh this again.

Hellooo, it's me. I feel a bit sick because I think I accidentally ate some milky sandwiches today, euurgh, yuck. They probably only had a bit of milk in them, but maybe I shouldna oughtna had five. Oh who cares.

Anyway I have been a busy bumblebee the last couple of weeks, when I'm not ingesting milk by mistake, and my knitted drawing is NEARING COMPLETION! Can you believe it. It has been over a year since I started it. I now have six squares to go. Yeahhhh! It looks pretty good, but I'm not going to show you it yet because it's so nearly finished that if I show you now, you'll be all like, yawn, whatevers, SEEN IT, when I finally unveil the finished product. And I do not want that, I want gasps of disbelief and gratitude, you know? So I'm going old school and showing you some very bad photos of some individual squareses.

Here:





This one is upside down.




Oh I wanted to show you this, some of the squares have so many different strands in that the back ends up looking like this:

Aaargh. I spend twenty minutes of every hour untangling it. It is Massively Laborious. But satisfying.

I am going to make a cup of tea now, so, bye bye.