Ermahgerd... Folksy Summer School

{Due to a trawling through Pinterest, I'm now a full-time advocate of the Ermahgerd meme. Feel free to unfollow me. I'm annoying myself. Experts agree I should be fine in a few days.}

So. Last weekend my sister and I made our way to the very first Folksy Summer School.


Like so.

For those of you who don't know what 'Folksy' is, it's a bit like Etsy. But better. Because it's British. And we gave the world The Beatles. And the Bee Gees. So we should know.

I documented my shoes' holiday in various stages of the journey...

Starting out:



Arriving:





... they got very excited to find a little friend at the school... Ermahgerd! Shuhs!



We got a goodie bag. My sister's soul was bought. I learned the power of the tote.



I spent quite a bit of time telling various random people how I had the urge to skateboard down this roof:



(I think you'll agree it would indeed make a most excellent ramp. Glad I didn't take the boys... would not have been able to keep them off it.)

There was a tent...



... which for all intents and purposes would have made a terrible skateboard ramp, but did have very pretty tassels...



There was so much to do! So much to learn! So MUCH to try! And food too...







We met and heard from fabulous people:

Sinead from CraftyFox; Doug Richard who inspired us all to plan for success; Emma Jones from Enterprise Nation; Lyndsey James who almost cried when she found out that although we all had tripods none of us used them - I learned more in half hour of her photography class than months of bashing my head by myself (she runs workshops); Gemma at The Button Tin; Mollie Makes - yes! them!; Tilly of Tilly and the Buttons fame; and the man who turned down Oprah, Andy from Vinegar&Brown Paper. To name a few. Just so many people with things we needed to know.

We saw pretty things:











But mostly I got to spend time with this woman here:




Who kept me well fed and entertained:





Before I had to pack it all up, and head home, head and heart buzzing with new enthusiasm, new knowledge and new skills.





I even met Johny Depp on a railway platform:



It was a good weekend.


We must do it again sometime. Especially the Johny Depp thing. Mmmmmmmm....


{Edited to add :: forgot, in my excitement, to add Polly from Handmade Horizons on the list of fabulous people who've inspired me. If you are serious about making your product work then this site is something you need.}

morning : evening

Morning to evening, two ends of the day. A little tired at both. Some sitting with a little tea and company; a little knitting; a little time between chores to sit and reflect. Small moments can contain such promise. It's fleeting on some days, but there alright.

New Threads

It's been a very long time since I indulged in buying new embroidery floss. It's been years since I've done any real embroidery. I thought, once upon a time, that it would be my 'thing', but it turns out I've made very little time for it in real life. Which is a shame; I do like doodling with thread.

These new skeins of floss were bought for the cross stitch pattern I've been working up. Cross stitch is new to me and I still have half memories of being forced to cross stitch some awful panel in school, which I hated doing, which kind of puts me off. Doodling is much more my thing, but I'll give it a go... maybe I will fall in love with it all. Who knows?

Organising thread and having neat little boxes full of wound spools - well, that's something I can live with. It's like owning my very own rainbow.

Space

I get uptight and stressed about our space - or lack thereof - in this house of ours. No really, I do. Hard to believe, I know. The easiest solution would be to move to a much bigger place and live happily ever after. And as I think I've mentioned :cough: once or twice that even with the best will in the world, crossed fingers, toes, arms and legs, that ain't gonna happen here and I had just better get over it.

Smallness most definitely has its limitations for absolute sure, but it also represents a good old workout for the mind when it comes to using space creatively. I mean, ANYBODY can move into a 3,000 sq ft farmhouse and make it look good and I'm not even remotely bitter about it much, but you know, to make a small space work - that takes downright genius.

I was reminded of this fact recently whilst helping a friend see the potential in her own home - I think I emailed her every picture pinterest had to offer (and she's still talking to me), but it was as we were putting new paint on her walls and seeing the light flood in that my little brain started kicking into creative mode for our own home too... it can sometimes take something so very little to have an enormous effect.

The one bone of contention for me is that I don't have enough space for all my crafting things. I used to work off the kitchen table at one point, which meant I could only work when the kids were in bed. And then I moved the fabric shelves and machine upstairs to a corner of our bedroom. It's a tight fit, and for most of the time everything I owned was piled up and up and up. Which meant when I needed to work everything had to be moved. I needed a rooooom I whined (I know, you can't believe I whine). I can't fiiiind anything. I can't work. I have to move everything onto the bed to find spaaaaace. Poor little meeeeee. It was quite a good pity party; the music sucked though.

But those hours in front of pinterest looking for solutions for my friend (oh the sacrifices I make for others...) actually got me thinking about how I use space. There really are some genius solutions by some very talented and resourceful women in the world, and it suddenly hit me how ludicrous my wants were - a room of my own?? Looking around me, no woman I know has a whole room of her own! It is rare and wonderful women who that have that space - usually women with grown up children, or none at all have a room - it is a middle class luxury. But oh what wonderful solutions to small spaces a woman with a mission and a paintbrush can invent!

Source: handmadecharlotte.com via Debbie on Pinterest

Source: handmadecharlotte.com via Debbie on Pinterest

Source: kidslovedesign.blogspot.com via Debbie on Pinterest

Source: imgfave.com via Debbie on Pinterest

Reinvigorated by pinterest and having a peruse through my flickr faves I began to plot how I could use this space better. I saw a lot of positives - for one, I actually have a Horn sewing cabinet that I thrifted years ago and it has a lot of storage space built in - as well as the ability to raise and lower the sewing machine out of sight after use so I can use the table for other things, like painting or writing, say. It is slightly fugly. The inner compartments are avocado - and you know what matches with avocado, don't you? That's right! Not one damn thing. But I knew I could breathe life into the cabinet by at least painting it.

I also needed to let go. This is a lesson I learned whilst reworking the classroom space that we are so blessed to have. Things had to go. Ideas, hopes and material possessions.

I began to see space in terms of all dimensions and not just the horizontal - I wasn't making use of all the vertical space - there was scope that I wasn't using. Hidden spaces - places I hadn't even thought of AS space - inside cupboards for example.

Source: bhg.com via Debbie on Pinterest

Source: imgfave.com via Debbie on Pinterest

Source: google.com.au via Debbie on Pinterest

Source: flickr.com via Debbie on Pinterest

So, I collected all the inspiring studio spaces I could find onto one board, and between that and my flickr faves and beautiful images everywhere I am starting to slowly to work some new ideas into this old space. It means furniture rearranging, painting, buying a little bit of extra storage and falling in love with IKEA - I realise just why they've got their reputation - simple, elegant solutions with great design. And, er, cheap.

Source: emmallamb.blogspot.com via Debbie on Pinterest

I've barely started, but I hope if I ever pull it off I can finally use this space to work in, and that instead of bemoaning the fact that I have to work in the corner of my bedroom, I will instead see the bonus of having a bed in my studio.

Knitting Woes and Highs

You may recall seeing last week, and indeed several weeks beforehand if you have a beady eye, some lovely mustard-coloured yarn on the sticks. I was working on designing a new pattern for sale. That little project was sailing along nicely until I tried to order a couple more skeins in the same colourway to finish it off only to be told it wasn't being made any more *insert one of those needle-scratches-off-the-record-to-dead-silence noises* - I beg your pardon? Why did you fail to mention that those skeins I ordered were the last on earth?? And so in a mad flurry of 'it'll be alright on the night' I purchased some more yarn in a slightly different colourway, because I was hoping, in some weird twisted way that they would match.

They didn't. They complimented each other rather nicely, but I did not envisage a rather large stripe along the bottom on my new creation. Of course, what I really need is another large batch of yarn in one colour, to start and finish the new pattern properly. I don't have the cash for that right now. So what does any grown woman do when things don't go her way? She sulks. Of course.





But rather than letting that niggle spoil my evening, I grabbed a new pattern - and every left-over ball of yarn I have - and began a very satisfying project - The Scrap Cardigan. I've made one of these before; it is an incredibly easy knit - mindless, even. (I know that should be 'mindful', but it really isn't).









It is very stripey, ironically, given that it was because I *didn't* want stripes in a project that I began this one. But the midget will love that - he loves stripes, because 'it makes me look like I've just broken out of jail'... *shrugs*... when you're six and a half that's a *good* thing. Apparently.

I am enjoying this knit, in fact I can't put it down. And that's really what it's all about, because like the ladies say, "knitting is spozed to be fun". Amen.

And the best part of all in this knitting fiasco? I have four skeins of complimentary-coloured yarn to now knit something else just for me.

I think that's what they call a win-win situation.


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