Poppalina

Introducing the Craftorialist

A Kapinny post

Not content with having a craft overload, and a co-authorial position with Popplina, I have started a new project that, with any luck, won't be finished for a very long time.

The Craftorialist is a new blog of inspirations, instructions, pictures and patterns, in which I share my technical expertise with anyone interested in textile-based craft. It's brand new, so there's only a few posts to see right now, but I will keep adding to it over time.

Feel free to drop by and have a look, ask a question, make a comment or—hell—add it your reader!

thecraftorialist.com

Foggy

By Shula

Living in a thyrotoxic fog has a number of inconvenient consequences.

Chief among them is stupidity. I do really stupid things.

This is because the hormone levels in my brain are out of whack

(not because I am stupid per se;

it's important to me that you understand the difference).

Anyway, stupidly, I managed to delete my entire links list.

God knows how,

But there it is.

Or was. 

Slowly putting it (and everything else in my life) back together again.

Feel free to contact me if you're not there and should be.

How much can a koala bear?

We interrupt our current obsession with soft toys to bring you more blanket mending.

These are my favourite blankets at Jivana. Hard to photograph, they are the most gorgeous, faded red. They're so soft and worn that I couldn't bear to see them thrown about the studio. I succeeded in looking so distressed - teary, even - that someone took them off the pile and kept them on the stage.

Even so, despite their secondment to Light Duties, they are falling to pieces before my very eyes and really should be taken home and respectfully retired from professional duty. 20 years of having big, strapping bums sitting on you is a lot to ask, even of the most robust cotton blankets.

Memo to me: practice distressed and teary expressions before tomorrow night's class.

Me And My Big Mouth

Consider carefully before suggesting to your yoga studio that the extended Christmas break might be a Good Time to wash the 100-odd yoga blankets,

Lest you spend the following Winter in a state of remorse, blanket-stitching them all back together after the commercial wash results in Mass Disintegration.

Fortunately for me, nobody at Jivana seems to mind colour. We now have the grooviest blankets in town.

Backstitch and Bent Pups

It's true.

I adore backstitch. I use it when I don't want to think too much, so I can stitch and daydream to my heart's content.

Jude may recognise this fabric, seeing as how she gave it to me. The flowers were printed on already, but it was so buttery to sew that I just sort of kept on going, and coloured in for awhile.

The next patch is for Bobby La and her outrageously magnificent crazy quilt, that has me thoroughly resolved to go over the edges of my patches from here on in. Not to mention her current obsession with vintage transfer patterns, that have had me cross-eyed with amusement.

We could all use a little more kitsch in our lives. We wouldn't want to be taking things too seriously, now. Here are some of the weirdest-looking pups I've ever seen. I don't know whether to laugh or have nightmares.

But more about that later. I have to sew it yet.

If I Were a Car, I'd Trade Me In

These days, I'm obliged to live very quietly, in order to function at all. No excitement whatsoever, lest I start to have fun, whereby my head would most probably explode into a thousand teeny pieces.

Tired of trying to explain to the Resident Eggheads that I get Zippy the Pinhead Syndrome whenever anyone shrieks, or barks, or if the telly goes up to eleven, (I even tried crying, to no avail, teenagers seem hardwired to not notice), I have retreated to my bedroom, with the door closed.

Handsewing. When my eyes are up for it. Otherwise, sleeping. On the rare occaisions that I leave the house, I wear extra-dark glasses, because I am a vampire and the sun burns my eyes, and because I want people to look at me twice and wonder if I'm a rock star travelling incognito.

My antique crazy patchwork quilt, handstitched in silk during the Victorian era, which managed to happily survive the last 100 years, has been all but shredded from living on my bed and being jumped on by kids and dogs in the last five. It's a mess.

So I'm fixing it.

Or I've started to, anyway.

Starting with a patch from the stash; an embroidered potholder from the 1920s that was never completed, that I found God knows where, and which I've souped up a little.

I notice, for the first time, that more than one person made this quilt, there is such variance in the stitching. And I wonder what these women dreamed of while they sewed. Were they happy, hopeful, heartbroken? In their wildest dreams, could they possibly imagine that I would be sitting here,100 years later and on the other side of the world, working on the same quilt? I ponder on like this for hours, as the first patch nears completion. Only a hundred and eleventy to go.

I'd forgotten how magical and restorative hand stitching is. The light in my bedroom is perfect.

Tomorrow, the endocrinologist. I hope he has something inspiring to say.