This one time, on craft camp...

I'm back.
For two wonderful days I laughed long and hard, ate wonderful food, exchanged recipes, traced patterns, sewed myself clothes, soaked up creative  inspiration, visited my favorite bookshop, received an excellent massage and slept soundly.



So here I am, relaxed, refreshed and rejuvenated. Thankful that I had such wonderful companions to share my weekend with. Grateful to my family for enabling me to enjoy a break from the usual routine of life, and then welcoming me back upon my return. Enjoying my new wardrobe additions- all made from Japanese books, none designed as maternity wear, but all very accommodating of my current condition. (I have to say with minimal or no alterations thanks to loose and generously sized patterns). There are more details about the projects on my sewing circle or flickr.

Tales of neglect

It would appear I've been absent from blog land for nearly a month now.

Which really pales in comparison to the quantity (is zero a quantity?) of time that I've spent in the garden in the last 3 or 4 or perhaps even more months.
And as I discovered after putting my neck out not once, not twice, but three times in the space of 6 weeks, is still better than level of attention I've been paying to the increasingly rigid knots that I use for shoulders.
And is still pretty good in contrast to the time I've spent at the sewing machine since craft weekend way back in May.

But things are looking up.

I'm off on craft weekend again tomorrow, new fabrics, new patterns and newly serviced sewing machine in tow.
Chiropractic and massage treatments are starting to loosen the knots and ease the aches.
The carrots (by some miracle) are delicious (although I'm yet to test the not-so-baby beetroot, and the peas are well past their best). I even weeded the strawberry bed when the sun was out last weekend (Ahhh, dear Sun. I'd forgotten what your warmth was like).
And I've just done a post over at Sew Green covering some basic green building concepts.

Enjoy.

Turning a corner

When you find yourself in the depths of an uninspired craft funk it can be hard to imagine how you might ever be pulled out of it. You just have to wait, and try to keep your mind and eyes open for inspiration or urge to strike.

I was starting to think I might be crawling my way out of this one. I've started to reacquaint myself with my sewing machine. My mindless baby blanket knitting is progressing quickly and easily, particularly now that the nausea has eased, and I've been able to start knitting on the train again.

Then a friend arrived back from a holiday and offered to share her Kinokuniya spoils with me. I've been pouring over this book by Nooy , and Drape Drape and Drape Drape 2, and finding things that I could make for now- for pregnancy- and beyond. I've been tagging patterns left, right and centre, and plotting what stash fabrics I could use. Although I have to say there are things in these that I wouldn't wear (the Drape Drape pants stand out) there are some that are incredibly beautiful and interesting and versatile- things I could wear during pregnancy and well beyond. If I'm going to make (or for that matter, buy) clothes now, I would much prefer that they're not things I'm only going to be able wear for 3 or 4 months.

On the knitting front I came across some beautiful knitted jewelry by Shadowplay via Outsapop. Heather's work is also featured in Vogue Knitting Early Fall 2010. I'm not really much of a jewelry wearer, but I love these. Pity I don't really like the other things in the mag. Might have to just make an "inspired by" attempt at something similar- it seems like a great way to use up little scraps or samples of interesting textured yarns.

In a contrast on the knitting front, I came across a round pouf pattern, free from Drops (Ravelry link), which reminds me very much of the knitted urchin poufs by flocks . I've always wanted to try making a flocks-like pouf, and finding a pattern might be the push I need to do it.It takes a lot of yarn, but I was thinking of knitting one from rags- perhaps in cotton from an old sheet, like this, or using strips cut from my stash of sweaters to be recycled, like this.

So much  to do, so little waking hours.....