What are you looking at?

Oh... you want to know? Oh, yes, of course. Well I'm Hollie Anderson and this is a collection of my work and ramblings. Thats it really, don't worry I won't be upset if you leave. I won't cry. Honest...

Well. Maybe a little.

Friday 10 July 2009

This is more a reminder to myself than a proper post but I'm havign my tattoo filled in on the 10th of september. Hopefully I will have the warp/weft ambigram ready for the other arm aswell! I don't think I ever posted my tattoo when I got it done, but its basicly a souped up version of the knit/purl ambigram that is already on google and such, but I had to steal it, I just had to. Its going to have its partner on the other arm and probably eventually have more swirls and crap coming off it, so then I won't feel so bad about having nicked it, even though I did change it... a bit... look at me trying to justify myself. Amyway, here it is. My homage to knitting.

So my burlesque lady has been put on hold for now, not least because its the end of term and I'm franticaly trying to get my Hereford home in order before I go and house sit in Bristol for lord knows how long, and then go to Sonisphere festival with my good friends and Scouser. But aside from that, a new craft challenge has arisen: OPERATION NICOLE'S WEDDING.

Nicole was going to go to Vegas and have some kind of rocabilly/shotgun/expensive thing which reminded me of our father in many and varied worrying ways, but she has changed her mind and wants more people to be there (I could not afford Vegas on my student loan) so instead shes having it in England and having a huge picnic. However, this means that she needs picnic quilts and cusions for 80 people. And some bunting, because why the hell not. She wants a country garden/Laura Ashley/Attic mess style load of mismatched textiles (aka:my style, which is fortunate).

So, here are my prototypes. I'm trying to do this on a budget of £200. Can you hear my teeth chattering? No? Well that would be because I ground them all down in my sleep last night whilst I was dreaming about Fabric Land. Anyway, here goes:

This is the quilt prototype, its 1mx1m and made from heavy pinstriped cotton on both sides (I'm going to substiute the bottom for calico for cost and waterproof issues), with rather thick acrylic wadding in the middle. The corners are gold silk and it had embelishment in the corner. The edging needs doing still, and I'm probably going to use a nice thick ivory ribbon fot that, and some buttons for the middle, stitched on with thin ribbon tied in a bow.

Close up of the corner. The roses are made of gold silk and taupe cotton, there are some tiny silver forks sewn in there, then some knitted stuff (because I had to use SOME knitting, yo) and the back is some gauze which I used a needle to pull up strands of warp and weft to ruch and then tied in knots.

The back of the cusions. Half gold silk and half taupe cotton. I'm going to stitch these shut once the pillows are inside, or maybe button, I'm not sure yet.

The fabric for the front of the cushions, one is teal and gold polkadot silk and the other is this gorgeous floral stuff which I adore.

So thats it so far. Nic has managed to find me 20m of wadding for £19.80, which is FAR cheaper than the £8 per metre I was paying before. The calico for the underneath of the quilts is going to be £20 aswell for all of it, so now we just need 80m of 2inch ivory ribbon and 20 1m square scraps of random material, plus scraps for embelishment and then the cushions are going to be a bugger, because that silk is £2.50 for a cushion sized piece. So I might just make a couple like that and the rest knitted/crocheted or out of more scrap. Is this going to be possible? God I hope so, because it will be AWESOME if it is. I'll have student loans at some point too, so that plus my 200 odd hours work can be Nicole and Geoffs present, hahaha.

I'm going to look like a builder on one side after all this Singer action.