String Revolution

Here are Niall and I, with the baby Oyster, turning up at the Register Office five years ago, on a fine, cold Tuesday afternoon, to let the State know how things stood between us. As I said in my wedding speech at the party the following Saturday, by any sensible definition of the term we’d been “married” for years by then.

Six years earlier, my good friend, with whom I’d just moved into a flatshare arrangement, took my hand on a sleety Monday morning and told me he was falling in love with me. And I said, “Me too.”

Somewhere in this morass of a house, I probably still have the Filofax diary sheet from that day, on which I wrote, “9:10am: Fundamental and irrevocable alteration to the fabric of the universe.”

Because I am pompous that way. And I knew this was different.

We got married on our anniversary, because this was the day we wanted to go on celebrating. (I’m just obsessive enough to have worked out that this is the first time in eleven years that the date has fallen on a Monday again. Not sure that means anything, but it made me smile when I realised.)

Eleven years! Two children, many job changes, one house move, a procession of lovely housemates, one big extension project, much laughter, some crying, hard times and good times and pain and joy and all the bits in between – and always that deep, abiding connection, that sense of comfort and home that we give each other.

It’s good. Happy anniversary, Niall of my heart.

Spring is here!

In Ireland, spring officially starts today, the 1st of February, which is the Pagan festival of Imbolc, transmuted in the Christian era into Candlemas, St Bridget’s Day, Lá Fhéile Bríde.

And look! My birch is budding!

But that’s not why I’m slapping this streak of incoherence across your internets. No, friends, for there is a miracle far greater than the budding forth of bare branches.
Continue reading Gesprungen!

Oh, there are posts queueing up in my head waiting to be written, but this evening I must content myself with showing you some progress on my latest Oyster-inspired project. I’ve been nudging it gently along over the past few days, and it’s now at the point where I can start adding the surface stitching.

You can just faintly see the mast and the broadly grinning boatman, which will be stitched using colours chosen in consultation with the artist.
Continue reading One Man in a Boat

I’m sewing another picture by the Oyster (the first one being the dragon). This one uses fabric as well as surface embroidery.

In the photo you can see me starting the reverse appliqué on one of the main sections. I’ve tacked the pattern piece behind the background, then cut out the centre to within about 6mm of the marked outline, and clipped the curves. Now I’m tucking each clipped section under and slipstitching the folded edge to the pattern piece.

I’m loving it. I find hand sewing intensely relaxing, and I’ve enjoyed working on this piece out of the hoop. I imagine you can do appliqué in a hoop, but I’m not sure how you handle the difference in stretch between the background fabric and the pieces you’re applying.
Continue reading No Bigger than Your Hand

I joined the Irish Patchwork Society (Eastern Branch) last September, in a bid to do something about my dark yearnings.

Yesterday was the January meeting, and [trumpet fanfare, angel choir] I won a prize in the monthly raffle! This never happens. Really, never. In fact, I think this may be the first time. I was so dazed by the experience that I didn’t hear the chair call my name to pick the next prizewinning number. Hee!
Continue reading Sunday Stash, no. 7

I finished a sock! And it only took me a sock and three-quarters to do it.

As you may recall, I had to change needle size when I’d knitted nearly all of my first Spring Forward sock, because it wouldn’t go over my ankle. Keeping the cursing and wailing to a functional minimum (there are children present, after all), I flung myself at sock no. 2, and here’s the result.

As you can see, it goes on! (You’ll have to take my word for it that it comes off again.)
Continue reading Inch Forward

I was chatting to an online friend recently about creativity and blocks, and something she said made a little light go on in my brain.

“I looked at my writing,” says she to me, “the way I looked at a pre-schooler’s macaroni necklace, something that no one would ever pay me for…”

A pre-schooler’s macaroni necklace.

Yes! This perfectly encapsulates one of the big tangles I have in my personal string revolution (by which I mean the idea of building a living around this stuff, oh yes – watch me shrink it down and tuck it safely between parentheses). I am intensely twitchy about standing up and saying, “Hey, I made this, and I think it’s good.”
Continue reading Macaroni Necklace!

In December I went to the National Crafts and Design Fair in the RDS for the first time, which gave rise to some unexpectedly insistent thoughts about sales and marketing. (Who am I, and what have I done with the real Léan?)

The show was a complete sensory overload, and it didn’t help that I had only a scant hour and a half to spend there.

Despite the overwhelm, though, it was great to see such beautiful work, such creative energy.

As someone who is going through a bone-level metamorphosis with relation to business, I found myself paying particular attention to the pricing and marketing strategies as I raced around.

I saw various models, ranging from “How do they even cover their costs?” to “Whoa – I am so not in their target market”. Intricate jewellery for a few euros. Wall hangings for four-figure sums. Every conceivable price in between.
Continue reading Pricing at the Craft Fair (or, Magic and Mortgages)

Well, now. The holiday season has done its usual thing, muscling in, swaggering around, laying about it left, right, and centre with its distinctive brand of two-fisted festive cheer.

Halls were decked, carols were trolled, merry was industriously made. I even finished my sister’s Christmas present – with a day to spare. (Forgot to photograph it, mind you, but that’s pretty minor, considering.) I gave my parents the dragon.
Continue reading ‘Twas the Season

And what of those Spring Forward socks? Well, according to the above photo, they appear to be motoring along nicely. Indeed, I’ve started on the second one.

But wait a minute – started on the second one before finishing the first?

Yes.

Of course, plenty of people do this – they knit their pairs of socks simultaneously, on a circular needle using the magic loop technique. But that’s not what’s going on here.

My friends, all is not rosy in the garden.
Continue reading Spring Two Steps Forward, One Step Back