rockpool candy

Happy Holidays, Everyone!

To all my readers, feeders, ravelry mates and fellow bloggers, I want to send a fibery, festive howdy doody.

I hope that the season brings you and yours health and happiness in buckets - or yarn baskets if you prefer.

Take care.
Enjoy Yourselves.

xx

Packaging flashback

Now, should you be under the impression that you're not really a label junkie, let me correct you.
You may not care to dress in Lacoste T-shirts, or carry YSL handbags, but a HUGE amount of your life will be tied up with packaging and branding images. 

Not convinced?

Well I challenge you to take a trip to London's Museum of Brands, Packaging and Advertising and not spend a good few hours exclaiming
"Oh! I'd forgotten all about..."

"...pink, teddybear shaped talc bottles. Just about every one of my friends had one on their dressing table." And then be able to recall all the other features in your 7yr-old mates' bedrooms; the fluffy red rugs, the Womble lampshades, the woven plastic chairs.

"...Mr Men ice lollies!" And be able to taste the sugary, syrupy 'red' flavour.

" Windolene! That pink stuff we used to clean the windows with!" And remember how you'd wipe it on the windows and then draw in it before polishing it all off to a streaky gleam, noting how, just like calamine lotion, it used to go chalky on your fingers.

See? Just like music and smells, brands whisk you back to long-forgotten memories.

Real fruit jellies are my Grandma and Grandpa's house at Christmas.

Dairy Box is the twin birth of my little brother and sister.

I could go on....

But the genius that is Robert Opie's collecting habit means that there are not only sweet wrappers and items of 70's perfumery madness on display, but everything from Crystal Palace crocheting paraphenalia

to vintage sewing patterns.

Not sure what's more scary. The shapeless nature of the lilac top, or the hairdo that looks like it's fresh-popped from a toaster!

The museum captures perfectly the way British society has changed in the last few hundred years or so. Each cabinet is a time capsule of our attitudes to each other and even our use of language.

I will leave you with two thoughts.

Chocolate. It's food!

And

No horse head in your bed

The North West Craft Mafia are much nicer.
SallyF is the don. She giveth craftiness and she don't even expect your kneecaps as payback. Now there's a gal to keep in with. Check out her site, tinkering times

Her world seems a veritable cornucopia of vintage buttons, textiles and delicious crafty creativity.

Well, she found a graph art projecty thing that I just had to share with you. It depicts all the links etc to your site, but who cares! You type in your url and the most beautiful floral graph blossoms in front of you.
This is my site.

I'm thinking 50's soup bowl. Lovin' it.
Try it yourself.

7 days, 7 attacks, but I'm in love

I'm not posting this for sympathy - I'm an extraordinarily happy woman.
I'm not posting this out of self pity - I have a great life and loads of people have it a lot worse than me.
I'm just posting.

I have angioedema (an-jee-o-e-DEE-ma). It can cause swelling of the hands, feet, eyelids, lips and airway passages, making moving, seeing and breathing difficult. In my case they think it's hereditary. It recurs from time to time... whenever it wants really.

Angioedema is the third person in my marriage (we call her Ange). She's a bossy, self-centred diva.

When she wants my body to sit down, she'll make me fall.

When she wants attention during the night, she'll make one side of my body swell up so much that it bites through my dreams, waking me with pain.

If I go out in the cold, she'll complain and make my joints seize up.

In the last year, she's decided that she doesn't like the way the world looks through my right eye, so is forming a cataract to blur what I see, stop me shooting my bow and drown out my love of colour.

But this last week, she's been particularly defiant. She's attacked me each day, like a violent partner. Walking has been like stepping on broken glass. The light has been far too bright through my aching eyes. My hands and feet have been so swollen that I thought my skin would burst. She batters me from the inside.

She stops me crocheting.

She is a bitch.

But you know what. I'm not her victim. Because she's part of my genetic make up. She is me and I am her. Jekyll and Hyde.

And best of all, my husband loves me unreservedly. He steadies me when I walk like a newborn foal. He puts me to bed when I can't undress myself. He kisses me when I look like the elephant man.

Despite her tantrums, he's stuck with me for a decade.

I love you, my hub. Here's to the next six decades together.

May they be filled with many, many more adventures and buckets more of the laughter we share.

You're my one and only, boogaloo.

x

Perfect plastic pupils

I'm glad to say that my spun plastic yarn technique is keeping pupils and teachers alike busy at the Yale-Wrexham College exhibition.
 

The Clwyd spinners did three days of demonstrations at the gallery, inspiring kids to make their own drop spindles using recycled CDs.  Everyone is now bursting with ideas relating to sustainability and recycling in the spinning world.  

Marcus (above) is a true convert to spinning. He's spinning carrier bags with students at any opportunity (he has also shown a few other members of staff, too).  The gallery recently ran a workshop with about 25 primary school pupils.

Some of whom knocked up a few pictures of a certain artist's football jellyfish.........