If you're like me, you brace yourself before you look at any photos you're in. Usually, I find I look more out of proportion/more disheveled/more badly made up than I thought I did as I said "cheese". Then I wince and press delete.
But I'm quite proud of a pic that MyTarpit took of me in Berlin.
I think that my makeup's just peachy and, well, if I say so, I look quite perky. And as for the size of my waist? For once, I'm happy with it in proportion to the size of my face.
Happy Days.
It's a happening.
The urban art giveaway artist, and gorgeous husband, MyTarpit, is off to Berlin for the German version of I am 8 bit.
The neurotitian site is here giving you the low down on the major-cool Berlin two day art walk.
Who's there?
Featuring a massive, all-enveloping installation by acclaimed artist
Jude Buffum, and accompanied by original doodles by some of the most
prolific character designers in animation and comics (including
Emmy-winners Jorge R. Gutierrez and Sandra Equihua, Gabe Swarr, Jim
Mahfood, MyTarPit and others), it's an exhibit within an exhibit.
Why am I telling you this?
Because being the wife of MyTarPit, it was only a matter of time before my fibre-activist fingers began fiddling with his free street art.
He recently screenprinted up some fabulous pieces and, whilst he was printing, I encouraged him to slip in a few fabrics.
These resulting one-off pieces will be laced with ribbon to lamposts, echoing a basque-wearing songstress in a smokey 1940's Berlin nightclub.
If you're in Berlin next week, you can score one - if you're brave enought to leave a lady lampost naked in such chilly temperatures, that is!
Dare you undress?
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
If you've been keeping up with my blog, you'll have read my post about trolling around Northern Ireland with Pom Pom International,
Cue a bum shot of Miss Amy Lamé.
And I must admit, on that tour, I had the best time I've had since I moved over to the Province. And got to meet just the best people.
Thanks go out to Derry Pride organisers and ball goers.
Here's the yarn you helped me to spin. I'll make and extra-special pom pom with it.
But that wasn't the only bit of travelling I got up to in the UK.
After the tour, I caught the sunny Belfast ferry cross the angry body of water better known as the Irish sea.
Ah.....summer......
I picked up the fabulous Ildi and we had a brill couple of days driving down to London, eating delish kebabs and staying in dodgy hotels to drop off one of my 'Great White' reefs for the Creative Stitches and Hobbycraft shows that are touring the UK.
It's for part of their Reclaim, Re-use, Recycle show and it opens for the first time today in Exeter and goes on until early next year. The reef is just one of the elements I've created especially for the show cabinet they've given me. I can't wait to see the final underwater scene.
Next stop, London and I Knit.
Me and my mucker mate, moonspinning . Hanging out, meeting other complete loons, like alabamawhirly and bringing fibre fiddlers over to the dark side of spinning. Come on, can you really resist ferreting in this and getting creative? (even if I do say so myself!)
Whizz bang and I'm in Ross on Wye, rumaging through beach detritus to finish my jellyfish.
And may I be so bold to suggest that, should you feel the desire to begin untangling neon fishing line and crocheting it... don't. It's a madness not best visited.
And so to Wrexham, Wales. Yale College to be precise. And their recycling exhibition. The poster is in both English and Welsh, in case you're wondering.
And within minutes, like ants around a just-dropped ice-cream, we fibre fiddlers are circling two spinning wheels and sharing techniques.
I even taught Marcus to make plastic-bag yarn and to spin moonlight, all against a back drop of my jellyfish and second 'Great White' reef. Now that doesn't happen very often.
And finally back home. To rest my weary spinning muscles and enjoy a bit of colour therapy.
Yarn is good........
So how were the last two months for you? I feel like I've been around the World in 60 days - which isn't such a stretch of the imagination.
Add into the mix of fibre and travelling a huge bacterial lung infection and enough over-the-counter drugs to make me hallucinate 'til I was introducing myself to my own feet and it'll give you an insight into why I'm currently in a permanently-knackered state.
So August kicked off with me scooting off to LA with MyTarPit to do a canvas drop whilst he took part in 'I am 8 bit'.
Man, we were hanging out with the urban artist glitterati!
Space Invader put up two new pieces.
This guy has his own trainers for crying out loud! Walk in a puddle and you'll leave little invaders on the pavement with every step.
Then there was hanging with The Chung! Who never leaves his art to the last minute. On, no. Never.
The gorgeous Scott "Do you know who I am?" Campbell.
How he doesn't have a million babes following him like ducklings is a mystery.
Martin Hsu, creator of Ruby Gloom and decal genius.
Joe 'my characters ain't fallen over in a stiff breeze' Ledbetter.
We spoke with monkeys...
Hung with big bears...
And drank from Colt45 cans designed by Jim Mahfood when turning over his flat.
That, Ladies and Gents, was LA
What wonderful things pom poms are.
Natalie's beautiful, handmade yurt was the perfect setting to share our fiber fiddlery.
Despite some reservations from those faultering on the the threshold, once they sat down and began to wind a myriad of coloured yarns around their pom pom makers, they became entranced.
These Pom Poms really brought diverse people together in the name of peace.
There were pirates in Portadown.
Singing novice spinners in Derry.
Extended families in Fermanagh.
Welcoming volunteers in Darkley.
Teams of teenagers on the Shankill Road.
It was a memorable, if sometimes wet and blowy tour.
Thank you Northern Ireland.
Peace!
So, leaving NYC behind, we headed upstate to pick up a car in Albany. (If you ever want to film an alien abduction scene, this is your city. Hardly a soul on the street and yet it was the middle of the afternoon on a working day.) Maybe it has something to do with the Egg - yep, that's its real name. Couldn't get out of this place fast enough. And did you know, it's the true capital of New York state (go figure) it was eerie.
If you want fibre, then you have to head up state and have a chat with the lovely Nancy
at Stitchin Post in Saratoga Springs. 
She is just the sort of fellow fibre fiddler that I'd love to spend more time with, hanging out, sitting on the front step of the shop. Alas, time was short and we had to rush on. A whistle stop tour of 
And I have the first few local yarns to start my New York State travelling reef. (I spent the evening winding it on Adirondeck chair backs.) Here it sits in the woodpile next to a roaring fire.
And what a place to start crocheting it the next day, sitting on the edge of a frozen Mirror Lake, cosied up to an open fire. bliss
It's trepidatious taping time again. Should I use more duct tape for the corners of my box, or is 20m of hideously-inorganic, stinky sticky stuff enough to keep my jellyfish from escaping on their trip to New York?
It's always odd letting stuff go. Even worse when you have to de-construct everything you've made so that it fits into the box, desperately trying to make yourself remember how it should be put back together once you're in a foreign gallery.
I managed to get a few snaps before things were dismantled in the hope that it will jog my memory.(Would you believe that I'm taking these with a 5mega pixel Viewty camera phone bought to replace my old camera? Top tip - don't waste your £300-. It has a cavalier approach to focusing!)
There are 16 football jellyfish flocking to the World Financial Centre.
Their silk, bubblewrap, plastic and foam tentacles hold static and wave eerily at you whenever you walk past.
Just to give you an idea of scale, some of the jellyfishes' tentacles drape up to 5ft beneath their bodies.
I've been pouring over Claire Nouvian's book The Deep for inspiration.
Just when I think I'm being a little outlandish in my embellishment, I find that Mother Nature has already been there, done that and is the mistress of frill, pomp and colour clash co-ordination.
Thus, my queen jellyfish, of which there are three, are heavily laden with crocheted mantles and tentacles beneath their glassy bells.
And I didn't hold back with my 80's wedding confection of crocheted balloon ribbon and gift ties.
Or my anemone mounds, of which there are now not just blue, but orange, green, purple and clear versions sprouting across the side of a 2m wide crocheted urchin.
And of course, with the reaction my hula-hoop-woven anemone got in Chicago, I had to try one out for the plastic New York reef. Whilst the yarn anemone was soft, velvety and strangely comforting, this plastic-bag one is cold, hard and unforgiving. Even now its foam 'lips' are finished, it still reminds me of snorkelling in freakishly-cold currents, hanging over dead coral. It's not one of my favourites
.
So all the elements are packed, including 5 blue stars - the two seen here half-finished.
I'll take pictures when everything has been laid out and put in place for the show. So much of my reef's shape will be dictated by the space, its advantages and limitations.
The plastic reef will be in the World Financial Center, in a beautiful public space called the Winter Garden.
The display space is a gorgeous, curved, glass-fronted, store-front, about 38 feet long and 10 feet deep, that looks out onto the Winter garden. The whole thing will look like a giant aquarium.
All my yarn and fibre creations will join the IFF's main reef, displaying in the New York University's display windows on Broadway.
The windows will be finished for Sunday the 6th April. If you find yourself in New York, come take a look.
I've also finally finished my Gas Station Panel for the International Fibre Collaborative event on the 11th April in Syracuse.
3 feet square and pretty hefty, it is of course, covered in coral! The link it has to oil consumption being that all the yarns and the backing fabric are plastic/oil-derived. It will be interesting to see how they cope with the elements. I'm assuming that they will not degrade in the rain, but whether they keep their colour under bright New York State skies will be another matter.
I may be only 37, but boy, I feel 370 lately! I've been laid up on the sofa with a wonderful mixture of phlebitis, (the drugs for which, in turn, triggered my angioedema) and now a liberal dose of the killer flu. If I were a horse, the knackers yard would have been called weeks ago. But I am part of the wonderful world of fibre and I may be falling to bits, but life is great.
Surprise packages have been arriving thick and fast.
1st came Jimbo's chophook. 
Jimbo is a guy living in the States, by Deadman's Crick, carving crochet hooks from the wood in his orchard and old chopsticks and selling them to fund the building of his cabin.
I came across Jimbo through ravelry and instantly fell in love with his handiwork, but on reading his blog, was also struck by this man's gentleness and generosity.
His friend's daughter has Friedreich's Ataxia, and wanting to raise awareness of the condition and the need for research into a cure, Jimbo decided to set up charitable auctions of his hooks online. Jimbo has also donated a travelling hook to the cause that will pass from fibre fiddler to fibre fiddler, creating crocheted wonders to auction and raise cash, whilst all the time being blogged about.
I've added my name to the list and eagerly await the travelling hook's arrival. Meantime, Jimbo sent me my very own chophook, with which I'm crocheting away. It's beautifully smooth and incredibly easy on the hands, as it's easy to hold. I'd also recommend it to people who maybe have problems holding smaller hooks. Go on! Get involved!
2nd came a bag of soda ash, from her Royal Highness, The Skein Queen.
She'd read about my dismal forays into banana fibre dyeing and suggested that I was using the wrong mordant. If this little bag enables me to create the sort of colourways she's selling on Etsy then I shall eternally grovel at her royally-slippered pieds.
3rd to arrive was a package all the way from Geneva.
Stuffed to the gills with squidgy balls of lurid and spangly acrylics perfect for the Coral Collective Hospital Project. Thank you Seamus!
Another day, another package. 4th came Ilidko's wonderful corals and their patterns. This woman is like yarn on acid! I asked her if she could see her way to helping me with a pattern or two for the Coral Collective Hospital Project.
She sent six! And they're SO beautiful. I'm indebted to her for her help. Visitors are going to love crocheting her designs.
And then there's Debi's package. Debi is over here in Norn Iron for a while and we're loving having her. She's always surrounded by a gaggle of women at the Guild meetings as she pulls Oak Hammock Farm fleece after fleece from her bags for us to ooh and ahh over.
I've dyed up some in luscious greens.
But as well as her lovely natural fleeces, she's like my cheap yarn pimp, bringing bulk buys of acrylic back from the States for me. This stuff is so nasty it could power a small town with its static. PERFECT for mad coral creations.
So now, all I have to do is clear the backlog of work that's sitting awaiting me after my desktop absence. Argh! There's never enough time to take in all the fabulousness of our fibre community. I need to duplicate myself.
Thanks to EVERYONE!
