Felt Making

It's a been a couple of weeks as I haven't had an awful lot to blog about of late, but that doesn't mean I haven't been crafting busily! I have finally completed the tank top for Martyn's birthday, but I'm not posting pics until he has received it. He's not seen the finished article yet so there will be a tiny element of mystery to it. I've not unsurprisingly been unable to be entirely covert as most of it has been knitted whilst sat next to him on the sofa. I've now moved on to making a couple of amigurami toys for birthdays that are coming up.

I know it's early, but when you are planning on making a lot of things for Christmas, you unfortunately have to start thinking about it and preparing for months in advance. You may have noticed that there are a great number of felt flower brooches/corsages in the shops at the moment. I have been admiring them and have noted some female family members doing the same, but I never want to buy them as they would be so easy to make. A lot of them are also quite boring, and in typical style I have tried to develop the idea to make something a bit more original. As a child I had a great time making felt with Mum, and this has been a good excuse to have another go.

You don't need any special equipment, and the raw materials are not too costly. First off you need to buy some carded dyed wool called 'tops'. I bought mine from our local art/craft shop in town.

This will make up the main body of the felt. You can add other bits to give a bit of texture. I used some waste wool yarn, and also some of this uncarded, dyed wool:

Now you will need some bubble wrap, at least twice the size of the felt you wish to make, soap flakes, very hot water and a rolling pin. I made the felt in the bath but watch your back! Firstly, lay the teased out tops in layers on the bubble wrap, bubbles upwards. You're aiming for a fairly even layer each time, and should alternate layers going up-down and left-right to give the finished felt strength. This process takes a bit of trial and error, but I started with 5 layers. Between the layers, I arranged the waste yarn and pieces of uncarded wool. You then sprinkle the wool with soap flakes and sprinkle with hot water, the hotter the better, but not too hot to burn your hands! Gently press the layers together until they are soaked through. Fold the bubble wrap in two, with the bubbles inwards and soon-to-be felt in between. You then rub the whole thing vigorously with the rolling pin for at least 15 minutes. Keep sprinkling more hot water on the felt as you go to keep it as hot as possible. When you are happy the felt has properly bonded, rinse thoroughly and squeeze the excess water out. Dry flat.

I made my felt with the finished flower idea in mind, hence I have 3 roughly circular areas of pattern within my piece of purple felt. I plan to machine embroider the felt with metallic thread to give it extra stability and interest before cutting the pieces out. I'll keep ou updated - I'm aware it doesn't look like much now but I'm optimistic about the finished article.

I have just come back from re-visiting the Vintage Market at Bridport, and was pleased to find this late 50's/early 60's style clock.

It goes perfectly in my recently revamped small but perfectly formed kitchen:

This week I'll hopefully joining the ladies in Weymouth for a 'Stitch and Bitch' meeting on Tuesday. Should be fun! Now... which project to start next?!

End of the Road Festival 2010

Having spent the past four days and three nights in a field, I am surprisingly chipper today. Reason? We have been to the lovely EOTR festival for it's 5th anniversary year. We can now be considered veterans of the festival, having been every year except the first. We love it, and this year did not disappoint at all. It started as a very small indie festival at Larmer Tree Gardens in North Dorset (described by one security man yesterday as a festival where you knew practically everyone by name), to a small indie festival at Larmer Tree Gardens in North Dorset. Long may it remain this way. I was a little concerned that it felt bigger and busier this year, and they had day ticketers for the first time, backtracking on a previous conscious ideal to create a community atmosphere where the crowd is the same over the duration. It was fine though, but I beg you - no bigger please!

The first task in getting anywhere these days, is shipping the cats off to the cattery (yes, they are now cats as of this week and kittens no longer). They usually are quite good at getting straight into the boxes of their own accord when you set them down, unlike our old cat that required two of us to push her in under protest. Tilly missed the point this time though:

The second stumbling block is the tent assembly. M and I are usually quite good at putting up the tent, and I'm ashamed to say we have suffered from 'bring a spare house' syndrome with a 5 person tent complete with doormat. This year we had a little 2 person number which was surprisingly spacious. The bringing of a new tent, which neither of us had ever tried putting up before caused slight friction, but plenty short of wanting to do each other bodily mischief.

Notes to self for next year:

Don't take any food other than variety packet of cereal. You won't eat it.
The hamper is over the top for a little tent.
Forget the little chairs too. They're good, but you can't be arsed to carry them all day. So don't.
Why did you think you needed your whole purse for the festival? No-one needs store cards in a field and it doesn't fit in your pocket.

This year, the site opened on Thursday rather than the first day of the festival, Friday. We thought we'd go along to save time and the rush on Friday. EOTR is well known for secret gigs and unadvertised late editions, and this year we were in for a huge surprise. There were only a couple of hundred of us there, if that, when Willy Mason was on!! I don't know how they swung it, but I'm glad they did. He didn't pander to expectations and play his biggest hit 'Oxygen', but I admired him for that. It was a great set with a beautiful rendition of 'Where the Humans Eat'.

This was followed up with a set by Isabel Campbell (Belle & Sebastian) and Mark Lanegan (Queens of the Stone Age) which went down very well in the tent. Meursault, 'Allo Darlin' and Darren Hayman (Hefner) completed the line up. The lovely Somerset Cider Bus was again onsite keeping us warm with mulled cider and an optional shot of brandy. It's something we look forward to all year! The food on site is all good quality stuff and well presented. We particularly looked forward to the Goan Fish Curry luxury kedgeree for breakfast every morning. Here is the Tea Stop converted London Bus, with tea in homely style complete with pot, and dainty cups & saucers. I believe that most the stalls make an appearance at Glasto too.

Even Jesus was there.

I was a little concerned by this sign. Did they realise the valuables weren't meant as donations? They also seemed to be giving away free lost luggage which seemed a little harsh on the bereft owners.

Political satire featured a small part. Here was the door to the toilets (which were notably not horrible).

There are four main stages, and here is the lovely Cate Le Bon (no relation to Simon) on the Garden Stage.

The surrounding permanent structures here are lovely.

There are a few bars all serving ale, including the specially brewed Shephard Neame EOTR Ale, which was pleasant enough. They had a few special ales each day, my favourite being the dubiously named Cobble Wobble. With a 5p deposit on each pint 'glass', a small army of minature glass collectors saw a pocket money oppertunity.

Is this a recipe for disaster? Drinking and knitting would surely lead to dropped stitches - but luckily for me I am proud to say the pattern was maintained throughout the festival. Hoorah for me!

There were quite a few arty crafty types around the place. A few people drawing/painting and I did have company on the knitting front. Two fellow knitters were at work during the comedy sets on Sunday, but my jumper was getting heavier by the end of the weekend, and having dismantled the tent and packed the car I didn't want to lug it around all day and night. The two that did were predictably ribbed (appropriate for knitters, huh?) by the entertainment.

Proof, people, that socks and shoes are cool.

M looked happy as ever. In his defence, he was sat next to a woman who annoyed the crap out of him all afternoon talking about drinking ad nauseum and something about her child talking jibberish being evidence of ghosts. If you know him, you'd understand how he'd react to that. There was a 'Healing Retreat' that we stayed well clear of. I have previous when it comes to arguing with people selling magnets for health benefits and M's BP starts to visibly rise at the sight of anything to do with alternative therapy. I'm a bit more open minded, but have my limits too.

This was Fridays headliner Modest Mouse at work. Honest. We left the set early in order to attend the Comedy Storytellers' club, compered by Sarah Bennetto. A mix of short stand-up sets and a story competition. This year it was "A rock star encounter in 5 words". Tough challenge but most people had a go (we obviously didn't win). With Edwyn Collins playing 'Rip it up' in the background, followed by The New Pornographers, a good time was had.

Continuing the now entrenched tradition, the 'Enchanted Forest' was decorated with thousands of fairy lights. The forest is curated by an artist and is scattered with various art installations.

Included is a small living room stage with piano, usually unoccupied for passers-by to have a go, but occasionally they stage the aforementioned secret gigs. Here we saw Norwegian 'Moddi' play tracks from his new record. He's not cracked the UK yet, but is a hot tip for the future. Judging by previous years, I think we may hear more from him. Last year the festival was opened by a band we'd never heard of before called Mumford & Sons. Every year we have seen acts in close quarters that have gone on to be relatively big on the indie, and sometimes popular music scene. I'm thinking particularly of Laura Marling, Seasick Steve, Brakes, British Sea Power, Broken Family Band...

There is always a library in the forest, and this year the idea was developed to allow people to actually check-out the books until next year with the librarian.

I was glad to see they know their target audience well.

Never to miss a knitting oppertunity. here I am in the library Friday waiting for the first band to start. A lady stopped to ask if she could have a picture of M and I. Apparently, with M reading and me knitting, we looked like 'archetypical nerds'. M was very proud of this. See how knitting a jumper doubles as a modesty-preserver when sat in a very short dress?

Within the library was an interactive art installation, inviting us all to contribute to a continuous scroll on the typewriters. The resulting material would then be edited and performed on Sunday.

They had an author Q&A session every morning before the music started, as advertised here in a giant book.

Last year we had a living room and sofa constructed from turf. Here's a sample of this year's art.

This telephone box wound up being pasted with post-it's by the end of the weekend.

No enchanted forest is complete without a games area. This was again formalised this year with an official tournament on Sunday. In addition to this area there was Scrabble Sunday, Croquet, Viking chess and the Ringo Bingo music quiz. Here we had table tennis, table football, giant cards, giant Jenga, ten-pin bowling and Connect 4.

I'm not going to list all the bands we saw but here are the highlights.

Brakes - we see them every year and we love them. I've seen them 5 times and it has always been brilliant.
Low Anthem - beautiful
Woodpigeon - ditto
Three Trapped Tigers - 'heroic' drumming (M's words)
Daredevil Christopher Wright - we like
Charlie Parr - always excellent
Caribou - I love them. M thinks they are a poor man's LCD soundsystem. Harsh.
Philip Selway (Radiohead) - buy his album.
Ben Ottowell (Gomez) - great set, complete with interpretive dancing by his 4 young sons
Adam Green (Moldy Peaches) - high energy caberet on acid. V fun set. Donned a glittery top from one festival-goer and a fake tash from another. Crowd surfing+++
Jarvis Cocker and Richard Hawley came back for a DJ set after last years success.

The comedy included half hour segments by Russell Howard, the brilliant Tom Bell and Robin Ince & Michael Legge doing their Righteous Anger: Pointless Ire act fresh from Edinburgh.

Overall, if you've never been, it's worth going next year. I'd rather you didn't though, there are enough of us there each year already!

To buy, or not to buy?

Hi Folks! Mum has been to stay this week, which has been lovely, and we have had a couple of days out. One of which was in Boscombe, which apart from the new pier was a little disappointing. All is not lost though - we saw some lovely antiques. So, to come quickly to the title of this blog. To buy, or not to buy? I am moderately obsessed with all things Deco, and during the course of the day saw this beautiful walnut unit.

In normal circumstances I would have looked at the price, and moved on. My problem is that I really love it. We have room for it. My Grandma has left me an unexpected inheritance and I'd really like to have something to remember her by. I have all but bought it, but can't quite commit. I've had a quick look on internet and can't find anything like it, and it seems reasonably priced for what it is. I have decided to wait a couple of weeks, and if it's gone, it wasn't meant to be. Can I reasonably justify spending a couple of hundred quid more than I would usually consider spending? Answers in the comments box please!

Today was the Dorset County Show. If there are any spelling/grammatical errors here, it is because I am SLIGHTLY pissed on local cider. As you can see - I was dressed to blend in today.

I love the show. Livestock, oversized veg, trying to work out why one sack of wheat is apparently miles better than any others, and the childrens craft exhibits. This year we were accompanied by our 8 year old nephew (fear not - he went home with grandparents BEFORE I got tipsy) and it made it all the more fun. He was particularly taken with the minature gardens. We all agreed with the judges that this was a clear winner.

I think we've convinced him to enter next year, which gives me a great excuse to help. The other favourite in this genre is the vegetable monster and vegetable animals. This is a real duck, right?

Then to the huge excitement of livestock. M got rather preoccupied with choosing hens for his imaginary chicken coop, and I particularly enjoyed seeing the sheep. The Hillside Flock of Greyface Dartmoors cleaned up this year.

I am particularly fond of the impressively horned Portland sheep:

No county show is complete without baking and preserving competitions, and M spend a long time criticising bread (he bakes all our loaves - I've not had to buy bread for well over 2 years now). I think if I were to enter any year, it would be with a jam or marmalade.

We marvelled for a long time at the array of home grown fruit, veg and flowers. Have you ever seen chillis shaped like roses? There were some lovely gladeoli varieties, and I'm surprised to say, I was impressed with some of the dahlias. I still don't like ball dahlias though (just one in the photo below). I think you need to be over 70 to appreciate those.

Then to the cider. Here is M enjoying his having 'suffered' watching dancing diggers with the young one.

From this point, I was taking pictures of anything.

I overheard a young boy in the rabbit tent saying that David Tennant was at the show both days. I am totally in love with DT and this news brought much overexcitement. Did I see him? Did I bollocks. Maybe next year...