Tuesday 21 August 2012

Final Make Do and Mend project...sniff

It had to happen.  It was inevitable.  The last of the Make Do and Mend classes at the library.  And my most successful one yet, I think, although I must come clean, the hand sewing was all done at home over several  laborious, finger-pricking, inventive-swearing nights.  I ain't that fast a learner.

Flora starts Nursery this week. I'm OK about it, thanks for asking.  She's only been at home with me (or I've been at home with her?) for her entire life.  Reassuringly she's really looking forward to it, the Nursery she's going to is ace, she's not going full-time (thank goodness)- it's all good.  And I get a whole 2 hours to crochet....make bags..... sleep..... try and restore order to Casa Egg, the great midden.  So the bag is for her to store her comprehensive list of exciting Nursery requirements (new red wellies are particularly exciting for a 3(7) year old Paddington Bear fan).

Oh, apologies for photos being a bit, well a bit crap.  Have requested More Time and Uninterrupted Typing for my Christmas (along with this, these and this.  I am such a closet 13 year old girl).

Applique, Sewing, Tote, Bag, Egg on a Stick

(See that box of crochet threads?  I got them in a charity shop ages ago and I have no idea what to do with them.  So I left it on my radiator.  Will move it in the winter, on the off chance my husband feels generous and the heating goes on; one wouldn't want the Lifestyle Fragrance of Eau de Foostay Croshay Thread to fill the house)

Sewing, Applique, Tote, Bag, Egg on a Stick

The idea is to add the important dates as they come up: primary school, secondary school, University, prison etc.  I don't expect her to use it for school but it would be nice if it was still hanging around by then and not mouldering in a heap under her bed.


Rabbit being eaten by an F.  You don't see that every day.

Already cut out the bits for my next bag and have a request to make two more for my sister's twins.  Hooked!

Night,

Luv Egg on a Stick x

Tuesday 7 August 2012

Sunday

Small children require an annoying amount of entertaining and supervision.  Today was another day when she  wasn't content staying in with pins, scissors and perilous loft ladders whilst I watched the Olympics- très inconsiderate, non?  Given the option, Flora always plumps for the spectacular New Museum but, as it's in Edinburgh and the Fringe has just started and the Capital is complete mayhem, we headed to her second choice, the Car Museum or, as maybe a handful of people actually call it, the Riverside Museum.


Glasgow, Riverside, Transport, Egg on a Stick


Designed by Zaha Hadid, it's an impressive building.  It is built on industrial wasteland, on the banks of the Clyde and there's very little immediately round about it.  Snaking along the side of the river with this enormous glass front, looking like a huge heartbeat, it replaces long-lost shipyards and warehouses.  Can you tell we were there early?

Riverside, Museum, Glasgow, Transport, Egg on a Stick


There are a couple of reasons Flora loves this museum.  Firstly, there are interactive screens dotted all over the place.  She is part of the incredible touch screen generation; easily confused by screens that don't immediately respond to her sticky swiping but utterly entranced by ones that do.  She can conduct her way through great swathes of information without actually reading any of it but don't try to keep up; her need to move things along swiftly outweighs your need to learn more of the electric tram system of Glasgow in the 1950s.


Riverside, Museum, Glasgow, Transport, Egg on a Stick


Secondly, although everything is quite squished together, it's really accessible for small people.  And Dads.  And isn't that a winning combination?

Riverside, Museum, Transport, Glasgow, Egg on a Stick


Anything with a tunnel wins points with this child.  There's a tiny exhibition of tea sets in the tunnel that only small people can access.  Cute.


Riverside, Museum, Transport, Glasgow, Egg on a Stick


And I love it too.  Whilst there is a fair amount of general transport and travel history, the emphasis is how Scottish people, particularly Glaswegians, invent, live and interact with their infrastructure.  It's a great place for eavesdropping as there are always people pointing and saying, 'You're great-grandad drove one of them' or 'Do you remember when Annie left her knickers on the No 37?'  This time, I overheard a grandad telling his teenage grandson about his participation in the Clydeside ship yard work-in in 1971, saw a group of senior ladies reliving their youth in the recreated Italian Cafe (Annie wasn't there but her knickers were the source of much pant-wetting hilarity) and a disbelieving wee girl being proudly told that her granny did indeed wear skirts that short and go on bikes that fast.....at the same time!  Proper living history.  


Riverside, Museum, Glasgow, Transport, Egg on a Stick


One of the exhibitions I hadn't seen before was a talking-head from cyclist, Graham Obree.  A troubled character, he broke a world record but it wasn't the one he wanted to break so he set about it breaking it again....the next day!  Knowing he couldn't afford to let his muscles seize up and aware that an alarm clock would be too much of a shock to his system, he relied on a more natural way to wake up to stretch- he drank an enormous amount of water, woke up to pee, did his stretches, drank even more water, went to sleep, woke up to pee and so on.  He did this every two hours, went to the track the next day and broke the record he wanted to break.  He did it on a bike he made himself, from parts of an old washing machine! Amazing.


Yep, that's a train sticking out.  An actual engine.  I believe it was lifted in mid-way through building and the construction completed round about it.  There's lots of exhibits that are worth a mention: the Humane Society boat, the pretend Subway train, the oldest bike in the world (maybe!), a beautiful display of model boats....too much to really cover in this wee blog, especially when photographs were curtailed by the entrance of ominous skies, thunder and lightning and mad dashing for the car.  Oh, and this....

Riverside, Museum, Transport, Glasgow, Egg on a Stick

Would make a good Superhero name that, The Dainty Muff Warmer.  I imagine him to be rather dashing and dapper, with brisk hands and a nice manner.  Wherever there are muffs feeling chilly....

Riverside, Museum, Transport, Glasgow, Egg on a Stick


So, if you're in Glasgow, pay the Riverside Museum (and its sister museum, Kelvingrove aka the Animal museum)  a visit.  There's loads to see and the parking is cheap.  But take your own food. The restaurant is pants (but the tea is only £1.10- bargain!).

Luv Egg on a Stick x

Saturday 4 August 2012

My Latest Sewing Adventures

The latest instalment of Make Do and Mend in Dumbarton Library was slightly more straightforward.  Last week's was a tote bag, which I eagerly looked forward to making....until there were no written instructions.  I don't really function very well without a guide and, in the end, made a complete cock of it.  I sewed my handles on the wrong way.  You know, like a pair of dungarees rather than a bag?  Do you get me?  Am I alone in immediately losing interest in something when it isn't right?  One day I might unpick and redo but the moment has gone.  



Bored now.  Move on.  But yes, that IS a jammy dodger.  Well spotted, reader.

This week's task was.....a mobile phone cover to protect your phone when you drop it!  Hurrah!  I'm always dropping my phone and desperately needed a cover.  Excellent.  But wait.  I forgot.

I dropped my phone.

I shattered the screen and it had been sent to the menders the previous day and I had forgotten to take measurements. Perhaps I was grief-stricken; I do not function well without my phone.

Oops.

Ha HA!  A netbook cover was what was needed.  I don't drop my netbook quite as often as I drop my phone but some kind of protection would be a good idea.  It is my third (and cheapest) laptop since Flora was born, after all......

With Flora Flora Fabric Chooser, I made my cover with some denim material I had donated, and someone else's old top.  It was also donated, not just demanded at needle-point.  Turned out pretty nice in the end and I even tried my hand at a wee bit of machine quilting.  I know!  Me! 

Sewing, quilting, Make Do and Mend, Egg on a Stick


Sewing, Make Do and Mend, Egg on a Stick

So it's a little squint and the super-duper-practical-yet-decorative flap only really exists 'cos I cut the original material too short.  And I had to hand-sew (I typed that really slowly to emphasise the point) the whole thing together because the wadding made it too fat to join on the sewing machine, thus ensuring plenty of bad language and bloodstains (felt right at home in our library, fnar fnar).  I turned down the offer of a 'Handmade with Love' label.  It could never be anything else.

Netbook cover, Make Do and Mend, Egg on a Stick

I like this set of workshops.  Mainly because they are free and we've been in really good company, but also because the biggest fear I have with sewing is not the sewing, but the cutting.  In the past, I've bought really beautiful material that's still in the cupboard because I lack the courage to cut it.  I am frightened of The Expensive Mistake.

The library received a lot of donated fabric; some of it is lovely to use, some horrendous, but because there is so much, there's not the same worry about making a mess of cutting it. So, I make mistakes and it's OK.  Even better, I learn how to avoid making those mistakes again.  Can you ask of anything more from a free workshop?

Laters

Luv Egg on a Stick x

Thursday 2 August 2012

Thighs to make your eyes water

In the name of the wee man.

On the right, Robert Forstemann, German cyclist.  On the left, his fellow countryman, Andre Greipel.




Sweet Jesus.  I would imagine no nuts are safe from those crushers (ahem).

'Night

Luv Egg on a Stick