Houses

Finally found a little time to start making things again! I have now finished the taught part of my course and have an 18, 000 word dissertation to write over summer. Small amounts of sewing time are surely going to be essential to preserve my sanity.



I have also booked in to be a part of the craft stalls at the Levenshulme Street Market in June and July, which is exciting. The street market is held monthly on the village green in Levenshulme, Manchester and sells a variety of local items, including handmade, art and foodstuffs (lots of cake, yum yum).

I will be selling stuff on Friday 24th June and Friday 22nd July, would be lovely to see you there!

UPDATE 13/07/2011: No Craft Fair in July I'm afraid! Hopefully have some news soon.

More work experience finds!

Today at work experience I discovered Su Blackwell's amazing work and thought I would share....

I absolutely love the book sculptures....

1950s Fabric Design

Many apologies for lack of updates recently, my Masters is kind of taking over my life. I finish lectures in a few weeks for the Easter break & after that I have the whole of summer to write an 18,000 word dissertation. It is unlikely that I will spend 24/7 on this, for the sake of my sanity, so perhaps a little bit of creative stuff will be possible (I am really hoping so).

Anyhow, as part of my course I have been doing a work placement at Whitworth Art Gallery, a lovely place which is part of the University of Manchester. It is also the place where I realised I had my first and only bout of flu, aged around 10. I have been looking at (and cataloguing) all the amazing old textile books in their library, and came across one about 1950s fabric design. I thought I would share a few of the designs I liked best:

These are all by Lucienne Day:

I love this style so much. I went to the Museum of Science & Industry in Manchester recently and they had a mock-up '50s style room with fabric like this on the sofas. I wanted pretty much everything there.

Anyway, hopefully I will have more to update with soon!

Writing

I have decided to start a writing blog over at http://autumn-almost.blogspot.com/.

That said, it's not that easy writing stuff at the moment as the "c" key on my keyboard is not working well due to an incident involving my clumsy self, this here laptop & a glass of cider. Am currently copying and pasting a c every time I need one. Not ideal.

On Friday I made a cushion out of old fabric and felt & then started some new embroidery.

Apologies for the bad photo, it's been gloomy & rainy outside for ages now and the light for photos is terrible even in the middle of the day!

Writing

Last week I decided to write a story. I used to write quite a lot, but haven't done anything much for a while. I came up with a few little pieces, one of which I decided to submit to The Pygmy Giant where my friends Emily and Giles have had stuff published in the past. They emailed me back on Friday to say they were going to publish my story, which I was both surprised by and very pleased about indeed. You can read it here.

It is a little bit unusual for me to show people what I write, but seeing as though someone liked it enough to publish it, I thought I would put a little link to it here.

New Year

Happy 2011 everyone!


Apologies for the lack of updates recently. As you may or may not know, in September I started a Masters course at University, so I've been busy doing lots of coursework over Christmas, along with eating a lot of food. Alas, I have not had too much time to do much in the way of craft stuff.


I did get this for Christmas though..



A manynicethings stamp, to save me writing it all out by hand! Speaking of Christmas presents, this site can now be accessed by typing http://manynicethings.co.uk into your address bar. Eventually (when I get a brief pause between hand-in dates) I will sort some sort of holding page out with links to this here blog, flickr, shop and the like.

Hooray!

xxx

Levenshulme Craft Fair

Today was Levenshulme Craft Fair at Levenshulme Library...it was quite a good turnout considering the weather (remnants of snow being washed away by Manchester drizzle) and we drank tea, ate cake and looked at all the lovely local handmade items on display.

xxx

Craft stuff

On Friday I had some stuff for sale at Harby Village Hall Ladies Night.

I shared the stall with Geoge and Tash, pictured here. Geoge makes awesome jewellery and Tash makes lovely home made cards.

We ate lots of canapes, drank lots of cider, and helped raise some money for a new Harby Village Hall.

I also have a stall at Levenshulme craft fair on Saturday 4th December at Levenshulme Library. Come along!

xxx

Early Christmas

A few things I have made in the last 24 hours, along with finishing two essays and starting a business plan for my course.

Now I am tired and may just have a glass of wine!

Buttons, bows and felt = Christmas craft projects! Watch this space for more.

i am a tree

People In Action

My first ever flyer design, for the People In Action New York Style Book Stall next weekend at Chapel Allerton Festival in Leeds! If you live in Leeds you should definitely go, it'll be lovely and is for a good cause too. More information about People In Action can be found here.

You're a Wasp Nest

Sketch inspired by The National.

Daydreaming of Autumn

A few recent creations.

xxx

Found a house to move into in September, which means I am officially obliged to while away hours looking at pretty pictures of interiors. Hooray!

inkydoodlesphotosandtea

My very talented sister started a blog a while ago. She takes super nice photographs and recently did a series of 66 postcards for her art foundation final project which was wonderfully personal; full of memories and moments and anything and everything bits and bobs which she collected and then presented as a series of connected yet individual snippets. I got very proud in a big sister type way. Anyway. Check her blog out if this sounds up your street!
xxx

Strawberries & Cake

I moved house the other day. I moved cities after six years. It's been constantly sunny, until tonight, when it started raining. I've been eating strawberries & cake. A good start to this new chapter.

Strawberries grown by my father, cake baked by my sister.

Two of my favourite things

A good cup of tea and cake made by my lovely housemate Bek.

Copenhagen

I went to Copenhagen at the weekend. It's a beautiful, surprising city. I loved the multi-coloured buildings and the sculptures on every corner.


I did some doodling in the airport on the way home as our flight was delayed thanks to Manchester snow.

Before I went away I watched "Moon", which was amazing and made me question reality. Before I watched it, I did this...

...though if I'd tried to express my feelings via embriodery afterwards, I may have tried to convey existence, space, time & infinity, which have never been the best subjects for arts and crafts in my experience. I'd be interested to see anything taking on such issues though!