Thinking ‘What the heck can I buy [insert name here] for Christmas?’  Why not go take a look?  I’m sure you’ll find something. And yes, you really are allowed to buy *yourself* presents at this time of year

Dumbledore, now with added flamingoes

He so happy!  He can make you so happy, too.  I have no idea what his name is; he won’t tell me.  But anyway, I can’t keep him here, I don’t even have a proper studio, so I’ve put his lovely cuddly self up for adoption.  He’s not on Etsy or Folksy yet, because of camera problems, but he really wants a new home by Christmas.  Studio not a requirement.  UPDATE: He is! He is on Etsy! Still The Nameless One, though.

Mmm, yum. Can you tell what it is yet?

So, my first fun of the new academic year has been swapping stuff. I loves craft swaps, they are so much fun. You make something for someone, they make something for someone else, they make for someone else, and so on, until it comes round and someone makes something for you. I’m a member of the Phat Quarter Flickr group, and they run a themed swap every time there’s a fifth Friday in the month. In July, the theme was “food”. My swap giver contacted me and asked if I liked Mexican food, whereas I took the more indirect (and possibly sinister) route of looking through my swap receiver’s Flickr pics to guage what kind of thing she liked. It looked to me like she was a Doctor Who fan (all the best people are), so I set my geek brain to maximum and came up with this cross stitch sampler

And after several scintillating emails about Salvaged Mutiny‘s attempts to find a post office whilst cruise-ship-working her way around the Baltic (‘I went to the post office in Helsinki but it was closed; I’ll try again in Copenhagen’?!), I received this piece of Mexican craziness

I'm Nacho Mama!

I *LOVE* it! I confess I was a bit thick, and didn’t get the joke until my brother said it out loud, but it makes me smile every time I see it

And because I can’t get enough swappety fun, I signed up for a Facebook-based ‘handmade’ swap at the beginning of the year. I have to make five things, and completed numero dos last week: a Neverwhere (Neil Gaiman) quote worked in cross-stitch. I think it’s a sentiment we can all relate to at some stage

Phantoms Siren has said she’ll hang it so it’s the last thing people see as they leave her house. Awesome.

Numero uno can be found on Flickr, but it’s a bit naughty, so I won’t display it here. I love the surprise element of swapping – you never know what you’re going to receive in return. I also love the challenge of being given a broad theme and just running with it (I made this for the last Phat Quarter swap – the theme was music

based on a bluegrass tune and my swap partner’s crows-in-flight tattoo). I especially love using the medium of a traditional cross stitch sampler to create something personal and (preferably) geeky I do them to order, so get in touch if you’d like to commission a bespoke, unique gift – for someone else, or for yourself! I’m currently working on a C’thulhu quote sampler; I’ll let you all know when it’s done.

In the meantime, it looks like September has a fifth Friday! I’d better keep an eye on my Flickr and see what comes up

Now available in my Etsy shop, along with a host of other cuddlies. Go on, go take a peek! They all need homes you know.

Without further ado, I give you:

How to make a sock monster

Warning: I am much better at showing than explaining. You may need to stretch your imagination to get much sense out of these instructions (or better still, book me to do a workshop party See what I did there?).

OK, let’s start with this little lady, Princess Katoosh. Ain’t she a dainty?

You will need:
*Two socks - one for the body, one for arms
*Needle and thread (contrasting thread is better for seeing where you’ve stitched. Matching thread is for confident sewers and crazy people)
*Pen or chalk – for drawing where to stitch.
*Buttons, stuffing, and embroidery silk/cotton
*Imagination

Golden rule: stitch before cutting. Seriously, it makes life much easier.

Now, with the princess, her legs are the leg of the sock, and she sits on the heel. Her ears are the foot of the sock. Make sense? So, lay out your sock, inside out, draw two legs and two (or however many) ears thus:

Sew along the lines to make the ears, then do the same with the legs, remembering to leave a hole between the legs for the stuffing!

Then cut around the ears/legs, leaving a small seam allowance. Hey don’t ask me how much; enough. It depends how big your sock is. Now you need to make the arms. Cut two rectangles of sock material, the length you want the arms to be. Fold in half (right side in) and stitch along the side and across one end. Turn inside-out, and stuff lightly to make a sausage shape.

Right, here is where you have to use your creativity a bit, because you need to snip two small holes for the arms, somewhere between your unstuffed monster’s ears and legs. Look at the Princess, see where hers are. Just eyeball it. Don’t cut big holes – it’s a sock, it will stretch, and it’s much better to have a hole too small than too big. Just a wee snip. Then, stuff your (monster’s) arms up inside the monster and poke the open end out through the hole (one through each hole, obviously, not both through one hole. That would look silly.), then secure by sewing a line straight across.

This will close the armhole and the hole in the end of the arm. Oh, this isn’t making any sense. Is it?

When that’s done, turn your sock the right way out, and now what you should have is a sock monster skin, with arms. Eeugh. Quick, stuff some stuffing in to make it look less gruesome. Stuff gently, and use a chopstick to poke bits of stuffing right up into the ear tips. When your monster looks as plump as you’d like it, sew up the gap between the legs using ladder stitch, or however you find easiest. Next use your embroidery thread to sew on some eyes, and use satin stitch to sew a nose. Or just use another button. Or anything you like. Look, it’s your monster, you make the face however you want! A tip, though, is that you can hide beginning/ending of threads by knotting it under the button eyes. Sneaky huh?

Oh wow, look! You did it! Yay! Well done

Feel free to share these instructions, but please credit them. I am releasing them into the ether under an Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike Creative Commons license. To learn more visit http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses

See you there!

It’s easy enough to find a cute kitten or country cottage cross stitch, and if you look long and hard enough you may well stumble upon just the right ‘inspirational quote’ for that hard-to-buy-for relative.  But what if you want a present that’s just a bit unusual, for someone who likes… Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Super Mario, or antique typewriters?  Well, your troubles are over, because I *love*  what is affectionately known as “Geek Craft”.   I love it!

There are some stitchings already available in my Etsy shop, but if you’re after something more personalised, please get in touch.  I can do pictures

Ryu: always my favourite Streetfighter champion

or quotes

(From Firefly)

The thing I love most is putting geeky quotes into traditional style cross stitch samplers.  Both of these are from the endlessly quotable Buffy the Vampire Slayer:

I take my geekery very seriously, so please don’t be afraid to get in touch and tell me your darkest geek-craft desires! You want a Victorian sampler with Star Fleet logos in the border? No problem! You’d like a quote embroidered in Johnston Sans, the original typeface of the London Underground? My pleasure.

More examples of my weird obsession can be found on my Flickr photostream.

Traditional Vulcan Redwork

It’s February, home of gales, rain, Chinese New Year, Valentine’s Day, and more rain. Monster of the Month this month goes to Nameless. Who has no name. Hence the, er, name.

Nameless is new to this house, and asked if she could go exploring, and blog about what she found. Who am I to argue with such cuteness? I’ll hand you over right now:

*********

hello. i don’t hav a name yet becos no one has give me one. i want to see wat is in this house so i did go explorng and i found things that are a bit weerd. fust i found a land of pinknes, inhabyted by GIANT BEARS.

me and the GIANT BEARS

they wurnt scary after a bit but they wus at fust becos they were so very extremly big. they talked about me but not too me, wich was not nice so i left them and went elsware. i traveled far, throu many hard ships and then i came to the land of teeny tiny dinosawrs.

me and the tiny dinosawrs

they wer very curius and sweet, but this one in the pictur bit me, wich was not nice. i think it wus probaly just grumpy thou becos it was scared. it’s ok to be scared, but i was only stroking it so it shoold not hav been scared.

i hear that febuary is when valentins day is, wich is wen you show someone you love them. i think this is very sweet. i love hug. hug is a monkey i met when i was explorng and he is the most lovely monkey i ever did meet.

me and hug

i love hug very much and hug loves me too. i think i will give hug some choclates for a valentin present, but don’t tell him it’s a suprise.

*******

(Because I am heartless and mercenary, Nameless will be appearing in my Etsy shop very soon. If you buy her, you can give her a real name. She’d like that. Maybe you could teach her to spell, while you’re at it.) *UPDATE* Nameless has now been rehomed, hooray! And a very good home it is too.

I noticed a call-out on Twitter last week, from SnapdragonJane in Scotland, saying she was running short of ‘tiny floral print’ fabrics – if anyone could send her some, she’d send some goodies in return.  Of course I was like, heck yes!  I mean, who couldn’t do with these guys to sort out their day?

I gathered later she meant ‘things she’d made’, which was disappointing, but only for a few milliseconds. I remember seeing some of her stuff at Eco Eco in Hope, and loving it. So I thought yes, lady you have pleased me by the lovely things you make, I’m sure I can have a rummage in my fabric stash for something in return. And if I get a cute button badge out of it, well that’s just a bonus.

So turns out I did have some fabric of that ilk, and got in touch, and sent it off. And did I get a wee button badge? Not even close. I got the most awesome parcel of loveliness ever, and it even came in a bright green envelope! How stunning!

Squeee!

I mean, just lookee! A big sheet of giftwrap, a packet of funky stickers (my daughter has already appropriated one sheet), and some amazingly groovy postcards (also with bright green envelopes – I’m so happy). Wow. So, just to get this straight, this blog post is one big plug for the superbly talented and very generous Snapdragon Garden. Go buy her stuff, now, and lots of it. And get me one of those darn tootin tea cosies while you’re about it; ain’t they the cutest?

L-R: Slightly, Tiny Tim, Daisy, Bridale

If you wish to adopt one of these cuddlies, you’ll find them, and others, in my Etsy shop. Or I can make a special monster just for you (or someone else), just ask. Go on, have pity on their small and troubled minds.