nostalgia...

My newspaper dress on the runway...

Once upon a time (read, a few years ago) I decided that I could do a dressmaking class by night in my final year of college. The dressmaking class in effect, was a skirt making class, as this is the easiest of the garments, it turns out. We spent a lot of time learning pattern making and not so much time actually sewing up finished garments. Twas just after finishing this class that I decided I could cut out pattern pieces in newspaper and sew them up to make a cheap costume for a fancy dress party. I later added a top to it and put it in a fashion show held during Trinity Arts Week which featured a section for outfits made from recycled oddments by Trinity students. I had all but forgotten about this until the evening of Christmas Day when my cousin was telling me about her recent plastic bag creations, and her intention to make her next costume out of newspapers. From this, rang some bells, and the bells led to a quick bebo search for photos taken by my friend Maeve all those years ago (read, 3 or 4?) before I myself became a camera owner. Here they are swiped from Bebo to entertain your curiosity and fulfill my desire to post more frequently!

My newspaper dress leaving the runway...

A 5 minute post for Maeve

I am a sporadic knitter.

My most recent knitting endeaver led me to/forced me to learn two new knitting skills. WOOP!

1. knitting on 4 double pointed needles
2. buttonholes

Knitting on double pointed needles enables you to knit a tube rather than a flat piece of material.

My tube shaped project of choice was to be a pair of wrist warmers in which two buttonholes acted as thumbholes! Nice!


Me with finished wrist warmers

Knitting techniques, I find are almost impossible to learn from words alone. In an ideal world, I would be learning from a friend or relative, but as my favourite knitting enthusiast no longer lives in the same country as me, I find internet tutorials to be absolutely brilliant in getting you over the couple of hurdles that you'll usually stumble across in patterns. (how to+youtube+knitting technique listed in pattern=pure brilliance!) Knitters love youtube. Who knew!

I adapted this pattern for wrist warmers on knitty.
I kept the ribbing for the first and last inch of the pattern, but in between I wanted plain stockinette stitch.
Knitting on double pointed needles produces stockinette stitch just by knitting constantly, which is a lovely surprise!!! (Usually, stockinette stitch is made from knitting one row, and purling the next.) Who knew!

college art....

"Mary and Joseph" or "What I did in school on Monday"

Increasingly, there is a very negative atmosphere in college these days. The general feeling is that we have a million assignments that we are drowning in, while our energy still goes on attending lectures where we might spend (as on Monday just gone) an hour folding, tearing and scrunching paper to make a nativity scene in low relief, that nobody will ever see...
I hope that one day I'll do this with my future students and look back on it and be glad that instead of cramming for an Irish grammar exam (current concern.....oh so many rules to learn) I was making 3D stick figures that give no clue to their identity....