crafts – Louisa Parry

Class Home < Sweet End cross-stitch

Posting about the Team Peach piece reminded me that I haven’t posted about this other quickee either.

I actually started this in the summer of 2009 – while we were waiting the interminable wait to move into our new home. When we finally got the keys (two years ago last weekend), we were so busy getting it sorted before moving in at the end of the month, that this got put to one side and forgotten about. I found it again a few weeks ago and noticed it only needed about two dozen stitches to finish it.

It is the equivalent of “Home Sweet Home” in Ruby, John’s preferred programming language (or at least one way of expressing it in Ruby: we had a long chat back in 2009 about the best way to do it). The border is supposed to represent rails, as in Ruby on Rails, influenced by the RoR logo, but I think it might make more sense if the “rail” was thicker or if there were two rails — I might modify it in the future.

It’s currently living on a bookshelf in our dining room but will take up it’s rightful place in the porch when the porch has a roof again.

(John found the feather on a walk earlier in the year. It has no programming significance.)

Temporary passages, tired out, silky smooth

9/11/2010 / louisa / 0 Comments

1. A dozen old streams are called into action for the day. Lily tastes tests each one.

2. The stove blazing, Bonnie Prince Billy playing, keyboards clacking, the dog is sleeping.

3. The papier mache mix is different this time and it flows much better. I feel like I’m sculpting soft clay into something elegant rather than a turning torn up Guardian into a silly chicken.

My favourite British green/simple living/craft blogs

25/3/2010 / louisa / 2 Comments

I read A LOT of green/simple living blogs – some religiously, others only when the subject particularly appeals. There is such a wealth of knowledge out there and inspirational actions, not from proclaimed experts or media stars but from a range of people living (or trying to live) “simpler” lives. (I share my favourite posts here – http://www.google.com/reader/shared/louisa.parry)

However, the vast majority of the bloggers are from the US and while a lot of the information transfers over here, it’s nice to read stories from British bloggers too – their photos show familiar hilly landscapes not alien prairies or mountains, they talk about tea & Jaffa cakes, and they have small, climate-challenged gardens & no chance of an allotment this side of the year 3000.

So anyway, on with the links:

Frugal favourite: Notes from the Frugal Trenches
Wiry inspiration: Alison Bailey Smith’s abscraft blog
Best for colour: Attic 24
Best lack of colour: Fine Little Day (Ok, not a British blog but still contrasts wonderfully with the last one!)
Wild wood/living: Hunter-Gatherer-Cook/Man Up A Tree
Super greenies: Alice in Blogland, My Zero Waste & Green Eyed
Green fingers and egg collectors: My Tiny Plot, The Compost Bin & The Cottage Smallholder
Most likely to make me drool: Eat like a girl
Beauty in everything: Three Beautiful Things

Dragonflies on flowers

11/7/2009 / louisa / 0 Comments

Just playing with some wire this afternoon. Fingers hurt now.

Making buttons from Fimo

22/4/2009 / louisa / 1 Comment

(Second button related post in a row, heh.)

I bought a new-to-me cord jacket at a charity shop in Portobello while visiting Edinburgh recently* and it had big feature buttons on it.

I very much liked the idea of feature buttons but unfortunately I didn’t like the actual buttons used. A trip to my usual haberdashery in Leeds revealed it would cost about Â£18 to replace them with my favourite big buttons from there – because it’s double breasted and so needs a billion of the buggers – so I thought I’d try making some myself.

A Fimo purchase off eBay later, I made myself some gloriously green buttons last night.

I played with a few different shapes/styles but I went with big, flat and simple in the end. I got seven big buttons (the six I need plus a spare) and two little ones out of a 56g block of Fimo. I divided the clay up and rolled it into a ball in my hands to loosen it up then squished it using a coffee can lid, with a layer of cling film inbetween so the clay wouldn’t stick. Then when it was the desired diameter and thickness, I placed a brass curtain ring on the clay, squished with the can lid again, then poked the holes with a cocktail stick. Twenty minutes in the oven later, my buttons were ready to rock and roll.

They’re not perfect but they’ll neither am I, so they’ll do :)

(Click for bigger pictures.)

* as I raved about on Things To Do Today, the Beach House Cafe there is AWESOME. Go! Go! Go!

Button earrings

17/4/2009 / louisa / 1 Comment

Following a query from a reader yesterday, I’m doing a post on buttons on Recycle This next week and wanted to post a(n admittedly not great) picture of my most favourite earrings in the whole wide world ;)

I wear the dangly ones all the freakin’ time and they constantly get caught in my scarves but I love them. I should probably remake them so they’re a little less snaggy…

Before I trained my ears to accept dangly earrings though, I loved the studs – the buttons just glued onto stud findings. I like that the black ones were subtly buttony. ;)

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