A Whole Lot Of Pants

Recently, my room has been full of pants. Not because I haven't been doing any washing, but because I bought lots of pants. About 80 pairs to be exact. This wasn't just a random extreme shopping spree, but I was commissioned to make a lot of pants themed things for a shoot today so stocked up on a lot of kids pants to make them.

The first thing I had to make was a pants themed quilt! I cut all the pants in half to make a crazy patchwork style quilt and kept adding them in to make it into a large rectangle. This looks really cool but where the pants have binding around the top and the legs they were really thick and my sewing machine was not particularly happy to sew through such thick layers!!

 

I had 3 packs of different designs, each in 7 different colours so I had to arrange them carefully to make sure that there weren't any of the same colour next to each other, and make sure they fitted in in the best possible way. 

When I brought it into the office though to send off to the shoot, the person who asked me to make it said to me genuinely seriously 'oh that's amazing....we should use that in a shoot you know' As if I'd just made it for fun???

I also made some pant bunting, and I sewed each pair of pants slightly into a triangle so that they didn't just look like pants hanging on a washing line! 

Finally I made some pant flags and some pant hats, using thin wire to make them stand up and look cartoon like. These were all used in a kids shoot on Friday so hopefully I'll get to see the final pictures tomorrow which I am very excited about!

New Year, New Adventures

I have always wanted to go skiing. I begged my parents when we were younger to take us skiing, especially as loads of our family used to go every year. Sadly my parents ignored my pleas and never too me skiing, so when I got invited to go for New Year, my answer was YES straight away, no thinking necessary.

We went to Les Arcs, in the French Alps and of course signed up for adult beginner lessons, taught by the very charming Renee who had clearly been skiing his entire life, and was very laid back about everything, but a brilliant teacher. I'm a very competitive person, and Dave, my boyfriend, had been skiing in the same resort last year, as a beginner, so I was determined to keep up with him! Despite being very nervous at the start skiing down a slope which was only marginally not flat, I did pick it up quickly, and by the first afternoon I was tentatively sliding down a blue run.

The resort was beautiful, you could pretty much ski straight out of the chalet door to the ski lifts and then there were miles and miles of blue sky and soft fluffy snow. The snow was 2.5m deep at the top of the mountains which was insane!! I've never ever seen that much snow and was incredibly excited.

Despite some nerves (one slope I skidded down on my bum as I was not happy to ski down it) mostly it was just amazingly fun, and we whizzed through the speed barriers (at a very fast seeming 34kmph) and generally had lots of fun. We'd have our lessons in the mornings from 9.30am till about 12pm and then head straight back up to the tops of the mountains, have a picnic somewhere and then spend the whole afternoon exploring, until usually trying to get one of the last lifts to get the most out of our days as possible.

All in all, I LOVED skiing and can't wait to go again next year. I'm currently researching Scottish ski resorts for a ski shoot at work so maybe a trip will come up sooner...

Does a Smoothie Need a Hat & Other Random Things For Charity

Whilst on a wander in Sainsburys the other day, I noticed that the Innocent Smoothies appeared to be wearing hats....little knitted hats! I had a nose and read the labels and realised that it was all for charity. Innocent have asked people to knit little hats for their smoothies, and then 25p from each bottle goes to Age UK to help older people keep well and warm this winter. Lovely, but very random! http://www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/bigknit

The little bottles do look very comical though, and very cosy, although it does seem sad to keep them in the fridge and then give them hats, it would seem fairer to let them be cosying in together around a nice warm fire, still in their little hats!

This has made me think about all the other people I have seen collecting for charity this time of year. There are always the charity 'muggers' around all the time, trying to get you to sign up to sponsor certain charities  but this time of year there seem to be people everywhere collecting, outside the tube, outside supermarkets, around shopping centres, they seem to be popping up everywhere. Now most of the collectors I've seen this time of year seem to be dressed as Santa but a very very pathetic poor attempt at Father Christmas. I don't think one of them has had a beard and not all of them have had hats.

The worst one I saw yesterday was outside Peter Jones in Sloane Square who had some dodgy looking red trousers, and an open Father Christmas jacket, with his North Face puffa jacket clearly sticking out underneath! Rubbish! He looked like he was half asleep and had only just managed to drag himself out of his pyjamas to come and collect money! The man himself was very lively and I'm sure was doing a good job but it was just such a terrible effort with the fancy dress! You kind of think that if you're going to go out dressed as Father Christmas you're at least going to do it properly! Like the smoothies!!

It's Beginning to Feel a Lot Like Christmas....Jumpers!!

I don't know what's going on in the world at Christmas this year, but there are a lot more Christmas Jumpers making appearances. Maybe it's a new comfy weird craze, like onsies, or maybe its due to yesterday being the official Save The Children 'Wear a Christmas Jumper' day. Anyway, I've seen a massive amount more Christmas jumpers around this year, from the normal funny patterned almost ski style jumpers, to the amazing reindeer, Santa and penguin themed numbers.

We decided to celebrate the 'Wear a Christmas Jumper'  day at work yesterday, for the fun of wearing silly jumpers, but also to raise money for Save the Children. I was out Christmas shopping a few weeks ago with a friend  and she wanted to go into Primark. No I usually avoid Primark as it gets manic, and also I don't like looking like I'm wearing cheap clothes, but as it was a Monday, and so wasn't busy, I though 'why not?'. As soon as we got in we were bombarded with Christmas Jumpers. They were pretty cool, but nothing that made me feel really excited, and also I thought 'well everyone will be wearing them' and I HATE seeing someone else wearing the same clothes as me.

My boyfriend also has the same day at work (although on Christmas Eve bizarrely) and he wasn't too bothered about looking for one, so I thought I'd go downstairs in Primark and have a look at the Men's jumpers to see what was about. The children's section also happens to be downstairs and as soon as I came off the escalator I'd found the Christmas jumper I wanted!! Sadly they had already sold out of the bigger sizes (other adults I bet!) so I had to get a 9-10 (which actually didn't fit too badly) and I was so so so excited about what I was going to do to this jumper!!

Now above is the jumper so I bought it, which was pretty cool, but I immediately thought what can I do to it. Ideally, I would have wanted to make my own jumper, but having never actually knitted a while jumper before, there wasn't at all time to learn before the day, so whilst I was very happy with this purchase, I felt like it was a challenge to customise it as much as I could! So I started with bells for all the snowmen's scarves, so now I had a nice little jingle, and then went onto sequin stars for the tops of the Christmas trees.

Now the back sadly is just plain Navy, so of course that would never do! I painstakingly cut out the letters 'Merry Christmas' and hand stitched them onto the back. Much better. I also added some red pom pom tape around the next, just to finish it off. Again, much better.

Now the final touch was my exciting plan, which was that I wanted it to light up! I excitignly found some coloured LED battery powered lights which were perfect, and thereaded them through the knit in the jumper and voila! It was finished, and perfect. The reactions of most people when they saw me in work were 'Oh my goodness - did you make that???' Exactly the reaction I was going for and it made me very happy!!

(teamed of course with my Johnnie b tutu skirt!)

I'm now planning how many more occasions I can wear it on!! I've got at least 4 others planned which I am very very excited about!!

Time For Another Quilt & Other Christmassy Activities

It was around this time last year that I started thinking about making a patchwork quilt as it seemed so horrifically cold out that I just wanted to be wrapped up warm and snuggled in a cosy patchwork quilt. However, it wasn't until February (when we tend to be a bit quieter at work) that I actually got round to making one!

My house has the heating set on perma-high (it did used to be an old peoples home so you've got to keep them warm) so it has been lovely this winter, considering my old flat pretty much had icicles hanging from the ceiling. Still it didn't stop me from waking up in the middle of the night last night feeling very slightly chilly and wishing that I had my quilt.

Some of the girls are off shooting for Summer 2013 at the moment which seems entirely wrong given the current below freezing temperatures! For one of the props, I was asked to make a patchwork quilt in lovely soft ice creamy colours. I loved making my last quilt and so even though this one was much simpler, I really got into making it and it was very much fun. It also looked really cosy and warm so I imagine will end up wrapped around a fair few babies this weekend on the shoot, as well as being laid out on the floor!

In other festive news I have pretty much done all of my Christmas shopping!! I haven't actually been out yet with the intention of doing some Chrismtas shopping, I just keep finding things which I think other people will like so it is very exciting! On a day off my and my friend Kate had to have to use up some of our holiday before the end of the year we went ice skating at Somerset House which was just so beautiful and magical! We then went for mulled wine for breakfast afterwards which was even more delicious and a perfect way to get into the Christmassy feel.

I'm off to make my Christmas jumper now so watch this space....

Can A Bee Ever Be A Rabbit?

This is just one of the very normal questions we ask ourselves on a daily basis at work. So my latest prop challenge was to make a rabbit piñata for our Easter shoot. Everyone thinks December means Christmas and time to get the Christmas tree out but in shoot season, we shot Christmas way back in June and July, so are now on to a rather belated Easter shoot. No wonder some of the models were confused when we were cracking out the Easter Eggs and chicks!!

So for one of the props to make for this shoot, I had to make a piñata in the shape of a Bunny Rabbit. I didn't have time to get out the papiermache and make a piñata from scratch, as we only had a few days before the shoot, and all of the bunny piñatas we could find for sale online were horrific! And terrifying!

So I thought buying a Bee piñata and converting it to a rabbit would be best as it was quite cheap and looked like it could be the same shape. Plus they did next day delivery so that was sorted.

When the Bee arrived.....I was slightly more worried! But as I'd said I was easily able to turn it into a Bee I got on with it! I started by ripping off the antennae, wings, legs and all the tissue paper and then got to work covering it in white crepe paper. I quickly added some wire bunny ears which instantly made it more recognisable as a Rabbit, bit mainly it just looked like a random creature which had been wrapped in bandages!! I had to leave at this point to run off and buy some meringues, and when I got into work the next morning, my creature was also wearing some silver baby sandals.....now it looked really odd!

I carried on wrapping, and cutting and adding some wire feet and slowly the Rabbit started to take shape. This is the finished product and I am very very pleased with it!

So the answer to the title of this blog is yes! A Bee can easily be transformed into a Rabbit!

Tim Walker

All the girls from work went to see the Tim Walker exhibition at Somerset House while I was away working in LA and I was very very upset to miss out. So when my Mum said she was spontaneously coming to visit me at the weekend, and wanted to see something fun at a museum somewhere, I instantly suggested it.

Having never heard of Tim Walker, along with my auntie, they were both a bit dubious, and until my cousin said he was planning on going as well on the same day, they weren't sure. But as we both wanted to go, and they just really wanted to see us both they agreed to come along. My dad also came along with us on a short stop before flying off to Cape Town (as you do) and again, I don't think he was completely sure.

Once we got into the first room though, with the model of a aeroplane, and the photos including the plane, my dad was hooked and thought it was pretty clever and cool. My mum and auntie were not so convinced though. Until we got into the second room. There the swan boat in the centre of the room, and the stunning way the dresses and outfits were captured to look like models, figurines, fantasy stories, and instantly they were hooked.

I loved it! I love anything that's a bit quirky, fun, upside down and just not normal and so this exhibition was like a dream to view. The addition of the models such as the giant grasshopper playing a violin, and the sand in the corner of one room made the photos come alive with such vitality that you wouldn't be surprised if you walked along the street and saw one of the images re-enacted in real life. It was mesmerising!

I've no idea how long we spent in there but it was a world away from the cold and rainy world outside and instantly I felt buzzing with ideas of things to make, design, draw and write about, it was such a fantastic exhibition. I've since mentioned it to some of my friends and will go along again with as many of them as want to go as I would happily go 2, 3 even 4 times.

My favourite shots were the ones in Namibia with the Leopard just casually modelling away in the corner, and especially the shot taken through a fly screen scrim. Equally, the shot of the girl on a statue of a horse coming into a conservatory littered with pillars and other statues was another favourite. Meanwhile the bed made from human bones (I didn't notice this until the 2nd time I looked at the picture) was mesmerising and horrifying in equal parts. Either way I massively recommend this exhibition to everyone, and on top of that Somerset House is such a beautiful venue, you don't need an excuse to go and visit!