Oh dear. I get so distracted. Ian just looked round the door and found me guiltily knitting. I found some lovely, soft grey-green and white (with some spangly bits) wool in the sales and I want to make a bag out of it. It's so soft you want to rub it against your cheek. I might make some Alien soft toys out of it too.

I've also bid on some suiting fabric on eBay. Ian's mum said there's a guy selling shoulder bags made out of suiting in Affleck's Palace in Manchester, so he's requested a custom-made version. He doesn't know about my "design and research" charges yet.

Anyway, since I always get distracted from doing boring work, I've decided I'm going to start doing things I really want to do, instead of spending ages watching rubbish on TV or browsing idly on the internet. That is the first of my New Year's resolutions.

The second is to make a website and actually start selling (or at least making to sell) things.

New Shoes

I love the colour red and I love converse.

Newcastle in Winter

Mustering Enthusiasm

As best I can on a not-too-cold-but-certainly-very-dull Winter's day. I walked up and down our garden patch spotting the spring bulbs that are coming through. If they flower as they should then come Spring we'll have an array of daffodils, crocuses and tulips, and some other strange things that I sent off for from the Guardian but whose names were too obscure to remember.

I tried to find a hot water bottle for the cover I just finished knitting but failed to locate one. It put me in a bad mood, even though I'd just bought my Patrick Wolf ticket (hooray! Even though it's not until the end of February), and our New Year's Eve tickets. On the NYE tickets it says, "Fancy dress is encouraged", which I found bizarre. If you merely encourage fancy dress then nothing will come of it. In fact, even when you stipulate that fancy dress is obligatory, often half the party (males, usually) turn up in their usual clothes.

I love fancy dress, but I don't know enough other people who do to have a successful fancy dress party. I may well set up a Fancy Dress Society on Myspace and see if anyone joins.

Anyway, I'm going to get back to reading some more Agatha Christie. I picked up a Poirot mystery when I was home, and since then I'm on my fourth book. Next time there's National Book Writing Month I might try to write a murder mystery . . .

I don't know what it is about being at home, but I always feel so tired, and I'm incapable of getting out of bed at a reasonably early time.

I just went into town for the sales and, as predicted, it was entirely unsuccessful. Some cheap wool and penguin ribbon were the extent of my "bargains".

I seem to be permanently fed up and generally pessimistic at the moment. I think this is due to my uncertainty about continuing my teacher-training course. I have an assignment that needs to be done for 2nd January, when we're back at university for some doubtless pointless sessions, and I really can't bring myself to start it. Everything regarding this year seems so prescriptive and overly-demanding. Really: 5 of the most boring assignments I could ever imagine. If we, as teachers, were ever to give out such relentlessly crap work we'd be rightly deemed shit. It all seems ludicrously unfair, and I don't think I can be arsed with it.

I need to start a "For and Against" list to work out what I should do . . .

It's Over

For now, at least.

I had to be a rabbit twice over in the exceedingly lame school panto, but now I can finally relax for at least a little while and do something I enjoy. Hooray! I might actually finish this quilt I've been working on for months, though it's unlikely.

It's finally going to get cold enough for a frost too. Maybe there will be snow this Christmas.

X Factor Finale - a rant

God, what a farce. It made me feel physically sick to see how Simon Cowell's little cronies tried to whip up national hysteria with some big screens, a D-list celebrity and a live video link. And there were Leona and Ray (boring, boring people) thanking Simon Cowell for the opportunity he'd given them. Yup, you're gonna be thanking him through a giant hole in your wallet for the duration of your success, darling! What an awful man he is. All the people who vote: why do you do it? Why do you put money directly into the pocket of this terrible cretin who unleashes personality-less crap under the guise of "talent" onto our airwaves? (It's not even an original song for fuck's sake! It's by another of his acts, the failed-to-convert-UK-audience Kelly Clarkson.)

Who, after all, has won a TV talent show and endured? Only Girls Aloud. The rest of the bunch have merely shown that there aren't enough talented songwriters to keep them fresh and popular.

I can only hope Simon Cowell suffers a hilarious, seedy, fitting death along the lines of autoerotic asphyxiation.

Corduroy pants

I received a package of La Redoute clothes this morning, amongst them a pair of grey-brown cords. I ordered them on the off-chance that they'd actually fit, seriously not expecting them to, and what do you know, they do! As soon as I put them on my mind reverted back to its 14-year-old state (ten years ago, ouch), when I used to constantly wear a pair of second-hand smokey blue cords that went thread-bear from overwearing. I think it was just the unique sensation of feeling corduroy against my skin. So soft, so comfortable. Mmmm . . .

Sickness and murder

If I had a laptop and wireless broadband I could be writing from my sick-bed, but instead I'm at my aged iMac (6.5 years!) which needs a new battery to stop it reverting back to 1970 and telling me that "the security certificate for this site doesn't come into effect for 36 years". Funny how the only place you don't feel terrible when you're ill is in bed. You begin to think your illness is psychosomatic, or that you've just got better, then you get up to get a drink of water and almost fall over with your head feeling detached from your body. Rather like this overloaded computer actually: give it an instruction, and it takes a little bit longer than you'd hope to put it into action.

Oh well, at least I have Jessica Fletcher on TV to keep me company. Apart from the fact that I love almost all whodunnits (excluding "Midsomer Murders" and suchlike), I think the reason I like "Murder, She Wrote" is to do with loving the film "Bedknobs and Broomsticks", also starring Angela Lansbury, when I was little. Interestingly though, when I was little I couldn't watch anything with a murder in it because I became so scared that I wouldn't sleep: the image of the dead person would be imprinted on my mind and the mindset of the murderer used to terrify me. Now I can't get enough of murder mysteries.

Too close to Christmas . . .

For teaching, that is.

I've been looking at the blogs that Jess Hutch links to, and just feeling a deep yearning to be an artist and craftsperson for a living.

School was too hard today. I still feel ill after two days off school, and stupid comments from staff and kids alike had me feeling very fed up on the interminable drive home (I just reminded my mum how lucky she is to live a 5 minute walk from school--so nice to be so close).

The shorter the time until we break up for Christmas, the more unbearable making the effort seems.

When I was at school surely by this stage we were all watching videos and playing games, weren't we?

Winter Warmers

Ian terms everything he cooks a "winter warmer" at the moment, so I've started calling breakfast cereal soup, pasta and anything else a "winter warmer" too. The reason this is on my mind is because our heating isn't working and it's so cold that my nose and other extremities are looking slightly blue. So I've jammed myself into one room in the house with the fan heater, wrapping some more presents. I'm still feeling remarkably Christmassy, despite a trip to Meadowhall which had me feeling extremely unusual, even though it wasn't completely packed. All I could think was "buy things and get out!"

Anyway, I forgot about posting up some of the flyers I've made in the past. If anyone wants quirky flyers done for them I'd be more than happy to oblige. I also take commissions for any other objects, but the time-scale for making them will be fairly long because I'm so busy with school-work at the moment.

Here they are:

Catalogue of Original Creations

Hooray! It being a Friday, I have finally found the time to do a photoshoot of my recent-ish creations and upload them. I now slightly feel better for having done nothing recently of any creative value.

Happy weekend people.

Birdie Handbag (ft. red bear)

Pink Cherry Shoulder Bag

Slightly larger shopping bag

In a different, bright fabric. The cute nursing chair it's on was rescued from a skip.

Funky shopping bag (front & back)

Paper & Textile Collages: Pope JP & Dove

Paper & Textile Collages: Lolita

There's something really satisfying about machine-sewing paper, as long as you use a stitch length over 3. The background fabric is a hideous 70s print that I got from never-used pillowcases from a charity shop. A truly ace find.

T-shirts

I printed the designs on these T-shirts using a labour-intensive batik-style process. I had to draw on the design and paint liquid wax onto the areas that I wanted to remain the original colour. Then I had to cold dye the shirts. It's quite cool to do, because both using wax and cold dyeing are highly unreliable, so you never know what the result will be until the shirts dry and you can iron off the wax.



















The dark blue t-shirt was the first one I tried: it should say "Lieblings Blume", but some of the wax didn't go through all the cotton fibres. Trying to get detail with this method is virtually impossible.

Toy "bears"

I have made many of these bears, in a range of colours and patterns and a range of ear-types, but these two like chilling out watching TV with me.

Toy Kebab Lamp

Toy Kebab Lamp close-up

Children's Hoop-la Lamp

All Wintry and Wrapped Up

It's effing freezing here. As I was walking home from the shops I kept spotting people looking at me with pity from inside their cosy houses. At times like this, with the wind whistling through the telephone wires and freezing your nose and lips instantly, I always think how much colder it is in Newcastle upon Tyne. Lovely Newcastle, with an extra added wind-chill factor thanks to the freezing North Sea.

This is the first Winter in ages where I've been feeling consistently upbeat and not in the least bit SAD (except for those little bouts of being fed-up and arsey which everyone suffers from, particularly me). Ironically, I think it might be due to the early horrible hour-long drive to work every morning: the sun gradually rising and blasting through my windscreen (well, not blasting exactly, being Wintry-type sun), entering my eyes, stimulating my hypothalamus and resetting my circadian rhythms.

I may well draw a diagram to represent that.

Another reason for not being so SAD this Winter is that I have things to look forward to (the Joanna Newsom gig in January, a Patrick Wolf gig in February), things to be doing (making a simple quilt) and making use of new skills (knitting better).

Fiddler on the Roof was fun. Angela had booked us front seat tickets at the side of the stage, so the action was so physically close that it felt like we were almost part of it. It was a preview, so there were a few technical hitches, but nothing major that made it less enjoyable. It made me yearn for my 6th Form days when I was in Oliver!. I was intrigued to see how they'd do a musical in the Crucible (usually the musicals are on at the Lyceum, which has a normal proscenium arch), and it was staged excellently. Plus, the orchestra was under the stage, which otherwise would probably distracted me.

The BBC weather website says it's between 7 C and 10 C but with winds of 23mph.
It feels colder than that. On Wednesday night it might be 3 degrees C. Perhaps a frost, finally?

Oy Vey!

It's Friday (hooray!) and we're off to see Fiddler on the Roof very shortly! I can't believe I'm actually doing something sociable and fun.

Last Saturday I bumped into Lucy from my Literature degree course who now works as a wool consultant (yes, that's "wool consultant") in John Lewis. I am therefore going to a knitting class tomorrow morning, which should be fun too.

I want to be able to knit cool robots and monsters like Jess Hutch can on that link over there. - - - - > I can do simple casting on, knitting and pearling, but find patterns pretty incomprehensible.

Almost finished my Christmas shopping too . . .

A Representation of the Cold War using Toys

Day off, kinda

Thankfully, we had a day back at university today.

I got up at 8.45am , which meant two extra hours of sleep, and yet somehow I haven't felt the benefit.

Walking down Taptonville Road, through Broomhill and down the leafy environs of Collegiate Crescent was a very welcome change from the awful car journey to Meden. I love walking in Autumn, especially since, worringly, it isn't massively cold yet.

Despite this, I've been feeling quite low, and I got quite emotional at university when we were asked to discuss our experiences and catch up.

A girl called Jannine Buxton in Year 10 (aged 14/15) was killed on Friday night when two cars crashed on the busy A60, a mile or so from the school. She sat right at the front of the Media class I'm taking, and I spent quite a lot of time coaxing answers and work out of her during those lessons. She was a kid with the potential to be quite difficult (she was on "red report"), but she was lovely in that lesson. Her usual Media teacher (and my mentor) called her a "media monkey", just because she seemed to take to it. Because of that I gave her a credit on Thursday and handed in a postcard to be sent to her house. I know now that the postcard wouldn't have been received until after she was dead, so I have mixed feelings about the impact it might have had on her parent(s)/guardian.

I'm thinking about this because I have that Media class first thing tomorrow, and there'll be a big physical gap. I don't think she was particularly good friends with anyone else in that class, but I don't think that matters. They'll still feel, like I felt, that school's pretty stupid and pointless in the grand scheme of things. And you should feel invincible at 15 years old, not shocked into being horribly aware of your own fragile mortality.

A few hours of planning lessons and I'm bored beyond belief. I'm not sure if I ever found lesson planning fun, but it certainly wasn't deadening my brain to this extent.

Fortunately Ghostbusters has just come on C4 to alleviate my condition slightly. Hooray for 80s sci-fi/action blockbusters.

It's only f**king Tuesday

You know when you're so tired you feel sick?

Autumn into Winter

I love it when it's cold, windy, wet and horrible outside when I'm warm, dry and inside.

Even if I am at my computer instead of relaxing.

For some reason my mentor at school has told her Year 10 (14/15-year-olds) Media class that the reason I'm taking over is because I'm "an expert". When it comes to Media, nothing could be further from the truth. I have no idea what all the different bits of a film poster are called past the title and the tagline. Teachers and their lies, eh?

Earlier in the week I got myself completely confused about what is and isn't a metaphor: is it just a replacement noun (something is something else), or can using a verb figuratively be a metaphor too? When I expressed my concerns to the head of department, she just told me, "They're Year 9, they aren't going to know any different."

For some reason, that really disturbed me. I hate the idea that one of those kids will remember my poor definition and will think back and say, "that student knew nothing."

But I can't be expected to know everything.

Certainly not media terminology.

Tired, not creative.

Man, I'm tired. And this week seems to have gone on forever, while the weekend flashed by.

I was so tired yesterday that I completely forgot important things I was going to say in my introductory lesson on ballads with Year 8 yesterday. I feel like I've let them down. But I will attempt to make tomorrow's lesson with them extremely fun and interactive to make up for my lack of energy yesterday.

So, my initial buzz of excitement has faded away, and hopefully it will come back once I don't feel quite so tired, but I'm not sure. I was looking at people's myspaces just before and felt a sad twinge that I've done nothing creative for a long while. Will I ever have the time again?

In a way I feel like I've let myself down by following this teaching and tradition career progression path. But then, what else was going to happen? I wasn't making it happen, that's for sure.

To cheer myself up I will soon start photographing all my creative endeavours and cataloguing them right here, on my blog ("see, I am a bit of an artist!").

Japanese-style (s)leeves

In the Summer, on a bright and hot day, Ian and I went to Weston Park so I could take pictures of trees for the sleeve of his new CD, entitled 229, 294, 306, 337. Catchy name there! Anyway, I sort of bleached them out and we printed them on handmade paper. Unfortunately, the design Ian preferred is the busier of the two, which clearly isn't the most striking or elegant. What is a designer to do?

Tiredness

This has been my first week teaching. There have been ultra high points and many many irritating-as-fuck, "those little shits!" points too. It's all par for the course, I suppose, and I knew what I was getting myself in for. That won't, however, stop me from complaining.

Right now though, I need my bed. I got significantly less than my requisite eight hours last night because Ian woke me up at around 5am with his sneezing. From then on I was awake until I had to get up at 6.45am. He's allergic to something in the bedroom, but we can't quite figure out what, and my suggestions that he go to the doc's for some allergy tests have been met with typical male affirmative grunts.

Anyway, I felt like a zombie all day and the drive home from school was scary purely because I was so exhausted.

A slightly rejuvenating nap, a couple of bottles of beer, a Chinese takeaway and some topical comedy courtesy of the BBC have done me the world of good.

Maybe tonight I can sleep without going over lessons in my head . . .

Fly Agaric

Ian's parents have these mushrooms in their garden:






















No gnomes though.

Philip French on Bennett's "The History Boys"

"But there's a moment when the assured Dakin is embarrassed and humiliated to discover he's been mispronouncing the name of Nietzsche that rings absolutely true. It brought back painful memories I've been trying to suppress all my life."

Brilliant.

Bad Dreams . . .

I had a very disturbing dream last night.

Kylie Minogue was performing on a TV show. She had ultra-short hair and was ineffably skinny. She suddenly stopped singing and put out a hand as if to steady herself against a wall, but she just crumpled onto the floor and someone stated, "She's dead!"

I'm not even a fan, but I felt so freaked out I wouldn't get out of bed to go to the toilet.

Actually, boring "General Professional Studies" lectures and seminars aside, I'm feeling remarkably cheerful and fulfilled. This is usually unheard of for me when Winter is fast approaching, and especially so now, when I have to get up at 6.45am while it's still as dark as midnight.

On a totally unrelated topic, I have to confess that I am already addicted to Strictly Come Dancing, again. My comic attempts at jiving are driving Ian round the bend . . . My money's on Mark Ramprakash, though that's subject to change.

On Boredom: a Dramatic Monologue

[Directly to audience.] Halfway through and I can feel the sensation spread across what I believe to be my frontal lobe. Instantaneously, all thought-processing abilities shut down and my consciousness retreats back into the now vacant space of my mind, confused, lonely, bewildered, with only the perpetual drone of the dullest lecturer I've had the misfortune to hear providing any external stimulus.
[More desperate, neurotic.] I begin to feel acutely aware of the fragility of mortality.
It occurs to me that my existence is slowly receding as I sit, voluntarily, in submission to a very pointless experience.
The very inevitability of time passing suddenly takes on a desperate and painful association, and I know, in a flash, what that association is:

unbearableness.

[Flops back, overcome by the ineffable nature and intensity of boredom.]

News Show Gimmicks

Oh dear. To illustrate the debate over Muslim women's veils, Newsnight put a "veil" on their camera so that most of the screen was black with a small gap in the middle. Ridiculous, especially given that anyone wearing a full veil would be able to see perfectly well.

Also on tonight was a celebrity talent show, but unfortunately I can't get Channel 5. Stephen Gately doing magic tricks, Oona King playing piano and Toby Anstis performing ballet: what a line up. Unfortunately the line up on Strictly Come Dancing (which starts tomorrow) is not nearly as good as last year, so I doubt I'll be watching (if I'll be watching at all) with the same eagerness.

(Disclaimer: Colin Jackson is one of my childhood heroes so I had to watch.)

I was stood in the garden on Saturday afternoon when I heard a wave of noise. My first thought was that it was a football cheer, but it went on for so long that I couldn't believe it could be. But then the singing started and I realised it must be the sound of supporters at Bramall Lane, at least two miles away.

It reminded me of being at home in Newcastle and running outside whenever the Magpies scored, just in case the wind was blowing in the right direction and I'd be able to hear the cheers.

I still resolve to go to a football match at some point in my life.

I love the idea of clubbing unsuccessfully. Last night was very unsuccessful as we'd left the venue by 10.30 to get the bus home.

Usually I can wake after a night out and think, "Yes, that was very successful: the music was good, I danced a lot, I talked to people I like and my face is hurting from smiling so much. Much fun was had."

Who writes these things?

I have just received a letter from my doctors' practice suggesting I go for a cervical smear. I have been ignoring similar letters from my health authority because they clearly state that the smear process should start when you're 25--I am 24 and I had a smear when I was 20. It was a very unpleasant experience.

This letter, however, says the system operates for women between 20 and 64 years of age. It goes on to tell me, "Our records show that you have not yet taken advantage of the invitation to attend for a smear." Taken advantage of the invitation? Is it a free gift? Have I been invited to a VIP event?

It's almost as badly put together as the hilarious letter from my car insurance provider offering me accidental death insurance:

"No matter what out aims, ambitions or dreams are, none of us really knows what the future holds. When we're young, we often feel that we can live for ever, but sadly it's a fact that fatal accidents happen every day to people just like me or you."

Apparently these fatal accidents occur most commonly to people between 16 and 24 (I'm almost safe!).

Does anyone read this without hearing a voice screaming from between the lines, "You could die! You might die tomorrow! Then your parents will have to pay off your student loan!"

Do people really respond to this kind of persuasive argument? I'm sure one million people already do have this cover, but I bet they weren't patronised with euhemisms and indirect references.

Who writes this shit? Their managers should be sacked.

Google Earth

I was browsing the Earth for ages just before, finding my house, finding places I'd been to across Europe, looking at places I'd like to visit, and then I zoomed out too far and I started feeling strange. It's weird, spinning the Earth around and zooming down on places.

Then I realised the weird sensation I felt was vertigo.

One of the girls on my PGCE course said she cured herself of a number of phobias in one day, one of them being vertigo. She went down a very high slide. I can make myself do those things, but it definitely doesn't cure me. In fact, I'm usually more frightened the second time (the terrifying Kamikaze water slide at Wet 'n' Wild in North Shields is an example of this).

I'm obviously the complete opposite of an adrenaline junky.

I'm very out of date as our Tiscali internet connection was down for two weeks. I felt strangely lost and out of touch with the world whilst internetless, rather like when you lose your mobile phone. Weird how quickly we make ourselves dependent on technology.

Weeks on from the Mercury Music Prize I still have an image from the ceremony imprinted on my brain. There was a priceless shot of Thom Yorke during the Arctic Monkey's acceptance speech, his hand over his mouth (his head was resting on it) and his eyes sort of screwed up in a combination of embarrassment, bewilderment and disbelief at the great arrogance and inarticulateness of Britain's greatest songwriter. Excellent.

Typical Ian. I buy a bunch of presents and the one he's most interested in is a beat-up copy of Hemingway's A Moveable Feast which I picked up for £2 in a charity shop and wrapped with another book as an afterthought.

2 Part Set

I was hanging my boyfriend's pants on the washing line (what do you call them? They aren't briefs and they aren't boxers . . .) and noticed most of them say "2 Part Set" on the label. Ignoring sensible suggestions, imagine what the other part of the set would be - on a man!

All-you-can-eat

Usually I wake up with a flat stomach, and today I still had a pot belly from using a new strategy at the Chinese buffet last night. Sleeping was very difficult, and as such I've come to the conclusion that prehistorical humans rarely gorged.

Spirograph

I went to an art exhibition at BlocSpace yesterday which featured three gigantic works constructed using spirograph sets. The artist, Lesley Halliwell, gave a talk about how she started using spirograph and described her processes: it was all really interesting. It turned out that the multi-coloured pieces on show were the culmination of five years of producing giant works with spirograph sets, and previous pieces were monchrome and arranged entirely differently. Because of the limitations of using Spirograph though (as in, you can only really produce a circular motif and repeat it), you could see how her ideas and processes progressed as though in a timeline. The artist was very approachable and interested too, which I always makes me feel positive.

Quirky toys

I really want this book on making sock-toys: Stupid sock creatures

I was inspired after finding this woman's website and blog: www.jesshutch.com She makes knitted robot toys amongst other things. She also gives a tutorial on her blog about screenprinting, which I'd like to mess about with: the screenprinting I did at A-level was based on painting on wax which resisted the dye. It was quite tedious, but produces an effect like a photocopy. Jess Hutch's method produces simpler, more graphic results.

So anyway, I've resumed making my little bears:

Claims to Fame 2 (by proxy)

Would you believe it? The next day, Ian and I were watching University Challenge (currently on a record of getting six correct answers!), and a member of the UCL team was from Northwich, Cheshire where Ian went to college. It turned out that it was a guy called Doeser (pronounced "dozer") who Ian knew, who did look very dozey indeed, but who saved the day for UCL by answering a question on wine that took them five points ahead right on the buzzer. I could hardly contain my excitement.

Claims to Fame

Newcastle, Sunday afternoon: my dad and I were watching the European Athletics Championships in Gothenburg. The 800 metres was almost finished: one Brit has been spiked and was completely out of the race, the other was boxed in and desperate to get free. In the last ten metres he managed to shove his way through the other athletes, and almost fell over the line into a bronze medal position.

Two minutes later, both British men were being interviewed, and I yelled excitedly, "Dad! Dad! I know that guy! He was really horrible to me!" It was none other than Sam Ellis, a Sheffielder, and good mates with my former housemates Olly and Tom. And while the other contender was disappointed beyond belief, Sam was swaying around in undisguised and slightly bewildered ecstasy.

TV truly authenticates experience.