Journey

The healing of my broken finger continues slowly: the actual bone is mended now, and healing the damaged tendon will be take longer it seems: the joint still swells up when I do something ordinary like the vacuuming, and there are still everyday tasks I simply cannot do!  I notice tiny improvements everyday, though, and I have been so fortunate in having excellent treatment at The Whittington, right from my first visit to the Accident and Emergency department, to the current physiotherapy.  Knitting is proving to be a valuable therapeutic exercise, as well as the tendon glides and playing with the lovely green Theraputty.

This illustration, originally inspired by an Illustration Friday on the topic of "journey"way back in April, seems to fit my life at the moment: slow progress towards my goal of full hand recovery, and interesting discoveries along the way! When the topic was posted, I  came up with the idea, and then did not have sufficient time to carry it out and post it. However, I liked the idea so much I decided to make the illustration anyway.

Fortunately, I drew up the framework for the painting just before the accident, and have found I can do the water colour a very tiny amount at a time.

I'm looking forward to being able to draw again properly soon: it has been a real surprise to discover how much of a two-handed process drawing is for me.

Motivation to work my fingers

Just before I broke my finger, I thought of the idea of knitting Patrick Moore for the Stitch London "Stitched Science" event with the wonderful Science Museum: I love the way Sir Patrick Moore  has made astronomy accessible and understandable through his enthusiastic presentations on The Sky At Night.

Then I broke my finger, and seriously doubted that I could participate in the Stitched Science project in any form, but it was very good motivation to persist with tendon glides, hand rehab, etc.  Making plarn for planet earth, and knitting a strip for venus proved to be excellent hand therapy. The a couple of weeks ago, I tentatively cast on to make the pieces I had sketched out for Patrick Moore.
Hooray,  I succeeded:

I had a little help from Lauren O'Farrell aka Deadly Knitshade with the stretching and stapling of the night sky,  and loads of encouragement from fellow Stitch Londoners. Thanks, guys.

Stitched Science was a fantastic weekend altogether: Sarah MacIntyre's review of her visit captures the excitement of it all: http://jabberworks.livejournal.com/411443.html

Broken finger and learning curves

On Monday 2nd May I broke the little finger on my left hand, so I am currently facing some very interesting challenges in getting on with life.

It is amazing to discover quite how left-handed I am: usually I think of myself as ambidextrous, though favouring my left hand for many tasks right-handers would use their right hand to do.  Fortunately, I do mostly draw with my right hand. For painting and drawing for the next month or so the challenge will be about size of paper because of the weight of the drawing board, and being unable to stretch paper for painting. So I shall be investigating much heavier weight paper which may not require stretching!

The way forward with knitting is for me to learn the english style - something I had been planning to do anyway to help with two colour work. So, Linda kindly cast on for me at Stitch London on Wednesday, and a green sock is very slowly growing: I've knitted about 3" in the past week.

I've also been given very helpful tips by lovely friends who have experienced similar injuries, and am accepting lots of help from friends and strangers, so am getting by.

Here is a pen and ink drawing I made recently called "Creepy", which somehow seems to fit with this post because of the little girl's  movement towards the unknown:

Royal Wedding Gerty

Here is the Gertrude Woolsworthy illustration made for the Royal Wedding edition of the  Stitch London newsletter (If you scroll down the page you will see Gerty alongside her fabulous advice!).

The inspiration for this particular painting came from the Union Jack cupcake, which is visible here . Then, naturally thoughts of battenburg-style knitted bunting followed, together with a tiara based on Stitch London's logo. Great fun to dream up.

Work In Progress

Time really does fly! I've had such a busy month, mainly with preparing my children's illustration portfolio, etc for the London Book Fair, and my blog has been on the "important but not urgent list".

Today it is great to look at my painting desk with the immediate pressure to complete work off for the first time in months. Here is what is on my desk this morning: the union jack cup cake is a prop for something I will be working on this week, not yet started. In the meantime, I am taking a breather this morning.

On being a Stitch Sage for Stitch London

I am happy to be one of Stitch London's team of Stitch Sages who teach people to knit for free, and was asked recently why I do this, so here is my reply (Which naturally involved painting!): firstly, I still remember my own excitement the Christmas I opened a parcel to find a lovely cardboard basket containing tiny balls of wool, and pair of gold coloured,  4 year-old Clare-size, knitting needles! I was very keen to learn how to knit, and my Mum taught me the basics - cast on, knit, purl, and cast off, as she had been taught them - not by her own mother, but by a kind American lady on a ferry from the UK to Denmark. More of this later.

Secondly, passing on needlecraft skills and tools is very important to me: the photograph shows my Stitch Sage badges; one of my original gold knitting needles;  a pair of green plastic knitting needles that belonged to my Mother, which my Dad had commissioned me to buy on her behalf together with some pink yarn for a baby jacket, when my sister arrived prematurely, and my Mother wanted something to do in hospital;  the scissors, silver thimble and very worn, red leather case given to me by my Granny (who was a trained tailor) when I was about 8 years old; and a pair of Victorian tatting shuttles which I think belonged to my Great-grandmother. Unfortunately, the knowledge of how to use them was not passed on, so I am planning to learn  to use them this year.

Finally, in teaching people to knit, I have learnt that the style of knitting does not really matter,  just the the joy of developing  skills in making a fabric out of a system of loops! The kind American lady taught my Mother to knit continental style, which she then in turn taught me, which was great, except that my class teacher at junior school thoroughly disapproved of my not knitting English style, and made my life miserable in knitting classes over this. In fact, I held back from teaching people to knit at Stitch London for sometime because of this teacher's attitude, and making me feel I was doing something wrong in knitting the way I do.  Lauren O'Farrell encouraged me,  though, and the folks I have taught have been very appreciative,  as well, which is very rewarding to see.

Fiery Fred and where do ideas come from

Domestic upheaval in the form of the annual gas safety checks for the boiler has prevented me from posting to my blog for a few weeks: the reason being that having moved everything around to enable access to the boiler,  the scanner was inaccessible! I am planning to have some images in hand on my computer to post when such events happen in future, as inevitably they will. Or to live somewhere much larger, so that giving access for maintenance does not create quite the domestic chaos that are the product of shoe-horning my busy creative life into a relatively small flat.

In the meantime, I have been working on Fiery Fred for the diploma course: the brief was for to paint a vignette to show a "young dragon who is not yet fully in control of his flame, and to show his bafflement at having set fire to a thatched roof".   A fun brief for someone who likes to draw dragons! As usual, I found myself making up much more story, hence the top picture.  The idea and story evolved over a few days (often being pondered when travelling on buses, or walking), interspersed with some sketching out of potential ideas and layouts to see which worked best.

The fire brigade bears appeared because I wanted the occupants of the thatched cottage to be visible and responding to the fire, and I then realised that the occupants did not have to be humans! 

Bears, and teddy bears specifically are occupying my drawing thoughts quite a lot at the moment: (Research for a children's picture book which I have written and drawn the first draft of, and which am now working to improve). So at the beginning of February, when  I spent a morning at the Museum of Childhood with some friends from the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, I focussed mainly on sketching some of the fabulous teddy bears in the collection. I will post some of the sketches another time. Hence bears seemed to be a good choice for the occupants of the cottage, especially as I could then have fun playing with the roof shape!

Gertrude Woolsworthy appears again

This week I have mostly been using pink paint again! Stitch London invited me to illustrate their Agony Aunt Gerty Woolsworthy's imaginative Valentine's advice:  you can see this here, near the bottom of the newsletter: Valentine proposal.

The eagle-eyed among you may recognise the handsome hunk of Wollemeise that I'd photographed at loop on 28th January as part of my research!

Where do ideas come from?

Following on from my last post here, here is some of my current food for visual thought.

The drawing is a quick sketch I did on Twelfth Night (6th January) of how an outsider might see the Christmas tree being taken down in our household.

A very quick impression, but one that is staying with me mentally, so I sense that a more worked drawing up is brewing. What I like about this drawing in particular is how I've captured something of the character of Toby, who is a very inquisitive and bright cat, as well as being large, fluffy and solid! He'd only lived with me for six weeks at this point, so was still very much learning about me and what I do.

Then here is a small collection of recent acquisitions that are feeding my creative imagination!

The book is "How to Draw in Pen and Ink" by Harry Furniss, originally published in 1905, and discovered by me in the Oxfam shop in Cirencester over the new year holiday.  I've been drawing with pen and ink for years, and I found some useful tips in this book, plus interesting observations on the composing of illustrations at the point in time when photographs were becoming more frequently used instead in newspapers and magazines.

The small plastic character toy was another charity shop find, and was used as the model for all of the plastic figure toys in the "Sebastian's Sink City" I made. Being able to study the construction of joints, and exaggerations of body proportions to enable the toy to stand, etc was very helpful.

The wonderfully evocatively shaped "nest" ball of yarn is currently home some tiny owls I knitted last year

Painting, knitting and planning to combine the two

Here is the illustration I have mostly been working on this week: an improved version of "The owl and the pussy cat", with an anatomically correct cat! Previous versions included an elbow, which a kind friend reminded me cats do not have. I also prefer the tortoise shell and white colours for the cat.

Knitting-wise, I've had fun making this log cabin square for The Log Cabin Blanket 2011 to help with fund-raising for the excellent Medecins Sans Frontieres via p/hop.

I'm also intending to knit a couple of squares for the barn-raising blanket; then if I am brave, for the crochet one, too!

Planning to combine painting with knitting led me to visit the fantabulous Loop this afternoon to photograph some lace-weight Wollmeise for next top secret at the moment painting!

Oh, and while I was there, a lovely sea blue ball of Lima found it's way into my bag, so will be casting on later.

Humpty and the Windmill

A humpty has found his way into my drawings!

 This is a pen and ink drawing project that I had begun before Christmas, when I was ill with the bronchitis, but refusing to give in and simply be ill. The conseqence of this was that when I looked again at my work when I was well again, I discovered a fundamental flaw in the composition, plus that I was thoroughly bored with the project. Not good, and thankfully, very unusual for me. So, I began again, and began again, etc, and was still stuck, and increasingly frustrated.

Then one morning I had the bright idea of actually making the cleaner bottle windmill, which miraculously solved my artist's block!  Now I am pleased with how the drawing has turned out, and will be happily adding to my portfolio.

Love Bites Wrist Warmers - completed!

These really were the perfect project to take with me to my dad's over New Year, and the joggless stripe method worked a treat!  Also achieved success with the cunning plan I had thought out to knit the little fair isle hearts:  the challenge there in knitting in knitting the mitts in the round is that the yarn for the hearts ends up at the wrong end of the motif on every other row! I solved this particular problem by slipping the heart stitches; then reversing my knitting and purling the hearts; then turning knitting back to right side,  which leaves the heart on the left needle, and needing to be slipped to the right needle; then slipping the heart stiches onto the right needle, carefully undoing and re-knitting every other stitch so that I could hook the main stripe colour yarn along the back. Fiddly, but worked well, and only had to be done on three rows.  


I am a confident knitter, so was not daunted by the prospect of fiddling this way. However, an alternative way to achieve the same visual result would be to knit the wrist warmers without the hearts, then darn them on afterwards. Thanks to bluestockingstitching for this suggestion.

New Year, New (Knitting) Challenge

Santa gave me a fabulous book of knitting patterns: Pretty In Punk by Alyce Benevides and Jacquline Milles, and I have the yarn to knit myself a pair of "Love Bites" striped wrist warmers. The pattern is straightforward: narrow stripes with an fair isle heart written for knitting flat, then sewing a seam afterwards.  However I much prefer to knit everything in the round and avoid seams altogether! So time to learn a new knitting skill: joggless stripes.  Fortunately for me, Techknitter has provided some very good instructions on how to do this on her blog here . So this will be my project for the few days away over new year. Watch this space for photo of the finished articles!


Happy New Year: may your dreams become reality in 2011!

Christmas soap and mug

Gradually catching up with work, and preparations for Christmas festivities.  Lots of xmas pressie knitting going on here: there will be some photos after the presents have gone to their recipients!

The special xmas tree soap - which spells spicy - has been brought out,  and likewise my xmas mugs!

This red-nose reindeer one is my favourite for coffee drinking : )

Absence and a pink tree

Blogging absence is down to being poorly with bronchitis, something I have not had before. Fortunately, I have a viral type, and am on the mend, just still very weak! It's been most disconcerting being ill for more than ten days: I'm rarely sick for longer than a day or so.

So to cheer myself up, today I treated myself to a pink tinsel Christmas tree, and some white lights for it.

All the glass baubles, etc are ones I've treasured for many years. The cute chubby angel-fairy on the top was a lovely gift. The little glass santa at the foot of the tree was saved from the original set of fairy lights my parents had when I was small. Enjoy!

Gertrude Woolsworthy and Cranford mitts

I was recently invited to create a festive seasonal illustration of the fabulous Agony Aunt Gerty Woolsworthy  for Stitch London's 2nd December newsletter.

 For those not familiar with her, Gerty is a giant ball of pink variegated yarn, with a penchant for gin and cake (especially Battenburg), as well as dispensing pragmatic and hilarious advice for all manner of loosely knitting-related problems!

Fortunately, I have met Gertrude in real life, so dreaming up how she would celebrate at this time of year was great fun.

These are my fabulous new Cranford mitts, which I knitted in November in a Ravelry P/Hop group November knit-a-long. (A knit-a-long is where several people get together on-line and agree to all knit the same pattern and compare notes, photos, etc). A grand total of fifty pairs of the mitts were completed in November, raising funds in the process for Medecins Sans Frontiers via Pennies per hour of pleasure.  All of us had such fun knitting the mitts from Jane Lithgow's lovely pattern that we agreed to extend the knit-a-long to the end of December, so there is still time to join in!
The eagle-eyed may spot that I knitted one less repeat after the thumbs: this is because these are my painting mitts!

Pink fairy armadillo and other creatures

Yesterday was a day for feeding my imagination in the company of some fellow children's illustrators: we all met at the Natural History Museum for a morning of sketching there. A truly amazing place for drawing, both the exhibits and the people looking at the exhibits (or on their mobile phone!)
My plan was to head straight for my favourite of the mammals galleries - the one with the whales and dolphins, then I got distracted on the way there by the bats! I never feel quite comfortable looking at stuffed, dead animals, but reminded myself that this is probably the only way I am going to get the chance to study bats up close.  Such dainty creatures, and with a lovely contrast between the soft, fine fur of their bodies, and the leatheriness of their wings. I especially loved the way the shape of the nose of the spear nose bat echoed the shape of it's ears.

My discovery of the day was the wonderfully named "pink fairy armadillo": a tiny creature from the Argentine pampas, that I had never heard of before.  In spite of it's name, the specimen in the glass case is not pink - more of a slightly pinky beige fur, with creamy plates on it's back. I want to find out a lot more about this creature.

I was also excited to see some of the fossils Mary Anning discovered in Lyme Regis, having thoroughly enjoyed reading Tracy Chevalier's "Remarkable Creatures" 

The Coming of Cats

Life at home has been lonely and sad without a furry feline companion since the beginning of October.

Happily, this was all changed yesterday. I painted this birthday card last week for a friend, which presciently had a tiny black cat peering round an open door!

At the top is Poppy: she likes hiding out and watching what is going on from safe spaces, which will make getting a good photo of her quite tricky for a while.

Toby is the handsome black and white long-haired boy who loves to be groomed, which is just as well given how long his coat is!

Both cats have agreed to pose for drawing, and to refrain from playing with paintbrushes, or sitting on paintings. As for interfering with knitting, that remains to be seen!

An Owl, A Pussycat and A Sheep

Edward Lear's poem "The Owl and The Pussy Cat" continues to hold a fascination for me: I like to imagine the story with a contemporary setting, and also answer questions like how did the pair meet? I think there will be a children's book in the musings eventually.

So here is my latest water colour version of the invitation to go to sea! I'd love to know what you think of it.

This little ewe, from a very rare breed,  attended Sarah McIntyre's book launch for "Vern and Lettuce", which was enlivened no end by being also a "Stitch a Sheep" evening with Stitch London.  Tiny Lady Kidsilk was delighted to meet many other wonderful sheep, and also to win a medal for "Most stylish sheep"!

More adventures with yarn

More tiny items I have knitted in the past few weeks.

 The tiny hats are for Innocent's annual fundraising campaign with tiny hats on their smoothie bottles: Big Knit . It's always fun to come up with new ideas, and this year's contributions are cat-themed in honour of Willow.







Plarn Dragonfly encounters the woolly yarn dragonfly! I knitted both: the tiny yarn version is my own design, and pattern is in process of being written up. The plarn version was designed by Lauren O'Farrell for Stitch London's workshop at Prince Charles's Start Garden Party in September, as was a tiny sheep. Lauren's sheep pattern is for woolly yarn, but I got creative and made the perky plarn one shown here!