Wednesday Window: Tubular Fells

What do you get if you cross the world's most iconic underground map with one of the best loved mountainous areas in the UK? This is what:

I came across Tubular Fells last week on twitter and it seems like such a clever idea - each of the coloured lines represents one of Wainwright's famous mountain guide books:

As a lover of Wainwright, this homage appeals in many ways. My only trouble with it is the way the conjunction of such different things feels like a muddle in my head - to me the tube represents busy busy people, noise, claustrophobic spaces and a smell that is something like soot and rats and the exhaled breath of an entire city. The Lakes represents fresh air, skylarks, the sound of wind and sheep, and big sky. The two don't seem natural bedfellows! That apart, I love the invention of this; there's one of the Scottish Munros too, called MunrOverground, and a Snowdonia version on the way.

They also give some of the profits to worthwhile causes: £1 from every sale of the Tubular Fells map goes to Fix the Fells, a charity working to preserve Lakeland footpaths and combat the erosion caused by the millions of visitors who walk these hills every year. Meanwhile, the sale of MunrOverground maps supports the work of both the John Muir Trust and Scottish Mountain Rescue. 

Do you think if I asked nicely they'd print it on mugs too?

Disclaimer: this is not a sponsored post, more's the pity.

Morgan & Pink goes pink!

At last, I have some super duper shiny new packaging for my jewellery. What do you think?

How to make jewellery with a child in your arms

When I started making jewellery, I had one child, and worked when she napped, or after she’d gone to bed in the evenings. Now I have two, and there seems to be less and less time, especially as the younger one is no longer napping reliably during the day (or settling to sleep reliably at night). But I still have customers, lovely things I want to sell, and more design ideas that are waiting to be made. And I bet I'm not the only one in this position, so this set me thinking about how to make it all work, and I've come up with the following brief guide to making jewellery with a child in your arms, or at your feet...

1. Procrastinate

Yes, now is clearly not a good time, so make it all wait till later. Later may mean that point in the evening when even the bats are asleep and you really should be warming the duvet yourself, but surely, you keep telling yourself, there’ll be a time later when everyone leaves you in peace. Mañana, mañana... When you’re fed up of waiting for that perfect moment, move on to no. 2:

2. Bribe, distract or otherwise occupy the baby with something else.

Give her a piece of paper and a crayon. Lay out your chosen beads into a pattern for a necklace. Rescue the bits of crayon from the baby’s mouth and give her a pencil instead. Re-arrange the beads a couple of times, trying to replicate the design you saw in your head earlier. Rescue the pencil from her mouth, and give the baby some lego. Re-arrange the beads one more time, and start to assemble all the little bits you’ll need: clasp, jump-rings, crimps, three kinds of pliers... Rescue the lego from the bin and give the baby a biscuit. Cut the first length of wire. Notice a small hand reaching up to you and absent-mindedly take the thing your child is offering. Realise that you’re now holding a small splodge of pre-chewed biscuit. Go and wash your hands. Return to find your “baby” is tall enough to reach your desk and is massively excited by the way the beads roll around, and by the way they bounce as they hit the floor. Retrieve beads from all corners of the room, while cursing loudly. Give up and go downstairs.

3. Engage their attention properly.

The little one is asleep, and you think you might be able to engage your older child’s attention so that she will watch without trying to interfere too much. Explain the processes and techniques you are using, and be prepared for a string of questions and comments such as:

- can you make me one of those?

- can I have one for my birthday?

- when will you make me one like that?

- I wish I had one of those

- I think if you made that in blue it would go with my new dress

- do you think I can have one of those when I'm a bridesmaid?

- why don’t you make it smaller so it will fit me?

- you’re very clever mummy, to make these things, but why are they all for grown-ups?

- I really really like that

4. Abandon the housework.

If you’re lucky, there will be a point in the day when the children are asleep, or otherwise out of your hair, and you will have a choice: make jewellery, or mop the kitchen floor; order some new beads, or do the grocery shop online; sketch some new designs, or write those thank you cards that are now three months overdue... Clearly, you have to listen to your conscience occasionally; you don’t want your family to die of the plague because you haven’t cleaned in months, nor do you want Great-Aunt Mildred to think you didn't like her beautiful gift. But if you’re trying to get something done for yourself, sometimes you just have to seize that moment, and let the rest go hang. Embrace the dust-bunnies. Make those earrings.

5. Be professional, even if it means lying, scrabbling and employing the electronic nanny.

OK, so I haven’t done a very good job of that here, but occasionally you have to punch above your weight if you want people to take you seriously. Talk about your business, not your hobby. Be reliable: describe your work proudly, package it beautifully and deliver it on time. This is especially true when fulfilling a commission - these people have sought you out and are expressing confidence in your talent and skill. They don't want to hear that you might be a few days late delivering something because your kids just had the pox and you've .. no, ok, I’ll stop there. See what I mean? Talk about the way the colour of the amethysts matches the fabric swatch your client sent, and how excited you are to be creating a matching set of tiny silver bracelets for the flower-girls, and don’t mention that you’ll probably have to stay up half the night to finish them. Just get them made, beautifully, and get them in the post on time.

6. Stop from time to time to remember why you’re doing it.

This part helps a lot. Order some new beads just for yourself and make something you have no intention of selling, ever. Last time I did this, I had a commission for something identical within half an hour of putting it on. So saying, it might be time I did some bead shopping...

Do you run a business from home? What are your tricks for juggling work and very small people? (Oh such a great mental image there...)

I'm linking this up with Handmade Harbour's Handmade Monday series - there are some really inspiring craft blogs there so why not take a look? 

Wednesday Window: Book Carvings

I can't decide if I love these, or hate them. The skill is extraordinary, but I'm uneasy about anything that involves the destruction of books. Anyway, here you are - see what you think: 3D sculptures created within old books by Canadian artist Guy Laramee:

If you explore the page from which these images were taken, you'll notice in the comments at the end that someone says how cool it would be if the carving was in some way related to the original text of the book, and I agree - I'd love to see that done!

World Book Day 2013

This may seem rather late in the day, but I was waiting to photograph Poppet in her "dress up as a book character" costume, and since her school is doing that tomorrow, not today, I didn't finish making the outfit until about 4.30 this afternoon! The whole dressing up thing is something I approached with rather mixed feelings, since it often seems to be not so much an expression of how much a child likes a particular book or character, as an illustration of how much time, effort, or money their parents are prepared to expend in order to create the costume. Hence the trend in recent years for children to claim their preferred costume from the supermarket (Disney princess, Spiderman, Snow White, or a pirate being current favourites apparently), and then try to find a suitable book to match.

Last year Poppet showed no interest, but with the Charlie and Lola books by Lauren Child being among her favourites at the time, I saw an opportunity to make it easy for both of us, and she went as Lola, in jeans and a stripy t-shirt. We've since noticed that Lola usually wears a dress, but never mind!

This year, she has shown more interest but, bless her, she assumed I wouldn't want to make anything, which meant her only options were to persuade me to buy something from the supermarket (see above) or to wear a pink ball-gown dressing-up dress she got for Christmas 15 months ago, since we don't really do dressing up clothes in a big way in this house. I felt reluctant to pander to the pink princess option; much has been said elsewhere about the polarisation of children's role-play choices, and how it can affect their lifelong ambitions (pretty pink princess waiting to be rescued or married by the handsome prince, versus bold resourceful superhero conquering any problem in his path...) so I'll try not to labour the point here. Suffice to say I'd rather she aimed for something other than mincing around looking pretty as the focus of her role-play. Besides which, this particular activity is supposed to be about world BOOK day, not just about scrabbling around to find an outfit to show off to your friends, and we don't seem to have any books about princesses, so that ruled that one out!

We finally settled on a book she loves, for which I thought I might manage a suitable costume:

This book has long been a favourite of mine, and I remember listening to the fabulous audio version over and over again as a child, with Maureen Lipman "eeking" her way through the story magnificently. It used to be my littlest brother's favourite bedtime listening too, although the eeks did sometimes wake him up again if no-one remembered to creep in and turn down the volume once he was asleep. Now it's one of Poppet's most-loved books and she will often ask to listen to the CD while she curls up on the sofa for some quiet time.

So, with the help of the very nice sales assistant in the fabric part of Mason's in Abingdon (terrible website, fabulous shops), I chose a metre of fine fake fur (they didn't do ready made lengths of feathery cloth, sadly!), and a satin lining fabric, and borrowed a book from the library which contained a pattern for an owl cape. I scaled the pattern up onto newspaper, and with the leftover cloth made a short tunic. Finally, I used some felt to make a simple eye-mask, and here's the result:

Elsewhere, World Book Day has been celebrated in style, and if you missed the Biggest Book Show on Earth with Tony Robinson, Shirley Hughes, Liz Pichon, Cathy Cassidy and lots of others you can watch it on demand here.

There are also hundreds of wonderful book and writing-related activities on the Nurture Store site. My favourite is these beautiful word birds, an idea developed by textile artist BeckyAdams where you write a story, or poem on a little piece of paper, which is then folded to form the wings of the bird:

What do you think about dressing up as a book character? Is it a useful way for schools to encourage and inspire children's reading and writing? What would you go as, if your office or workplace held a similar event? I'm tempted to say I'd go as George from the Famous Five, so that I could just wear jeans and a t-shirt, but then again, this book has always appealed:

Not sure I'm up to creating that costume though...

Wednesday Window: Renegade Mothering

I came across this blog last year, and I love it. Or maybe I should say I fucking LOVE it! (If that offends you, stop reading now, because you won't like this...)

This woman pulls no punches. She is a mother who didn't really want to be a mother but has worked out, often the hard way, how to deal with it. She writes things that make sense to me, and I love her fearlessness and her ability to cut to the beating heart of the matter without caring what you think, because it's important enough that it needs to be said. I wish I'd written pretty much everything I've read on her blog so far, especially her recent post, I became a mother, and died to live, on what it's REALLY like to make the transition from being a "normal" single, free and easy person to being a mother.

Yes, she's rude and offensive, and uses heaps of words I only use when I'm angry (they're called "mummy words" in this house) but her writing speaks to me in a way many of the more would-be-helpful parenting stuff doesn't. And it makes me laugh on those days when I seem to have done nothing but wipe up snot or poo or spilled food and I've forgotten to brush my hair (again) and the house looks like a tornado's hit it. And boy, are those the days when you NEED to laugh at something, because otherwise you'd cry.

She's also just started a new series of posts, FTM Friday, on making your own beauty products and toiletries, starting with this brilliant-looking set of body scrubs. I can't wait to make one of these recipes.

Lavender Mint Scrub

I don't have the balls to write like she does. I'm too scared of offending people, and waste too much time worrying about what people think of me already, never mind what they might think if I wrote like that. One day maybe I'll find that inner renegade, and write what I really think about life, but in the meantime, I read hers and want to punch the air with joy that SOMEONE said it.