Thanks for your lovely comments about my jacket yesterday! I feel thoroughly inspired to start sewing something else right now! I don’t even have a plan for the next project. The sewing thoughts may also have something to do with the fact that my job is starting to wind down at last and I can at last see some creative time over the horizon. And another holiday in just over a week!

The exhibition I’ve been setting up and running all this year is now coming down – it’s been a week of undressing mannequins, packing boxes, bubble-wrapping, sending garments home to their owners and repainting. It’s nice to be hands on but it will be even nicer to know it’s finished.

But anyway, crafty stuff is more fun, eh? So here we have some threads I bought for my friend Rachael’s birthday the other week. These make me want to sew. I used these kind of threads last year to hand-quilt a couple of mini quilts for various books coming out next year. I wish I could remember the name of the company that makes them. Anyway, my local shop sells them which is the main point. I am also tempted to try some tiny knitting with them. I did some minute knitting with 1mm needles and gold thread a few years ago, and this lovely dyed cotton is very knit-appealing. I have all these ideas for knitted jewellery made with threads. I’m sure lots of people already do this. I’m going to Google that right now and get back to you.

And some needles I bought myself a while back. Purely for decorative purposes, I prefer smaller needles to actually knit with.

Collecting colourful knitting needles for some reason hadn’t occurred to me. I already have a few. Now I want lots to put in a pot at the studio. Another new thing to look for at the car boot sale! This week I came home with an old handmade doll and some sewing patterns (dunno why I didn’t buy the boxful, I really don’t). Will show you those next time.
Oh – and that lovely mug at the start. Not from the car boot, but from the Big Blue Sky Gallery, Wells, Norfolk, where I was a few weeks ago. I love Norfolk and I love that gallery, so I was really happy to get there again. The mug is by Petra Boase, a designer I’ve been a fan of for years. I came across her a long time ago at Cockpit Arts Open Studio. Some of her more recent work is a bit too kitsch and childish for me, but some of it I still love. I have some old, faded, stained but much loved printed tea towels I bought from her many years ago when being a designer-maker myself was just a dream.