Thursday 22 October 2009

The scary season is upon us

I know this blog had gone a bit quiet. I haven stopped crafting though and am at the moment getting ready for Halloween, as you can see :-) In fact this blog went quiet mainly because somebody had reported it (and me) to the Social Security for Benefit Fraud! As if I ever sold something from here ... nor anywhere on the internet. Sad sad low life fuckheads about, I tell you!!

Anyway, doing Halloween niceties at the moment, which will be swiftly followed by Xmas/Yule niceties as presents. So if you are in my inner circle of friends, then expect something weird and wonderful in your stockings. If you're not yet in that chosen circle, maybe you ought to get to know me better ;-)

Back to crocheting spiders now ... Trick or Treat??????????

Wednesday 22 July 2009

Between socks and llamas



Although it might appear so, I have not been utterly idle. I have crocheted socks that fit, one pair here as example:

and I have also been crocheting a llama, which was a lot of work as it is mostly done in loop stitches. But I have actually fallen in love with it and it is not going to be sold! So there!

Off to WOMAD tomorrow, we'll see what that brings. Childrens' workshops ... hrrrmphhh! Whoever agreed to that. Catch you all when I am back on Monday or thereabouts.


Glasto Photos






Only a few ... but I hope you get the picture :-)

Thursday 2 July 2009

Karina's Creatures do Glastonbury

So, I went to Glastonbury Festival to do crochet workshops and sell some Amigurumi. We arrived there Monday 22nd June and built the little stall as pictured above (that is not me by the way). On Tuesday morning we had the Health & Safety check and were pronounced accredited traders :-) Business started on Wednesday 24th June. Nobody came to do a workshop that day and nobody bought anything. That was not surprising really as only traders were present at that time. On Thursday morning 10 am we set up and my first workshop was more of a babysitting session. The basket weaving woman from across the path dropped her 5-year old off to learn crochet. It is now apparent to me, that the age limit for my workshops has to be raised ... unless there are 5-year olds about, who have a better attention span than Lolly. Anyway, we made some crochet flowers with her and she was happy enough. First proper workshop attendees came Thursday afternoon. 3 women of more mature age :-) A lovely few hours with chat and some hooking was being had. About the same amount of people did come throughout the festival 4 - 5 a day, women who were saying that they had never managed the art of crochet mainly. So I taught a young woman with Dyspraxia to 'sling her hook' ... she was so happy as she had been told by doctors that she NEVER would do any knitting/crochet. Hence she is on a mission to prove the medical world wrong. She was so elated by the end of the session, that she bought a hook from me and took some wool away. She even came by a couple of days later to thank me again and that she was still crocheting. That was my best experience of the festival. Still there were other success stories and many happy, nattering hours were had by all.

As far as sales go, it wasn't too great. It has taught me to take more small items to a festival rather than large, more expensive Amigurumi. Jelly fish, octopusses and squids were the 'most wanted', followed closely by the celestine star baby rattles, although I must say that £15 seemed a lot to people, but I couldn't sell them cheaper considering the work that goes in them. Not even mentioning the materials.

Anyway, WOMAD childrens' workshops next. That should be interesting to say the least. My aim for next year is definitely Roskilde, that will be a challenge in itself if I think about the language barrier. Might have to do an overhead projector show to go with the workshops. And I would really like to branch out and do a couple of the continental festivals. Wish me luck, my fellow hookers.

Wednesday 27 May 2009

Under the sea ...


As promised ... the mermaid. She hasn't got a name yet, so feel free to suggest some :-)

A riot in the making ...



As promised, here is the punk I was designing. It took a while as things weren't going as smoothly as I would have liked them too, but I got there in the end. Mind you, I was going to crochet him a leather jacket with studs, but that went out of the window. It just didn't look right! So I either have to make him a proper jacket from leather with real studs, or I just leave him as he is. By the way, he is called Seamo aka Keith, a friend of mine from a support forum :-)

I have also got another mermaid ready, just haven't taken any pics of her yet. Treated myself to a digital camera, so hopefully the quality of my photos will increase. Sometimes however, it really just is 'operator error' ....

Friday 15 May 2009

Where did my post go??

I posted my rastaman earlier and he's gone. And I checked, that the post was there ... am I totally nuts now???


Ooops ... now it's there again. Apparently an editing conflict. Glad I am not nuts though hehe.