*Gasp!* It’s an update!

Yeah, I know. It’s appalling that it’s been so long since my last update but I’ve got a very good reason.  Since I last wrote, I’ve actually been working extremely hard in one of Dublin’s most famous universities. Basically I’m part of an IT  team that’s upgrading the servers and my job entails a lot of meeting interesting people, upgrade their accounts and visit their offices. I’ve been in pretty cool and awesome places and I wish I could have taken photos in a lot of them. I’ve been in two actual factual labs (complete with having to put on those lab suits and having to go through one of those air cleanser shower things, just like you see in the movies!), a mansion, 3 hospitals, a conservation library and countless offices.

So, as you can imagine, after all of that excitement and running around, I tend to be a bit tired after work and therefore cannot muster up any energy for crafting. But fear not, for my weekends are filled with a crazed desire for sewing and I have actually been working on a lot of stuff. (I just hadn’t gotten around to taking photos.)

So, here’s a plethora of stuff that I’ve done in the last 6 months:

Fabric bracelets

These are fun to make, very easy to do!

I also got on the pincushion buzz too:

I’ve also managed to make my very first messenger bag, woo! Thanks to this handy tutorial http://pinoyinoz.blogspot.com/2008/07/tutorial-messenger-bag-with-zip-top.html, I now have a very funky and secure bag!

Sorry the pictures aren’t great but the light was dimming and it was hard to get shots.

That’s all the blogging I can do for now, I’m tired. Laters!

Ooooh quilting is fun!

So, like I said in my last post, I tried out some quilting. I wanted to do it for ages but with the lack of an iron, I couldn’t allow myself to try it. I’m a perfectionist at times and the OCD in me refuses to let me start something new in a half-assed manner. My darling sister got a job recently with a little help from me and so in return she asked what would I like as a reward. She didn’t bat an eyelid when I said I needed an iron. She figured it must be for crafting rather than actual ironing of my clothes. Ah, she knows me so well!

One thing I love is scouring the mighty oceans of the Internet, searching for tutorials. There’s just so much cool stuff out there and I want to make so much of it! I rarely follow the full directions, somewhere along the way I’ll insert my own twist on things.

Anyways, one of the most awesome tutorials I’ve seen is from Obsessively Stitching. Caroline makes lots and lots of funky stuff, including fabric storage cubes.
The tutorial I tried was the quilty belt and I must say, it’s a fantastic tutorial. I never thought it could be so easy to make drab belts look so awesome!

(I don’t have a before shot, but it was quite boring.)

Time for the Action shot!

Nifty! The photo was taken by my boyfriend, who is feeling poorly. Awwh!

Much thanks to Caroline at Obsessively Stitching!

Almost a year later…

So the first anniversary of my blog is coming up. I’m not going to celebrate it or anything like that but I have been thinking about what I’ve done in the last year. I’ve learnt a lot, I really have. Some skills I already knew, so I improved on them and I’ve come a long way.
I learnt how to sew and knit when I was younger and I sewed here and there but it wasn’t until last summer that I bought a sewing machine (see post) and really started headway. Then I had to go back to hand sewing after about 2 months because it turned out that the particular sewing machine turned out to be utter shite and refused to work properly anymore. Making mad funny plastic clunky noises, throwing temper tantrums, deliberately messing up the threads…I don’t know what issues it had with me, but I eventually just threw it out and tried never mentioning it again.
Lesson learnt: €40 does not mean it’s a bargain for a brand new sewing machine. €40 for a vintage sewing machine is actually a great deal, especially for a treadle.

My sewing toolkit

On the upside, my mam gave me her sewing machine, a glorious Singer 9012. (Yep, the one I wasn’t allowed touch as a kid!) This workhorse has lasted 20 years and it’s still going strong. T’is a dream to use!

(I call her Attie, short for Athena, the goddess of crafting. It’s not an ego thing, it was either that or Zapp from “Futurama” fame. Personally, I don’t want to sew nothing but velour!)

Getting my love of photography on with my love of sewing...

I’ve already made loads of things with her, but that’s for another post.

The other things I’ve learnt this year: knitting (learnt basics as a kid, but I forget almost everything until January just gone), crochet (I’m only at the basic stage now), digital art, jewellery making, embroidery and I’m sure there’s other stuff but I can’t think of them right now.

My first embroidery piece - ever!

OK,  so some of these skills are still at extremely basic levels, but it’s all fun and I’m gonna keep on trying! I’m gonna try quilting next 🙂

Out of everything though, I gotta admit that sewing is probably my favourite.

I joined up to Craftster.org which is this unique community of crafty people. Everyone’s so nice and so goddamn talented that my jaw drops on a hourly basis at least (I do occasionally have to drag myself away from Craftster). Some of the tutorials are incredibly brilliant as well, I wholeheartedly endorse having a look!

I also joined up to the Monthly Odd Holidays swaps which have been fun, slightly nerve wrecking (“oh insert-deity-here, what if my partner doesn’t like what I sent? What if it doesn’t arrive?!”)  and invaluable to my learning. But mostly a lot of fun!

Well, I’ll leave it at that for now. But I’ll be back again soon(ish) with more updates!

Another gig! Stomp Presents Another Night of Bass

Stomp is back and ready for more dubstep and drum ‘n’ bass!
Our Kings of Beats are: Executive Steve from Reach, Welfare from Raidió Na Life,  new upcoming artist Shatterfreak  from Intelligenix & Stomp and DJ Ganjdalf also from the Stomp Crew.

Here’s the flyer that myself and my lovely boyfriend made!

Facebook group is here if you would like to join us in stompin’ the night away! http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=335063750465#!/event.php?eid=335063750465&ref=ts

If you sign up to stompevents@gmail.com, then it’s only €5 in instead of €7 at the door. Make sure to sign up before the 6th of March though!

Give a listen to these lads whilst you’re waiting in anticipation!

Shatterfreak: http://soundcloud.com/shatterfreak

Welfare: http://soundcloud.com/welfare

Ganjdalf: http://www.youtube.com/user/DubTHC

Digital Art

Hey hey kids!

It’s time for my Photoshop skills!

First and foremost, I must mention that I’ve only learnt how to make actual digital art almost a year ago. Before then, I knew the basics that would help with my photography, such as crop, trim, resize, skew, that sort of thing. I found Photoshop to be an intimidating program at first truthfully. There’s just so many options and buttons and nothing is named the way I needed it to be named.

With practise though, I’ve learnt a ton of new tricks and I’m looking forward to learning even more.

First off, a digital art piece based on my eye.

Eye

I wish I could remember where I got that particular flower pattern from. I’ve been really hesitant about putting this piece online but if anyone can tell me who made this pattern, I’d be more than happy to credit them!

UPDATE: I remember where I got this particular pattern, it’s from Brusheezy.com, the link is as follows:

http://www.brusheezy.com/brush/1280-Very-Flowery

Next up, a robot!

Searching Robot

The next one is for my friend Colm who is just plain crazy about Star Wars. While I don’t share his obession love, I did enjoy doing a shoot with him and making some digital art pieces.

Disco Jedi

Suffering Jedi

Jedi in the Fields

And just for kicks, here’s a random selection of other stuff I did:

GIR

Aido's Eye

Nietzche quote

Well kids, I hope you’ve enjoyed that. No doubt I will make more 🙂

Til next time, see ya!

It’s a Watchmen kind of Christmas…

Hello again and I hope everyone had an awesome Christmas!

The reason why I haven’t updated in a while was due to, yet again, a lot of stuff happening. There was the gig on the 11th of December that I was co-organising so that meant making decorations and visuals for the night. The actual gig…well, there was some technical problems and some anger to deal with but it was all dealt with and the audience seemed to enjoy themselves. I felt I aged a thousand years but the best and most awesome Christmas rest sorted that out for me and now I’m back to my youthful 27 years old!

Also, there was Christmas to deal with that distracted me from blogging. Being broke and funemployed (someone who enjoys being unemployed, i.e. actually making good use of all the free time), I had to resort to cheap, crafty presents so I was frantically trying make presents (whilst doing the other stuff too). I succeeded too, so I’m pleased. However, I’ve already given all of those presents away so the only photo I can show you is the present I made for my boyfriend.
My boyfriend and I are comic fans (generally not the Marvel/DC stuff, more Watchmen/Preacher/Sandman kind of thing but willing to dabble) and we both agree that Rorschach is the most bad ass superhero of the lot. It’s true! He never loses sight of what’s right and wrong, he doesn’t want ANYONE to see his real face, he’s a bit crazy and he can fight as well as any superhero. He’s the quintessential anti-hero.
Anyhoo, I made him a Rorschach plushie. He was originally going to be part of the Aido’s Monkey Army but then I thought to myself “nah, this guy’s got to be special” so he’s just himself.

Rorschach from "Watchmen"

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?
Who watches the watchmen?

(Answer on back of the poster: ME.)

What do you think?

Ask me a question

I’ve been thinking that it’s about time that I started trying to interact with readers so I’m saying to you, right now, ask me a question.
I’ll do my best to answer them in a humorous fashion and if I don’t know the answer, then I’ll use my nerdy skills to find you a link.

In return, all I ask is one question.
If you could rule any country in the world, where would you choose and why?

Kitty Hat!

Winter is most definitely here and my poor little ears get very cold so I took it upon myself to make a hat. I got the idea from a craftser on www.craftser.org and while I didn’t use the exact same details, I felt I should also link to the tutorial. So here ya go!

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=56636.0

Me wearing my lovely warm hat:

Detail on one of the ears:

 

I probably should mention that this didn’t cost me anything at all to make!

 

Photos by Aidan O’ Brien.

Letter To Santa 2009

Dear Santa,

I know I haven’t written to you since I was 8 years old but I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve been a good girl (mostly). So, if you don’t mind, here’s a little wishlist:

 

Things I Need Want:

 

• A drill. Preferably cordless but I’m not hugely fussy.
• Drill bits. (Obviously.)
• Polymer clay.
• Fabric paint.
• A saw (for making shelves).
• A tool box.
• A Canon D10 (for underwater shots!).

 

If you deliver the goods Santa, then I promise to use the items, blog what I’ve made and be a good girl for another year.

 

 

And since I’m dreaming, how about helping me win the lotto?

 

P.S.  I hope a lack of chimneys in my home won’t deter you from trying.

Things I’ve Made Special! – Gig

Well folks, here’s a little something I’ve been working on with my boyfriend and two of our friends; we’re putting on a free gig in December!

The night is called Sól Vs Stomp-O-Rama. Sól is a psytrance night run by my good friend Chris Quinn for various charities (we usually help out with decorations y’see) and I haven’t missed a single Sól night because they’re just so awesome! Great people, great atmosphere, fantastic music…it’s a guaranteed great night if you like psytrance.

For a while now, myself, my boyfriend Aidan and our friend Steve have been hankering to put on a gig that’d cater for the dubstep, breaks and drum ‘n’ bass fans, so we teamed up with Chris and hey, would you look at that, we’re putting on a dubstep/breaks/drum ‘n’ bass verus psytrance night! A Battle of the Genres if you will.

Anyway, the reason why I’m telling you fine folks is this: it’s a free gig, so if you’re around Dublin on December 11th and you’re looking for something to do, then scamper your way to the Odeon at 9pm, go upstairs, (give a little donation if you like!) and just have a good time!

To persuade you even more, here’s a flyer that myself and Aidan made together:

Sól Vs Stomp-O-Rama

In case you’re wondering, Saor in Aisce is Irish for “admit one” 😀

Links!

www.solatnight.com
Facebook: (My facebook is acting weird, just do a search for Sól!)
Bebo: www.bebo.com/solatnight
MySpace: myspace.com/solatnight

Hope to see you there!