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You too could win a purse like this. For no monies.

It's exciting times here at Lemur Towers (I don't live in a tower. Although that would be cool. But 'Lemur Terraced Flat' doesn't have the same ring to it). A whole FIVE HUNDRED people have been impressed/dazzled/confused/button happy enough to click 'like' on my Lemur Lady Facebook page.

That's half a thousand. And they can't all have been mistakes. I'm grateful and humbled and, if I'm honest, a bit overwhelmed.

To celebrate, as promised, I would like to give all my lovely Facebook stalkers  fans the chance to win a free bit of Lemur Lady magic for their very own. Oh yeah.

The winner gets a padded phone case or fabric wallet of their choice. Either from my stock (which will be refilled over the weekend), or a custom one made up with the fabric of your choice.*

The competition is inspired by a conversation the Significant Otter and I had earlier this week:

SO: Look! A blacksmith course. You know I've always wanted to be a blacksmith.
LL: Yeah. Although if you were a blacksmith we'd have to move to the country. You can't have a forge in a South London flat. Especially on the first floor.
SO: I could forge gateposts and sculptures for the rich people in Dulwich.
LL: No. We're moving to the country. You're going to be a blacksmith and I'm going to sew things all day in the sewing room that you will make me. Out of iron.
SO: I'm not sure you can build a room out of....
LL: Also, you will build me a library. Bitches love libraries.
SO: ............

So. To be in with a chance of winning both a handy phone case or wallet and the eternal admiration and respect of your friends and peers, all you have to do is leave a comment on this post answering the following question: 'What do you want to be when you grow up?'. Entries will close at 10am on Monday 6th Feb, at which time I will put all your names in a hat and let Doug the cat choose one to eat. Or maybe just use a random number generator. I haven't worked that out yet. But it will be fair.


*Terms and conditions apply: Fabric of choice restricted to quilting cottons that I can actually source - no platinum thread, linen woven on the thighs of virgins in the Tibetan foothills, or spider silk.

What not to say to someone who is playing Skyrim

Not even Doug gets it.

"Gosh. That is loud"

"How are you carrying all that stuff? That's ridiculous."

"Is that you on fire?"

"You've bought a house? I thought this was medieval warfare, not the Sims."

"Awesome, a dragon! Wait...don't...don't hit it! LEAVE THE DRAGON ALONE!!! What's it done to you? Have you any idea how endangered those things are?"

"She is so not appropriately dressed for that sort of weather"

"Haven't you already done this bit? Twice? Oh. It was you on fire"

"Surely once you've wandered around one dungeon looking for an amulet, you've wandered round them all?"

"There's an awful lot of walking in this, isn't there?"

"Is something going to happen soon?"

"You're going shopping now? This is like real life. Only with more walking."

"Why does everyone have so many consonants in their names? It's like they've been picked out of a Scrabble bag."

"Can I unplug *this* one to plug my laptop in? What do you mean I'm in the way of the screen? Oh look, you're on fire again."

UPDATE:

Since the above was originally published, I have begun playing Zelda: Skyward Sword on the Wii. It has been suggested that this is, in fact, a children's version of Skyrim. Yeah, well, do your shopkeepers make amusing noises instead of talking at your for hours about Nordic history? Do you get to fly a colourful bird in between map locations instead of trudging endlessly through snow? Does your character have one sword, one shield, and an endearing propensity to punch the air and go 'brrrrrllllliiiiiiing' every time they find a coin?

No?

Then I'll take the 3-and-over version please. And don't come running to me when you wish you could do a spin attack.

Picnics will never be the same again.

Last week I made a resolution to myself to post a new blog entry every Monday. When I made this promise, I think I was probably overestimating both the fertility of my imagination and the excitement of my social life, as a week has now gone by and I haven't done anything worth blogging about.

Creativity-wise, I have spend the week pretty much chained to my sewing machine like some sort of cobbler's elf, working through a list of custom orders for lovely people who - for their sins - wish to buy items from me to give to their friends and family for Christmas. Which is trusting of them, and I appreciate it enormously.

Apart from a small aberration on Friday night where a cheese and wine party ended - for me - at 6.30am, some hours after the declaration "I'm not going home until we've drunk aaaall this port (hic)", nothing else of note has really happened.

So instead, I am going to steal from the Significant Otter's life, as he has been far more creative than me this week. Hope you don't mind, dearest...

This week he has been mostly making this:

For added value, if you look closely, it also says 'Bush' on it. Snigger.

It is a vintage record player box, with the innards removed, and replaced with a wonderful array of cocktail-making ingredients and equipment, complete with handmade-from-scratch leather straps and moulded leatherette cushioning. Nevermore shall we be at a picnic and face the embarrassment of not being able to provide a properly-mixed Negroni at a moment's notice. Gone are the days of drinking pre-mixed G&T's out of a plastic cup. At the drop of a perfectly brushed hat we can provide you with a vintage Babycham glass brimming with the tipple of your choice.

Of course, it weighs a metricfuckton and he hasn't worked out how to create an ice compartment, but I think you'll agree the Otter has outdone himself this time. 

Pour me a Manhattan, darling, and pass the mini quiches.

What's yellow and black and can't reach the pedal?*

I'm on the right. With the machine that is apparently glowing like it came out of the TARDIS

As should be fairly obvious by now, I enjoy sewing. It is among my top five favourite activities. The others shift according to mood, but currently include eating cheese, drinking Manhattans, and watching the Argos Christmas advert with the blue aliens. However there is no getting away from the fact that machine sewing (much like watching the Argos advert), is generally a solitary activity. The common sewist (I know the word is 'sewer', but I can't get past the effluent connotations), is typically to be found alone, hunched over in the glow of their machine, swearing quietly.

The crafts of knitting, crocheting and even embroidery are enjoying somewhat of a renaissance currently, due partly to their portability to and from clubs and knitting circles and the crucial realisation that these get-togethers can take place in pubs. Wine plus handcrafting may result in the odd dropped stitch, but driving your Bernina when under the influence can be a great deal more painful.

So imagine my joy when, this weekend, I found myself part of a rather lovely sociable get together of machine sewists. It can be done!

My local theatre group, the South London Theatre, is about to put on its annual pantomime. As usual, the pantomime involves an inordinate amount of small children (a concept I find almost as horrid as the idea of pantomime itself). And, as society dictates, small children have to be dressed when on stage - in this case in a variety of medieval peasant garb. Tunics a'plenty.

After years of solitary and frantic sewing every winter, someone had the bright idea this year to gather together all the people who could drive a machine in one place for an afternoon and wrestle with mounds of Lincoln Green material whilst enjoying tea, chat, and swapping gossip.

Granted, the hum of the sewing machines can reach a rather deafening level when you get all four of them going at once, and the vibration is enough to require all pincushions to be sturdily anchored to the centre of the table, but on the whole we were the happiest little pantomime-costume sweatshop you ever did see.

Everyone was fairly experienced, but we also all went away having learned at least one or two tips and tricks from our fellow machinists. I learned that you can sew over pins, if you do it carefully enough, which will save me, I have calculated, 21.2567675 days per year unpinning as I go along. Caroline learned how to mitre ribbon (but only in one direction - we'll have you an ambi-mitreer before long, Caroline), and in turn taught us all that it is possible to use one's knee to press the pedal if there is not enough room on the table for your machine and you have to put it on a chair. We all learned that we have even larger capacities for tea-drinking and mince-pie-eating than we thought possible.

We have all agreed that we had such a lovely time we will regroup in the new year, each choosing one pattern to work on and taking advantage of the moral support, tea and companionship to move on to even greater crafting heights. I might even work out how to get a hem straight.

How about you, fellow crafters? Have you got involved in any 'Crafting Bees' yet? If not, what are you waiting for? You just need some like-minded friends, and in the case of machine-sewing, someone with a sturdy table and understanding neighbours. Oh, and of course your group needs a name. You can't have 'Make It Sew', though. That's taken.

*A sewing bee! I'll get my coat.

The Emporium has a new home!

The dust has settled from the wedding, we have realised that married life is much the same as pre-married life just with more credit card bills to pay, and it's back to business as usual here in Lemur Land.

Not one to sit still for long, though, I have been a busy bee, interwebs-wise. After a good while immersed in metatags, photo compositing, Search Engine Optimisation and all sorts of other complicated words that I can't believe I have had to make room for in the already overcrowded dusty attic of my brain, I have built a website!

Me! On my own. Well. OK, with quite a bit of help from the Significant Otter, who does a great line in Making It All Better when I get bored half way through a complicated task, or when I throw a strop and fling the laptop at the cat because I can't get the stupid pictures to line up properly on the stupid page.

He also made all the pretty bits look pretty, while fielding conversations such as:

ME: I think the lemur should have a hat. Don't you think?
SO: Um...ok....what sort of hat?
ME: Well, not all the time, that would be stupid. Just, like, when I have a sale on, he should have a party hat then. And possibly one of those blowy-party things in his mouth. Can you do that?
SO: Uh, yeah, I guess so.
ME: Oh oh oh, and at Christmas he should have a santa hat. Do that too.
SO: *Sigh* OK.
ME: We're married now. This is what you signed up for.

So do please make it all worthwhile by tootling over to www.lemurlady.co.uk and seeing what you think. My main shop is there now, too, so start stocking up for Christmas!

(The lemur does not, currently, have a hat.)

Ebay. Filling my house with tat since 2002

Yesterday, on my way to work, I almost crashed my bike.

Normally, this would be because someone decided to entirely ignore my turning signal and overtake me anyway, or due to an encounter with one of the bafflingly huge number of people who can afford 4x4's the size of Bolivia but apparently don't want to wear their indicator bulbs out in case they have to buy new ones.

Today though, it was all Captain Picard's fault. A charity shop I passed by had this proudly displayed in the window:

Look at it. Just look at it.

I couldn't ignore it. Look at the glorious, awful, hideous brilliance of it. But £25? Hmm.

Then this email conversation happened:

Me: It was £25. And apparently it's not 'done' to haggle in charity shops.

SO: Make it so.

Me: Even I am not going to pay £25 for a commemorative plate of Captain Picard.

SO: You could eat off it at the wedding.

Me: .............

SO: Are you still there?

I was not. I was on eBay.

So. Long story short. Now we own these:

£30 the lot. In your FACE, charity shop.

I honestly think I need help.

Of course, my shopping-for-tat addiction can sometimes cause a strain on our relationship. This purchase, for example, caused some heated words last night:


Me: Of course, I'm having Khan.
SO: Why do you get Khan?
Me: Because I bought them. So I am going to eat cake off Khan's face. That's something every girl dreams of on their wedding day. You can have Riker. Or the stupid spaceship one.
SO: That's a Klingon Bird of Prey. It's from that one where they had to rescue the whales and flew under the Golden Gate bridge.
Me: Oh yeah. [brief silence]. Well, nobody's going to want to eat off that one.

Eventually we decided to share The Plate Of Khan and use it to eat our first slice of wedding cake, together.

Romance. We has it.

Oh, hai Internets! Long time no blog.

In my mind, this is what the ice sculpture will look like.

So today I remembered I have a blog, and that it's been a metric eon since I updated it.

Well, lots of things have been happening in the world since we last spoke. Ice ages have come and gone. Huge gangs of disaffected yoof attempted to set fire to London in pursuit of new trainers. I finally finished watching every single episode of The X Files (can I get a 'hell yeah'), and Lemur Lady's Awesome Emporium has been going from strength to strength.

Turns out people seem to like my goodies, so I have been spending more and more time sitting, tongue-out-for-balance, at my sewing machine, batting away the cats and creating new items of awesomeness for all my lovely customers.

Oh yeah, and I'm getting married next month. That'll be where all my time's gone, then.

The wonderful thing about a wedding, to a crafty sort of a badger like me, is that the DIY possibilities are endless. The bad thing is that, well, the DIY possibilities are endless.

So far the handmade bunting has gone out of the window, figuratively speaking. 150feet of the stuff has been duly purchased from an ebay crafter with much more time on her hands than me. Paper chains, ditto. Handmade 'Woo Yay' flags (a la Offbeat Bride), origami bouquets, handsewn garter - all consigned to 'good idea at the time' pile.

On the other hand, I've been keepin' it crafty. My flowers and hair thingy (this is the official term), are from Etsy, my cake toppers and place cards were specially made by Folksy sellers, and my dress is being run up as we speak by my wonderfully talented mum (from whom I learnt all I know. Including the bad habits).

But I do still have my own to-do list. It's more modest than it originally was, but with just over 6 weeks to go it's still bringing me out in cold sweats. Once I've got the four bridesmaid's boleros cut and sewn (seriously, have you seen how much these things cost in the shops? How hard can it be?), I've just got 100 muslin teabag favours and boxes to create and label, a TARDIS shaped card box to make and a three tier cake to bake and ice the night before. All while keeping the Lemur Lady stuff ticking over. Simples.

Excuse me. I just have to go and run around in a panic for a minute.

*returns*

Ah, that's better.

Since some of the details are still secret-squirrel, I will be posting pictures, links, and thanks to all the wonderful and creative crafters who have contributed to the Wedding Of The Century once the day is over and I have sobered up and picked the confetti out of my hair.

(Incidentally, the best thing about the whole wedding stuff so far has been having cause to say "Of course, the dinosaur ice sculpture will need to arrive through the side doors during the table changearound". Brilliant.)