Stuff I did when I wasn't here (with apologies for title nicked from The Bloggess)

While I've been cracking on with keeping the shelves filled at the Emporium, you may have noticed I've been a bit quiet recently (damn, I hear you cry, she's back). This is because I've been beavering away with various other creations in the meantime. So to prove I'm not lazy, here's what I've been up to...

This spring has been frock-coat-ageddon as I've been helping with costumes for various plays at my local haunt the South London Theatre. April saw my most ambitious task yet as I made a tail coat for the character of Branwell Brontë in Polly Teale's Brontë. It helped that a) the director of the play is an all-round sewing ninja herself and chose and cut the pattern, so all I had to do was fit it and sew it together, and b) the character in question was being played by Significant Otter himself, so I had a live-in model to stick with pins.

Still, it was pretty tricky considering I very rarely dabble in clothesmaking. Significant Otter is, basically, shaped like Johnny Bravo, which resulted in lots of extra fitting around the waist and some serious shoulderpad action up top. And I have resolved never to work with velvet again, mostly because of the quite ridonkulous amount of fluff and fuzz it created in my sewing machine, on the floor, in my hair and all over my pyjamas (yes, I sew in my jammies, what?). Turned out rather dashing in the end though, I think:

Picture by Philip Gammon. (NB this was part of the play, not an emergency onstage hem repair. Honest)

Buoyed by this, and while waiting for some fabric to arrive for some custom orders, I decided to have another crack at making something for myself. My sartorial leanings are eclectic but generally err towards the vintage. The problem with genuine vintage patterns, however, is that they can be fiendishly difficult to make and fit - something I don't have the time, patience, or dressmaking experience to be doing with. The joy of bags and purses, you see, is that they don't have to fit actual humans. Give me a complicated buckle fastening or a folded strap and I'm all over it, but ask me to grade a dress pattern and it's tantrums and tears before bedtime.

Enter my saviour: Eliza M (www.elizamvintagesewing.co.uk). The UK-based Eliza M creates patterns based on staple vintage styles that do away with all the complicated stuff and are simple enough for beginners and intermediate sewers to approach without fear.

This was my first experience with an Eliza M pattern but I will be buying many more - I really can't recommend her enough if you have vintage tastes but modern skills (i.e. you are not an actual sewing wizard like Anne on the Great British Sewing Bee. Incidentally, does anyone else think that 75 years of experience is basically cheating? She was like a sewing Yoda).

I chose the 'Pussy Galore Blouse' (stop sniggering at the back), and a cheap, £6.99 a metre cotton lawn from my local haberdashers in a cornflower blue with white swallows (or possibly ducks. or geese? pigeons, maybe).

The pattern itself comes in a clever A4 slip folder which means no more stuffing bits of tissue back into suddenly-too-small envelopes. I was immediately heartened by the final instruction:

Clearly, these are my kind of peoples.

The instructions are for the most part simple and clear, although I had a bit of an argument with the facing on the inside of the neck, which at one point turned into an Escher-like puzzle and I was in danger of creating the worlds first Mobius-blouse. However it resolved itself eventually and I came out the other end with an Actual Thing:

It's got arms and buttons and everything!

The fit is a tiny bit off, but that's more my own inexperience than anything, and I did mess up the collar a bit, but it doesn't show because of the whacking great bow at the front covering a multitude of sins.

All in all it took me a couple of evenings and not all that much swearing at all. I'm now mulling over which of the Eliza M trouser patterns to attempt to complete the outfit.

So if you've been scared off vintage dressmaking because you wouldn't know a princess seam or a pintuck if it smacked you in the face, fear not! Eliza M is there for you. Go for it, my sewing paduans!

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In other news.....this is the fabric I was waiting for. Yup, they now make Star Trek fabric. Bow down in awe.

The middle one is currently available as a made-to-order phone cover , but if you have a burning desire for a Star Trek/Star Wars purse, Kindle cover, bag, teacosy (maybe not the teacosy), then head on over to  https://www.facebook.com/lemurlady and get in touch.

The Massive Patriotic Stripey Crafting Insect

Not a sewing bee.

Hands up who watched the first episode of 'The Great British Sewing Bee' last night?

Keep your hands up if you started watching with the intention of going "pffft, I could do that". Quite a few of you? Yeah, me too.

Now keep your hands up if you still thought that after the first round of judging? Yeah. Not so tough now, are we?

The challenges sounded pretty simple - make an A-line skirt from a pattern, alter a neckline, fit a dress. But that was before the scariest HE teacher in the world (who looks like she might have swallowed a bee herself), and her sharp suited friend stepped in with their eyes for microscopic detail. Those poor contestants are going to be having nightmares about slightly puckered zips and unbalanced hems for years. I'd have run away, crying, trailing bias tape in my wake within the first half hour.

Also not a sewing bee.

But let's not be downhearted, fellow sewists. Because we all know that what the GBSB contestants face is not a patch on the challenges we face every day of our crafting lives. In order to really give them a fair test of what the real-life home sewist has to cope with, I think they should add the following tasks:

The All-Nighter
Contestants must create a school nativity costume/theatrical prop/fancy dress outfit/party dress from only items they can find in their own house. The challenge will be presented to them at 8.45pm the night before the item is due to be needed. Extra points awarded for sewing quietly and not waking up the house.

Speed Unpicking
Contestants must race to unpick a sleeve from a garment which has been put in upside down. Extra points given for creativity of swearing.

Pin Management
Contestants must tip a box of pins on the floor and attempt to collect every single one within a two minute time limit (the maximum amount of time one realistically has before a barefoot child/spouse/family pet comes in and treads on them all).

Bumblebee does not sew.

Additional Rules

• For maximum realism, contestants are allowed a constant supply of tea (however, any contestant seen finishing a cup, rather than letting half of it go cold, will be disqualified). For the All Nighter challenge, wine may be substituted for tea.

• At irregular intervals, several cats will be released into the studio to walk all over the tables and sit on the ironing boards. 

• And, most importantly, no matter how tight the deadline, contestants must spend at least twenty minutes of every hour procrastinating on Facebook and/or making toast.

 Yeah. That's more like it.

Bear with...

It's been a bit slow going today at Lemur Towers, on account of how earlier this week, this occured:

See how brave zombie lemur tried to call for help by waving his little arms...

This is right above my sewing desk, and luckily didn't happen while I was in there as I would have been buried to death under All The Boardgames in The World. Which would have been humiliating to put on my tombstone.

Luckily, Significant Otter was there to tidy up the immediate aftermath of Shelfgeddon, which involved picking up, among other things: 5,634,579 playing tokens from various games, all the Trivial Pursuit cards, several chess pieces and a 'Make Your Own Morph Out Of Plasticine' kit. Even more luckily, Banana the Bernina was unscathed as the shelf itself created a ski ramp for all the Cluedo counters to whizz over the top of the desk and straight into the cats' bowls on the other side of the room, with spectacular results.

On closer inspection this morning, though, it appeared that the the shelf contents had brought with them a Sahara's worth of accumulated dust, which took an AGE to wipe up, and something surprisingly heavy (possibly a Monopoly Iron, travelling at critical velocity?), has gouged a sizeable dent right in the middle of my cutting table. Which is highly annoying.

Still. I think I'm back in the game now (pun unintended - too soon), and ready to start stitching again. Might just take all the stuff off that shelf underneath first, to be on the safe side....

Where the magic happens

My little sister Ellie is embarrassingly, horribly talented. She's only sixteen and the artwork she creates is already enough to send grown artists slashing their canvases and cutting off their ears in despair. Her Facebook page, where she posts under the moniker 'Paint Dipped Pixie', showcases her emerging talent.

The only consolation I have is that she still has to go to school and do exams. With this is mind she posted the following plea a couple of days ago:

Now, I often see fellow crafters posting pictures of their studios online and they are generally airy, beautiful, co-ordinated spaces, with complex and attractive fabric storage systems, inspirational art on the walls and handmade angora throws on the ergonomic furniture. The sort of place, in short, where a creative soul might waft about, creatively, sipping herbal tea while gazing at the moors out of the window waiting for inspiration to strike.

So I originally wasn't going to make my space public AT ALL. But in the end I felt I owed it to all those crafters - I know you're out there - who divide their working time between Facebooking, searching for your pincushion for the seventeenth time that morning, shooing the cat off the ironing board, desperately trying to find a single clean cup that you haven't already used to put tea in then left somewhere and forgotten about, and occasional short bouts of feverish creativity. We don't normally show off our 'creative spaces'. Often because we can't find them under all the mess. But I'm going to let you peek in to mine, right now. (Not a euphemism).

All of my sewing room can be photographed from the doorway. Thusly:

Note inspirational view of brick wall.

At my feet, where you can't see them, are the cats' bowls. I have the luxury of a cutting table on the right, there, which only has one wobbly leg. Banana the Bernina sits faithfully on an old Ikea desk, while my laptop (for Facebooking and listening to audiobooks), is propped on boxes of fabric.

Come with me, if you will, all the way over to the Other Side of the Room. 

No. I don't know why the air compressor' is there either.
'

EVERYTHING lives on these shelves. Except for what is jammed into the drawers, which is mostly fabric:

My name is Lemur Lady and I have a hoarding problem.

The Fabric Drawers of Joy are my second favourite bit of the room. My favourite is the Accidental Shrine of Inspiration:

OK. Now I realise it looks a bit obsessive and murdery. 

The mantelpiece and the wall above it have sort of acquired lots of handmade bitses and pieceses I have bought or been given from other crafters. The picture at the top is my all-time favourite quote from Three Men in a Boat by Jerome K. Jerome, done as a letterpress print. Under that is my FionaT original 'Dawn of the Thread', which makes me smile every time I look at it. Then we have a drawing done by the aforementioned Ellie a few years ago - me as Wonder Woman getting a piggyback from the Wolverine (the Significant Otter's alter-ego). You may also spot another couple of FionaT's (I promise this isn't a stalkers shrine. Honest.), and a Little Black Heart ACEO along with a Quernus Crafts teacup mouse and my wonderful Prince Charming Adam Ant-Mouse.

Also, *cough*, my lanyards from the preview week of the Doctor Who Experience which S.O. took me to for my 30th birthday. It was brilliant. There were daleks and EVERYTHING.

Not pictured:

• Enormous poster of David Tennant looking all brooding in Hamlet, 
• Very precarious shelf barely supporting carrier-bags of half-finished and forgotten projects
• Slightly OCD arrangement of hooks above desk holding scissors and other Important Things so I don't spend hours looking for them every day
• Three half-drunk mugs of tea
• Cat litter tray
• Cat

So. I hope that wasn't too disappointing, Ellie. One day I will have a grown up studio with big sweeping tables and those slanty desks that you can stand up at and draw things, and not-dead pot plants. But it'll still be full of tea cups and the cats will want somewhere to sit, so don't expect too much.

Oh Facebook, why do you hide my stuff?

Are you on Facebook? Have you, like me, been tearing your hair out, wringing your hands, and generally a-wailing and a-gnashing of your teeth at its recent shenanigans? No? Well, maybe you're not as melodramatic as I am. Still, you may well be miffed at how your Newsfeed seems to be picking and choosing what it wants to show you.

Facebook has tidied updates from Pages (as opposed to your friends), into a seperate feed. Which is all very neat, but is proving rather detrimental to a lot of hardworking independent businesses and crafters as they are posting away while their audience is blissfully unaware.

Here is how to view those posts, so that you can catch up on all your favourite pages. And if you haven't already, you might like to add www.facebook.com/lemurlady to that list. Ah, g'wan.

You're welcome, procrastinators everywhere!

Time flies like an arrow...

...fruit flies like a banana.

And apparently I haven't blogged since NOVEMBER! A combination of being very busy, not having anything interesting to say and writer's block, I guess.

I'm not sure I have anything interesting to say now, to be honest, but I'm working on the principle that if I at least get some words down on this blank page it might kickstart my blog-life for 2013.

So.....um....how are you? Good? Excellent. What happened with that matter with the dog and the neighbour's Fiesta? Was it all resolved? And your family? Great Auntie Maud still complaining about that woman with the gammy eye who sits next to her at bingo? Splendid. What have I been up to, you ask? Hmm...

Christmas came and went, as it is wont to do. I tried, as I have the last few years, to buy handmade presents as far as possible. I find that I end up spending less but on fewer, better quality and more meaningful items. It's a great way of both stopping the crazy Christmas spend and at the same time giving presents that you are really proud to be handing over. This years purchases included a gorgeous handmade crayon set from Colour Me Fun, a pretty glass candle holder from Diomo Glass and some smashing cufflinks from Quirkii.

Photos courtesy of Quirkii, Colour Me Fun, Diomo Glass

And now it's the new year! Quite a way in, in fact. Did you make any resolutions? I try not to. Resolutions always seem to be about 'stopping' this or 'giving up' that. Of course we're not going to keep to them, they are self-inflicted punishments and the minute the imaginary schoolteacher that is January disappears over the horizon we'll be back to our old ways. 

So instead of the 'New Year's Resolution', I'm more in favour of the 'Ongoing Non-Calendar-Specific Vague Quest For Betterment and Doing More Stuff'. It's a working title. I'd like to continue growing my business, get into a less stressful place with my day job, be more productive with the time I have, and generally Sort Things Out. I don't have a target date as I would definitely go past it and depress myself; rather I just have a sort of renewed determination to do things better this year. I think, if we are all honest with ourselves, once the diets and the dry Januarys are over, that's all it really comes down to.

What's my resolution for 2013? Carry on being me. Just get better at it.

I promise I'm not a murderer.

This is a sort of 'out-of-office' post, as I'm literally popping in to say that I'm sorry I haven't been popping in recently. It's an anti-post, if you will. A blogging oxymoron.

Some of my readers will already know that, in addition to sewing, I spend a large amount of what I laughingly call 'spare time' at my local amateur theatre company - the South London Theatre. I've spent the recent weeks directing a production of Martin McDonagh's 'A Skull in Connemara', which has taken up a lot of my time.

It's also taken up a lot of Significant Otter's time, as he has been lending his crafty skills to my prop and set design. I shan't give too much away till the show's over, but suffice to say that this conversation happened far too often at a wedding we attended last weekend:

Drunken SO (to literally anyone who would stand still): I've got to dig two graves tomorrow. For all the skulls. (points at me) It's ok, it's all her fault.

ME: (to terrified bystander, while SO wanders off towards the dance floor): It's for a PLAY. The graves are for a play! And the skulls aren't real! Wait...come back....let me explain.....

I shall come back and explain more, next week. In the meantime, stay warm and keep stitching - someone has to take up the slack!