Election

I've just voted (by post) in both the local and council elections. It's been a wierd campaign not only because of the impact of the debates but personally because I've been too swamped with work to pay as much attention as I normally would. Having said that no-one seems that interested in campaigning where I live, there are a few signs and the odd leaflet but despite working at home for the last month I've not seen any door-to-door campaigning or seen anyone out in the community. The leaflets have been different as well, most have been from party central offices not the local candidates. The overriding focus has been on trashing the opposition; I don't for instance know anything about what our local LibDem parliamentary candidate actually supports, only that he seems to believe we have been living under a reign of evil not seen since Sauron stalked middle earth. Anyway these leaflets have been piling up at the end of my desk in the vein hope I'll recycle them but now I'm thinking about crafting with them instead. Not sure exactly where its heading but the first step is pictured above and the second is after the jump:

Office Chair Revamp, seat and back

Cutting and shaping the foam for the seat. The seat is curved and the original foam had been glued on to it, figured I'd follow suit so it'd be sure to follow the contours. Had no idea how difficult it is to glue foam though. Hot glue: fail. UHU: slightly better but still sucky. Superglue: so-so. Thought about going the araldite route but I hate the stuff so in the end the foam held to the seat by the fabric tension which worked fine.

Reasons I'm never going to finish my masters....Part #1

So with the whole day stretching ahead of me I could have done any number of things, could have even put the finishing touches to 1/5 of my dissertation. So what did I go and do instead? Well it started quite encouragingly when I cleared several weeks worth of notes/receipts/coffee cups off of my desk so I could actually get to do some work. But its also when the trouble began, I found my bag of embroidery floss which has been in such a mess I've been avoiding doing any stitching: obviously sorting it was more important than essay-writing so several hours later....

Plastic Fantastic

This is continuing the flower theme of the last post. A while back I frogged a project that I'd started with yarn made from carrier bags that hadn't worked out so I have a load of skeins laying around. I've got a few ideas about what to do with it all; the purse was just a way to test how it worked in crochet (I've only knitted with it before), I hoped with crochet I'd be able to make some more structural items that woulds suit the use of plastic. Think it might work too, builds up nicely and found it a much easier material to deal with when I have a hook rather than a point. Purse:
Its a pretty simple design. Perhaps too simple? I think I'd prefer to put a design into the stitchwork next time or use a fancier stitch (rather than embellish). I also can't decide whether it should've been cotton-lined: coins aren't going to slip through the crochet but it would help hide the plastic/zip seam which wasn't easy to make pretty and secure. Hmm...

I have to say that I love Sainsbury's for their ridiculously coloured bags! They make colourful flowers and look awesome melted together too:
( back of a shoulder bag made from fused plastic bags, minus the strap)

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What I do when I say I'm working....

I nicked the idea from something I saw in Boots the other week but I've since discovered that there is a tute by Eli-Chan for something similar over at craftster. They are stitched together but to be honest it's a bit of a drag hand-stitching through several layers of zip, I might have another go and see how hot glue works. Or get over my distaste for thimble-wearing.

I'm low on metal-teeth zips but if I do have another go I'll post up the result. Guess I could use the manky plastic ones, got like a million of those....

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The seat of nature

Over the summer I had two pieces exhibiting at the Holmfirth Art Week, it is a great event and apart from all the art raised between £30 000 and £40 000 for Macmillian Cancer Support. I had to submit the titles of the pieces before I'd had chance to plan what I was going to do so really the finished work grew around it's title rather than the more logical reverse. In this case it was the "Seat of Nature". I used a second hand chair I got at a funny little shop in the Jericho area of Oxford, stripped it down and then collaged with magazines, newspaper (some stained with turmeric), stamps, tickets etc.


Doesn't show up to brilliantly in my photos but the centre of the sunflowers are hole-punches of newspaper individually stuck down in a spiral:
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