And so our summer ends...

Despite knitting furiously over the last few days, it is highly unlikely that Gruff's birthday socks will be ready. Boooo.... I managed to finish one last night but when we had a fitting, the sock turned out far too tight and small. Damn you Jaywalkers!! As chopping and filing Gruff's feet down to size ugly step-sister styley is out of the question, I had to grit my teeth and rip it back down to the ankle where I went up 2 needle sizes up. Grrrrr...

So to ensure that Gruff had at least one handmade present, I whipped this up after modifying instructions from this fab site.

It's a bag for a vintage microphone that Gruff carries around to recordings. I hope it bloody fits - I haven't been able to check as said mic is at Gruff's work. Pauline had this fabric in her stash and I was compelled to track it down.


Found it on Kittycraft where I've been spending far too much money.

Have also found some great sewing blogs and Cassie introduced me to Burdastyle which is the sewing equivalent of Ravelry and facebook - I have already 'queued' several projects - so many projects, far too little time!

My Trafalgar square street performance turned out to be an amazing experience.

I felt especially smug and virtuous in a 'look-how-committed-i-am-to-my-art" way when the heavens decided to piss down on us during rehearsals and various performances. The fact that our dressing room was an undisguised shipping container for over 20 of us didn't help matters either. What did redeem it all was watching the opening ceremony of the Olympic games on the massive screen they had in the square, it completely blew us away - we were just so in awe and speechless for the first hour before the tedious segment when the teams came out. It felt good to be part of it all in our own little way. You can see more photos here - mostly of the awesome East-West circus troupe that came after us.

Sweat shops & Castles

Gruff and I went to a lovely wedding yesterday. The ceremony was held here which lent a medieval, fairy-tale touch to the special occasion. This was followed by a superb hog roast, a massive piss-up in a barn and dancing to an 18 piece big band.

Otherwise, I have been setting out my Babette in various configurations these last few weeks in an attempt to find the perfect combination.



The mind boggles with endless permutations and my eyes feel over-exposed to all these retina-burning mosaics.



As a pleasant distraction, Pauline and I went over to Helen's for a sewing class. We managed to transform her lovely home into a sweat shop for the afternoon given that we were blessed with particularly scorchio weather that day. Helen kindly lent me this



Who needs a dining table when both Gruff and I have laps?

More photos of our lovely afternoon can be found here here.

This is what I managed to make for Gruff's niece.



I still need to find material in the right color for the bias binding on the arm-holes. A part of me is sorely tempted to make one for myself in that same, lovely material.

Thanks to a directory of free sewing patterns, I found this simple pattern.

This is my test piece which only took me an evening to knock up - amazing!


But otherwise, remember this?. Well, this year's blossoms have been even more abundant.



It was given to me as a house-warming present when I first moved into this flat and it never fails to surprise me when like a stealth bomber, its buds explode with color. Looking at it always cheers me up - it's my little tropical memento of growing up in South East Asia.

"What's up on the acting front?" I hear you ask. Well, a project I auditioned for and got has sadly fallen through. Perhaps it was karma for the send-up I did of my Japanese ex-housemate, who knows? But I happily landed myself another gig due to someone pulling out. Rehearsals this weekend meant that I had to give the girly knitting trip to Copenhagen a miss. I will instead be preparing for my 'West-End' debut next week wearing an orange jumpsuit and flapping bits of fabric about to play 'Earth' at Trafalgar Square, glamorous eh?