spare parts

Goodness me, where on earth did the past two weeks go?!  Actually, I have a feeling my crochet hook is responsible for a good chunk of my time away from the blog.  The Crochet Club box arrived and I've been completely enthralled by the patterns.  Here are a couple of peeks at what I've been up to - as it's a mystery club I have no idea what the finished wall hanging will look like:

April's patterns arrived in my inbox today and I couldn't help a little squeal of delight (much to Mr B's amusement as he's working from home today!) - it looks like I'll be working in the round, which is always fun.

In other news, I have to say that I meant to fill you in on the next piece of news weeks ago, but time (and my hook!) ran away with me yet again.  I really don't know how the more prolific bloggers can keep up with their busy offline lives as well as creating such beautiful blogs!

Right, a few weeks ago I took a call at work from a lovely lass in Australia who successfully ran an exhibition last year in Brisbane called Spare Parts.  The exhibition took amputees' old pre-loved prostheses that were gathering dust and reinvented them as works of art - awesome, eh?  Well, Priscilla Sutton, who created the exhibition in Australia, is bringing the show to London in 2012 to coincide with the Paralympics!  What's even more exciting is that Priscilla has very kindly said that I might be able to get involved with a crafty limb creation of my own, so do watch this space!

Do check out the exhibition catalogue from last year here as you can see some great close-ups of the amazing things that the artists did with the limbs they were given.

It was such a happy coincidence to meet Priscilla through work - whilst I love the amazing work that we do as a company to help improve the quality of life for amputees and wheelchair users, it was such a nice change to have a creative discussion whilst sat at my desk!  We have been e-mailing website and blog recommendations to each other since then, and Priscilla has put me onto the rather marvellous Aussie publication frankie magazine.  Why, oh why, can't we have some smart and sassy magazines for young creatives here in the UK - it's a real shame that our magazines lag behind other countries and news-stands are crammed full of gossip mags for the brainless masses.  Ooh, sorry, that may have been a bit ranty for a Friday afternoon!

Have a wonderful weekend!
- Rachel x

mother's day

Well, I finished Mum's necklace last night, so as promised here it is:

The little red flower is so sweet:

 

My only worry is that the largest flower is pretty big, but it seemed to sit ok when I tried it on:

 

The nice postman delivered me a big box of yarn and beads today.  Someone wanted to sell their spot on Jane Crowfoot's Crochet Club 2011 and I was lucky enough to get it.  K had grabbed a spot, but I wasn't able to sign up originally with Mr B out of work.  I'm really looking forward to making my tension square later on, but I have an awful lot to catch up on as the first three months' worth of patterns have gone out to the group already.  Lucky I have a week off work over Easter - looks like it'll be full of hooky time!  There are more details on Jane's blog here if you're interested in registering for 2012.

I'm off to spend the Mother's Day weekend with my lovely Mum down in Sussex, so I wish you all a very happy (and hooky!) weekend!

- Rachel x