If I had wings...

Last year I went to my first ever comic con York Unleashed and it was amazing. I loved it, and I wanted to do more. I'm not the geekiest person in the world but I am a modest fan of most things. I am more of a fantasy book nerd. And I love dressing up as anyone who has worked with me for the last 20 years will know with my christmas eve outfits.
But York Unleashed fueled this desire further. And I began to wonder what I could do for 2016...

It was hard to decide what to do, but I love dragons so I don't know why it took me so long. It was a little general and of no particular show, just a love of fantasy and costume in a welcoming and accepting environment.

Oh and I would make it out of crochet.

Well, at least it would be unique, thought I, now where do I start?

A bit of tape, some wire and a baseball cap. Oh and some cheap wool. I hadn't decided on a colour for my crochet dragon head, but the bargin bin solved that.

And a shape was born.

I started on the nose, with the basic round amigurmi technique using treble stitches (UK stitches) if anyone wished to know. This is the nearest I have to a pattern for this as some one asked me what pattern I used and it was hard to explain I just crocheted round the wire frame until it fit.

Then I made a beanie hat.

Now I needed to work on the detail.

I had to learn a new stitch called crocodile stitch, which really did my head in for a while, but once I got the hang of it, it looked ace, like dragon scales.

I started on the spine/tail next. A tube of pipe lagging covered in more crochet all the way down to my toes. It took a while, and more wool than I expected but as my dragon was going to be a mishmash of colours that didn't matter so much.

Wings were difficult. Wire and tape helped, and more crochet tubes. But what was I going to do for arms and legs because this was going to be a dragon not a wyvern.

And every dragon needs a belly to store fire in. I used a large mandala pattern I found shared by Moogly from  Lion Brand lion brand archives

And with a sinking feeling I realised my wings  needed more than struts and I had to find a way to fix them onto my top so they could sit closed so I didn't poke anyones eye out while I walked around.

This was a very freehand sort of crochet and worked very well for wing membranes.

On the morning of the comic con I was still crocheting triangles for my spine scales, another amigurumi increasing half circle flattened and sewn together at the open end. But I never had time to put it all together and see what I looked like until I got round to my sisters an hour before.

Think it worked.
And to prove I really walked around in this costume, a couple of photos from the York Unleashed site that other people took of me. (If I have put photos up here and I do not have permission, please let me know and I will take them down.)

Amy Oatway took a couple of amazing ones. amyoatway photography Thank you.

And now, my dragon stretches out on the back of the sofa, while I rack my brains for what I could possibly think of doing for next year...

Any one?

Goodbye 2015

What a year.
I started with a rant at myself along with some vague promises, and ended with, well you can decide what I ended with. I shall most likely spend the next year trying to work out what it was!


I didn't manage to write a poem a month for Napowrimo (maybe this year!) but I did manage to write a half decent poem and read it out on stage, in front of an audience who did not run away!
I cannot decide if that was my proudest moment or the fact I am finally published!
Yes.
You heard right.
Published!
In this...https://www.etsy.com/listing/261185364/say-owt-poetry-anthology-volume-1?ref=related-0

It is an amazing collection of talented spoken wordsmiths and I feel privileged to be in among the same pages that they inhabit. Not really sure I should be in there but as I am I feel no guilt in suggesting that, if you are unable to make it to Say Owt Slam https://www.facebook.com/sayowtslam at York for any reason, you should buy this instead.

 And then make plans to come to the next Say Owt slam!

Shameless?

Yes, but its my blog so I can. And I must say thank you to Henry Raby and Stu Freestone for encouraging me to stand up and try!

My greatest achievement, so far.

I have poemed and storied my way through this year, crocheted and performed, and I have enjoyed it. I don't think I should have worried about not making plans (at my age I think I have to be realistic. I have never managed to organise myself up to now so I don't think it's going to happen any time in the future however hard I sit and think about it)

          

OK start Christmas crochet presents earlier but apart from that... just let the next year unfold, and stop spending time waiting for things to happen. I have spent far too much time sitting around waiting, sometimes simply waiting to go to bed.

As an attempt at a new years resolution its not a bad one, stop procrastinating to myself!

Yeah, right and what is a blog but a procrastination to the world (well those who read it anyway)

But it's good to write something every day so every writers guide to writing will tell you and that habit I should encourage!

What else?

I cannot end this blog without mentioning the floods in York. proper floods, devastating floods to those who got caught up in them. And I took a couple of photos...a couple, more like an album of them. A new direction for me, photojournalism, or is it disaster voyeurism I can never decide. But they are a record of the state of the River Ouse in all its violent majesty at Christmas 2015.

 York is used to getting flooded, but not quite like this!

So onwards to 2016.

Tonight is a night when a million blogs will get written, a million hopes will blossom, a million resolutions will be made and the majority broken. I can almost hear the crack of over optimism as it smashes against the rock of a greying dawn.

But we are human, and its what we do, hope for the future.

Mine?

Well more modest claims for me, read more, write more, open mic and perform more, crochet more and worry about work less. If I worry less I will have more time to do more of my more list!

As I said, I'm optimistic!

So, good bye 2015, and welcome to the future. Welcome to a new now when we can start again.

Thank you to all my friends, family and folks I haven't met yet, and thank you to my readers of this blog.

Have a Good 2016!

And thank you for reading. xx



Story of a Crochet Beer Jacket The Poem!

This is how I spent my Saturday night.
At the open mic night at York city screens the Basement, where I spent last Friday being inspired by some magical combination of words.
Although it took  this Friday night with a beer, or two to relax enough to allow myself the time to play. So, with out further waffle, here it is.

Story of a Crochet Beer Jacket.

It started thus:
On a whim.
On the realisation that I call myself a crocheter
But I haven't done owt,
In a while.
And with the beer festival due
In a month; or two
In chilly September. I would need something
Warm to see me through
My inevitable beer journey.
So started my granny square tourney.
Square one appeared,
Beneath my hook.
A simple delight to the eyes.
And soft as ears, full of fluff
As the fantasy drowned out
The realisation. That. I. Must
Crochet 72.
At least.
At the very least
To make a simple jacket of downy fleece,
And my mind boggles.
But the ale trail beckoned.
New beers abound.
Each in a different pub.
New ales unfound, until now.
And if I work hard
At a granny square too
It 'ill be not long before I'll have quite a few.
So I think.
But my hands are taken to a painful brink
And cry, no more.
No more.
No more granny squares, no more.
But I have advertised.
So I cannot back down
And I bully my hands to compile.
Though they ache, and they twitch.
Muscles burn most profound.
'Cause even on twitter, a lie is a lie.
My granny square stash, it grows
And pint after pint of ale does flow.
A slight soporific effect
On my hands, and my head
From the beer kinda helps don't you know.
The magic number is reached,
But this jacket is far from complete.
So I continue to crochet some more.
Edge to edge the squares grow.
Four by four.
The sleeves stretch down throughout the long night,
And the hood hides my face from my tired look of fright
As the jacket is finally done.
On the morn of the third day of the festival,
It is born.
But there is something very, very wrong.
There's a flaw in my numbers after all my work
That damn jacket's too big for me frame.
Even though I made it me sen.
But I wear it all day, 'cause it keeps me warm any way.
And thankfully, this is the end.
But I shall be back, in all my crochet glory,
To bring you another fabricated story.
30th Jan 2015

Thank you for reading
Xxx

Journey of a Crochet Beer Jacket

It has been a while since I have spent some time on this blog. Too long I hear some voices say, but I have been busy-ish crocheting.

Last time I wrote, I had just spent an scared filled five minutes standing in from of an audience and reading out some poems. And I have full intentions to do it again, if I don't let work get in my way. That is the paid drudgery kind, not what I should be doing which is writing, and getting all these tales out of my brain so I can think of some new ones.
What am I saying? I don't need any more stories, but that is me just procrastinating once again.

One of the reasons for waffling on, on this blog is crochet. And I realised that I haven't done much at all, never mind posting it, so I decided to crochet some simple granny squares. And then put them together.

But that was not really a worth while goal. So the idea of a jacket was born, slowly I grant you, over a couple of pints and a time scale that seemed achieveable. It was just over a month to the York Beer Festival and while collecting stamps to get free entry (something I never managed as I did let work get in the way) I would crochet the squares in the pub.

 
  And so I started to make a stash of squares and watched them grow. Not all were made in the pub as I estimated I needed over 70 of them. Yes 70. Suddenly my task seemed too large to manage, and I had less than a month left. With work nipping at my heels to help out, the tattoo of mug visible to all and sundry. And I realised with mounting horror, my squares were smaller than they should have been. But I didn't want to give up. Mind you, I had tweeted it on social media and felt some what obliged to continue.

 
So my granny square pile grew, and my colours increased, as I spent every hour I could making more, and edging them so they were big enough, or so I was beginning to hope. No wonder I have done little else.

 The squares started to come together, but my time was running out. Now I had to put them together, and not all my squares were even, as I had used different weights of yarn and different sizes. Arrgh! How would I put this thing together and would it fit after all this work? I didn't know, but I couldn't stop now.

  I crocheted the squares and filled in the gaps with more crochet. Lucky my chosen craft is very forgiving to additions and manipulations. I would have never managed this if I had tried to knit it..

And then it was done. It was the morning I was going to York Beer Fest and I had even managed a hood. My hands were aching and cramped and my vision blurred, but I had  finally made my jacket, and now I could embarrass myself further by wearing it.

Which is exactly what I did!

And what now for my beer Jacket? and the months and a half of work I put into it?

Now I have to continue with my writing, and poem performing. And so it becomes a performance jacket for an ale drinking, beer poet, and chocoholic who crochets.

Thank you for reading xxx