Thoughts from the Bus Stop

Mushroom walks: Orange Jelly fungus

Bus Stop — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 19:03:53 +0000

It was an unpleasantly windy day today, so my walk was fairly short, but just as I was heading home I spotted this amazing orangey-yellow jelly fungus - Dacrymyces palmatus - on a fallen branch lying on a grass verge.

Initially I got dead excited, cos the striking colour made my untrained eye think I'd found a slime mould (which I first heard of just a few days ago when I watched BBC Four's After Life: The Strange Science of Decay) but now I've correctly identified it (thanks to the fantastic Rogers Mushrooms website) I'm still pretty pleased with it!

Images (c) Kristen Bailey 2012

* SONG OF THE DAY: The Flaming Lips - She Don't Use Jelly *

Heptagonal card for Roxie's 7th birthday

Bus Stop — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 11:01:00 +0000

Roxanne's seven-sided 7th birthday card (c) Kristen Bailey

* SONG OF THE DAY: The White Stripes - Seven National Army *

Knitted animation: Little Red Plane by Charlotte Blacker

Bus Stop — Sun, 04 Dec 2011 09:01:00 +0000

The Little Red Plane is a gorgeous knitted animation by Charlotte Blacker, a stop motion/2D animator and compositor living both in London and Wakefield, West Yorkshire.

She graduated from The University of Central Lancashire in 2010 with a First in Animation and later went on to win a Royal Television Society Award for The Little Red Plane.

She's currently working on more film projects, hopefully involving knitting - so watch this space!

* SONG OF THE DAY: Suzy Bogguss & Tom Russell - Outbound Plane *

Diorama for new baby

Bus Stop — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 18:27:36 +0100

Image (c) Kristen Bailey 2011

Eddie and Sharry now have a baby girl, Alexis. I made this for her. Haven't met her yet but am really looking forward to it!

* SONG OF THE DAY: Stevie Wonder - Isn't She Lovely *

Shimmering birds: The Martlets Tree, Crawley

Bus Stop — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 20:00:28 +0100

'The Martlets Tree' is a piece of public sculpture which stands in Queens Square in Crawley town centre. It's covered in metal cut-outs of birds (the mythical 'martlet') loosely held onto the branches so that they move and shimmer with the breeze. Last week I caught it looking at its best - in brilliant sunshine under a blue sky - casting wonderful shadows and bouncing bird-shaped light off the pavement in the shade.

It was designed by Peter Parkinson and made by Richard Quinnell, and you can find out all about it via Public Sculptures of Sussex.

All images (c) Kristen Bailey 2011

* SONG OF THE DAY: Elbow - The Birds *

Helping creative women flourish through microfinance

Bus Stop — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 14:44:49 +0100

These talented ladies are the 'Esmeraldas de San Francisco' (San Francisco Emeralds), a group of embroiderers from the State of México in Mexico. They applied to Kiva, the microfinance organisation, for a loan to enable them to buy more thread and fabric to help them expand their business, producing embroidered napkins and tablecloths.

I lent them $25 (about £16) and 104 other people made loans of varying amounts, which made up the total of $3,025. Just a few weeks later, the group have repaid 5% of their loan, and eventually I'll get my $25 back and will be able to loan it to someone else who needs to borrow it.

I don't have the spare funds to *donate* much money to charity, and Kiva allows me to do a little bit to help by lending the same $25 over and over - how fantastic.

* SONG OF THE DAY: The Feeling - Sewn *

Brighton Fantasy: Gay felt appliqué ( #MagpieMonday )

Bus Stop — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 10:00:00 +0100

A lovely charity shop find - this time in the Relate shop in Broadfield, Crawley - the December 1963 edition of Patons 'Stitchcraft' magazine for 10p! I going to buy it anyway so the pattern for a felt applique of Royal Pavilion in Brighton (my 'home' town) was a bonus!

I love seen the Pav rendered in stitches - most recently a knitted version by Peter from Temptation cafe in the North Laine. Well done sir!

This post is part of Magpie Monday - your chance to share your second-hand treasures.

Hey Cinderellas

Bus Stop — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 20:16:30 +0000

I've posted before about the beautiful Cinderella doll my auntie Sue made me when I was a kid, and said I wanted to do the same for my friends' kids (honorary nieces). Well, I've done it! The pattern I used is from Jean Greenhowe's Christmas Special.

They took quite a while - not so much the knitting as the making-up - but at last they're finished and have gone off to live in Lewes with Roxanne (6) and Isabel (8). The girls loved their lookalike dolls, and made them a palace from dining chairs, then put them to bed under the wrapping paper they came in. Roxie even sidled up to me later with a winning smile and said, "You know, you could knit me a prince!" When her sister pointed out that my knitting bag didn't contain any 'hair' coloured yarn, she added, "It's OK, he can be bald!"

Images (c) Kristen Bailey 2011

* SONG OF THE DAY: Langhorne Slim - Cinderella *

#MagpieMonday: Clock This

Bus Stop — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 09:15:00 +0000

'Magpie Monday' is a fantastic way of showing off your secondhand finds to like-minded magpies! It's been started up by Miss Lizzie of Me And My Shadow:

"The idea is simple. If you have purchased something 2nd-hand, whether it be from a charity shop; car boot sale; eBay or whatever, then I'd love you to write a short post on your blog and link up."

So for my first MM post I'd thought I'd show you three gorgeous timepieces I've bought in charity shops. As you can see my taste includes tasteful Mid Century Modern and so-bad-it's-good kitsch!

The heart-shaped wall clock (with gold plastic peacock and fabric flowers!) was £2, as was the beige mantel clock, and I blew a whole £3 on the beautiful turquoise travel clock.

* SONG OF THE DAY: Irma Thomas - Time Is On My Side *

All images (c) Kristen Bailey 2011

Get aboard Brighton's Woolly Bus

Bus Stop — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 20:10:43 +0000

Image via The Woolly Bus on Facebook

A Brighton bus stop has been given a woolly makeover to launch an appeal by a Hove yarn shop to raise money for The Martlets Hospice by covering an open-top double decker bus in knitting.

The lovely folk at Cocoon Knits in George Street are asking knitters to collect sponsors and knit a minimum of three 15cm x 15cm squares. To celebrate the end of the project the bus will be driven along Brighton seafront on the 20th August with contributors and guests aboard! The minimum sponsorship amount is £25 per entry but they're aiming to raise over £40,000 for the Martlets Hospice. More details at www.cocoonknits.co.uk. After the event all blankets will be broken down and sent to Africa with the help of Knit a Square charity to help keep AIDS orphans warm.

'Knit' a bit of a petition for Macmillan Cancer Support

Bus Stop — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 12:25:39 +0000

I've knitted my bit of Macmillan's woolly scarf petition to make sure people with cancer can keep warm without the worry. You can get knitting too.

Birthday diorama for my favourite librarian

Bus Stop — Sat, 13 Nov 2010 09:45:00 +0000

Images (c) Kristen Bailey 2010

* SONG OF THE DAY: Belle & Sebastian - Wrapped Up In Books *

Birthday diorama for The Blonde

Bus Stop — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 12:15:00 +0000

This diorama was based on three of my sister's favourite pop songs. 'Walk On' is by U2 - she has these words tattooed on her ankle! 'Learn To Fly' is by Foo Fighters and she loves the video especially (any excuse for Dave Grohl and chums to dress up!). And that little bird sitting on the fence is a reference to 'Blackbird', her favourite Beatles song.

All images in this post (c) Kristen Bailey 2010

* SONG OF THE DAY: Juliana Hatfield - My Sister *

My First Paper Diorama

Bus Stop — Fri, 12 Nov 2010 05:13:12 +0000

Look what I made - it's a foldable pop-up diorama! I went to a workshop (in December - yes, am crap at getting posts finished!) at Hove Museum run by lovely local artist Lizzie Thomas, who is part of the Unravelled group of craft-based artists (also lovely - the ones I've met anyway!).

Lizzie showed us several samples she'd made using the same basic principles, and although they looked scarily complex, she explained everything so clearly we all came away after two hours with complete and fairly fancypants versions of our own! All just from some pieces of card and careful scalpel work.

Mine is a secret garden. (I must re-read 'The Secret Garden'...)

A great tip from Lizzie was to cut all or part of the back of the diorama away and cover the aperture with artists' tracing paper. Then you get a lovely effect with diffused light shining through. You even place in in front of a candle if you were VERY careful. Maybe one of those fake LED candles would be better!

Since I did this I've made a few more, mainly as birthday cards, so I'll post some photos of them shortly. This is a fascinating craft, I really want to explore it further!

* SONG OF THE DAY: Dawn Penn - The First Cut Is The Deepest *

Husky

Bus Stop — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 17:37:01 +0100

Love this ad for Patons Husky knitting yarn, found in a 1976 copy of Woman's Weekly ;)

Leeds Reunited: Humpty goes home

Bus Stop — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 20:01:46 +0100

I knitted this Jean Greenhowe 'Humpty Dumpty' for my dear friend Camel when we were 18 - in 1993! I knitted it to look like Camel, complete with Doc Marten boots and Leeds United colours. It was probably one of the first toys I ever knitted.

Humpty has lived with Camel ever since, but years of hot loving have taken their toll and recently she came back to me for a while to be given the '10 Years Younger' treatment. In this case, this meant removing all her stuffing...

...and giving her a nice hot bath in the washing machine. Then I shaved off any bobbles with a razor, restuffed her with loads and loads of new stuffing, and... put Humpty together again! Let's go to the reveal:

Ta da!

* BOOK OF THE DAY: Jasper Fforde - The Big Over Easy *

Sequins and sunshine

Bus Stop — Thu, 02 Sep 2010 19:19:18 +0100

Sunlight hitting the sequinned handbag which hangs on the back of my front door, covering the hallway with shiny shapes. A lovely surprise!

* SONG OF THE DAY: My Life Story – Sparkle *

The Knitting Gorilla

Bus Stop — Sun, 27 Jun 2010 18:10:34 +0100

Screenshot from 'The Kniting Gorilla', via BBC iPlayer

From CBBC's 'World of Happy', a sweet animated tale of how knitting brought a father and son together: The Knitting Gorilla

Storm in a Teacup

Bus Stop — Fri, 11 Jun 2010 08:39:53 +0100

Storm in a Royal Delft Teacup, by John Lumbus (c) Laikingland

I would LOVE this teacup automata - turn the handle and and the golden boat rides the mechanical waves, while above the stormy clouds reveal a shining bolt of lightning.

It's by artist John Lumbus, who has worked with the Cabaret Mechanical Theatre in Covent Garden. Why don't you put the kettle on, wet the tea, and while it brews, watch this video of a earlier version in motion?

* SONG OF THE DAY: The Fortunes - Storm In A Teacup *

Patchwork Pattern Maker from the V&A Museum

Bus Stop — Thu, 20 May 2010 21:09:43 +0100

This online Patchwork Pattern Maker is a great free tool from the V&A Museum in London, to coincide with their Quilts 1700-2010 exhibition (on till 4 July 2010).

Just complete a simple registration, then upload your own image (I've used my 'Duck House' design here), and the site will reproduce it as a patchwork pattern in your choice of 5, 10 15 or 20 colours, either in basic squares (either 10x15 or 20x30) or in squares and triangles (24x36), in a downloadable PDF which includes your individual colour key and tips on how to create your quilt.

You could also use your pattern as a cross stitch chart. I might try making my pattern up as a paper collage using colour torn from magazines. Thank you V&A!